HA Editorial Team

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Benjamin Matthew and James Tyler Williams

April 8, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

Series note: “When Homeschoolers Turn Violent” is a joint research project by Homeschoolers Anonymous and Homeschooling’s Invisible Children. Please see the Introduction for detailed information about the purpose and scope of the project.

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

Benjamin Matthew and James Tyler Williams

Benjamin Matthew Williams (31) and James Tyler Williams (29) were brothers who believed in white supremacy. On July 1, 1999, motivated by self-professed hatred of gay people, they murdered Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, a gay couple living in Redding, California.

On July 1, 1999, motivated by self-professed hatred of gay people, Benjamin Matthew Williams (l) and James Tyler Williams (r) murdered Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, a gay couple living in Redding, California.

Benjamin and James grew up in Palo Cedro, a small community in Shasta County, California. Their parents were fundamentalist Christians who kept to themselves. A neighbor described them as “heavy Bible thumpers, really into that stuff.” The Williams family briefly attended a Baptist church in Palo Cedro, but they left when the church refused to kick out a bi-racial couple. The Williams’ parents were apocalyptic survivalists who grew their own food and homeschooled their children until they reached high school. In highschool, Benjamin and James were prohibited from participating in extracurricular activities, though they were honor students.

The family eventually moved to Redding because their father believed he received “God’s orders” to do so. After high school, Benjamin briefly served in the military and then attended University of Idaho. In Idaho, he joined a a local Charismatic church and become interested in “purification diets,” hoping to achieve “perfect bowel movements.” He eventually left the Charismatic church and immersed himself in literature from the internet on white supremacy and anti-Semitism. This literature led him to the Christian Identity movement, a fact seemingly relevant since “proponents of that movement advocate death to homosexuals.” James was also interested in white supremacy.

Benjamin and James knew their victims — Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, who had happily been a couple for 14 years — through involvement in the local landscaping industry. The brothers began planning the murders 2 weeks prior, when met Gary and Winfield at the Redding Farmers Market. Both Benjamin and the couple had booths at the market. Benjamin specified to James the couples’ homosexuality as reason for targeting.

On the night of the murder, the brothers used their father’s vehicle to drive to Gary and Winfield’s home. Gary and Winfield were already asleep. Benjamin personally shot both men, emptying an entire clip from a .22 calibre handgun. He then reloaded and fired 5 more shots. When asked later about the murders, Benjamin said he was “not guilty of murder” but rather “guilty of obeying the laws of the Creator.” He called other Christians gut-less, declaring that, “So many people claim to be Christians and complain about all these things their religion says are a sin, but they’re not willing to do anything about it. They don’t have the guts.”

2 years after the murders, in September 2001, both Benjamin and James pled guilty to numerous charges unrelated to the murders: setting fire to three Sacramento synagogues and an abortion clinic in 1999. For those charges alone they were sentenced to prison: Benjamin for 30 years and James for 21 years. The following year, 1 month before his murder sentencing was scheduled, Benjamin committed suicide in prison. Several months later, James pled guilty to his role in Gary and Winfield’s murders and was sentenced to an additional 29 years to life in prison.

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Brandon Warren

April 2, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

Brandon Warren

On July 26, 2001, 14-year-old Brandon Warren from Kenly, North Carolina shot and killed his 13-year-old brother Bradley and his 19-year-old sister Marnie Rose. He then turned his gun on himself and committed suicide.

All of the Warren children — Bradley, Brandon, Marnie Rose, and their older brother Ellis (21) — were homeschooled by their parents, Boyd and Nissa Mae. The family had a history of interactions with social workers due to dysfunction and the children having visible bruises. In fact, in just the 2 months prior to the murder-suicide, social workers talked with the parents 11 times but “the Warrens routinely turned them away, forcing them to get a court order for each visit.” Their house reportedly had “rotting food, animal feces on the floor.” Shortly prior to the murder-suicide, Social Service inspectors had “warned the parents that if they didn’t clean up their home, they could lose their children.”

The Warren family’s troubled state, however, went back a decade. In 1991, the parents were convicted of child abuse in another state, Arizona, where they also homeschooled. After the conviction, the family moved to their current home in North Carolina.

On the day of the attack, Brandon accessed his mother’s .22-caliber rifle and used it to kill his siblings and then himself. A motive was never publicly stated. However, Nissa Mae’s reaction to losing three of her children was chilling: she told a detective that she would “rather God had them than Child Protective Services.”

While Brandon was ruled to have murdered his siblings and then committed suicide, Brandon’s parents were also charged in the case due to squalid living conditions. Boyd and Nissa Mae were both charged “with misdemeanor child abuse and storing firearms in a manner accessible to a child.”

Homeschool advocates immediately dismissed any connections between the Warren family murder/suicide and homeschooling. In April 2002, Jeff Townsend — president of North Carolinians for Home Education — said he “didn’t see any connections between home education and the teens’ deaths.” But in 2003, the case received heightened media attention due to a CBS report entitled, “A Dark Side to Home Schooling.” The report, which prominently featured Brandon Warren and his family, received the attention mainly because its title provoked a huge backlash from homeschooling communities. Later that year, Rep. Todd Akin — himself a homeschooling father from North Carolina, most recently known for his “legitimate rape” comments — spearheaded a signature-gathering effort and recruited 33 Congress members — 32 Republican, 1 Democrat — to publicly denounce the CBS report.

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Aza Vidinhar

April 2, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial Team10 Comments

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

Aza Vidinhar

In May 2013, 15-year-old Aza Vidinhar from West Point, Utah was babysitting 2 of his younger brothers, aged 4 and 10. When Aza’s mother returned home, she found the younger brothers dead, stabbed to death by Aza.

The Vidinhar family had 6 children, 4 of whom were adopted. Aza’s father was an engineer for the Air Force. They lived in “a wonderful neighborhood” where “kids are usually outside playing.” Aza was enrolled as a 9th grader at West Point Junior High as a member of the track team; in the school he was an honor student. However, his mother homeschooled him for other subjects. Aza was a quiet kid who had a speech impediment, was “socially awkward,” and kept to himself. Neighbors described him as “different” and said he was once found “throwing dozens of rocks over a fence.” While he was quiet and awkward, neither he nor any family members had a history of mental illness. Two years prior in 2011, Aza was in the news for running away from home.

On the day of the attack, Aza’s mother left him home alone with two younger siblings, Alex (10) and Benjie (4), while she took his other siblings to a dance recital. (Their father was away in another state.) Upon returning home, she found the dead bodies of 1 of the children. (Police later found the second body.) Aza was nowhere to be seen. He was later found (either by his adopted brothers or the police; reports differ) wandering miles away from home with traces of blood on his clothes.

Officials hesitated at first to charge Aza, though they arrested him and placed him in the Farmington Bay Youth Detention Center. As of August 2013, officials were determining whether Aza was fit to stand trial. In November 2013 he was charged with two counts of felony murder. On July 18, 2014, Aza pleaded guilty “in both juvenile and adult court to intentionally and knowingly stabbing his two younger brothers to death.”

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: John Timothy Singer

April 1, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial Team4 Comments

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

John Timothy Singer

In 1988, during a 13-day stand-off with police, John Timothy Singer — son of infamous fundamentalist Mormon John Singer — shot and killed Lt. Fred House from the Utah Department of Corrections. The stand-off was prompted after John Timothy’s brother-in-law detonated 50 pounds of dynamite at a Latter Day Saints meetinghouse in an attempt to “resurrect” the elder John Singer, himself killed 9 years earlier during his own stand-off with police.

John Timothy Singer is the son of John and Vickie Singer. (Son will hereafter be referred to as “John Timothy,” father as simply “John.”) His grandfather, John’s father, was a Nazi who served in the Schutzstaffel (SS). John himself served in the Hitler Youth at the age of 10. John eventually moved to the U.S. (where he was originally born) and married Vicki. They were both Mormons who raised John Timothy along with 6 other siblings on a 2.5-acre farm and compound in Marion, Utah. In 1970 John was excommunicated from the Latter Day Saints Church due to his advocacy of polygamy. He continued his advocacy for years and in 1979 took a second wife, Shirley Black, who was still married to another man with her own 4 children.

In 1973 John and Vickie withdrew all their children, including John Timothy, from public school in order to homeschool them. Homeschooling was necessary for “shielding the children from a system tainted by sexual promiscuity, drug abuse and racial mixing.” While the decision to homeschool created tensions between the Singer family and the local school board, the Singers were allowed to homeschool for several years. In 1979, however, custody of John Timothy and the other children were withdrawn from John and Vickie after they were found guilty of child neglect and abuse. Vicki, however, blamed the verdict on “state authorities and church officials who were angry at [John’s] practice of polygamy and refusal to send his children to public schools.” After he refused to give up custody, police came to his compound to arrest him. Refusing to surrender, John drew a gun and officers proceeded to shoot and kill him.

The death of their patriarch greatly impacted the rest of the Singer clan, including John Timothy and his brother-in-law, Addam Swapp, who married two of John Timothy’s sisters. On January 16, 1988, 9 years after the stand-off between their patriarch and authorities, Addam said he “received a divine revelation” and decided he could resurrect the patriarchy by bombing a public Latter Day Saint building. After doing so with 50 pounds of dynamite, Addam and “14 other members of his extended family” — including John Timothy — holed up in their compound, in a bizarre repetition of the 1979 incident. Police surrounded the compound once again, and the stand-off ended when John Timothy, while wheelchair-bound, “fired a rifle as Lt. Fred House and another corrections officer prepared to release police dogs on the property.” John Timothy fired a total of 10 rounds, and Lt. House was struck and died.

In September 1988, John Timothy was charged with murdering a police officer and was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 5 years of probation. He expressed remorse for killing Lt. House but defended his actions. During his trial, his defense counsel described him as “someone living one hundred years ago in terms of his background and education” due to his “intensely religious background” and being “confined at home.” Numerous other members of the Singer family were also charged and sentenced after the stand-off. John Timothy was released from prison in 2006 and returned to Utah to serve parole.

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Ben Simpson

April 1, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial TeamLeave a comment

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

Ben Simpson

When he was 18 years old, Ben Simpson shot both of his parents multiple times, killing his father and seriously injuring his mother.

Growing up, Ben had only one friend — a neighborhood kid named Jim. The two boys were friends for over 10 years. Ben also had only one girlfriend, and they dated for a mere 2 or 3 months. They broke up 10 months prior to the attack. Ben enjoyed outdoors activities, particularly swimming and going mudding. A family friend described Ben as “a typical teenager, a good kid” who was “never mean or nasty with his parents.” His parents were described by friends as “loving and devoted parents.” Ben attended public school until the 6th grade. After he had to repeat the 6th grade due to attention deficit disorder, however, his mother took “the time to home-school Ben” for the rest of his education.

At the age of 16, Ben began drinking. His drinking became heavy: he would consume Jack Daniels and beer alone on a daily basis. His mother “knew that Ben drank,” but never suggested to him that he had a problem. Ben also occasionally used a number of drugs, including cocaine, acid, and LSD. However, Ben never ran into trouble with the law; he was never in any gangs and he had no prior arrests as a juvenile or adult.

At the age of 17, Ben decided to learn auto mechanics so he enrolled in a vocational school. However, he had difficulty doing “the book work and the reading,” since he had “trouble focusing.” It has also been noted that Ben never “learned how to tolerate frustration and solve his problems” because his parents “over-indulged their son and tried to right his wrongs.”

On the day of the attack, Ben was distraught because his vehicle had been trashed by some people during a mudding event. His parents were “mad” and “disgusted” at him because they had specifically prohibited him from taking his vehicle to the event. Ben, however, denied personal involvement. He got “severely intoxicated” and went out with a shotgun and ammunition. When he returned him, he was still in a “delusional and enraged state” and proceeded to shoot his own parents. In a later interview it was revealed that he “had little memory of events surrounding the homicidal incident.” Ben’s father died several days after the attack. His mother, however, was able to recover, though it took several months.

Ben was charged with “capital murder in connection with the death of his father” and “attempted first-degree murder with respect to his mother.” Ben’s case was noted for its significance because “it does not fit into one of the three basic types of parricide offenders: he does not fit the profile of the severely abused child, the dangerously antisocial child, or the mentally ill child.”

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Angela Shannon

April 1, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

Angela Shannon

In 1993, 19-year-old Angela Shannon hand-wrote a death threat to George Woodward, a Milwaukee doctor who performed abortions. The threat of violence might not have been newsworthy in itself, except that Angela is the daughter of Shelley Shannon, the anti-abortion domestic terrorist from Grants Pass, Oregon who shot George Tiller in both arms outside his abortion clinic that same year.

Angela was born in 1974 to Rachelle Ranae “Shelley” Shannon in Washington state. Her birth father was married to another woman and Shelley married another man, David Shannon, later that year. In 1980 the Shannon family moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon. Angela’s mother Shelley was a “Christian wife and homeschooling mother,” and Angela and her later siblings were all homeschooled by Shelley. Shelley was introduced in 1988 to anti-abortion material from Last Days Ministries, a Christian commune in Texas that advocates “militancy against abortion” and uses a “language of violence” in their activism materials. Inspired by an Operation Rescue video at the first Right to Life meeting she attended, Shelley became a regular at clinic blockages across the U.S. By 1991 she began to “discuss violent action with other radical thinkers.” She edited a manual for Army of God, a network of Christian anti-abortion terrorists, and started corresponding with imprisoned terrorists. (Army of God claimed responsibility for several terrorist attacks in the 90’s perpetrated by Eric Robert Rudolph, himself a homeschooler.) Shelley considered Michael Griffin, who murdered abortion doctor David Gunn, to be “the awesomest, greatest hero of our time.”

In April of 1992, Shelley began committing acts of arson against abortion clinics in Oregon. Her first target was the Catalina Medical Center in Ashland, Oregon. During her acts of arson, Shelley often brought Angela along as an accomplice. Indeed, by the age of 18 Angela had become “a fellow anti-abortionist as well as a daughter,” who “would faithfully convey Shelley’s sentiments and her doctrine should the need arise.” (Angela was actually first arrested at the age of 14, during a blockage and protest against the Lovejoy Surgicenter.) Mother and daughter targeted clinics in Portland and Eugene as well, and also traveled to Sacramento, California and Reno, Nevada to napalm clinics.

In February of 1993, Angela arranged to meet a friend of hers that she met during an anti-abortion event at the Sacramento airport. While they visited, Angela gave the friend a sealed envelope and asked him to mail it for her because “she did not want the letter traced to her.” Her friend did as requested, and days later the envelope was received by George Woodward, a doctor who performed abortions at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The letter, opened first by George’s wife, said that if the doctor “had not ‘stopped killing’ by March 16, 1993, the writer would ‘stalk’ him down and harm him and his family.” It concluded with the following threat: “If I hear you are still killing when I get to town I will haunt you and your wife day and night and give you no peace. If you continue, I will hunt you down like any other wild beast and kill you.”

In September 1993, police searched Angela’s apartment and discovered material indicating her guilt in the death threat. She was sentenced several years later in 1997 to 4 years in prison. 2 years later Angela’s mother Shelley was also sentenced to 20 years in prison, declared by a judge to be “a terrorist for firebomb attacks on women’s clinics in three states.” Shelley was already serving a sentence from 1993 for shooting George Tiller.

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Eric Robert Rudolph

March 31, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial TeamLeave a comment

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

Eric Robert Rudolph

Eric Robert Rudolph is known today as “the Olympic Park Bomber” and a terrorist. Responsible for a string of anti-abortion and anti-gay bombings across the U.S. from 1996 to 1998, he is serving a life sentence at the ADX Florence supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

Eric was born on September 19, 1966. His mother and father (who died in 1981) had extreme beliefs “ranging from hatred of Social Security numbers to a naïve faith in the curing powers of laetrile.” After her husband died in 1981, Eric’s mother Patricia moved herself, Eric, and Eric’s five siblings to Topton, North Carolina. In Topton, his mother — and subsequently Eric — became immersed in the Christian Identity movement, which is “a virulently anti-Semitic ‘religious’ sect that preaches that Jews are descended from Satan and that God made non-whites inferior to whites.” Followers are “fiercely opposed to race-mixing, abortion and homosexuality.” They also are “taught to shun birth certificates, Social Security numbers and marriage licenses,” and have “a taboo on antibiotics.”

A year after moving to North Carolina, Patricia and Eric traveled to Missouri and stayed for several months in a Christian Identity compound. Patricia spent time with Nord Davis, an Identity advocate who “advocated killing gays and those who engaged in mixed-race relationships.” She homeschooled Eric and his siblings except for one year when he attended ninth grade at Nantahala School. (During that one year attending school, he “wrote a class paper denying the Holocaust ever happened.”) In fact, Patricia said that she “was drawn to the [Christian Identity] group by the promise of home schooling.” She reportedly used homeschooling to “drill her brand of idealism and independence into her offspring with a vengeance,” teaching that “the government was a threat to society” and her ideas about God had a “racist slant” with “overtones of the KKK and Nazis.”

After receiving a general equivalency diploma for high school, Eric briefly attended Western Carolina University. He dropped out after two semesters, though, and then enlisted in the Army in August 1987. After 1 1/2 years in the Army, he was discharged “for smoking marijuana.”

In the time between being discharged from the Army and his string of bombings, Eric grew “increasingly paranoid” about the government and society. Then on July 27, 1996, Eric detonated a bomb during the 1996 Summer Olympics at the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. The blast killed 1 person and wounded 111 others. His reason for doing so, he wrote, was “to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand.”

A year later, on July 16, 1997, Eric also bombed an abortion clinic in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, injuring 50 people. A mere month later, on February 21, 1997, he bombed the Otherside Lounge, a lesbian bar in Atlanta, and injured 5 more people. His last attack was one year later on January 29, 1998, when he bombed an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, killing a police officer and critically injuring a nurse.

From 1998 until 2003, Eric became a fugitive, “hiding in the Nantahala National Forest of western North Carolina.” During those 5 years, Eric was featured on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. At the time of his capture on May 31, 2003 in Murphy, North Carolina, Eric was “the nation’s most wanted domestic terrorist.” In fact, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft called him “the most notorious American fugitive on the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ list.”

Eric was finally captured in May of 2003 in North Carolina when a police officer “spotted Rudolph at about 4 a.m. behind a Save-a-Lot grocery store during a routine patrol.” In April 2005, Eric revealed his motives for all the attacks. After pleading guilty to the attacks, he issued an 11-page statement blaming them on “the legalization of abortion and ‘aberrant sexual behavior.'” Abortion and homosexuality, he explained, were to be met with “force if necessary.” He also said he had no regrets or remorse over the deaths he caused. In August 2005, Eric was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Charles Carl Roberts

March 31, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial TeamLeave a comment

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

Charles Carl Roberts

On October 2, 2006, 32-year-old Charles Carl Roberts IV barricaded himself and ten young female hostages into an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He proceeded to shoot the girls one at a time, execution-style. By the time the police broke into the schoolhouse, he had wounded 5 girls, mortally wounded 2, and killed 3. He then shot and killed himself.

Charles was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to his father Chuck, a retired police officer who became a taxi driver for the Amish community, and his mother Terri. Charles never attended public schools, receiving his high school diploma from a homeschool association. 20 years before his rampage and suicide, when he was only 12 years old, Charles molested two of his relatives — girls between the ages of 3 and 5. This would haunt Charles for the rest of his life, and he reportedly was tormented by “dreams of molesting again” around the time of the rampage and suicide.

After graduating from high school, Charles worked a number of jobs, ranging from dishwasher at Good N’ Plenty Restaurant to a commercial milk tank driver for North West Foods. In 1996, Charles married Marie Lynn Welk at Highview Church of God. A year after their wedding, Marie gave birth to Elise Victoria, who tragically died shortly after birth. Elise’s death would also haunt Charles until the day he died. Charlie and Marie later had 3 more kids, who ranged from ages 7 to 1 1/2 on the day Charlie killed himself. Marie described her husband as “loving, supportive, thoughtful” and “an exceptional father,” and Terri similarly described her son as “an excellent family man.” After her son died, Terri mourned that, “I had no idea anything like this was going to happen.”

On the day in question, Charles drove his own children to school then returned home and left handwritten notes to his family. He then drove to and entered West Nickel Mines School, a one-room Amish school house in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He came prepared with a vast inventory of equipment and weaponry: a handgun, shotgun, and rifle; 600 rounds of ammunition; black powder, a stun gun, knives, pliers, wires, and wooden planks. He let 15 male students out of the schoolhouse as well as a pregnant woman and three parents with infants. Remaining with him were 10 young female students, ranging in age from 6 to 13. He tied up the 10 girls together. While he “appeared to have plans to molest [the] children” on account of bringing a bottle of sexual lubricant with him, the police arrived almost immediately and no signs of sexual assault were found later. Instead, as soon as the police arrived, Charles’ plans were thrown in disarray. He called his wife on his cellphone and told her for the first time about how he had molested his relatives when he was 12. He also told her he was surrounded by the police. He then proceeded to shoot his young hostages and kill himself.

In 2013, 7 years after Charles’s rampage and death, his mother Terri channeled her feelings of grief and guilt into helping others, including one of her son’s own victims. She spends time with and caring for 13-year-old Rosanna, who sits in a wheelchair and eats through a tube on account of Charles’s attack.

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Jeremiah Reynolds

March 31, 2014May 12, 2020HA Editorial Team4 Comments

Trigger warning: If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic.

*****

Jeremiah Reynolds

In December 1994, 17-year-old Jeremiah Reynolds from Sabillasville, Maryland (along with a 16-year-old accomplice) robbed a convenience store in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and killed the store’s clerk.

Jeremiah was homeschooled. His parents are Reverend M. David and Hope Reynolds. His father, a Chaplain at the Joint Base Andrews military facility in Maryland, described him as a kid who “often did good deeds and reached out to help others.” The night before the murder, Jeremiah had an argument with his parents. The argument arose because his parents had taken away his car keys and grounded him on account of “smoking and other behavior.” Jeremiah consequently ran away from home, taking his family’s deer rifle with him. At some point he met up with his accomplice, Clayton Faxon, who attended Catoctin High School in Fredrick County, Maryland.

Jeremiah proposed to Clayton that they rob the convenience store in Blue Ridge Summit. At the time, 30-year-old Gretchen C. Groff was working alone in the convenience store in the early morning. Jeremiah and Clayton went to the store and demanded money and Gretchen’s keys. They stole $26 from the store’s cash register as well as cigarettes. They proceeded to torture Gretchen and then shot her in the mouth with a rifle, stole her car, and then later set the car on fire.

In May 1995, Jeremiah pled guilty to “third-degree murder and robbery.” In October 1995, he was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for his role in the murder. His accomplice Clayton was sentenced to life in person for being the one that pulled the gun’s trigger.

View the case index here.

Please Consider Donating to HA

March 18, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team

We greatly appreciate your interest in financially supporting the work of Homeschoolers Anonymous (HA).

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Homeschoolers Anonymous

An Archived Blog

Author: HA Editorial Team

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Benjamin Matthew and James Tyler Williams

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Brandon Warren

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Aza Vidinhar

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: John Timothy Singer

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Ben Simpson

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Angela Shannon

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Eric Robert Rudolph

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Charles Carl Roberts

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Jeremiah Reynolds

Please Consider Donating to HA