A Death in Wichita by Stephen Singular

Author:Stephen Singular [Singular, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Nonfiction, Retail, True Crime
ISBN: 9781250029614
Google: BDCLN2eA6zcC
Amazon: B00CY5F9MS
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2012-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

XXXI

In early April 2009, the Kansas City FBI office received an anonymous letter warning that a Scott Roeder “would do physical harm” to Dr. George Tiller, or any other abortion provider. The letter’s author was Mark Archer, the husband of Sue Archer, with whom Roeder had fathered a child back in 2001. The couple lived in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, and was raising the young girl, Olivia. Before writing the letter, Mark had created what he called a “psychological profile” of the suspect based upon Roeder’s blog postings, arrest history, and some things he’d said to Sue in Pennsylvania in 2008 when he’d come out to see his daughter. The couple was still involved in a custody battle with Roeder over Olivia, and the purpose of Mark’s letter was to get the FBI to place Roeder on a domestic terrorist “no-fly” list so that he couldn’t travel to Pennsylvania that spring and visit the seven-year-old girl. According to the FBI, the anonymous letter did not contain a specific or credible threat, so the feds didn’t conduct surveillance on Roeder and he made the trip east. Word of the letter was passed along to the clinic in Wichita, but it wasn’t unusual enough to draw much attention.

In early May 2009, about a month after Dr. Tiller’s acquittal, WHCS was vandalized once again, as it had been numerous times since the 1970s. Somebody snipped the wires to the security cameras and outdoor lights. They cut holes in the roof and plugged the building’s downspouts—rain poured in through the openings and caused thousands of dollars of damage to the office. Tiller reported the incident to the FBI and asked the feds to investigate, but no arrests were made. According to a 2008 National Clinic Violence survey conducted by the Feminist Majority Foundation, when federal laws were not applied strenuously in these circumstances, and when death threats were ignored and protesters were allowed to photograph or videotape patients arriving at women’s health clinics, the reported rate of violence tripled.

In mid-May, Tiller called Dr. Susan Hill of North Carolina, the president of the National Women’s Health Foundation, which operated reproductive health clinics in areas where abortion services were scarce or nonexistent. For many years, Hill and Tiller had provided long-distance support for each other, and he also communicated regularly with Warren Hern in Boulder. The three of them, along with Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Nebraska, made up the remaining old-guard physicians still willing to face the dangers of their profession. Once, when Dr. Hill had been desperate to assist a patient, she’d phoned the “doctor of last resort” in Wichita. A nine-year-old girl from a small Southern town had been raped by her father and was eighteen weeks pregnant. Birthing the baby would severely damage her small body. No area doctor or hospital would help the girl, but Tiller told Hill he’d take the patient for free. After performing the abortion, he kept her in Wichita for three days until she was able to return home safely.

When he called Dr.

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