A judge on Tuesday followed a jury’s recommendation and sentenced an avowed anti-Semite to death for the fatal shootings of three people at Kansas Jewish sites.
Johnson County District Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan imposed the sentence for Frazier Glenn Miller Jr, who was convicted of one count of capital murder, three counts of attempted murder, and assault and weapons charges for the shootings in suburban Kansas City in April last year. The same jury that convicted him in August recommended that Miller be sentenced to death.
“Your attempt to bring hate to this community, to bring terror to this community, has failed,” Ryan said sternly before sentencing Miller to die by lethal injection. “You have failed, Mr Miller.”
Upon Ryan’s announcement, Miller yelled “Heil Hitler” and was removed from the courtroom.
Miller said he shot his victims because he wanted to kill Jewish people before he dies. He suffers from chronic emphysema and has said he does not have long to live. A doctor testified during the trial that Miller is ill and likely has five to six years of life left.
All three of his victims were Christians.
He killed William Corporon, 69, and Corporon’s 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas. He then shot 53-year-old Terri LaManno at the nearby Village Shalom retirement center.
On Tuesday afternoon, 13 people addressed the court either in person or through written statements, including family members of the victims.
Alissa LaManno, Terri LaManno’s daughter, said every happy milestone she will have in her life will be a mixture of happiness and pain, because her mother will not be there to experience them with her.
“I wish I had one more hour with her,” Alissa LaManno said, her voice trembling. “Just one more hour.”
Miller glanced at most of the speakers intermittently, but did not maintain eye contact, instead sitting silently with his hands clasped in front of him and his head bowed.
However, after the victim statements, he became defiant and spent nearly an hour talking about how Jewish people were running the government, media and the US Federal Reserve. Family members and supporters of the victims walked out of the courtroom as he spoke.
He said his conscience forced him to do what he did, and he would attack more people if he ever got out of prison.
“I thrive on hate,” he said. “If I didn’t thrive on hate I would go crazy.”
Also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr, Miller is a Vietnam War veteran who founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in his native North Carolina and later the White Patriot Party. He also ran as a fringe candidate for the US House in 2006 and the US Senate in 2010 in Missouri, each time espousing a white power platform.
Miller represented himself at the trial and frequently disrupted procedures with outbursts at the judge, prosecutor and the jury. He said during his closing argument in August that he did not care whether he was sentenced to death.
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