Who is Frazier Glenn Miller Jr? White supremacist who killed 3 at Kansas Jewish sites appeals death sentence

Miller, 80, was convicted of capital murder in August 2015 when he went on a killing spree. He ambushed and killed William Corporon, 69, and his grandson Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, moving on to shoot 53-year-old Terri LaManno to death at the nearby Village Shalom retirement center. All his victims were Christians- two Methodists and a Catholic. Authorities told reporters that Miller had shouted "Heil Hitler" numerous times during the shooting and when he was sentenced to death.

Who is Frazier Glenn Miller Jr?

Frazier Glenn Miller Jr, who also went by Frazier Glenn Cross Jr, is a North Carolina native who dropped out of high school and joined the United States Army as a teenager in 1959, where he served 20 years. He rose to the rank of master sergeant and served two tours of duty in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and for 13 years was a Green Beret.

But he found his calling, he later said, when he read a copy of The Thunderbolt, a racist, anti-Semitic newsletter published by Dr Edward Reed Fields of the National States' Rights Party, which had been given to him by his father. He was present as a member of the National Socialist Party of America during the 1979 Greensboro massacre when White supremacists shot and killed five communists at an anti-Klan protest march in North Carolina. He was discharged from the US Army later that year, received death threats, and his wife moved with their children to Chicago, all due to his racism. But this only further propelled his commitment.

The New York Times detailed in a 2014 report, his rudimentary website, which included photographs of Ku Klux Klan rallies and a paper on the need to do “whatever is necessary” to "break the Jewish control of the media". He moved to a farm that his father gave him in Angier, where he formed the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan which later developed into the White Patriot Party (WPP). He modeled his style of leadership on that of Adolf Hitler’s, preferring military-style fatigues to the KKK's white robes and leading his minions in boot camp-style drills and many public rallies.

During Miller's time as WPP leader, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party's nomination for Governor of North Carolina in 1984 and then the Republican Party's nomination for one of North Carolina's seats in the Senate in 1986, where he placed third in the Republican primary with 6,652 votes.

Miller's 'Declaration of War'

A typewritten letter titled "Declaration of War" signed by Miller, was mailed to 5,000 recipients on April 30, 1987, threatening SPLC leader Morris Dees and establishing a point system for his assassination along with a host of federal officials.

"I declare war against Niggers, Jews, Queers, assorted Mongrels, White Race traitors, and despicable informants", the letter stated, among other things. "Let the blood of our enemies flood the streets, rivers, and fields of the nation, in Holy vengeance and justice... The Jews are our main and most formidable enemies, brothers and sisters. They are truly the children of Satan, as Christ tells us in St. John 8:44... we promise death to those who attack us or who attempt to place us in ZOG's dungeons," it added.

Miller was arrested on April 30, 1987, after authorities raided a mobile home he and others had rented in Ozark, Missouri, on numerous federal criminal charges, and was indicted in May 1987 for communicating a threat via US mail. He served the years from 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. Following his release, Miller began trucking and wrote an autobiography, 'A White Man Speaks Out,' which was privately published in 1999. He soon became affiliated with the antisemitic, White nationalist Vanguard News Network of Alex Linder. 

'He knew enough of the law'

Miller represented himself during his trial after the Kansas shootings, ranting and raising bizarre objections such as one regarding witnesses' oaths "because they did not include the word God." On Monday, March 30, Miller's attorney Reid Nelson told the Court the death sentence should be overturned since the state's death penalty law is unconstitutionally vague and that the killer's standby attorneys should have been allowed to intervene during the penalty phase of his trial. 

Michael L Williams, the Texas commissioner of education who investigated Miller as a federal prosecutor in the 1980s, had said of the shooter in the New York Times report:  “He knew enough of the law, enough of American history, enough of the thinking of the founders that he could craft this bastardized notion of liberty and this notion of states’ authority and states’ rights."