Robert Jay Mathews
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Robert Jay Mathews | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 16, 1953 |
| Died | December 8, 1984 (aged 31) |
| Body discovered | Burned to Death |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | American |
| Organization(s) | Sons of Liberty and The Order |
| Spouse | Debbie McGarrity |
| Children | 1 Boy (adopted with Debbie McGarrity) father of 1 daughter with Zillah Craig. |
| Parent(s) | Johnny and Una Mathews |
Robert Jay Mathews (January 16, 1953 – December 8, 1984) was the leader of an American white nationalist group The Order.
Mathews was burned to death during the intense gunfight with approximately seventy-five of the federal law enforcement agents who surrounded his house on Whidbey Island, near Freeland, Washington.[1]
Mathews' life was fictionalized in the movie Brotherhood of Murder.[2]
Biography
Early years
Robert Mathews was born in Marfa, Texas, January 16, 1953, the youngest of three boys born to Johnny and Una Mathews. His father, of Scottish descent, was mayor of the town, and the Chamber of Commerce's President, as well as a businessman and leader for the local Methodist church. His mother was the town's den mother.
The family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Though he was an average student in grade school, history and politics interested him. At age eleven, he joined the John Birch Society. Matthews was baptized by the Mormon faith as a high schooler.
He formed the "Sons of Liberty," an anti-communist militia mostly made up of Mormon survivalists. At its peak, it had approximately thirty members. After filling out his employer's W-4 Form claiming ten dependents (reportedly as an act of tax resistance), he was arrested for tax fraud, tried, and placed on probation for six months. After a falling out between the Mormon and non-Mormon members, the Sons of Liberty became moribund and Mathews withdrew.
After the probation ended in 1974, he decided to move to Metaline Falls, Washington. Mathews and his father purchased sixty wooded acres for their new home.
Mathews and Debbie McGarrity were married in 1976. He raised Scottish Galloway cattle. The couple adopted a son in 1981. Mathews later had a daughter with a woman named Zillah Craig.
The Order
Mathews read history and politics. William Gayley Simpson's book Which Way Western Man? profoundly affected him. Mathews believed that the White race was in danger, and in 1982 he made an effort to attract White families to the Pacific Northwest, or the "White American Bastion." He visited the Aryan Nations compound many times and began to have friends and followers.
In 1983, Mathews made a speech at a National Alliance convention, which was a report on his efforts to recruit on behalf of the National Alliance, especially among "the yeoman farmers and independent truckers," around the "White American Bastion," and a call to action to the convention's only standing ovation.[3] Mathews took to heart the 1978 novel The Turner Diaries written by the National Alliance founder William Pierce.[4]
In late September of that year, at a barracks he constructed on his property in Metaline, Mathews founded, along with eight other men, the group that would be known as The Order, which he thought of as the "Silent Brotherhood." They included his friend and neighbor, Ken Loff, and Aryan Nations men: Dan Bauer, Randy Duey, Denver Parmenter, and Bruce Pierce. David Lane, Richie Kemp and Bill Soderquist, recent recruits, rounded out the group. None had ever committed a violent crime, or had served prison time.
The first order of business, according to Mathews' plan, was to obtain money to support white separatism. They robbed an adult bookstore in Spokane, which netted $369.10. They agreed that was too risky, and turned to robbing armored cars and counterfeiting. They printed up some phony $50 notes and 28-year-old Pierce was quickly arrested after passing a few.
To raise Pierce's bail, Mathews, acting alone, robbed a bank just north of Seattle. He stole around $26,000. Some of The Order's members, along with a new recruit, Gary Yarborough, carried out more robberies and burglaries, which netted them over $43,000. A subsequent robbery yielded several hundred thousand dollars. Another recruit, Tom Martinez, was caught and charged for passing more counterfeit currency. Then in July, 1984, they deployed approximately a dozen men in a successful effort to rob a Brink's truck of $3,600,000.[5]
The robbers distributed some of the stolen money to the North Carolina-based White Patriot Party and other white nationalist organizations.[6]
Final days
Prior to his death, Mathews wrote a long letter explaining his life, and justifying his actions.[7]
Mathews and the other members of the Order were eventually given up by Martinez, who was under pressure after the counterfeiting arrest. After he revealed information regarding Mathews' activities to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents moved to capture Mathews and his associates. By the time they could set up the operation, all of Mathews' accomplices and friends had decided to move again to other safe houses. The government's agents surrounded Mathews in a house near Freeland, Washington on Whidbey Island on December 8, 1984. Mathews refused to come out after an intense exchange of gunfire. The FBI then fired dozens of smoke grenades into the house in an attempt to force Mathews out, but were thwarted by his use of a gas mask. They then fired several M-79 Starburst flares inside the house, setting off a box of hand grenades and a stockpile of ammunition. Mathews continued to fire at agents as the house burned, but then suddenly stopped. After the wreckage had cooled enough to be searched, agents found the burned remains of 31 year old Mathews' body next to a charred bathtub, pistol still in hand.
Eventually over 75 people were convicted of crimes connected to The Order in eight trials on charges that included racketeering, conspiracy, counterfeiting, transporting stolen money, armored car robbery, and violation of civil rights. Later, ten people connected to the case, including Butler, Lane, and Pierce, were tried for sedition, but were acquitted by the jury.[8]
Legacy in white power music
- In 1995, the neo-Nazi band RaHoWa released their album Cult of the Holy War on Resistance Records, which included the song "Man Against Time" that praised Robert Mathews and his actions.[citation needed]
- The Neo-Nazi band Skrewdriver wrote a song about Mathews titled "Gone With the Breeze" which in 2004, the white nationalist neo-Nazi music group Prussian Blue covered on their album Fragment of the Future.[citation needed]
- The song "Hail the Order" by the band Nordic Thunder is also about Bob Mathews
References
- ^ http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=7921 HistoryLink.org: The Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History. "Robert Jay Mathews, founder of the white-supremacist group The Order, is killed during an FBI siege on Whidbey Island on December 8, 1984," by Daryl C. McClary (December 6th, 2006).
- ^ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/182446/Brotherhood-of-Murder/overview The New York Times. "Brotherhood of Murder (1999)," (retrieved on January 13th, 2009).
- ^ http://www.wntube.net/play.php?vid=175 WNTube. "A Call to Arms, Part One of Two," (retrieved on January 13th, 2009).
- ^ Thomas Martinez with John Guinther, Brotherhood of Murder, McGraw-Hill 1988, ISBN 0-07-040699-5.
- ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=i0lCG8f_6T8C&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=%22bruce+pierce%22+%2B+%22counterfeiting%22&source=bl&ots=63i8ghs03Z&sig=ODfOmxvDanctAAT_2MtDswAITXc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA5,M1 Emergency Response to Chemical and Biological Agents, page five. By John R. Cashman, published by the CRC Press (2000). ISBN 1566703557.
- ^ http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=840 Southern Poverty Law Center. "They're Back: A fresh batch of extremist ex-cons hits the streets," (Intelligence Report, Winter 2004).
- ^ http://www.supreme-white-alliance.net/rememberourheroes.htm Supreme White Alliance. "Robert Jay Mathews' Last Letter," (retrieved on January 13th, 2009).
- ^ http://www.revilo-oliver.com/rpo/No_Escape.html Revilo-Oliver.com "No Escape from Terrorism," by Dr. Revilo Pendleton Oliver (Liberty Bell, November 1988).
External links
- Robert Mathews at the NNDB
- Brotherhood of Murder - a Hollywood film about The Order, as told from Tom Martinez's view.
