May 27, 1984: White Supremacist Group Murders Colleague for Talking about Group’s Activities

Four members of the secretive white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), Randolph Duey, Richard Kemp, and new recruits David Charles Tate and James Dye, murder an Aryan Nations member, Walter Edwards West. Order founder Robert Jay Mathews ordered West’s murder after learning that West had been getting drunk in bars around Hayden Lake, Idaho—the location of the Aryan Nations’ compound—and bragging about The Order’s recent exploits (see April 19-23, 1984 and April 29, 1984). Duey and Kemp kidnap West from his home and drive him into the woods, where the four kill him with hammer blows to the head and a rifle shot to the face. They then dump his body into a previously prepared grave. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]