Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting

On April 13, 2014, a pair of shootings committed by a lone gunman occurred at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community, both located in Overland Park, Kansas. A total of three people were killed in both shootings. The suspected gunman, described as a man in his seventies, was taken into custody.

The suspect was later identified as 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. of Aurora, Missouri, originally from North Carolina. He was a Neo-Nazi and former political candidate.

Shooting

The shootings began at around 1:00 p.m. (CDT) at a rear parking lot of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, near the entrance to the White Theater. The gunman first fired a handgun at a man who then fled in his car; a bullet struck the shoulder bag of his seat, but he escaped uninjured.

He then fired at two males, 69-year-old Dr. William Lewis Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, who were hit by gunfire as they pulled into the parking lot inside their car; Corporon died at the scene of a shotgun wound to the head, while Underwood died of handgun wounds at a hospital.

During the time of the first shooting, teenagers were inside the building auditioning for KC Superstar, a singing competition. In addition actors, crew members and other staff were in the White Theater preparing for a 2:00 p.m. performance of "To Kill a Mockingbird." The gunman was able to fire several shots into the building. The staff inside the building were the first to make 911 calls alerting the police.

After firing at several other people, but missing, the shooter fled in his car and opened fire at Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community located a little more than a mile away from the community center. A woman, Terry LaManno, was killed in the parking lot, and two other people were shot at, but the gunshots missed both people.

The gunman was arrested at 2:45 p.m. outside Valley Park Elementary School by two police officers who identified him in his car using tips given by witnesses. As he was led away, he made antisemitic remarks, according to witnesses. A police official confirmed that the gunman used a Remington Model 870 shotgun in the shootings, and several other weapons, including a handgun, were also recovered from his car. Investigators were also determining whether an assault rifle was also used.

In a press conference, the Federal Bureau of Investigation stated that it was "determined" that the motivation for the shootings was antisemitism. Several items were seized from the suspect's home in Aurora, Missouri, including three boxes of ammunition, a red shirt with a swastika symbol, antisemitic publications (such as Mein Kampf written by Adolf Hitler), a list of kosher places, directions to synagogues, and a printout of the KC Superstar competition at the community center.

Suspect

One suspect has been arrested in connection to the shootings. He is described as a man in his seventies who was not a Kansas native. He was later identified as 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., an Aurora, Missouri transplant from North Carolina, a neo-Nazi self-proclaimed neo-Pagan and former politician who founded and formerly led the Carolina Knights, a paramilitary organization with ties to the Ku Klux Klan in the 1980s, with the organization later being disbanded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, after which he founded another group called the White Patriot Party.

In the late 1980s, he was sentenced to three years in prison for weapons charging and plotting to assassinate Morris Dees, the SPLC leader and co-founder. He had previously served in the United States Army for 20 years, which included two tours in Vietnam.

Miller's most recent comprehensive interview was with David Pakman of the nationally syndicated The David Pakman Show. Pakman also appears to be the media figure to most recently have had contact with Miller, having released email transcripts from November 2013. Also, The Distorted View Show previously spoke to the suspect in 2010. Miller is expected to face federal hate-crime charges as well as state charges.

Miller was said by police officials to have purchased the firearms from a straw buyer, which enabled him to avoid going through federal background checks; he was unable to make personal purchases because of the weapons charges he was issued during his arrest in the late 1980s.

Police later arrested John Mark Reidle, a resident of Lawrence County, Missouri, who purchased the shotgun for Miller at a Walmart store in Republic, Missouri, four days prior to the shootings. Reidle allegedly provided false information on a federal firearms form in order to purchase the shotgun, and was indicted on the charge by a federal grand jury on May 7. Reidle faces up to ten years in federal prison.

Legal proceedings

Two days after the shootings, Miller briefly appeared in court by video and requested for a lawyer. He was charged with one count of capital murder in the deaths of William Lewis Corporon and Reat Griffin Underwood. Only one charge was filed in their deaths instead of two because they died "as part of the same act". He was also charged with first-degree murder in the death of Terri LaManno. Prosecutors announced that they have yet to pursue hate crime charges and a death penalty.

Miller made his next court appearance on April 24, during which he was granted a month-long delay, with the next court appearance being on May 29. He is currently being held on a $10 million bond and has yet to enter a plea.

On May 27, he was also charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder as well as additional counts of aggravated assault and criminally discharging a firearm at an occupied building. Two days later, Miller's preliminary hearing date was scheduled for November 12.

Victims

A 14-year-old boy, Reat Griffin Underwood, and his 69-year-old[9] grandfather, Dr. William Lewis Corporon, were killed at the Jewish Community Center. Both were Christians and attendants at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood. A 53-year-old woman, Terri LaManno, of Kansas City was killed at the parking lot of Village Shalom, where her mother resides. LaManno was also a Christian who attended St. Peter's Catholic Church in Kansas City, Missouri.

Initial reports indicated a fourth person who was shot and wounded, but it was later confirmed that all of the people who suffered gunshot wounds were killed. Including the people shot at but escaping uninjured, only one person targeted by gunfire was Jewish.

Reactions

United States: President Barack Obama called the shootings "horrific" and said in a statement, "While we do not know all of the details surrounding today's shooting, the initial reports are heartbreaking." U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also issued a statement in the wake of the shooting, saying, "I was horrified to learn of this weekend's tragic shootings outside Kansas City. These senseless acts of violence are all the more heartbreaking as they were perpetrated on the eve of the solemn occasion of Passover." Other politicians issued statements in which they offered their condolences to those killed in the shooting and decried the antisemitic motivations of the shooter. The Jewish Community Center offered condolences to the victims' families on its Facebook page.

Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent his condolences to the families of those killed in Sunday's shootings at two Jewish centers in Overland Park, Kansas. "We condemn the shootings which, according to all the signs, were perpetrated out of hatred for Jews," Netanyahu said the day after the attack.

Wikipedia.org

 

Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. (born 23 November 1940), commonly known as Glenn Miller, is a former leader of the defunct North Carolina-based White Patriot Party (formerly known as the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan). Convicted of criminal charges related to weapons, and the violation of an injunction against paramilitary activity, he has been a perennial candidate for public office. He is an advocate of white nationalism, white separatism, neo-paganism and a proponent of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

On 13 April 2014, Miller was arrested following the Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting in Overland Park, Kansas. Johnson County prosecutors have charged him with one count of capital murder and one count of first-degree murder. He will likely face federal hate-crimes prosecution.

Early life and education

Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. was born Frazier Glenn Cross, Jr. in North Carolina, and named after his father. He dropped out of high school, and joined the United States Army and served 20 years in US Army of which 13 years in the Special Forces as a Green Beret rising to the rank of master sergeant. He served two tours of duty in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Miller's introduction to white racialist politics was a copy of The Thunderbolt, which was published by Dr. Edward Fields of the National States' Rights Party, given by his father. Miller was present as a member the National Socialist Party of America during the Greensboro massacre on 3 November 1979. He was discharged from the army as a sergeant in 1979, for distributing racist propaganda.

White Patriot Party

In 1980, Miller founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a local chapter, which later developed into the White Patriot Party (WPP). He was the leader and principal spokesman for the organization until his arrest in 1987, after which the organization soon dissolved.

After the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) surreptitiously accessed the WPP's computer systems, it presented evidence in court indicating the WPP leadership was planning the assassination of SPLC leader Morris Dees. The court issued an injunction barring the WPP from engaging in paramilitary activity. The WPP was avowedly pro-Apartheid, and openly advocated the establishment of an all-white nation in the territory of the American South.

Miller claimed to have received $200,000 from Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of The Order (which funded its activities by robbing banks and armored cars).

During his time as leader of the WPP, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party's nomination for Governor of North Carolina in 1984, and the Republican Party's nomination for a seat in the North Carolina Senate in 1986.

Arrest and conviction

In January 1985, Miller signed an agreement with Morris Dees in exchange for dropping a lawsuit that the SPLC had brought against him. In July 1986, Miller was accused of violating the terms of the agreement (by operating what was deemed a paramilitary training camp) and found guilty of a criminal contempt-of-court charge. He was sentenced to a year in prison, with six months of the term suspended, and ordered to have no contact with white supremacists.

5,000 copies of a typewritten letter titled "Declaration of War" (dated 6 April 1987 and signed by Miller) were mailed. Addressing "Dear White Patriots", the text "declare[s] war against Niggers, Jews, Queers, assorted Mongrels, White Race traitors, and despicable informants". It threatened the life of Morris Dees and established a point system for the assassination of Dees and a host of federal officials. The letter proclaimed, "Let the blood of our enemies flood the streets, rivers, and fields of the nation…we promise death to those who attack us or who attempt to place us in ZOG's dungeons." Miller was charged in a warrant with violating the conditions of his bond and was sought as a fugitive.

Miller was arrested on 30 April 1987, after authorities raided a mobile home he and others had rented in Ozark, Missouri, on numerous Federal criminal charges in the company of three other men (Tony Wydra, Robert "Jack" Jackson, and Douglas Sheets), who were also taken into Federal custody. A cache of weapons was found inside, which included "C-4 plastic explosives, dynamite, pipe bombs, hand grenades, fully automatic M-16, AR-15 machine guns, sawed off shotguns, pistols, cross-bows, and around a half-ton of ammunition".

Miller was indicted in May 1987 for violating 18 USC 876 (communicating a threat in the U.S. mail). Miller pleaded guilty to avoid numerous other violations of federal law and was sentenced to five years in prison.

After his arrest, Miller agreed to testify against several defendants in a major Federal sedition trial in Arkansas (the Fort Smith Sedition Trial). He served three years (1987-1990) in federal prison following his conviction for weapons violations, as well as for violating the injunction proscribing him from engaging in paramilitary activities.

Subsequent activities

After his release from prison, Miller began trucking and wrote an autobiography, A White Man Speaks Out, which was privately published in 1999. By 2002 he had moved to Aurora, Missouri. When he retired from trucking in 2002, he tried to reenter the white supremacist movement by publishing a racist newsletter, however this was met with mixed reaction due to some regarding him as a traitor. Miller has since become affiliated with the Vanguard News Network of Alex Linder, which is an anti-Semitic, white nationalist website.

In 2006, Miller ran as an independent write-in candidate against Rep. Roy Blunt, in the 7th Congressional District of Missouri. As a perennial candidate, he ran in the 2010 Senate election in Missouri, again as an independent write-in candidate.

Miller's 2010 radio campaign advertisements were controversial in Missouri, and nationally. People disputed whether Miller was a legitimate candidate or using his purported candidacy as a way to get air time, based on his comments on the website of the Vanguard News Network. He noted that "stations are required to run advertising for candidates" and that he would declare a candidacy and then start running ads. He said, 'Federal elections offer public speaking opportunities we can’t afford to pass up, and come only once every 2 years.'”

The controversy led to Miller's being interviewed on The Alan Colmes Show and by phone on The Distorted View Show, The Howard Stern Show, and The David Pakman Show. Despite legal challenges from Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster and the Missouri Broadcasters Association's disputing Miller's status as a bona fide candidate for office, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) determined there exists no lawful recourse for stations that preferred not to air Miller's ads because of their offensive content. He can also be seen as Glenn Miller on the 1991 documentary Blood in the Face.

Miller expressed open hatred for Jews repeatedly during an April 2010 interview with David Pakman on The David Pakman Show.

Miller lived for a time under an assumed identity as an FBI informant. During a trial hearing, where Miller received a five year reduced sentence, details of his time as an informant were revealed, including an incident where Miller was arrested for engaging in sexual acts with a prostitute in a vehicle. No charges were pressed due to his status as an informant, but a phone call recorded with the Southern Poverty Law Center in which Miller admitted to the incident was presented at the trial.

Shooting

On April 13, 2014, Miller was named the only suspect for the shooting earlier that day in suburban Kansas City that ended with the deaths of three people. Shootings occurred both outside the Jewish Community Center and outside a retirement home, Village Shalom, nearby, both located in Overland Park, Kansas. The victims of the Jewish Community Center shooting were identified as Dr. William Lewis Corporon and his grandson, 14-year-old Reat Griffin Underwood. Both were United Methodist Christians. A 53-year-old woman, Terri LaManno, of Kansas City was killed at the parking lot of Village Shalom, where her mother resides.

LaManno was also a Christian who attended St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Kansas City, Missouri. Several others had been shot at, including one person who was Jewish, but escaped without wounds. Miller was found later outside an elementary school nearby and was immediately declared a suspect. Authorities told reporters that Miller had shouted "Heil Hitler" numerous times during shooting and arrest.

The SPLC has reported that, according to Miller's wife Marge, Miller had gone to a casino in Missouri the afternoon prior to the shootings. Miller called his wife the next morning at around 10:30 a.m. to tell her "his winnings were up and all was well." The shootings occurred less than three hours after the phone call.

Further reading

Barkun, Michael (1997). Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-80784-638-4. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
Ridgeway, James (1995). Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads and the Rise of a New White Culture. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1-56025-100-X.
Zeskind, Leonard (2010). Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 1-42995-933-9.

Wikipedia.org

 

Shelby Murder Mystery Revived: Kansas shooter has ties to 1987 bookstore murders

Local investigators will question alleged Kansas City shooter Frazier Glenn Miller following in-depth report

By Matt Comer and Todd Heywood - Goqnotes.com

April 25, 2014

The April 13 murders of three people at a suburban Kansas City Jewish community center and retirement home has brought back memories and increased scrutiny of a 1987 triple slaying at a Shelby, N.C., gay bookstore, as local law enforcement officials now say they are sending investigators to question a man who may have ties to the brutal killings committed nearly 30 years ago.

Frazier Glenn Miller, the 73-year-old white nationalist charged with the Overland Park, Kan., murders, was “involved” in the brutal execution-style murders of three men at the adult bookstore in 1987, attorneys who worked on the case said in a version of this report first published by Raw Story on April 18.

The two defense attorneys encountered Miller during the first and only Shelby murder trial in 1989. Miller appeared as a witness in that case, but the attorneys say he should have been considered a prime suspect in the crime that, to this day, is unsolved.

‘Execution-style’ murders

Police say sometime shortly before midnight on Jan. 17, 1987, three armed gunmen entered the Shelby III Adult Bookstore located outside Shelby, N.C. The men ordered the four customers and clerk to the floor. Once there, the five men were shot execution style in the back of the head. Police say a .22 caliber weapon and .45 caliber weapon were used in the shootings. Following the shooting the masked intruders took cash from the register and rigged up plastic gallon jugs filled with gasoline with detonation fuses.

Three of the men died from the gunshot wounds. Travis Melton, 19, Kenneth Godfrey, 29, and Paul Weston were found dead inside the burning store. Two men — James Parris and John Anthony — survived the gunshot wounds to their heads and managed to escape the burning building. Emergency first responders found both men in their cars in front of the burning building. Fire and police officials testified that had the fire continued to burn another 10 or 15 minutes that none of the victims would have been recognizable.

The case is largely forgotten in popular memory now, even if some locals in and around Shelby remember it. At the time, though, the murders were front-page headlines across the state. The Shelby Star covered it extensively, as did The Charlotte Observer.

But, it was in the LGBT community where the most shock was felt, as community members scrambled to understand the implications.

“What actually happened in the Shelby shooting? Was it anti-gay violence?” a headline from the Raleigh Front Page read on March 17, 1987.

Hate-related crimes — including others committed by local Ku Klux Klan chapters — were recent, not distant, memories in North Carolina. Even as the Shelby investigation unfolded and later turned to focus on white nationalists, Klan members were publicly targeting gay men and those living with AIDS in places like Greensboro.

No leads, and then Miller

For months following the gruesome and brutal murders, investigators in North Carolina posited many theories about their cause. Investigators opined the killings could have been the result of mob ties or business battles over the adult bookstore industry, or a homosexual relationship that “had gone sour.”

But in April 1987, Miller, Douglas Lawrence Sheets, Robert “Jack” Eugene Jackson and a fourth man, Anthony Wydra, were arrested in Ozark, Mo. Federal agents arrested the quartet with a stockpile of weapons and charged them with federal arms violations. The group was also distributing a “Declaration of War” issued by Miller.

The declaration was made on “niggers, Jews, queers, assorted mongrels, white-race traitors and despicable informants,” according to a May 1989 report on the case in The Charlotte Observer. According to that report, the declaration also provided a point system for killing various people. One point was given for killing “a nigger,” the paper quoted Sheets as reading. Five points were assigned for “a queer,” while 10 points were assigned to a Jew. Twenty points were assigned for murdering an abortion doctor, while 50 points were assigned for killing a judge or race-traitor politician or a government witness.

But, Miller’s hatred for government witnesses seems to have been a more-or-less pliable guideline than a hard-and-fast rule. Shortly after his arrest in the weapons case, Miller turned. He took a plea deal with federal investigators and agreed to testify against other members of the White Patriot Party and later entered the witness protection program.

Miller pointed the finger for the Shelby murders squarely at Sheets and Jackson.

Little evidence, too much ‘hearsay’

Sheets was tried in April and May 1989, and Jackson’s trial was scheduled to take place once it was done. News clippings of the time report that it was known Miller was testifying against former members of his White Patriot Party as part of a plea deal.

Miller told the court that Sheets and Jackson had told him they had committed the killings in Shelby. Three other witnesses also said they’d heard Sheets talk about the killings while they were incarcerated with him in prison. One was a former White Patriot Party member who had abandoned the Miller group in the Ozarks, allegedly after hearing the story of the bookstore murders from Sheets and Jackson. That witness, Rob Stoner, received $5,000 from the federal government for his role in the indictments against Sheets and Jackson, as well as entry into the witness protection program after a bounty was put on his head by members of the Tennessee Ku Klux Klan.

Prosecutors also presented evidence that gloves found in the weapons cache from the April 1987 Missouri raid were linked by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to fibers found on the plastic jugs used to torch the bookstore.

But prosecutors couldn’t put Sheets or Jackson at the scene. In fact, they had alibis that put them in other states around the time of the bookstore killings. Sheets had evidence that he’d been in Kansas the day before the killings, and a blizzard that struck made it virtually impossible for him to have been in North Carolina to commit the crime.

As the trial went on, Sheets and his attorneys pointed out that it was Miller who didn’t have an alibi for the night of the murders.

On the stand, Sheets said that Miller had told him that “he damn sure made a big boom in Shelby.” Miller, meanwhile, in pretrial statements had referred to a feature in the bookstore — a two-way mirror — that suggested he might have taken part in the killings himself.

Don Bridges, one of Sheets’ attorneys, also recounted to jurors a conversation between Miller, Sheets, and Jackson. “Don’t worry boys,” Bridges said Miller told them, “I’m going to be pointing the finger at you, but don’t worry. You can’t be convicted because it’s all hearsay evidence.”

That turned out to be true. With no way to put Sheets at the scene of the murders, he was acquitted. Jackson’s trial was then canceled. To this day, there’s been no other trial or conviction for the murder of the three men in Shelby.

Was Miller involved?

Nearly 30 years later, attorneys who worked to defend Sheets against the Shelby murder charges remain convinced Miller was involved.

“I still believe Miller was involved with those murders. I do,” said Kirk D. Lyons, an attorney known for defending white nationalists. “And, I’ve got a lot more proof than I’ve ever had because he’s done it again — killed more people.”

The chief counsel of Sheets’ defense team was Leslie ‘Les’ Farfour, and he too believes Miller was responsible for the 1987 murders.

“I fully believe that,” said Farfour, who still practices law in Cleveland County.

Lyons said Miller was in Raleigh the day after the Shelby murders, while Sheets and Jackson had alibis placing them in other states.

“The day after the bookstore murders, he was in Raleigh at a march for the White Patriot Party for Robert E. Lee’s birthday,” Lyons said. “Now, granted the storm comes in and makes travel impossible if you’re in Oklahoma, but, come on, I think somebody from Raleigh could have gotten to Shelby that night in a car.”

A May 25, 1989, report on the Sheets’ trial in The Charlotte Observer notes that Raleigh Police Lt. Randy Deaton testified that Miller was in that city on Jan. 18, 1987, “watching a parade by members of the Southern National Front, formerly the White Patriots.”

Farfour and the defense team repeatedly told jurors Miller was responsible for the murders.

“He was, as far as I am concerned, was directing everything that occurred — anything [the White Patriot Party] did, he had his fingers in,” Farfour said in a telephone interview. “I can’t imagine if this was actually a hit by the White Patriot Party that he was not personally involved, directed it somehow. I don’t have anything to back that up. It just seems to be the case, especially with the White Patriot Party claiming responsibility. Who else is going to be directing it other than the leader of the White Patriot Party?”

Farfour says Miller’s organization issued a claim of responsibility in a pamphlet about a year after the trial.

But, by then, prosecutors had moved on. After Sheet’s acquittal and Jackson’s dropped charges, it didn’t seem to matter which organization claimed responsibility for the murders, which remain unsolved 27 years later.

Lyons believes that federal authorities — and their plea deal with Miller — prevented them from looking at Miller more closely.

“If they thought [the prosecutor] had screwed up somehow, they had the right to come in behind him and file civil rights charges, by virtue of depriving the people in the bookstore of their civil rights by murdering them,” Lyons says. “That was never attempted. The problem was — and what it comes back to me is — Miller got to them first and they kind of took him for all they could get out of him. My thinking is that it is very possible they just looked the other way and were not very interested in following the path to Miller and I think they should have.”

Sheets’ and Jacksons’ families, too, believe Miller was involved in the Shelby murders.

“We mourn for the tragic victims of the recent murderous rampage in Kansas. Our prayers go out to their grieving families,” read a statement from the families, provided by Lyons. “If the federal government and their intel partner, the Southern Poverty Law Center, had acted responsibly in bringing Frazier Glenn Miller to justice for masterminding and participating in the Shelby Bookstore Murders back in the 1980s, this Kansas tragedy could never have taken place.”

Memories and closure?

The Kansas shootings in April brought a flood of memories back to those who remembered the Shelby case or worked on it.

For Farfour — the lead attorney in the murder trial — the experience has been palpable. He had worked on several capital murder cases prior, but the Shelby trial was, by far, his largest, he said. It shocked him and the rest of the community at the time.

“It was very significant. It was big. It’s something that just doesn’t happen in small-town Shelby — to have execution-style killings of three people and the burning of an adult bookstore,” Farfour said.

The people of Shelby weren’t prepared for the case’s brutality or its aftermath.

“We’re in the Bible belt and a lot of people frowned on there being an adult bookstore there, but they would never have gone to the extent of killing and burning,” Farfour said.

As the case progressed and came to trial, the community braced for trouble. Shelby had had its share of tragedies and murders, Farfour said, but nothing like the bookstore shootings.

“There was a lot of concern that the White Patriot Party or the Klan might have put a hit out on [Miller] to keep him from testifying,” Farfour recounted. “There was a lot of publicity and anxiety in the community. We had FBI agents on top of the court house with sub-machine guns during the entire trial.”

Farfour continued, “The trial took a little over a month to complete with all the publicity and attention, we were worried about if somebody was going to bust into the courtroom and start shooting or if a bomb was going to go off.”

Despite the attention and discussion, Shelby didn’t seem to change much.

“I didn’t see views toward gays or toward the Klan change a lot one way or the other,” Farfour said. “I don’t think it particularly changed anybody’s perspective on things. I’d like to say it did, but I don’t think it did at all.”

At the time, Farfour said Shelby’s citizens simply wanted to put all the controversy and shock behind them.

“We had always been a very progressive, friendly, small-town atmosphere,” he remembered. “I think we wanted to try to build that image back up and put it behind us and move forward.”

But, moving forward requires closure — something the families of the Shelby murder victims never received.

Miller, now in federal custody for the Kansas shootings, could be questioned again on the Shelby case.

“If they wanted to try to get closure for the families of the victims, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Farfour said, but he doubts Miller would ever admit to anything.

Without a confession, the brutal Shelby murders will likely never be fully solved. But, Farfour will continue to have his suspicions.

“To me, in my mind, it was solved when the pamphlet came out and the Ku Klux Klan or the White Patriot Party or whichever one took credit for it,” Farfour said. “You’ve got the organization that did it, but you don’t have the individuals. As far as knowing the individuals, no, I don’t think it will ever be solved.”

Local investigators react

Despite Farfour’s fears the case might not ever be solved, local investigators in Cleveland County told local media late this week they would be looking into the case again and will be traveling to Kansas to question Miller, according to a report Thursday from Charlotte news station WBTV.

“We are going to coordinate an effort between the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office and the Kansas authorities to make sure that avenue is explored,” Sheriff Alan Norman told WBTV.

We tried to speak with officials at the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office multiple times last week hoping to ask them more about the cold case. They didn’t get back to us, but now they are on their way to Kansas to question Miller.

A follow-up call to the sheriff’s office Thursday afternoon was not returned.