Sniper: The True Story of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp

by Jon Wells

  “Show me a counterargument, based on science, or faith, or something, anything,” he thought. “I’m from Missouri, so show me!”

  He had seen the mind of God in his research, felt a love and compassion he had never felt before for anyone or anything. He was connecting with the unborn child.

  In 1981 Jim’s sister Marty died of cancer at just 32 years old. Marty, attractive, rebellious against her father’s discipline had gone north to Oregon, “the commune scene,” as Jim called it, and never returned. First Mary, now Marty, had died from the disease. Jim felt powerless to stop the death of his sisters, just as he felt powerless facing another painful development in his family. His father had begun an affair with another woman.

  Jim completed his thesis in embryology and had an article published in the International Journal of Invertebrate Reproduction and Development. It was titled, “A Preliminary Ultrastructural Study of Phragmatopoma Gametes.” (“The mature sperm morphology most strongly resembles that of certain mussel sperm, with weaker resemblance to other polychaete and mollusk sperms…”) He had enveloped himself in a microscopic world, a separate dimension, studying the science of conception itself.

  In 1983, he graduated with his master’s degree in biology from Cal State Fullerton, with a 3.84 on a 4.0 scale—an “A” average. Biology backed up his conviction about the illegitimacy of abortion, from a clinical scientific perspective. But what to do about that? What action does one take, in a tangible way, but also spiritually?

  He traveled to L’Abri, Switzerland, lived at a study center founded by Protestant theologian Francis Schaeffer. He heard about the center from a friend who had spent time with Schaeffer and returned transformed by the experience. Schaeffer was an influential man leading something of a Christian revival movement. He was pro-life and encouraged activism, even civil disobedience, to oppose abortion. “At a certain point it is the duty of the Christian to disobey the government,” he had said in a speech in Fort Lauderdale in 1982.

  Jim took to quoting Schaeffer to others. “If you are a Christian,” Schaeffer had said, “then act like it.” Jim phoned his mother from Switzerland. He had an announcement to make. He had converted to Presbyterianism.

  A man named Michael Bray was also at L’Abri. Bray was the 30-year-old son of an American naval officer. He was a former Maryland state wrestling champ, champion diver and football player. Mike Bray had followed his father’s path, becoming a midshipman. But he dropped out of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, hit the road, traveled. Bray met and spoke with Jim in Switzerland. Years later, Bray declined to get too specific about how well they knew each other. Jim Kopp, he said, was simply a young man searching for truth and trying to walk in it.

  Bray had led a charmed life, but he felt a yearning to pursue something more enduring. He would become an American Lutheran lay minister, and later co-pastor of the independent Reformation Lutheran Church in Bowie, Maryland. He had long been pro-life. His search for spiritual fulfillment ultimately put dynamite in his hands.

  In 1985 Bray and two other men were charged with eight abortion clinic bombings in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. At the time of his arrest, Bray had publicly argued against violence. He even belonged to a chapter of the Pro-Life Non-Violent Action League.

  But Bray’s thinking, or at least the public expression of his thought, was changing, particularly regarding “use of force” in the abortion war. Thomas Aquinas set it out in his Summa Theologiae in the 14th century, defending violence for a defensive purpose: stopping an act of aggression in defense of oneself or another must be done with the moral certitude that great harm will be inflicted upon that individual if force is not used, and that the force will indeed stop it. And there was, in modern American law, something called “justifiable homicide,” or defensive killing. The state of Colorado even put a name to the type of vigilante-justice made famous in Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry movies. Colorado’s law of self-defense for victims of violent crime is called the “Make My Day” defense. That law means, for example, that an occupant of a dwelling is justified in using any degree of physical force against a person who has unlawfully entered the dwelling, “if the occupant reasonably believes that the intruder has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime in addition to the unlawful entry and also reasonably believes that the intruder might use any physical force against any occupant.”

  The logic, for some in the pro-life movement, was inescapable. If one starts from the notion that the unborn child is a life in bloom, then what of the attack by the doctor? What is the proper defensive response, given that the unborn baby is unable to respond? Bray was a dynamic speaker and became an influential voice for those gravitating to the fringe of the movement. Those who called themselves pro-life, but opposed “defensive action”—violence—in the abortion war, were, in Bray’s view, simply fearful of the truth, that there was no contradiction between a pro-life ethic and “supporting force.” He began working on a book that would outline his beliefs more completely. He called it A Time To Kill.

  * * *

  Jim Kopp worked in a mission in South America with the Wycliffe Bible Translators, and also in Africa. Back in California, he went to hear firsthand accounts from mothers who had fled from China, and who spoke of forced abortions in that country. It made perfect sense, a logical progression: free states sanction abortion, encourage it, then a totalitarian state forces it on its population. Jim was convinced he was the first westerner to hear from these women who were driven into hiding to have their babies, he was getting a unique perspective on all of it.

  He returned to the house on Via Lerida for dinners with his family, from whom he increasingly felt estranged. Chuck Kopp didn’t understand why his youngest son wasn’t using his masters’ degree to build a career in biology. Bible translation? Where was Jim going with that? On occasions when the family was together the conversation would sometimes venture into abortion. Arguing against abortion were Nancy, Jim and Anne, who were devout Christians. Chuck and Walt were in favor of a woman’s right to choose. Jim expected nothing less from Walt, certainly. As someone in the hospital administration business, he was by definition, to Jim, a member of the Abortion Industry. Eventually the issue was kept off the table. Abortion was, thought Jim with a grin, rather like the proverbial Ol’ Uncle Harry showing up for Christmas dinner: you let him go and get drunk on the porch, you just leave his drinking be, you don’t go there.

  There were larger problems than political issues threatening the family foundations. In the summer of 1981, Chuck, who was 59 years old, flew to Dallas for an insurance case trial. One August night, he attended a dinner party held for some of the principles. A legal secretary named Lynn Willhoite Hightower was there. She was 44, and four months removed from the divorce from her husband of 24 years. She saw Chuck Kopp walk in the door, and instantly wanted to learn more about him. Chuck had put on weight, was balding. But he had a presence.

  Lynn was five-foot-three, with short dark hair. Some would later tell her that she looked like a younger version of Nancy Kopp. She had a Texas accent, a funny, gregarious manner, and six kids. Both were feeling their age, getting a little plump, was how Lynn thought of it. Chuck was feeling old in his marriage, was ripe for a change. Lynn, younger, feisty, funny, was it. They talked and hit it off. Chuck loved to talk, about any subject, and Lynn could hold her own, too. The verdict in the insurance trial was appealed. The case kept Chuck returning to Dallas for work, and to Lynn. They phoned regularly, wrote letters. He told Lynn that he had been divorced from Nancy for several years. Nancy found one of the letters and learned about the affair, filed for divorce, changed her mind, filed again. Lynn confronted Chuck, he admitted to her that he lied because he knew he’d lose her if he didn’t.

  Some said Jim was unaware of his father’s affair and was shocked when it came to light. Jim claimed he knew exactly what was going on. Heck, his mother showed him the letters. It made him angry. Very
angry. He had a bone to pick with that woman. Always would. Everyone felt they knew the gentle, bookish, prayerful Jim Kopp. They didn’t see what burned inside, the red glare that could, when provoked, film over his eyes, turn his pronounced jaw to stone:

  Phone rings at Lynn Willhoite Hightower’s home in Texas. She picks up.

  “Hello?”

  “This is Jim Kopp speaking,” he said. “You stay the f—k away from my father.”

  Chapter 5 ~ Victim Soul

  Guadalajara, Mexico

  1979

  Bart Slepian neared completion of his medical degree from Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. He still had little cons on the go, even after ending his career as an arm-wrestling hustler. Maybe it was because, during his early life, Bart saw his dad scrape for every penny he made. Maybe it was a matter of necessity, given his own financial needs and those of his sister, Serena, in Nevada. Or maybe Bart Slepian simply liked the game, liked to challenge authority and figured there’s no harm being done. Whatever it was, Bart took to smuggling goods back and forth across the border. He drove what the guys had dubbed “the family car,” a boat of a Chevy, navy blue, his pride and joy, put a huge sound system in it. He’d buy items cheap in Mexico, lamps, home fixtures, sell them out of the trunk when he got to Reno.

  Bart’s instinct to never back down got him in trouble. One night he got into it with a group of teens. He came home from school and found a group of them in front of his driveway. He asked them to move, an argument started, one of the teens threw a rock through Bart’s window. The police got involved and Bart spent the night at the police station—along with buddy Rick Schwarz, who had been dragged into it since Rick spoke Spanish.

  Rick always said that Bart never started anything, but he would not walk away when he felt somebody was being unreasonable. Typically he would confront situations on his own, for better or worse. In that respect he admired the Israelis tremendously. Bart Slepian, like Rick, held great respect for the Jewish culture, but rarely set foot inside a synagogue. Bart admired the way the Israelis got things done in the face of the terrorist threat, speaking softly and carrying a very big stick.

  Rick, an unabashed liberal, disagreed with him on the Middle East, but Bart would never soften his view. “Israel,” he told Rick, “doesn’t sit around wringing its hands.

  They take care of things.”

  “Bart—”

  “You might not like how they take care of it, but they take care of it, end of story.”

  “But—”

  “No sitting around, ‘woe is us.’ They do something.” Bart voted Republican, while Rick, a proud liberal, voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976.

  “That’s not principled, Rick,” Bart cracked, “that’s plain stupid voting for that dopey peanut farmer.”

  In 1979, Bart left Mexico and returned to New York State to complete his fifth year of meds. It was called the Fifth Pathway system to becoming a doctor. It was for Americans who had completed medical school abroad. They had to spend a year working in the States under supervision, something between a fourth-year medical student and intern. If you did OK, you could take the licensing exam, which Bart did, and passed, qualifying him for a normal internship and residency. He applied to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. During his residency in 1979, he met a nurse at Buffalo General Hospital named Lynne Breitbart. At the time, he was doing what he could to get by, did physicals at the hospital for five dollars an hour. She was 23 years old, ten years Bart’s junior. They soon got married.

  Bart Slepian had no burning desire to deliver babies or help women. But he had solid technical skills, was good with his hands. He wanted to get a mix of surgery and general medicine. With the 1980s dawning, a conservative Republican and staunch ally of Israel, Ronald Reagan, soundly beat the liberal peanut farmer for the presidency. And Bart Slepian was, finally, a doctor. He was 34 years old and an OB, never mind the setbacks and the people who said he couldn’t do it.

  * * *

  For the pro-life movement, the 1980s promised an era of revolutionary change. Ronald Reagan was a hero to conservatives who opposed abortion. “Regrettably,” Reagan said, “we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value. We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life—the unborn—without diminishing the value of all human life.”

  At the same time, the pro-life rescue movement interfering with abortion services at women’s health clinics grew. The rescues had several elements to them: picket signs and chanting, but also “sidewalk counseling.” That meant cornering a patient outside the clinic, lobbying the woman to reconsider her choice. Activists felt that one in five prospective patients would not make it to a subsequent appointment if deterred from attending her first appointment to abort. Other times, pro-lifers blockaded the entrance. Police got involved.

  Others took the violence up several notches. On August 12, 1982, an Illinois doctor and his wife were kidnapped by three pro-life radicals and held at gunpoint for eight days. The trio, headed by Don Benny Anderson, claimed to be with a group called The Army of God. In 1984, clinics were being targeted more frequently for firebombs, arson, vandalism. There were 18 incidents in all, a couple of dozen death threats called in. Three men went to jail: Thomas Spinks, Kenneth Shields, and Michael Bray—the man who had met Jim Kopp in Switzerland. The bombings illustrated the double-edged sword of abortion procedures being confined to clinics instead of hospitals. Clinics offered women preferred service, argued pro-choice advocates, but also, in contrast to hospitals, they became visible symbols in the war—“abortuaries” and “mills” where the babies were slaughtered, in the minds of radical pro-lifers. That same year, 1984, Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun, who had written the opinion on Roe v. Wade, received a death threat in the mail. It was signed The Army of God.

  * * *

  Daly City, California

  Spring 1984

  He drove to south San Francisco, towards the airport. Daly City was in the industrial end of the city, an entirely different world from Jim Kopp’s old Marin County neighborhood, far from the beauty of the waterfront, the Golden Gate Bridge, the sea lions in the harbor. Daly City sat in a valley, populated mostly by workingclass people, many of them immigrants. On April 3, 1984, Jim was arrested at a protest at a clinic there, charged with trespassing, and also battery.

  Battery?

  In California battery is a misdemeanor, like assault, petty theft, and public drunkenness, and therefore less serious than a felony crime, like sexual offenses and drug and property violations. But battery is a violent offense: deliberately causing physical harm to another person through physical acts.

  Peaceful, prayerful Jim Kopp?

  Perhaps he was merely sitting there cross-legged, reciting verse, and, when he was carried away, he resisted. Or maybe he felt a current running through him, physical, angry, one that inspired more potent action than peaceful resistance. Most everyone who met Jim was struck by what they considered his soulful, gentle nature: the boyish grin, the soft voice. Jim knew his friends felt he was incapable of violence. He also knew they were mistaken. Those who caught him in moments of candor, who looked square into his eyes, waited long enough for his self-effacing “who me?” routine to pass, could see flashes of the intensity and seriousness of purpose that went well beyond that of a conscientious objector.

  Jim continued to read voraciously, and fell in love with a book called Story of a Soul, the autobiography of Saint Thérèse d’Lisieux, a woman who entered a convent at the age of 15 and died in obscurity at age 24. “At last I have found my calling,” she wrote in her journals. “My calling is love.” The core of her spiritual message was the “little way,” that any act, no matter how trivial, is infinitely valuable if done out of love. He studied the history of birth control, sterilization law. He started drawing connections between the Holocaust and abortion. It was all becoming so clear to him. Everything happens for a reason, and every ev
ent influences another.

  Through the fall of 1984 he attended protests outside abortion clinics in the Bay Area. In September Jim was arrested for trespassing and battery. A month later, the same thing. Early December, assault with a deadly weapon. He relished the courtroom atmosphere. The strategy, the use of language, nuance. He knew how to play the game. Down the road, he would offer advice to other pro-lifers on how to navigate the judicial system. He was, he frequently reminded others, a lawyer’s son. In the fall of 1984, he formally received his master’s degree from Cal State Fullerton. He founded a group in San Francisco called the Lourdes Foundation, which opened a “Free Pregnancy Center,” and named himself its president. Jim billed it as a birth control referral and information center. The center gave pregnancy tests, educated women on the dangers of abortion and assisted pregnant women. It also showed graphic photos of aborted fetuses to patients, who were then also referred to doctors who opposed abortion.

  On Good Friday, 1985, he marched in a pro-life procession that went nine miles from St. Martin Church in San Jose to Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara. Then he drove to south San Francisco to Juvenile Hall detention center. Officials only knew that this pleasant, bookish man was president of the Lourdes Foundation. They learned later, to their horror, that he was an anti-abortion radical—but not before he had an opportunity to take the stage before a group of female inmates and present his pro-life stump speech. Here was Jim, the missionary bestowing wisdom, saving women from so much pain that they did not understand—they had been brainwashed by the media, the liberal culture, the feminists. The young women were, he said, mostly young prostitutes, and three of them were pregnant. You do not have to get an abortion, he told them. You do not. God bless.

  * * *

  For some time, Jim had considered converting to Catholicism, perhaps even pursuing the priesthood. One day he hopped in his car and drove south down the coast, Highway 1, past windswept beaches, Monterey, Carmel. Four hours later he was negotiating cliffs along the coastline known as Big Sur. He gained elevation, where the water is metallic against the sun, its texture dimpled by the wind. Then off the highway along a dirt road, steeper still, straight up, a harrowing ride, he had never experienced anything like it. Finally, at the top, he found the humble monastery called New Camaldoli Hermitage.