| U.S. News

The suspect is a mentally disturbed anarchist and convicted felon who was a part of an anti-abortion domestic terrorist group.

WICHITA, Kansas (LifeSiteNews.com) – A clearer portrait has now emerged of the man who allegedly took it into his hands to play judge, jury, and executioner of George Tiller, the foremost provider of late-term abortions in the United States. The portrait reveals a mentally disturbed, long-time anarchist and convicted felon, who appears to have succumbed to the influence of an anti-abortion domestic terrorist group and believed that he had to commit murder in order to stave off the wrath of God.

Just three hours after Tiller was gunned down in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, where he had been ushering, law enforcement apprehended Scott P. Roeder, 51, of Merriam, Kansas, traveling the speed limit on the I-35 back to his home. He was officially charged with the murder today.

Tiller's murderer had shot the abortionist once and threatened two other men in the church, before departing the scene of the crime in a powder-blue 1993 Ford Taurus, which deputies checked out as belonging to Roeder. After Sherriff’s deputies intercepted Roeder, he surrendered to them without incident and was taken back to Wichita for questioning.

However in the aftermath of the murder and subsequent arrest, information has surfaced that shows Roeder to be a mentally unstable individual, who as early as the 1990s adopted quasi-biblical beliefs to compensate for his moral failings, and fell under the influence of two violent radical organizations, especially a fringe anti-abortion group far outside the sphere of the pro-life community. This group is the so-called Army of God, a group that advocates domestic terror, violence, and murder against abortion facilities and those who work there.

The Anarchist Origins of Scott P. Roeder

Roeder’s first links with violence and terrorism began with his association with the anti-government “Freemen” movement. The Freemen claim that the individual has sovereignty above the government, making them largely exempt from laws, regulations and taxes. Among other things, they began operating their own legal system, and printing their own paper currency independent of state and federal governments.

Roeder’s ex-wife, Lindsay, told the Kansas City Star that Roeder began to break down in the early 90s, when he began having trouble paying bills and acting normal in daily life.

"One day someone told him that paying income taxes isn't constitutional," Lindsey Roeder told the Star. "And he realized if he stopped paying his taxes he could pay all of his bills. From there things just started like a snowball. He became very obsessive."

In April 1996, while the Freemen were engaged in the first month of an armed 81-day stand-off with the FBI at their Jordan, Montana compound, Roeder was pulled over and arrested by Shawnee county deputies for driving without a valid license plate. Instead Roeder had a tag reading, "Sovereign private property. Immunity declared by law. Non-commercial American.''

Roeder had been on an FBI list of Freemen, and when a deputy searched the trunk of his car, he found weapons, ammunition, a gas mask , and bomb-making materials: a fuse cord, a pound of black powder, two nine-volt batteries, and a switch for a bomb-trigger.

Roeder was then charged and subsequently convicted of felonious possession and use of explosives, driving with a suspended license, and having neither vehicle registration nor car insurance.

Following his conviction, Roeder was released on probation with intensive monitoring, and he was required to have no more contact with anarchist anti-government groups that advocated violence. Yet, Roeder soon violated parole in 1997 by refusing to pay his taxes and give his employer a social security number, which earned him a 16 month sentence in state prison.

However, in December of that year, the Kansas Court of Appeals, threw out his conviction on the technical grounds that the officer arresting Roeder had improperly searched his car.

Schizophrenia, Moral Confusion, and an Obsession with Abortion

Throughout this time, Roeder had been suffering with a schizophrenic mental disorder, and his obsession with abortion had brought him into contact with extreme anti-abortion activists, who adopt an “ends justify the means” ethic toward abortion, rejecting the moral values of the pro-life community.

Roeder had fallen in step with the ideology of the Army of God movement, which claims the murder of abortion providers constitutes “justifiable homicide” and praises the murderers of abortionists as “American heroes” on its website.

"I know that he believed in justifiable homicide," Regina Dinwiddie, an acquaintance of Roeder’s, told the Kansas City Star. Dinwiddie herself had signed the first and second “defensive action statements” advocating the murder of abortionists as “justifiable ...