WEBVTT - Death of a Demagogue, Pt. 3 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:06.840 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.760 On August twenty fifth, twenty seventeen, a man getting a 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.560 haircut at Tom's barber Shop in Arlington, Virginia saw something 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.759 strange outside in the parking lot. A man in a 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.920 short sleeve, collared shirt and a black tie was setting 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.000 up a small wreath on the sidewalk next to a 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:29.880 trash can. When this makeshift memorial was situated to his liking, 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.879 the man called his audience to attention. His brief remarks 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:36.839 were heard only by the assembly of six of his 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.360 fellow neo Nazis, one of whom was holding a comically 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.559 large Nazi flag. They held their right arms out in 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.760 a stiff armed Nazi salute as he bowed his head 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:53.559 for eighty eight seconds of silent reflection. This wasn't the 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.920 first time that a man in the barber's chair at 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.200 Tom's barber Shop had glanced up to see a Nazi 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.280 in the parking lot. As the man getting his haircut 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:03.680 walked over to the window to snap the only photograph 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.400 of this gathering, it was fifty years to the minute 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.080 since a barber at that same shop ran outside to 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.880 find George Lincoln Rockwell lying in a pool of his 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:18.280 own blood. This tiny gathering of white haired men in 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.440 short sleeved shirts had returned to the very spot where 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.720 the commander of the American Nazi Party had been murdered. 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:31.399 They were there to pay their respects. The men in 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.600 the parking lot in twenty seventeen weren't members of the 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:40.200 American Nazi Party, not anymore anyway, No one was. It 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.240 didn't exist anymore. But the man being saluted next to 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.160 that trash can was the leader of what it became 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.880 after another attempt at rebranding in the nineteen eighties, a 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:58.080 group called the New Order. And the man leading that 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.800 tiny band of Nazis in the parking lot twenty seventeen 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.600 was Martin Kerr, a gray haired man in his sixties. 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:08.680 He joined the American Nazi Party in high school after 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.079 reading an interview with George Lincoln Rockwell published in Playboy magazine, 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:15.640 but he was still a teenager when his hero died. 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.520 The remnants of the American Nazi Party were forced to 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:24.320 relocate to the Midwest decades ago, but this memorial service 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.760 in Virginia wasn't a great inconvenience for them. Their group 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.280 was already in the area in August of twenty seventeen. 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.160 Just two weekends earlier, they'd made an appearance at the 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:39.440 Unite the Right rally in nearby Charlottesville. That man in 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.760 the parking lot, the man who keeps George Lincoln Rockwell's 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.520 ashes in a white urn on an altar, told reporters 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.679 that if Rockwell could have seen those Nazis marching in Charlottesville, 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.560 he would have been pleased. On the fiftieth anniversary of 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.120 Rockwell's death, and in the immediate aftermath of a shocking 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.880 and deadly Nazi rally, George Lincoln Rockwall's successor told reporters 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:10.519 that Rockwell's legacy was more alive now than ever. I 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:31.360 am Molly Conger in This is Weird, Little Guys. On 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.120 the morning of the last day of his life, George 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.720 Lincoln Rockwell was up early. He stripped the sheets from 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:39.560 his bed and threw a bundle of laundry into the 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.560 back of the blue and white Chevy sedan on the driveway. 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.119 He spent most of the morning alone in his room 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.480 with the American Nazi Party barracks, a house he'd nicknamed 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:55.560 Hatemonger Hill. Several party members were downstairs making final preparations 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:00.120 for that afternoon's excursion into Washington, d C. After month 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.640 of internal struggle over the party's rebranding, the first issue 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:07.440 of a newspaper called White Power was hot off the presses, 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:09.840 and the Nazis storm troopers were going to try and 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.160 stir up some publicity by handing it out to the 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:16.680 National press outside the halls of Congress. All press is 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.880 good press, I guess, and the stunt was an effort 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.960 to generate interest in Rockwell's newest book, also called White Power. 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.000 But Rockwell had no plans to join his men on 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.719 the trip to DC that day. Perhaps he was anxious 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.600 to avoid another disorderly conduct arrest given his ongoing legal 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.480 troubles in Chicago. Maybe he was looking forward to an 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.600 opportunity to have the house to himself, to spend a 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.039 few quiet hours privately grieving the infant daughter he'd just 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:50.799 buried a few days earlier. Or maybe he'd just wanted 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.760 to do his laundry. He certainly didn't expect to die, 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.920 not on that day in particular. Anyway, A little before now, 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:02.479 he made the short drive down the hill to the 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.160 laundromat across the street. He'd already put a load of 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.120 dirty clothes into the machine when he realized he'd forgotten 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.200 something back at the house. If the assassin's aim had 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.640 been better, Rockwell never would have seen it coming. He 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.440 was looking behind him backing out of his parking spot 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.200 when the first shot came through the windshield. This one 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:28.599 only nicked him. In the instant between the first shot 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.880 and the second one. He probably looked up at the 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:37.120 rooftop searching for the shooter, and maybe he saw him 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.760 before the second shot pore a hole in his aorda. 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.719 His trademark corn cob pipe, the one he'd once poked 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.360 to the face of Martin Luther King Junior, fell from 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.640 his mouth as he crawled across the front seat of 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.400 the sedan, tumbling out the passenger side door onto the ground. 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:58.119 His still running car rolled slowly away as he bled 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:02.400 to death there in the parking lot. Inside the laundromat, 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.320 his dirty clothes were still sitting inside the washer, waiting 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.479 for George Lincoln Rockwell to return with the bleach. He 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.200 dedicated his life to making the world a wider place, 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:21.320 right up to the end. It was John Patler up 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.560 there on the roof of the Econawash Laundromat in Arlington, Virginia, 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.760 that Friday in August of nineteen sixty seven, John Patler 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.960 murdered George Lincoln Rockwell. That's the official story, and it's 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:38.039 the one I still believe. Piecing together the exact details, though, 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:43.800 has been a sort of nightmarish Nazi rashamon comparing these 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.160 different versions of the same event as told by too 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:51.440 many people with their own secrets to keep in what 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.640 has been probably a failed effort to try to sort 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.960 things out. I read the better part of two biographies 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.400 of Rockwell. I read the relevant passages from William Luther 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:05.200 Pears's biography. I read issues of Nazi newsletters like the 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:09.440 Rockwell Report, White Power, National Socialist World, National Socialist Observer, 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.400 Stormtrooper Magazine, and the World Union of National Socialist Bulletin. 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.280 I read old Stormfront posts. I read pseudonymously published open 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:24.400 letters by disgruntled neo Nazis. I read grainy old photocopies 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.880 of FBI files and stacks of memos to Jay Edyrhover. 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.320 I read most of the fifteen hundred page, four volume 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:38.480 appellate record in John Patler's criminal case. He did it, 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.200 but not everybody believes that. 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.640 Are you saying Petla didn't kill Rockwell. 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.160 Absolutely, I'm saying it, and I always have said it. 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:59.000 That's Frank Smith. Last week I opened the episode with 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.440 the strange tale a shootout in Maine between two men 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:07.000 on either side of this debate. In nineteen sixty eight, 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.640 Christopher Vidnyevitch drove to Maine and he got into a 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.920 gunfight with Frank Smith. Both men were members of the 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:19.080 American Nazi Party, and both men had testified at John 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:25.360 Patler's trial, Vidnyevitch for the prosecution and Smith for the defense. 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.600 And in March of nineteen sixty eight, a few months 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.760 after that trial ended, Smith believed that Vidnyevitch had been 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.320 sent to kill him to keep him from getting to 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.760 the truth of what really happened to George Lincoln Rockwell. 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.400 And that clip is from an interview Frank Smith gave 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:49.040 in two thousand and sixteen at the age of ninety five, 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:55.000 nearly fifty years after Rockwell was killed. He's sticking to 0:08:55.040 --> 0:09:01.400 that story. Listeners with a keen ear might have noticed 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.480 that the man Frank Smith is talking to in that 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:08.920 interview as a South African accent. And if you've listened 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.080 to every episode of this show. It's a voice you've 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:16.800 heard before. That is South African neo Nazi Yan Lamprecht. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.080 At some point earlier this year, during the three months 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.640 I spent writing about white supremacist terrorism in apartheid South Africa, 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.640 I played a portion of an interview Yan Lamprecht did 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.280 with the main subject of those episodes, a woman named 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:38.280 Monica Huggett Stone, and further proving my point that this 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:42.959 show is just one very long story told out of order. 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.679 In twenty sixteen, when Lamprecht got interested in the legacy 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:52.520 of George Lincoln Rockwell, it was Monica Huggett Stone who 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:56.400 put him in touch with Frank Smith because they know 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:56.960 each other. 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.680 But I wanted to get people who knew him personally, 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.040 if anyone was still alive. And when Monica said you 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.960 knew him, I thought, wow, that is so lucky. I've 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:12.120 just got to speak to you. 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:20.120 It's a small world, I guess. But we'll come back 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:26.000 to Frank's theories. If you read about John Patler's criminal trial, 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.120 you'll almost always see it mentioned that the bulk of 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:34.520 the evidence against him was circumstantial. And that's true, but 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.600 that word doesn't mean what the average person seems to 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:42.960 think it means. Circumstantial evidence isn't evidence that is less 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:47.280 good than its counterpart, direct evidence, although it is often 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:53.559 characterized that way, But in fact, most evidence is circumstantial, 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.560 and the most common kind of direct evidence, eyewitness testimony, 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:04.000 is shockingly unreliable. Imagine for a moment that you're a 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:08.640 juror if you're sitting on a jury in a criminal trial, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.040 whatever it may be, what kind of evidence would you 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.480 like to see? What sort of evidence would make you 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:20.880 feel sure? Fingerprints, ballistics, cell phone data showing that a 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.080 defendant's phone was hanging off a tower near the crime 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.199 scene the night of the crime, some kind of so 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:32.720 called smoking gun, right, that would be ideal. But those 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:39.720 are all circumstantial evidence, because while they may present a fact, right, 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.240 it can be concretely stated that it is a fact 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.079 that this is evidence of a defendant's fingerprint on a gun, 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.440 or this evidence shows that their cell phone pinged off 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:54.000 this tower at this time. Those are facts, but what 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.680 they're being shown to prove is a fact that you 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.280 then have to infer. So you have to draw an 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.960 inference based on what is being shown to you. So 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.840 when you see circumstantial evidence that a defendant's DNA was 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.959 found on an object at the crime scene. You then 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.360 have to infer what that means, and what you could 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.680 infer that it means is that the person whose DNA 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:26.280 that was was there. In John Patler's case, there was 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.840 eyewitness testimony from people who saw him fleeing the scene. 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.800 But it's true, the strongest evidence in this case was circumstantial. 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:41.800 No one saw the shooter, not in the act anyway. 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.240 The sound of the gunshots in the parking lot brought 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.599 people out of the laundromat and other stores at the 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:52.200 shopping center, but no one actually witnessed the murder. No 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:57.480 one saw a man fire a gun, and Patler never confessed. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.880 As far as I can tell, he has always maintained 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:06.720 his innocence. But the circumstantial evidence really stacks up here. 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.040 Within minutes of arriving on the scene after the shooting, 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.760 officers with the Arlington County Police had a description of 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.960 a man. Several witnesses told officers that when they came 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.760 outside after hearing the gunshots, they saw a man running 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.680 away from the shopping center, and within about a half 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.480 an hour of the shooting and a mile away, officers 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:34.520 saw a man who matched that description. The man was 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.400 wearing the clothes the witnesses had described, and he was 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.280 soaked in sweat, pacing anxiously back and forth at the 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.720 bus stop as he wipes dirt and sweat from his 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:48.480 face with a towel. Based on those eyewitness accounts and 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.440 the fact that the officer already knew who Patler was 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.880 and that he was a member of the American Nazi Party, 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.280 he was taken into custody, but he didn't have a 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:03.800 gun on him. The officers who arrested him suspected that 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.280 if this is their shooter, he must have ditched the 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.360 gun somewhere along his route between the crime scene and 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.560 the bus stop, and that route would have taken him 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:19.320 through a nearby park. So officers searched until nightfall on Friday, 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.120 but it wasn't until Saturday morning that a gun was 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.480 found in a creek under a footbridge in the park. 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.720 The gun they found in that creek was a ballistic 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.040 match to the bullet in Rockwell's body, but it was 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.400 also a match to bullets that were dug out of 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:36.960 a tree at the edge of some property owned by 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.840 Patler's father in law. A witness testified to seeing Patler 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.560 shooting at that particular tree for target practice a month 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.720 before the murder. The serial number on the gun matched 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.360 a sales record for a local gun shop, and the 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.200 owner of the shop testified to the authenticity of records 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.880 showing that he'd sold the weapon to a Missus Robert A. 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:03.080 Lloyd Junior in nineteen six sixty two. Missus Robert A. 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:07.160 Lloyd Junior had purchased the gun for her son, Robert 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:11.480 Lloyd the Third. Robert Lloyd the Third is a member 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.560 of the American Nazi Party who testified that he'd let 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.400 Patler borrow the gun in nineteen sixty four, and when 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.800 he asked for it back, Patler told him it was stolen. 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.400 So just to recap what we have so far, people 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.040 who heard the gunshots walked outside to see a man 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.160 lying in a pool of blood and another man running away. 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.160 A man wearing the same outfit and matching those physical 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.320 characteristics described by the witnesses was found half an hour 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:46.960 later a mile away, soaked in sweat and very anxious. 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.280 The murder weapon was found in a creek under a 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.600 footbridge that he would have crossed on his route between 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.400 the crime scene and where officers encountered him, and the 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.960 last known location of that weapon was in his possession. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.520 He claims to have lost it years earlier, but he 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:06.840 was seen using it just a month before the murder. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.440 When the officers took Patler into custody. He wasn't just 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:18.840 wet from perspiration. His shoes were soaking wet, and his 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:23.440 pants were visibly wet from the knees down. Later examination 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:28.120 of his shoes found roofing tar on the soles. A 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.520 maintenance technician who worked for the property manager of the 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.560 shopping center testified at trial that due to blocked drains, 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.080 there was several inches of standing water on the roof 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:42.840 that day because of heavy rain the night before, anyone 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.960 who'd been climbing around on the roof that day would 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:54.120 have gotten very wet. The trial lasted three weeks, and 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.880 jurors were forced to come in on Saturdays to squeeze 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:01.320 in testimony from nearly one hundred witnesses. After the jury 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.800 was selected on November twenty seventh, each member of the 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.080 jury was driven home by a sheriff's deputy who watched 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:12.640 them while they packed a suitcase. For three weeks, those 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.159 jurors were driven to and from a motel by deputies. 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:22.600 They had no access to newspapers, magazines, radios, or TV. 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.359 Any communication with their families had to go through the 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:31.880 Sheriff's office. Now, if I hadn't read this transcript myself, 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.240 I would have trouble believing that a judge would send 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:40.880 a jury into deliberation at eight pm on a Friday night. 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.800 I've never heard of such a thing. That is a 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:49.640 wild choice. I mean, judges have very broad discretion when 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.760 it comes to pretty much anything that goes on in 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.720 their courtroom. But from what I've seen, there's a sort 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.880 of unspoken understanding that if it's already past last dinner time, 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:03.720 you should wait until the following morning to send the 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:08.879 jury out. But it was almost Christmas, and these jurors 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.280 had already endured a grueling three weeks of ten hour 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:19.640 days of testimony. So on Friday night they deliberated. They 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.960 deliberated for four hours, returning their verdict just after midnight. 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:29.520 And in those four hours, they didn't just decide his guilt. 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.679 The law changed a couple of years ago, but until 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:38.960 twenty twenty one, jurys in Virginia made sentencing recommendations as well. 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.320 At twelve twelve am, the jury foreman told the court 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.639 that John Patler should serve twenty years for the first 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:53.360 degree murder of George Lincoln Rockwell. At trial, his defense 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:58.160 was obviously that he didn't do it. Not only did 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.840 he not do it, he simply could not have done it. 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.560 His wife and father in law testified that he'd spent 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.320 the morning running errands with his wife, Alice, and their 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:13.919 two sons, ages one and three. Alice testified that between 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.840 ten am and eleven forty am, she and her husband 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:22.440 and their two children were in the car together running errands. 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.600 They went to the bank, and the post office and 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.840 an office supplies door, and they stopped off at Safeway 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.520 to pick up some chicken for dinner. The couple both 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:36.840 testified that immediately upon arriving home around a quarter to noon, 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.919 they got into an argument over how to appropriately discipline 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.159 their three year old son. When John Patler took the stand, 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.800 he said his wife had gotten angry with him after 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:53.359 he quote got a little rough with the toddler, and 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:56.159 after some heated words were exchange, he stormed out of 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.600 the house and was just walking around the neighborhood. To 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.960 calm down. All three of the adults who lived in 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:08.080 that house testified that it was eleven forty five eleven 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:12.199 fifty something like that for sure when he walked out 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:16.200 of the house, and he didn't take the couple's only car. 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.520 He didn't have a driver's license, although he did know 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.560 how to drive, but he was on foot, and his 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.879 defense was that it just wasn't possible for him to 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.080 have walked the three miles from his house to that 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.240 shopping center in the time between when his wife last 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.760 saw him at eleven forty five and when Rockwell was 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:43.560 shot at noon. And if all of that is true, 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.880 I agree he could not have traveled over three miles 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:54.800 on foot in less than fifteen minutes. Obviously, the jury 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.600 was not convinced it was true, but it's hard to 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:02.679 say which part of it they do don't believe. Before 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.800 I found and read the transcripts, I thought it was 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:08.959 pretty possible that the entire story was just a fabrication. 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:11.359 You know. I'd saw these stories in the newspaper about 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.359 his wife talking about, well, we were together running errands, 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:17.440 and it's not that hard to believe that his wife 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:21.200 might lie for him. And in nineteen sixty seven. It's 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:25.160 not like there were digital bank records showing timestamped credit 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:30.080 card transactions or security camera footage from the bank. You 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:34.439 could just say stuff. But the transcript shows that the 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.639 defense did put on witnesses who testified to seeing the 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.240 Padlers at the various stops they made that morning on 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:44.399 their errands. A gas station attendant, a bank teller, a 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:49.440 postal clerk. They all saw the Pallors, but no one 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:54.760 could remember exactly when, and despite his father in law's 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.560 dead certainty by the time he got on the witness 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.760 stand that the couple had arrived home at eleven to 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.400 four on the day of the murder. When detectives first 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:06.320 spoke to him on the day of the murder, his 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:10.760 initial statement put that time closer to eleven, which would 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.920 leave Patler nearly an hour to travel those three miles, 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:19.879 either by foot or by bus. The other angle hammered 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.720 by the defense at trial was how could Patler have 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.600 even found Rockwell that day? How could he have known 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.119 where the victim would be. For the defense, the argument 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:35.080 is just he couldn't have known, therefore he did not know. 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.480 Therefore he couldn't have been there and didn't do it 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.560 for members of the movement who aren't satisfied with the 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:48.600 official story. This is a huge question. Going to the 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:54.199 laundromat at noon on Friday wasn't planned, It wasn't part 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.600 of Rockwell's usual routine. He didn't even usually do his 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.520 own laundry, So how can an assassin have known where 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:06.679 to position himself to take that shot. The idea is 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:11.120 that Patler didn't act alone, that Rockwell's death was part 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:16.240 of a larger conspiracy, this grand act of betrayal, and 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:23.080 this idea still has some purchase in the movement Nazis 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.760 like Frank Colin, who you might recognize as the guy 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:28.080 behind the Nazi march that led to the Supreme Court 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.600 case National Socialist Party v. Skokie, Illinois. He believed that 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:37.800 Patler was involved in some unspecified way, but that he 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:40.760 wasn't the trigger man, and that ultimately he was just 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:45.520 the fall guy. James Mason, the author of Siege, told 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.280 one of Rockwell's biographers that he does think Patler pulled 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:53.960 the trigger, but only as a pawn in a larger conspiracy, 0:23:55.080 --> 0:24:01.080 a conspiracy by whom he doesn't say. Carl Allen, the 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:03.240 leader of a group that had splintered from the Nazi 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:07.800 Party several years before Rockwell's death, was very sure that 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:11.439 Patler was innocent and was himself just another victim of 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:16.520 this Jewish conspiracy to kill Rockwell. Obviously, it makes perfect 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:19.439 sense that Rockwell's friends would believe that there was some 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:24.400 nebulous Jewish plot to kill their Nazi leader, but they're 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:28.680 always a little thin on the specifics. To this day, though, 0:24:28.880 --> 0:24:31.440 there are young men in the white supremacist movement who 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:36.840 don't actually know anything specific about this period of history, 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:41.280 but they'll tell you with certainty that the Jews did it. 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:47.600 When it comes to conspiracy theories with named players, the 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:50.840 theory with a little heft to it, one that does 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:54.280 make you ask a follow up question. There is a 0:24:54.320 --> 0:25:00.600 conspiracy that was much closer to home. This one's pretty straightforward. 0:25:01.560 --> 0:25:06.359 Hatler knew where Rockwell would be because someone told him, 0:25:07.240 --> 0:25:09.760 and the only people who could have told him were 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:12.280 the people who were home that morning at the Nazi 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:18.520 party barracks. Rockwell's mistress, Barbara von Getz, believed it. Frank 0:25:18.520 --> 0:25:22.800 Smith believed it until he died in twenty twenty. Robert Surrey, 0:25:22.840 --> 0:25:25.160 the head of the American Nazi Party, office in Dallas 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:29.320 used the party's mailing list to send every member a 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:31.960 copy of a letter he wrote outlining what he believed 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:35.639 to be the evidence proving it. A twenty eighteen memoir 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:39.200 by a former member calling himself Leon Dilios also advances 0:25:39.240 --> 0:25:44.320 this theory. Floyd Fleming, George ware Hal Kaiser, all men 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:47.040 whose names I haven't bothered to tell you before, but 0:25:47.080 --> 0:25:50.520 who were high ranking members of the Nazi Party. They 0:25:50.560 --> 0:25:57.399 all believed that someone had masterminded this assassination, and pretty 0:25:57.440 --> 0:26:00.560 much all of them were pointing the finger at one man, 0:26:02.200 --> 0:26:20.760 Matias Cole. Now, like I said, as far as conspiracy 0:26:20.800 --> 0:26:24.199 theories go, at least this one has a sort of 0:26:24.280 --> 0:26:29.040 logic to it. Cole is often described as Rockwell's number 0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:37.439 two man, but he wasn't actually officially deputy commander. Rockwell 0:26:37.480 --> 0:26:42.000 had rather pointedly been keeping that position vacant. So even 0:26:42.040 --> 0:26:45.840 though Cole was in every way except title, functioning in 0:26:45.920 --> 0:26:51.080 secondest command, he didn't get to call himself that. At 0:26:51.119 --> 0:26:54.600 the party's convention in June, Rockwell had extended an offer 0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:59.439 of reconciliation to Carl Allen, and it's generally believed that 0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:02.679 he intends to name Allan as his successor if he 0:27:02.720 --> 0:27:06.119 agreed to return to the party, because he had successfully 0:27:06.200 --> 0:27:09.200 led a splinter group, the White Party for several years 0:27:09.240 --> 0:27:14.399 and that was impressive to Rockwell. That final meeting between 0:27:14.440 --> 0:27:19.280 Rockwell and Carl Allen was allegedly scheduled to take place 0:27:19.320 --> 0:27:22.359 at the end of August, just a few days after 0:27:22.640 --> 0:27:26.879 Rockwell died, and Rockwell's body was barely cold before Cole 0:27:26.920 --> 0:27:31.080 stepped up to take control of the party. One former 0:27:31.119 --> 0:27:36.800 member recounted to Rockwell's biographer a screaming argument between Rockwell 0:27:36.840 --> 0:27:40.679 and Cole the night before the murder, and claims that 0:27:40.800 --> 0:27:42.879 Rockwell said he was going to expel him from the 0:27:42.920 --> 0:27:47.840 party over this ongoing disagreement about whether Rockwell was betraying 0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:51.720 Hitler's legacy by ditching the swastika and focusing on a 0:27:51.720 --> 0:27:57.400