November 23-24, 1984: White Supremacists Flushed by FBI, Flee to Washington State

Gary Lee Yarborough. [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of the white supremacist group The Order (see August 1984 and After), Order member Gary Yarborough (see October 18, 1984), and a number of their fellow members have rented five houses in small rural communities near Mount Hood, east of Portland, Oregon, in which to hide from the FBI (see August 1984 and After). George Duey and several Order members moved on to the Puget Sound region, where they rented three secluded vacation homes on Smuggler’s Cove near Greenbank on Whidbey Island. On November 23, Mathews contacts Order associate Thomas Martinez and asks him to fly to Portland for a brief meeting. Mathews is unaware that Martinez is now an FBI informant (see October 1, 1984). Mathews and Yarborough meet Martinez at the Capri Hotel in Portland. The FBI had planned on following Mathews back to his new safe house after the meeting, but when they see Yarborough, the agents on site change the plan. The morning of November 24, the agents surround the hotel, waiting for the two fugitives to leave. Mathews leaves his room, spots the surveillance, shouts a warning to Yarborough, and flees across the parking lot. Mathews and an FBI agent exchange gunfire; the agent is wounded in the leg and Mathews suffers a minor wound to his right hand. Mathews manages to escape on foot. Yarborough attempts to flee through the bathroom window at the end of the building, but falls into a tangle of bushes and is captured. The agents secure Mathews’s car, which contains a number of weapons (including a silenced MAC-10 submachine gun and a hand grenade), $30,000 in cash from a recent Order robbery (see July 19, 1984), and documents, including rental agreements for the Mount Hood homes and a book of encoded names and phone numbers. Mathews hitches rides to his Mount Hood hideout, telling anyone who asks that he hurt his hand while working on his car. He tells his followers to leave the Mount Hood homes and flee to Whidbey Island. It is at a Whidbey Island house that Mathews will be killed during a standoff with the FBI (see December 8, 1984). [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]