The Bloody Trail of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas

What’s the most violent extremist group in the United States today? The answer may be surprising: it is the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT), one of the largest white supremacist prison gangs in the country. According to ADL records, since 2000, this racist group—which has no relationship to the older, “original” Aryan Brotherhood—has killed more Americans than any other domestic extremist group.

Since 2000, ABT members and associates have committed at least 29 murders in the United States, all in Texas or neighboring states. The true number is likely considerably higher, as most murders that occur behind prison walls do not get reported by the media. The 29 known killings are all “street” killings, more evidence of the growing presence of racist prison gangs on the streets of America.

Why are there so many ABT murders? There are two main reasons. The first is that the ABT inculcates an acceptance of violence in its members; violence is as often as not the first—or even only—solution to a perceived problem.

The second relates to the nature of racist prison gangs in general and the ABT in particular: the ABT is an organized crime group as well as a white supremacist group. The ABT constitution even acknowledges that it can be a “hindrance” to put ideological beliefs before “business transactions” and that the group has to generate income to further its “mission and growth.” The result is that many ABT murders take place in connection with their “traditional” criminal activities, such as methamphetamine trafficking, home invasions, and identity theft.

Even more ABT murders are actually internal murders, in which gang members kill their own, usually because they believe or suspect the victim has become an informant or broken gang rules, but also sometimes due to factional or other internal fights. It is almost as dangerous to be an ABT member as it is to encounter one.

Ironically, only 3 of the 29 known murders linked to this white supremacist group in the past 12 years were actually hate-related, though there have been other hate-related crimes by ABT members, ranging from assaults to arsons of African-American churches.

There is no doubting, however, the viciousness of the ABT killings, some of which were torture-murders while others were execution-style killings, in which the victim’s body was burned, decapitated or otherwise dismembered in order to make identification difficult.

FBI Arrests Chicago-Area White Supremacist For Hate-Motivated Arson



Photo credit:  Will County Sheriff’s Department

FBI agents on May 30, 2012, arrested long-time Chicago-area white supremacist Brian James Moudry, 35, for allegedly setting fire to the home of an African-American family in Joliet near Moudry’s own home in 2007. Nine people were in the house at the time, eight of them children, but they escaped the fire without injury.

Prosecutors have charged Moudry with arson, using fire to interfere with housing rights on the basis of race, and using fire to commit another felony. If convicted, Moudry could face up to 40 years in federal prison.

Moudry has a lengthy history of both arrests and white supremacy. By his own admission, he spent most of his teenage years in juvenile institutions. By the time he was 18 he was already a white supremacist. In 1996, he wrote a fan letter to the white power music magazine Resistance in which he talked about how much he and his father enjoyed the articles and ended his missive with the cry of “WHITE UNITY and WHITE POWER!!” Within a few years, he was arrested for aggravated assault and hate crimes for assaulting two African-American men in a restaurant parking lot and spent some months in the county jail for the assault.

At first, Moudry was primarily active on the white power music scene, editing a white power music fanzine dubbed Hatemonger and playing in a white power band called Xenophobia while calling himself “Warhead von Jewgrinder.” Xenophobia performed songs such as “Vomit on the Rabbi” and “Delenda Est Judica,” and appeared on a compilation CD along with Flammable Hebrews, with which Moudry also performed.

In the early 2000s, Moudry met Matt Hale, then leader of the Illinois-based World Church of the Creator (WCOTC; now known as the Creativity Movement), and became an active member of the group, styling himself a “Reverend” and organizing WCOTC rallies and protests and passing out white supremacist literature in northern Illinois. Moudry quickly became the “state leader” of the WCOTC for Illinois. The WCOTC collapsed in 2004 following Hale’s arrest and subsequent conviction for soliciting the murder of a federal judge; in subsequent years Moudry was part of a small band of Hale loyalists trying, largely unsuccessfully, to keep the group alive following Hale’s arrest.

In July 2010, FBI agents paid Moudry a visit to question him about an alleged threat by Moudry to an African-American postal carrier; no charges were filed, but according to authorities he was “encouraged to behave.” However, not long after, in August 2010, local police arrested Moudry for allegedly threatening a youth with a weapon. That case is still pending.

American Front Members Arrested on Hate Crimes, Conspiracy Charges

Patricia Faella

Federal, state and local authorities arrested much of the core membership of the Florida contingent of the white supremacist American Front this past weekend on hate crimes and conspiracy charges.   The American Front is one of the oldest hardcore racist skinhead groups in the United States, with a membership concentrated primarily in northern California and central Florida.

At least seven people, all from the greater Orlando area in central Florida, have been arrested; additional arrests may ensue.  Members picked up so far include Marcus Faella, 39; Patricia Faella, 36; Mark McGowan, 29; Jennifer McGowan, 25; Diane Stevens, 28; Kent McLellan, 22; and Paul Jackson, 25.   The Faellas have played something of a leadership role within the American Front since the shooting death of its previous leader, David Lynch, in California in 2011.

Marcus Faella

Prosecutors have charged the Faellas and the McGowans with criminal conspiracy and a hate crime.  McGowan and his wife Jennifer have reportedly also been charged with illegal paramilitary training—providing firearms or explosives training with the intention of committing civil disorder. Diane Stevens was also charged with criminal conspiracy and committing a hate crime.   Charging details for the others arrested are not yet available, nor has the nature of the alleged conspiracy yet been made public.

A number of Florida American Front members have been involved in criminal activity.  It was only in 2010 that McLellan was sentenced to a year in prison after being convicted of vandalizing a local restaurant and church with white supremacist graffiti in 2008.   In May 2010, another Florida American Front member, Christopher Brooks of St. Cloud, pleaded guilty in Virginia for his role in a synagogue vandalism there in 2009.  That same year, Florida American Front member Richard Adam Stockdale served time for battery charges.

The American Front is one of a large number of hate groups with a presence in Florida.  It includes subgroups such as the Valkyrie Corps for female members and the American Patriot Brigade for new members, referred to as “probates.”