WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Scott Roeder had $10 to his name. A financial affidavit for the Kansas City, Mo., man charged in the killing of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller shows a man with little money and checkered employment.
The 51-year-old Roeder was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder and aggravated assault in Sunday’s shooting death of Tiller. Roeder was required to sign a sworn affidavit to get a court-appointed attorney. In the document filed Tuesday, Roeder stated he had $10 in his bank account and no other property except his 1993 Ford Taurus. The affidavit says he made $1,100 a month working at Quicksilver Airport Delivery — his fourth job in six months. Rent and other monthly bills totaled nearly $470.
Roeder’s anti-abortion activism scrutinized
By LAURA BAUER and JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star
June 03, 2009When Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller stood trial in March, Scott Roeder was there in the courtroom. And after Tiller was acquitted on charges he had failed to properly justify late-term abortions, Roeder told a fellow activist that the whole process was a “sham.”
“He seemed to be passionate about that,” said Eugene Frye, a Kansas City area anti-abortion activist for the past three decades. “He felt justice had not been served.” Now, Roeder will face his own charges inside the same courthouse. Prosecutors say the 51-year-old Merriam man walked into Tiller’s church Sunday morning while the doctor was serving as an usher and shot him once in the face…
In the days since Roeder’s arrest, his family painted him as a kind man but someone who had suffered from mental illness. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger, and court records from a custody dispute in Pennsylvania state that he doesn’t take medication for it…
When he attended protests, “he was a little sheepish,” Frye said. “When he talked he had a quiet gentle speech about him. Never rude or boisterous. … I never heard one comment that would ever lead you to think he would do any type of violence at all”…
At the time of Roeder’s arrest Sunday afternoon along Interstate 35 in Johnson County, a television station captured the vehicle on video. There on the dashboard was a note that read “Cheryl” and “Op Rescue” with a phone number. Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue out of Wichita, said Tuesday that she has spoken to Roeder in the past, but she said he would initiate the contact. She said she hasn’t had any recent contact with him.
Sullenger served about two years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to bomb an abortion clinic in California in 1988. She has since renounced violent action. She said Roeder’s interest was in court hearings involving Tiller.
“He would call and say, ‘When does court start? When’s the next hearing?’ ” Sullenger said. “I was polite enough to give him the information. I had no reason not to. Who knew? Who knew, you know what I mean?”
Delusions are the cardinal symptom of Paranoid Schizophrenia. A delusion is a "fixed, false belief" – "fixed" meaning that the belief is impervious to reason or evidence. So, if an afflicted person believes a Dentist put a transmitter in his tooth while he was in Viet Nam, removing the tooth won’t help. "It’s in another tooth," he’ll say [an actual example]. The delusional idea explains the patient’s internal paranoid fears, thus it transcends the idea itself. One would speculate that Scott Roeder saw Dr. Tiller as the cause of his internal discomfort. But the murder won’t change anything. The discomfort will persist.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.