Shooting rips apart neo-Nazi friendship
Accused claims roommates were planning terrorist attack
The friendship of the four young roommates — though cemented in the dark trappings of an obscure neoNazi group called Atomwaffen Division — never seemed destined for bloodshed.
But now two of the young men are dead, the other two are in jail and authorities are left to answer this question: Was Atomwaffen Division plotting violent acts or were the four young men merely posers?
Four days after police say one of the roommates shot and killed two others, Atomwaffen posted a video on YouTube depicting members standing with arms extended in “Heil Hitler” salutes and posing with guns in front of a swastika flag, their faces obscured by images of skulls. The stark slogan: “Join your local Nazis.”
Inside the apartment the men shared, authorities said they found guns, ammunition and bomb-making material.
After his arrest in May on murder charges, Devon Arthurs, the group’s 18-year-old co-founder, told police detectives that he killed his roommates to thwart a terrorist attack by Atomwaffen.
“I prevented the deaths of a lot of people,” Arthurs said in a rambling statement. Asked why his roommates would plan such an attack, he responded, “Because they want to build a Fourth Reich.”
The victims’ families insist, however, that the slain young men were entering new phases in their lives.
Federal investigators say they believe the May 19 shooting exposed evidence of a credible threat to the public. In the condo’s garage, they say they found volatile explosive material stored in a cooler, near homemade detonator components and several pounds of ammonium nitrate. Two sources of radiation were also detected on the premises.
FBI agents have filed explosives charges against Atomwaffen’s leader, 21-year-old Brandon Russell, who was outside the apartment when Arthurs led officers to the grisly scene. Arthurs said Russell, who had just returned home from his Florida National Guard duties, knew nothing about the killings. But he accused Russell of stockpiling explosives to bomb power lines, nuclear reactors and synagogues.
Russell told investigators that he had used the material to boost homemade rockets, but a federal judge agreed he posed a risk to the public and ordered him detained. The judge added, however, that he was troubled investigators hadn’t presented more evidence to corroborate Arthurs’ claims about Atomwaffen.
Arthurs’ accusations against his slain roommates — 18-year-old Andrew Oneschuk and 22-year-old Jeremy Himmelman — have angered their grieving relatives. Their families dismiss his claims as the rantings of a sociopath who initially told investigators he killed his friends for teasing him about his recent conversion to Islam.