Scott Roeder harbored a burning, "eye-for-an-eye" anger toward abortion
doctors. He once subscribed to a magazine suggesting "justifiable
homicide" against them, and apparently likened Dr. George Tiller to the
Nazi death-camp doctor Josef Mengele.
His former wife said his crusade against abortion was all he cared about and that it contributed to the breakup of their marriage more than a decade ago.
Roeder, 51, was
in jail Monday on suspicion of murder, accused of shooting Tiller to
death on Sunday as the doctor served as an usher at his Lutheran church
in Wichita.
Police said it appears the gunman acted alone, and anti-abortion groups moved quickly to distance themselves from the killing.
Roeder's family life began unraveling more than a decade ago when he got involved with anti-government groups and then became "very religious in an Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye way," his former wife, Lindsey Roeder, told The Associated Press.
"The anti-tax stuff came first, and then it grew and grew. He became very anti-abortion," said Lindsey Roeder, who was married to Scott Roeder for 10 years but "strongly disagrees with his beliefs."
"That's all he cared about is anti-abortion. 'The church is this. God is this.' Yadda yadda," she said.
Lindsey Roeder said that Scott Roeder moved out of their home after he became involved with the Freemen movement, an anti-government group that discouraged the paying of taxes. In 1996, Roeder (pronounced ROW-der) was arrested in Topeka after being stopped by sheriff's deputies because his car lacked a valid license plate. Instead, it bore a tag declaring him a "sovereign" and immune from state law. In the trunk, deputies found materials that could be assembled into a bomb.
He was convicted and sentenced to two years on probation and ordered to stop associating with violent anti-government groups. But the Kansas Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 1997, ruling that authorities seized evidence during an illegal search.
The appeals court ruling appeared to energize him, Lindsey Roeder said. "When they let him out because of the illegal search, that made him even more self-righteous. He would say, 'See, I'm right, and you're wrong.'"
Someone
using the name Scott Roeder posted comments about Tiller on
anti-abortion Web sites, including one that referred to the doctor as
the "concentration camp Mengele of our day" -- a reference to the Nazi
doctor who performed ghastly medical experiments on Jews at Auschwitz.
The posting said Tiller "needs to be stopped before he and those who
protect him bring judgment upon our nation."
SOURCE: The News & Observer
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