A Death in Wichita

by Stephen Singular

  The ten police officers at the church called an immediate halt to the service and were blocking off the parking lot exits and isolating the witnesses from other members of the congregation and media. A WPD dispatcher had just issued a teletype BOLO—“Be on the Lookout”—alert, sent to law enforcement throughout Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, and including Roeder’s license number and a description of the Taurus. The FBI and ATF were already aware of the killing and had been told that Dr. Warren Hern out in Boulder and Dr. LeRoy Carhart up in Nebraska might both be at risk. The Kansas Highway Patrol and officers from Johnson County, which included the greater Kansas City area, had been told about a 1993 blue Ford being driven by a man with hazel eyes and the rest of Roeder’s physical characteristics. Citizens in the Wichita area who liked to tune in police scanners had picked up the news, relaying it among themselves and making calls to others.

  Reformation Lutheran had been emptied of worshippers and many were standing outside on a grassy section next to the church, holding on to one another, praying together, and crying. A group of adults had led some small children away from all the police activity, trying to distract them as they told the kids stories and played games and rolled on the lawn, the morning growing warmer in the late May sunshine.

  Gary Hoepner was still on the phone with the 911 dispatcher. For the next 21.5 hours, CAD would continue receiving data about the shooting. Throughout that time, Hoepner’s grief was just starting to come alive, along with the regret that he hadn’t had time or been quick enough or done something to save George Tiller and stop a murder from occurring inside his church.

  The powder blue Taurus had in fact not gone west onto East Thirteenth Street toward downtown, as the original CAD dispatches reported to police officers, but east up to Rock Road and then north toward Highway 254. The coffee stains on Roeder’s white shirt looked suspect and were itching his chest, but he didn’t have time to stop and change. His radar detector was on, to keep track of any cops, and he was determined to avoid the nearby turnpike, by far the fastest way to make the 170-mile trip back to Kansas City. Police might be waiting for him at a toll booth and, besides, the state of Kansas still was not going to get his $3.50 fee. He fiddled with the radio dial, hunting for any news of the shooting.

  He took 254 east to El Dorado, home to the highest-security prison in Kansas (BTK, among others, was housed there). Driving the speed limit and conscientiously using all his signals, he departed 254 for Highway 54 and took this two-lane blacktop through the small towns of Eureka and Yates Center, turning north on Highway 75 to Burlington, where he paused to change into the blue denim shirt in his backseat. Sitting behind the wheel, he tossed the stained white shirt over his shoulder, onto some other clothes, ties, papers, and trash. Concealed beneath the car seats were live cartridges and his long serrated knife. Stuffed under the driver’s visor was a handout for the recent Reformation Lutheran service conducted in Swahili and on it, he’d written to himself: “Young women. Short dress!” And next to that, “Deliver us from temptation.”

  In Burlington, he moved along the quiet Sunday afternoon main street, just a few blocks long, until he found an empty parking lot behind a row of buildings and pulled into it. A dirt pile in the lot, maybe four feet high and four feet wide, was being used for a construction project. Wrapping the murder weapon tightly inside a piece of cloth, Roeder buried it as deeply as he could in the dirt. The firearm’s magazine was still loaded, with live rounds of ammunition that others might stumble on, including children, but if everything went smoothly, he’d come back for the gun as soon as possible.

  Driving sixteen miles north on Highway 75, he stopped at a collection of restaurants and gas stations known as BETO Junction, where he gassed up the Taurus and ate a small pizza, hungry from all the morning’s exertions. From BETO Junction, he turned east onto Interstate 35, toward Kansas City, constantly twisting the radio dial and listening for reports out of Wichita. He heard nothing, which was maddening. What had happened in the church after he’d run outside? Was Tiller dead or alive? Had he even shot the right man, and if he had, could the bullet have hit another usher or worshipper? If he’d so much as nicked somebody else, he’d feel awful about it, because that would be a crime and would damage or negate everything he stood for and was trying to achieve. He kept driving and changing the dial, settling in on a talk radio program. He’d made plans to stop by a farm between Topeka and Kansas City to buy kefir and goat cheese, but that would take too much time. There was a paycheck waiting for him at Quicksilver, which he needed to pick up this afternoon.

  For months and years, going back to the start of the decade, he’d wondered what it would feel like to make this journey from Wichita up to Kansas City, after fulfilling his ultimate goal. Now he knew. It felt incredibly good and freeing to leave the church behind and to be all alone out on the open road on this clear spring day, a great day for a drive, to roll down the windows and take in the scenery and let the cool air rush over him as he passed through farm country—knowing, or at least hoping, that he’d finally accomplished his mission. The stress and tension building within him in recent weeks, as he’d thought about the plan and put together the details, was easing out of his body. Maybe he’d done something significant and powerful with his life, after all, something historic. All those emotions that had surrounded and tormented him for so long—culminating with the anger and bitter disappointment over Tiller’s trial—had at last found a focus and a release. He’d expressed himself.

  His only regret was that he hadn’t done this sooner.

  XXXVI

  Deputy Sheriff Andrew Lento of Johnson County was patrolling a rural area outside of Kansas City at 10:40 on Sunday morning when the BOLO had come in from the WPD. It alerted him to be on the lookout for a 1993 blue Ford Taurus driven by a middle-aged man named Scott Roeder, who’d just shot Dr. George Tiller at Wichita’s Reformation Lutheran Church. The suspect was armed and any lone officer would need backup before moving in on him. Lento calculated that if Roeder had left the church around 10:15 and taken the most direct route back to Kansas City, via the turnpike and then I-35, he wouldn’t arrive in this vicinity for about three hours. The deputy kept patrolling the back roads until a quarter to one.

  In downtown Wichita, Gary Hoepner and Keith Martin, along with several other members of the congregation, had been escorted to the sixth floor of the City Building, just across the street from the courthouse. The WPD brass worked out of this black high-rise, where detectives were preparing to interview the eyewitnesses. The two ushers were separated, put in rooms with one officer each, and questioned about what they’d seen. Hoepner and Martin gave matching detailed accounts of what Roeder had looked like and that he’d been in the church several times before today. Both said that he’d aimed the handgun at them and threatened to shoot. The detectives went over this last point carefully, because Roeder’s actions with them could widen the charges to include two counts of aggravated assault. The ushers were shown a photo lineup of half a dozen suspects, including the picture of Roeder from his driver’s license, and both identified him as the killer.

  While the men were being interviewed, the Kansas City FBI office called Jeffrey Pederson, who managed the Central Family Medicine clinic and whose locks Roeder had glued shut in recent weeks. The feds remembered that a week earlier Pederson had given them a physical description of the vandal and his Kansas license plate number—225 BAB. The tag and description matched the suspect in the Tiller shooting. When Pederson learned that the doctor was dead and the shooter had been identified as Scott Roeder, he literally felt sick.

  At 12:45, Deputy Lento arrived at I-35, pulled into the center median, and parked, his car facing the northbound traffic. While taking a call from a local resident about a barking dog complaint, he saw the Taurus approaching in the left-hand lane and traveling the speed limit. Lento got off the phone, and as the Ford went by, he saw the license plate: Kansas 225 BAB. He immediately advised his dispatcher that he’d mad
e a positive ID of the suspect’s vehicle, and the information was sent along to Wichita.

  At a few minutes after one p.m., Lieutenant Landwehr was in the City Building being briefed about the two eyewitnesses from the church. Detective Brad Elmore walked in and said that a Johnson County police officer had located the Taurus, about twenty miles south of Kansas City. Was it time to move in? Landwehr nodded, ordering his staff to prepare an arrest warrant and telling Elmore to tell the officer to be prepared to stop the Ford and take the driver into custody.

  Deputy Lento was readying himself for a “high-risk” traffic stop, by going over procedure and calling for three other officers to assist him as soon as possible. He exited the median, slipped out into traffic behind the Ford, and turned on the yellow hazard lights on the rear of his vehicle, but did nothing more to call attention to himself.

  Roeder had slowed down and moved into the right-hand lane, going fifty-five miles an hour. Lento pulled in closer, his car now occupying both lanes of I-35 so that no one could pass either him or Roeder. He held this pattern for the next few miles, until the other officers arrived and were in position at the rear. Lento turned on both his red light and the camera inside his car, installed to record traffic stops or incidents. When the caravan reached the mile 208 Interstate marker, just outside Gardner, Kansas, Roeder slowed down on the shoulder of the highway and stopped, staying inside his vehicle. Lento parked behind him and, using a loudspeaker, addressed the suspect.

  “Raise both hands, driver!”

  Roeder complied.

  “Driver! With your left hand take the keys out of the ignition. Drop the keys on the ground.”

  He did as ordered.

  “Driver! With your left hand, open the door from the outside!”

  With the door ajar, Roeder stepped out, wearing a white ball cap and sunglasses. He faced the officers, now bunched up behind him.

  “Driver!” Lento said. “Raise your hands—with your back to me!”

  Roeder turned his back to the men.

  “Raise your shirt with your left hand! Take it out of your pants.”

  He followed the command.

  “Where’s the gun?”

  He threw his hands in the air, as if to say he was unarmed.

  “Lift up your shirt, driver! Step backward.”

  Roeder began walking in reverse toward Lento, until he was only a few yards away.

  “Driver, stop! Get down on your knees.”

  As he scrambled to the ground and lay flat on his stomach, the cap fell off his head. He put his hands behind his back, in expectation of being cuffed. His blue denim shirt and dark slacks were spread out on the shoulder and he wore a pair of black tennis shoes, spotted with blood.

  With guns drawn, all four of the officers approached the figure splayed out in front of them, one policeman aiming a shotgun at the prone figure.

  They handcuffed him and frisked him for a weapon but found none, and he was taken to Lento’s car. When he was informed that he was under arrest for the murder of George Tiller, the words sunk in and filled him with relief. The doctor was dead. The mission had been accomplished.

  As he was being driven to the sheriff’s office in Gardner, Wichita police officials, including case supervisor Rick Gregg and Lieutenant Landwehr, boarded helicopters and flew north to the Kansas City area. Another detective drove up from Wichita as fast as he felt he could. While several of the officers attempted to talk with Roeder in Gardner, others impounded his vehicle and began combing it for evidence. They found the knife, the live cartridges, and a note scribbled on an envelope. It read, “Cheryl Op Rescue,” with a phone number next to the woman’s name. The police wondered if Roeder had a computer in the car, which he didn’t, but they eventually found one in his apartment. Their first task was to copy all the files on his hard drive and then search through these copies, leaving the computer itself untouched.

  XXXVII

  That Sunday morning Dan Monnat had been in his law office in downtown Wichita, just a few blocks from the Eighteenth Judicial District Courthouse, where Tiller had been tried and acquitted two months earlier. Monnat was working on a case when he got a call from Tim Potter, a crime reporter for The Wichita Eagle.

  “What have you heard?” the journalist asked him.

  “What are you talking about?” the attorney said.

  “I’m sorry,” Potter replied, “but Dr. Tiller has been shot—again.”

  Monnat was shocked, but in the next instant he told himself that it must have been another failed attempt on the physician’s life. George might be wounded, the way he was before, but he’d be back at his clinic tomorrow or later in the week. Then Monnat learned the grim news: this time Dr. Tiller was dead.

  The lawyer knew that his wife, Grace, was at home working outside on a ladder, without her cell phone handy. He drove to the house to tell her in person and both of them returned to his place of business, located inside a secure building not far from WPD headquarters. Monnat was worried about the safety of not just himself and his family, but of everyone on Tiller’s staff and all those who’d been on their defense team at the March trial. He phoned everybody from that team and said to come down to his office, now serving as an impromptu operations site for the press calls pouring in from around the nation. Through people close to Jeanne Tiller, he conveyed to her that his legal staff would handle all media matters and shield the grieving family from the coming onrush of attention—the hundreds of e-mails and phone messages with requests for interviews. Monnat and the other lawyers decided, with Jeanne’s approval, that this was no time for passivity or silence, no matter how much they were hurting. They needed to begin speaking out now for Dr. Tiller, so that not just the anti-abortionists and their view of the slain man would be represented on the airwaves.

  Monnat stayed at his office until midnight on May 31, talking with National Public Radio and other press. He was back four hours later to go on the air with CBS’s Early Show, and then MSNBC and CNN. For days that stretched into weeks, he’d be much too busy dealing with the media, funeral issues, the Tiller family, and inquiries about the future of the clinic to reflect on his own personal loss.

  “We didn’t want to make Dr. Tiller’s death a political occasion,” he says, “but beginning on the afternoon of May thirty-first we felt that his life should be honored, all of it, not just his work. His life as a husband of forty-five years, a father of four, a grandfather of ten, a navy flight surgeon, a man with a great sense of humor, and an individual committed to his church, his community, and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. It was our job to let the public know that he wasn’t just a human being, but a heroic human being, because we knew that other people were going to be saying a lot of terrible things about him.”

  That morning Lindsey and Nick Roeder had taken her father to Knox Presbyterian in Overland Park for the Sunday service. At the church, Nick had helped his ninety-year-old granddad get around in his wheelchair, and then he brought him back home, made him lunch, and gave him an insulin shot. Lindsey had to stay longer at Knox because today was kindergarten graduation and she was director of the child care center in the basement. About 1:45 p.m., Nick returned to the church to pick up his mother, and they stopped by McDonald’s. A long waiting line held them up, so they didn’t get to the house till after 2:15.

  At 2:30, someone pounded on the front door, an unusually aggressive knock.

  “It must be your dad,” Lindsey called out.

  Nick’s response was reflexive. “Don’t answer it.”

  She opened the door a few inches and a huge man was standing there with a raised fist. He jammed it through the crack and Lindsey wasn’t strong enough to shut the door. After identifying himself as a federal agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, he said that he needed to talk to her. Panicking but trying not to show it, she told Nick to take his grandfather to the back of the house. Lindsey stepped outside.

  “Is Scott Roeder in there?” the man asked.<
br />
  She said that for years he hadn’t been allowed inside her residence.

  “We don’t know this for sure, but we think he’s murdered someone.”

  As the words filtered through her, Lindsey didn’t seem able to make sense of them. She swayed as if she might faint, but the agent reached out and caught her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Dr. George Tiller has been murdered.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s a late-term abortion doctor in Wichita and…”

  Inside the house, the phone was ringing. She ignored it, steadying herself on her feet and slowly absorbing what she was being told.

  “Scott,” she said, “was really against abortion.”

  Who, the agent asked, had left her house forty-five minutes ago in her car?

  That was Nick, her son, she explained, realizing that the ATF had been sitting on her street for quite a while this afternoon, watching her residence and everyone who went into and came out of it.

  “We need to speak with him,” the agent said.

  The phone was ringing again, but she made no move to answer it.

  If the agent wanted to talk to Nick, he’d have to come outside, because the stranger wasn’t going inside her home.

  “All right,” he said.

  She went in and returned shortly with her son, who was telling Lindsey that his grandfather could hear all the activity around their house and was upset by it. Nick turned to the agent and tried to convince him that the only other person left in the house was his ninety-year-old granddad. The phone rang again, so Lindsey unplugged it.

  A TV crew from Kansas City, the ABC affiliate, was pulling up in front of the residence. More media trucks were on their way.

  His father, Nick told the agent, didn’t live in Merriam, Kansas, anymore, but shared an apartment with someone in Westport.

  “Can you take me there?” the man said.