The Story Of An Alt-Right Killer–Neo-Nazi Beliefs And A Gun

A very sad read on so many levels.

She knows, perhaps better than anyone, how her son struggled with mental-health issues for much of his life. But it was only after the killings, she said, that she learned the full extent of his deepening interest in white supremacy, including a Twitter account he appeared to maintain that espoused hatred of Jews and gays, praised Hitler and endorsed a neo-Nazi group linked to multiple murders.

On Twitter, under the assumed name and with an avatar that was a ghoulish and skeletal Nazi, he appeared to be pushing hatred and violence against Jews, gays and other minorities. The account has since been suspended.

The vitriol seemed to grow in intensity in the fall with the account retweeting tweets calling Martin Luther King Jr. “a low IQ pervert and sex abuser,” images of Nazis saluting, another claiming Hitler was not a racist, and a fourth featuring an illustration of a girl drawing a swastika and the message: “I miss u Hitler.”

Other tweets embraced the Atomwaffen Division, a paramilitary neo-Nazi group whose members have been linked to a handful of killings and who consider Charles Manson a hero.

The full extent of the teen’s involvement in the far right remains unclear, but the mother said she was unaware of the Twitter account before the killings. She said white supremacist ideology, which emphasizes that whites are superior to non-whites, is abhorrent to the family and thinks the teen might have been exposed to such ideas online. Unable to find a place at school, she thinks he sought out a place among others on the fringes.

It was those beliefs that pushed the Frickers to force an end to the relationship between the teen and their daughter. Just days before the Dec. 22 shootings, Buckley Kuhn-Fricker had written an email to the administrator of the teen’s school, calling him an “outspoken Neo Nazi.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled the teen an “alt-right killer,” listing him alongside Dylann Roof and others as perpetrators of a new wave of violence by angry young white men, often steeped in hatred on social media and Internet groups.

The teen has recovered enough to be transferred to the juvenile detention center in Fairfax County, and hearings are being held to determine if he is competent to stand trial.