White supremacist James von Brunn was charged today for D.C.'s Holocaust Museum shooting and murder, and his former second wife suspects a deadly mix of heroic yearning and suicidal wishes could be behind it. In an interview with Fox News' Shepard Smith, the woman—who asked that her name not be used—likened Von Brunn to John Wayne's character in The Shootist, a movie about a gunman with cancer who, according to Von Brunn's ex-wife, "made sure he wasn't going to go lying down with cancer. So he went out and got shot." The woman was Von Brunn's second wife and was married to him for ten years. She said his growing and eventually "all-consuming" hatred for "Jewish people and black people" was a factor in their divorce. She said she believed Von Brunn's hateful beliefs began in New York when he worked for an ad agency. The woman claimed to have been unaware of his white supremacist website and that they never discussed his 1981 arrest for storming the Federal Reserve and attempting to take hostages. She explained that she "was in a state of shock when I came home and saw this on the news" and said she wanted to make a statement: "I am very, very... my condolences go out to the man who was killed. I can only say how sorry I am."
CHEAT SHEET
TOP 10 RIGHT NOW
- 1
- 2
- 4
- 5
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10