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.
*****
Johan Nel
In January 2008, 18-year-old Johan Nel from Swartruggens — a small farming town in North West Province, South Africa — murdered 4 black South Africans in a racially motivated shooting spree.
In January 2008, 18-year-old Johan Nel from South Africa murdered 4 black South Africans in a racially motivated shooting spree.
On the day of the attack, Johan took a bolt-action rifle and more than 100 rounds of ammunition to a squatter camp near his city. While shouting “kaffir” (a racial slur in South Africa), he murdered 4 people: 31-year-old Anna Moiphitlhi and her 3-month-old daughter Elizabeth; 10-year-old Enoch Motshelanoka; and 36-year-old Sivuyile Peyi. He also injured 11 other people. At one point during the attack he took time to ask a neighboring farmer for more bullets. When the farmer refused, Johan shot one of his ostriches. His victims were “defenseless,” some of them “were relaxing under a tree, others were gardening or just walking down the road.”
After the attacks, the editor of South Africa’s Times newspaper noted that, “Nel was born after the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC. He was schooled while Mandela was president under a curriculum reformed to properly reflect South African history.” However, Johan’s education was primarily through homeschooling. His parents, Hennie and Corrie Nel, took him out of public school to homeschool him and he never was “exposed to others’ cultures.” Johan was reported to be a “young, brainwashed racist” who had “no regard for black people’s lives.” Johan began equating black people with baboons and birds at the age of 15.
According to reports, Johan showed signs of PTSD, anxiety, and destructive disorders. He was himself assaulted 5 years prior in 2003 by someone with a sickle. Johan also harbored immense anger towards the world. After the attacks, Johan told his mother that, “Something just snapped inside me.”
In November 2008, Johan pleaded guilty to 17 charges, including numerous murder charges. He was sentenced to 4 life sentences in maximum security.
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.
*****
Matthew Murray
On December 9, 2007, 24-year-old Matthew Murray went on a killing spree in Colorado, opening fire in the early morning at a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) training center in Arvada and then later in the afternoon at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. His spree left 4 people dead and 5 wounded, following which he committed suicide.
On December 9, 2007, 24-year-old Matthew Murray (pictured here with his niece) went on a killing spree in Colorado
After being homeschooled all the way through high school, Matthew attended Arapahoe Community College and Colorado Christian University for brief periods. In 2002, he attended a YWAM missionary training program held at the same Arvada facility he attacked. He did not complete the training, however, due to several reasons: one being health problems that prevented him from doing the requisite field work; others being “strange behavior” such as talking about “hearing voices” and performing “dark rock songs” from Linkin Park that made co-workers feel “pretty scared.” (Court records indicate that the Arvada attack was at least partly inspired by his anger about being expelled.)
Matthew was alleged to be either gay or bisexual and experienced guilt over his orientation. He felt he had to justify it through pointing to the hypocrisy of evangelical leaders like Ted Haggard. He struggled with depression, took Prozac, and was seeing a therapist. He believed his parents were simply using him as a religious weapon or tool, saying that “The only reason [my mom] had me was because she wanted a body/soul she could train into being the next Billy Graham.” He claimed to suffer psychological and other forms of abuse at the hands of his parents growing up, taking particular aim at how Gothard’s teachings influenced his family, at one point writing the following online:
“Me, I remember the beatings and the fighting and yelling and insane rules and all the Bill Gothard (expletive) and then trancing out . (expletive) . I’m still tranced out.”
Gothard himself commented on the murders after the fact, saying that Matthew and his family only used his homeschooling curriculum for “several years” and that his curriculum is “all built around the Sermon on the Mount.” Gothard added that Matthew’s problem was that “he rejected the curriculum,” pointing to Matthew’s love of rock music. “The music we listen to is a powerful force,” Gothard suggested.
While Matthew’s family did not regularly attend New Life Church, his mother Loretta considered Ted Haggard — the disgraced evangelical celebrity who founded and pastored New Life — to be her “favorite pastor.” The Murray family gave money to New Life and Matthew and his mother went to a conference at the church 4 years prior to the attack.
On the day of the attacks, Matthew drove to the YWAM facility in Arvada in the middle of the night. After asking if he could stay the night at the facility (and being denied), Matthew pulled out his guns and opened fire. He killed 24-year-old Tiffany Johnson and 26-year-old Philip Crouse, as well as wounded 24-year-old Dan Griebenow and 22-year-old Charlie Blanch. Matthew then drove to New Life Church. Around 1 pm, Matthew began his second attack, spraying bullets at church members leaving after church service. He struck and killed two sisters, 18-year-old Stephanie Works and 16-year-old Rachel Works — who happened to be homeschooled themselves. He also wounded the sisters’ father, 51-year-old David Works, as well as 40-year-old Judy Purcell and 59-year-old Larry Bourbannais.
Matthew’s shooting rampage finally came to a halt when Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard at the church, managed to shoot and wound Matthew. Matthew then shot and killed himself.
“The more I read your stupid book, the more I pray, the more I reach out to Christians for help, the more hurt and abused I get.”
Following Matthew’s rampage and suicide, Kevin Swanson (Director of CHEC, which the Murray family were members of) did a radio broadcast on the situation entitled, “Should Pastors Pack?”
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.
*****
Jonathan McMullen
In September 2001, 14-year-old Jonathan McMullen from Elgin, Arizona killed his adopted mother and attempted to kill his adopted father and biological brother.
In September 2001, 14-year-old Jonathan McMullen from Elgin, Arizona killed his adopted mother and attempted to kill his adopted father and biological brother.
Kristina and Andrew McMullen, Jonathan’s adopted parents, were a “devoutly religious family” who had “faith in God and Jesus Christ.” They moved to Elgin a few years prior to the attack on account of health problems (which the higher elevation of Elgin alleviated). They took Jonathan and his two biological brothers in as foster children in 1999 and then adopted them slightly more than a year prior to the attack. The McMullens had one biological son, 2 years older than Jonathan. 56-year-old Kristina, a professional teacher, homeschooled all the boys.
On the night of the murder, Jonathan and a friend of his were talking about using his mother’s car to drive to a nearby city. Jonathan was afraid they might get caught taking the car, so he decided to shoot his family. His original plan was to kill them with knives, but he decided on a rifle instead so they “would die more quickly.” He threw something at his mother’s door to wake her and, when she came out, he shot her 5 times. Woken by the sound of the gunshots, his father and brother came into his room. Jonathan shot his brother twice and his father once. Kristina died. His 55-year-old father Andrew and 12-year-old brother Jack were airlifted to Tucson Medical Center and survived. Jonathan’s 9-year-old brother Joe was unharmed as he was spending the night at a friend’s house.
Jonathan was charged with first degree murder of his mother and attempted first degree murder of his father and brother. In December 2002, Jonathan pleaded guilty to reckless manslaughter.
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.
*****
David Ludwig
“It was an intentional murder, I intended to shoot them, and I did.” So said David Ludwig, an 18-year-old teenager from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania after murdering the parents of his girlfriend.
On November 13, 2005, 18-year-old David Ludwig from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania murdered his girlfriend’s parents.
On November 13, 2005, Michael Borden, Kara’s father, asked David to come over after Kara told her father that she and David planned to get married. (Michael was additionally upset because Kara had stayed out all night the previous night with David.) Michael’s response was “Like hell you will!” Upon David’s arrival, Michael told David he could no longer see his daughter. Having anticipated this response and coming prepared with weaponry, David shot Michael in the back as he was heading to the front door. David then sought out Kara’s mother Cathryn and shot her while she sat in a chair. David then looked for Kara but could not find her. He got in his car and started to drive away when he saw Kara running down the road towards him. She got in the car and told David she desired to “get as far away as possible, get married, and start a new life.”
David and Kara’s story shocked both local and wider homeschooling communities. A homeschooling mother who knew the Borden family well commented that,
What makes this so difficult to understand is that these children were somewhat sheltered from drugs and all that and yet they get into this… We’re just assuming that we’re home-schooling and our kids are OK, and now this. They’re not all OK.
The late Kim Anderson, a popular homeschool forensics coach, wrote about the murders in 2005 for the Christian website Crosswalk. She noted that violence arose “from the sector in which we would least expect to find them: the close-knit community of Christian home-schooling families.” Alex Harris was also moved to write about the murders on The Rebelution, a Christian ministry directed at youth. Alex cautioned against considering David and Kara “newsworthy aberrations,” noting how “un-abnormal they are; how similar they are to people I know; how similar they are to me.” Alex concludes with saying,
Being homeschooled did not prevent this tragedy; growing up in a Christian environment did not prevent this tragedy.
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.
*****
Christian Longo
On December 19, 2001, the body of a 4-year-old boy was found floating in a waterway off the Pacific Ocean in Waldport, Oregon. Two days later, divers found the body of the boy’s 3-year-old sister in the same area. Five days later, the bodies of the boy’s 2-year-old sister as well as his mother were also found. Their father, Christian Longo, had murdered all of them.
Christian Longo drowned his wife and 3 children in different Oregon rivers in December of 2001.
Christian Longo is the oldest of two children born to Joy Longo. Joy divorced Christian’s father when he was four and remarried Joe Longo. The family was Catholic but converted to Jehovah’s Witness when Christian was 10. According to Joe, church activities became a “focal point” of their “family life.” Christian wet his bed until he was 10. When he did not get good grades in public school, Christian hacked into the school’s computer system to change his grades. As a result, and because Christian was “easily distracted in school,” his parents withdrew him and homeschooled him through high school. According to Christian’s in-laws, however, the homeschooling was — in reality — “inadequate to prepare him for life in a world that wasn’t a warm cocoon of like-minded believers.” Christian never graduated high school, though he “dedicated himself to the door-to-door work of the Jehovah Witnesses.”
The Longo family was conservative. They taught their kids that “outside the cloister of the Witnesses, the devil was waiting.” Joe and Joy did not allow Christian to date — even after he turned 18. As a result, he left home a week after his 18th birthday. He married Mary-Jane, also a Jehovah’s Witness. He robbed a jewelry store he worked at and began using false names and stolen credit cards, even stealing a test car. He forged $30,000 worth of checks and then moved with his wife and three children — all born between 1997 and 1999 — from Michigan to Ohio. As authorities pursued him due to his criminal activities, he stole a van and moved his family once again to Oregon. Knowing he was about to be caught by authorities, he drowned his wife and 3 children in different Oregon rivers in December of 2001. He justified this in his mind with the idea that he was “sending his family to a better place.” Christian then fled to Mexico. He was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in January 2002.
In Cancun, Mexico, Christian once again used a false name, though this time the name of a real person — Michael Finkel, a writer for the New York Times. A few weeks later, on January 14, 2002, he was arrested. In 2003, Christian was convicted and sentenced to death. He is still on death row. Michael Finkel, the man Christian impersonated, wrote a story about him for Esquire in 2009.
A movie is currently being made about Christian Longo’s life, starring James Franco and Jonah Hill. James Franco will be playing the role of Christian.
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.
*****
Son of Marilyn and Charles Long
After building an imaginative city in a sandpit near his home, a 12-year-old boy from Colorado went on a shocking killing rampage in his home.
A young boy from Burlington, Colorado was 12 years old in 2011 when he murdered his parents, Marilyn and Charles Long (pictured), as well as wounded 2 of his siblings.
The young boy from Burlington, Colorado was 12 years old in 2011 when he murdered his parents, Marilyn and Charles Long, as well as wounded his 9-year-old brother Ethan and 5-year-old sister Sarah with a knife. (The boy’s name has never been released to the public.) The Long family was reported to be “a large, loving and deeply religious clan.” They attended two churches, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. The father Charles was part of a Seventh-Day Adventist prayer group and confessed love for both the Bible and Ted Nugent. The mother Marilyn ran the children’s ministry at Evangelical Free Church. They had 7 children, 4 of whom were already adults and 3 of whom were being homeschooled.
The boy himself loved building projects with toy trucks and other wooden objects in a nearby sandpit. He helped with cleaning at church and used money from cleaning to buy Legos. His grandmother described him as “loving and caring,” and said his parents raised him and his siblings to be “God fearing, responsible children.” The boy, however, was said to be lonely and isolated, with his main social activities outside of homeschooling revolving “around the church to which his folks were so devoted.”
In March 2011, the boy was charged with two counts of murder and two counts of first-degree assault. The following September, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 7 years in juvenile detention. After the sentencing, his oldest brother Jacob said, “He is dead to me.” The young siblings that the boy attacked have recovered and were adopted by their aunt and uncle.
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.
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Matthew Liewald
On September 26, 2011, 15-year-old Matthew Liewald called 911. The North Carolina teenager said he shot his father and stepmother.
On September 26, 2011, 15-year-old Matthew Liewald (center) shot his father and stepmother to death.
Matthew was being homeschooled by his father, 43-year-old Christian Hans Liewald. Christian called the homeschool “Liewald Alternative School.” Christian was married to 24-year-old Cassie Meghan Buckaloo. According to neighbors, “Matt rarely came out of the house and the family kept to themselves.” Christian, Matthew, and Cassie were “beloved members” of Morningstar United Methodist Church, according to their church’s pastor. The pastor described Christian and Cassie as “generous and loving.”
Matthew’s birth mother, however, described Christian as “hyper controlling and wouldn’t allow her to see her friends.” Christian had several prior wives, all of whom said they “suffer physical abuse” at his hands. Matthew himself said he “was afraid of his father,” was physically abused, and forcefully confined to his room. He had wanted to run away from his home, but his father allegedly told him that, if he ever ran away, he “would find him.” In 2007, Matthew personally witnessed his father shoot his neighbor in the chest during an argument.
On the day of the murders, Matthew waited until his father and stepmother came home and then ambushed them. He shot Cassie 8 times and Christian 4 times. He then called 911 and said he needed help, refusing at first to say why and hanging up. He then called 911 a second time, saying that he had shot his parents. He told the police that he would be “sitting on a nearby street corner waiting for officers to arrive.”
Matthew was charged with two counts of murder, armed robbery, and attempted auto theft. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 300 to 378 months in prison.
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.
Joshua Komisarjevsky (right) was homeschooled under Bill Gothard’s ATI curriculum.
Joshua was adopted at two-weeks-old by fundamentalist Christians. His father Benedict has been described as “critical, cold, and controlling”; the mother Jude, “quite submissive.”
Jude homeschooled Joshua using material from the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), the homeschooling curriculum developed by Inge Cannon (the former Director of HSLDA’s National Center for Home Education) for Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles. Jude said that she and her husband Benedict “had tried to instill Christian values in the boy by pulling him out of public school and educating him at home,” but he had nonetheless “wallowed in depression” due to the death of his grandfather a year earlier and had “come under ‘satanic’ influences through other youths” in his hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut. Jude said her son “was easily manipulated and controlled by others,” and she recalled going into his room at one point and “he had written over and over again on the walls: ‘death’ and ‘die’ and ‘suicide.’”
Right before turning 15, Joshua set fire to a gas station. Since police recognized he had serious mental health issues, he was briefly hospitalized in a mental health hospital and given medication. However, his father did not want him on any medication, and instead sent him to a “faith-based” treatment program.
On July 23, 2007, Joshua and his friend Steven Hayes broke into the home of the Petit family — William, Jennifer, and their daughters, 17-year-old Haley and 11-year-old Michaela. Joshua and Steven held the family hostage for hours. They forced Jennifer to drive to the family’s nearby bank and withdraw $15,000 — on the threat of killing the entire family otherwise. They raped and strangled Jennifer and then sexually assaulted Michaela. William was severely beaten and tied to a post in the basement. Joshua and Steven then doused the house with gasoline and set fire to the house. Haley and Michaela died from smoke inhalation. William managed to escape.
Joshua had specifically targeted the Petit family. A day prior to the killings, he noticed Jennifer and Michaela at a grocery store. He followed them from the store home and made plans to come back the next day with Hayes.
Joshua was found guilty of murder. Evidence of “his strict Christian upbringing, his disturbed behavior as a youth and his parents’ decision not to get traditional psychological treatment for him because of their Christian beliefs” was a significant matter of discussion during his trial. In January 2012, Joshua was sentenced to death. His accomplice, Steven Hayes, was also sentenced to death.
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.
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Israel Keyes
Israel Keyes has been referred to as “the most notorious serial killer in a generation” and “the most meticulous serial killer of modern times.” He also was homeschooled.
Israel Keyes has been referred to as “the most notorious serial killer in a generation.”
Israel was born in 1978 in Richmond, Utah. His parents were fundamentalist Mormons and homeschooled him and his siblings. When his family moved to Stevens County, Washington, they attended a Christian Identity church called “The Ark,” known for its racism and anti-Semitism. While attending the Ark and living in Washington, the Keyes family became neighbors and friends with the aforementionedKehoe family. Israel, Chevie, and Cheyne were childhood friends who remained friends through their teenage years.
Israel’s criminal activities allegedly began around 1996 when, at age18, he raped a young girl in Oregon. He intended to kill her, but eventually decided against it. He then began a series of burglaries and robberies. In 2007, Israel created Keyes Construction in Alaska and became a construction contractor. Through his business, he traveled around the U.S. and planned and committed an alarming number of murders. His killing tactics were indeed meticulous: “he would choose a random victim in a remote location, murder the person, and leave,” and “he only killed strangers.” He financed these trips by robbing banks. He had “murder kits” — with items like shovels, plastic bags, money, weapons, ammunition and bottles of Drano — “to help dispose of the bodies.” After his murders, he would bury his kits. His kits have been discovered in Alaska and New York, but he claims he also buried some in Washington, Wyoming, Texas, and Arizona.
In February 2012, Israel kidnapped an 18-year-old barista named Samantha Koenig in Anchorage. The abduction was caught on video by the coffee shop’s surveillance system and a massive search began for her. Unfortunately, Samantha was killed not long after the abduction. Israel raped her and strangled her to death, then left her body in a shed and went on a 2-week-long cruise. When he returned after the cruise, he then dismembered her body and dumped it in a lake. Israel was finally caught because on March 16, 2012, he used Samantha’s debit card while in Lufkin, Texas.
While being interrogated, Israel confessed to eight murders. He also said he studied the tactics of other serial killers but “was careful to point out” that “he used his own ideas, those of other famous killers.” He added that, after murdering, he “liked to return to Alaska and then follow the news of his murders on the Internet.”
On December 2, 2012, Israel committed suicide in his Anchorage jail cell by cutting his wrists and strangling himself with a bed sheet. He did not leave a straightforward suicide note, but rather a four-page “Ode to Murder.”
Federal authorities released new information on Keyes, revealing that they suspect him to have a final death toll of eleven victims, all killed from 2001 to 2012, and that there are presumably other victims in Canada (where he sought out prostitutes) and other countries.
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.
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Chevie Kehoe
Chevie Kehoe is the oldest of eight sons born to Kirby and Gloria Kehoe.
Chevie Kehoe is one of the most notorious white supremacists in the United States.
He was named after his father’s favorite brand of automobile. Born in Orange Park, Florida in 1973, Chevie’s family moved in 1985 to Stevens County, Washington. They lived there for years in “isolation and poverty.” Chevie was enrolled in a public junior high in 1987 and was an honor student who dreamed of joining the Air Force. But his parents withdrew both him and his younger brother Cheyne one year later to homeschool them. His father saw school as a threat, and his parents urged him “to become a white warrior instead.”
Chevie’s family raised him with extreme anti-government and white supremacist views. They pressured him and his brother to bow to their beliefs, resisting their children’s desires to have driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers. Eventually, Chevie himself became a self-identified white supremacist. He formed a plan to take down the U.S. government with a militia for the “Aryan People’s Republic.” He married two women, claiming that polygamy furthered the Aryan race. By the age of 24,
Mr. Kehoe was one of the most notorious white supremacists in the United States, having engaged in a kidnapping, three robberies, three murders and two police shootouts, all in a quest to establish an Aryan republic for white people.
In 1995, Chevie and his father Kirby robbed a man in Tilly, Arkansas. The man, William Mueller, was a friend and an unlicensed gun dealer. A year later, Chevie and another individual robbed the Mueller family again, but this time tortured and murdered William, his wife Nancy, and his 8-year-old stepdaughter Sarah. They dumped the bodies in the Illinois Bayou. The bodies were later discovered by a woman who hooked a shoe and bone while fishing. In 1997, Chevie and his brother Cheyne were involved in a shootout with police officers in Ohio, video from which aired on World’s Scariest Police Shootouts. In 1998, Chevie pled guilty to felonious assault, attempted murder, and carrying a concealed weapon relating to the shootout. Finally, in 1999, Chevie was convicted of murdering William Mueller and his family. He received 3 life sentences in prison without parole. Chevie’s own mother Gloria and younger brother Cheyne testified against him.
In the only interview Chevie gave after his 1997 arrest, he blamed his family for his life path. He said,
In my entire life, my dad always hated this or hated that and never gave me something to love or something to work toward.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 