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A Father Meets His
Nightmare As His Son Dies A Malevolent Death On A Strange Monolith
On The Desolately
Beautiful Oregon Coastline
By LIONEL ROLFE calclass@earthlink.net
http://www.pzaz.net/lionel/
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Cannon Beach, Oregon,
is a strangely desolate, coldly beautiful spot on the Oregon coast anchored
by Haystack Rock, a jagged monolith, one of the world's largest, that rises
300 feet above the angry Pacific Ocean. Fir covered mountains come right
down to the beach.
Haystack is
surrounded by a marine garden, a federally protected tide-pool, and is home
to many birds who nest there in summer, including the tufted -puffin. The
closest good-size city is Portland, 80 miles east on Highway 26. It's a
lonely road through forests, dotted only by a few places selling gas, food
and souvenirs.
There is also
something, how should we say it, very non-Jewish about the place, or at
least a place that Orthodox Jewish types would feel very uncomfortable in.
Oregonians are mostly rednecks, lumberjacks, with only a sprinkling of
progressive long haired types who inhabit a few of its larger cities.
Oregon is the kind of
place where the rednecks either go to church all the time or spend their
evenings making love to their neighbor's spouses, then seeking forgiveness
for their sins.
You will have to
forgive Mr. Zvi Finkelstein of Brooklyn if he looked a bit askance when he
went to Oregon to investigating what appeared to him to be a ritual Jew
killing -- his eldest son Steve, was found dead at the base of Haystack
Rock, Cannon Beach, on April 12, 1979, the year after William Pierce, an
Oregon physics professor, had published "The Turner Diaries," which
advocated ritualistic killing of Jews by the thousands.
Zvi's son Steve had
been in the Army Reserve, dealing with military intelligence, and he was
deeply involved with two members of his unit. Zvi was convinced that the two
killed his son, but the Army, however, steadfastly refused Finkelstein's
pleas for them to investigate his death.
The extent of Steve's
injuries were so severe, one of the paramedics at the scene got ill from the
sight of them.
After an extended
trip to the West Coast, and after the expenditure of thousands of dollars to
conduct an investigation of what happened in lieu of an official
investigation, he was of the opinion that Steve either was pushed from the
rock, or he was beaten to death at or near the rock, or murdered before
arriving at the rock and then his body was taken to the base of Haystack.
The fact that
authorities described it as nothing more than a rock-climbing accident
convinced him his son was the victim of a Jew-hating murder. Mountain
climbing accidents were a classic way that anti-Semites killed Jews in
Europe and South America. Further, it was a trademark of such killings that
the Jews were killed on Jewish holidays. Steve was killed on the eve of
Passover.
The great advantage
of killing Jews in this way is that they are almost impossible to disprove.
Where other people
might say, oh such dark things could never appear in the good old USA, Zvi
was starting to discover that heartland places like Oregon are not like Los
Angeles or New York, places where overt anti-Semitism would be most
unexpected.
The great dark side
of America's homeland can be found in abundance in Oregon. Of course, not
all Christians are anti-Semites. But there is a very pronounced element in
the nativist Christianity as practiced in parts of the area that is very
disturbing.
Do not be surprised
if you are as likely to meet "good Christians" in the bars as in the
churches, especially in the small towns. Like portions of Northern
California, such as Mt. Shasta, an active volcano right on the border of
Oregon, and Birney where Posse Comitatus was born, there are small but well
organized gangs of fascists who with neo-Nazi theologies. To the east of
Oregon is Idaho, another place where you will find similar manifestations.
Colorado is another
place where small mountain towns are often run by mayors and councilmen and
justices of the peace who are also members of the Klan.
It is not so
unreasonable to presume that a Jew could meet met a horrible accident in the
region on the first evening of Passover.
The practice of
Christianity in whose dark heart Nazism beats goes by the name "Christian
Identity." They consider themselves "good Christians."
North from Mt. Shasta
is a whole line of volcanoes that make up the spine of the Cascades
mountains, an almost lunar, deserty landscape that is home to many harsh
people. Most Oregonians live between the mountain range and the coast.
Posse Comitatus was
formed by a former Army General, an aide to General McCarthur, named William
Gale -- who may or may not have had a hand in the assassination of Robert
Kennedy back in 1968.
No, it would not be
surprising if Zvi of Brooklyn found Oregon a bit unnerving.
Oregon is the home of
the Volksfront and the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group, with
ties to The Order, the Aryan gang that killed a controversial Jewish disc
jockey in Idaho -- the next state east of Oregon -- in an effort to start a
race war.
One can dismiss such
groups as nothing but kooks and the like. But unfortunately, some of them
have strong links with retired military and police groups, which means they
have access and means to being methodically violent. You'd be wrong to
dismiss the existence of such people.
Actor Mel Gibson, who
made a movie based on the Passion Plays of Europe in the 1300s which were
historically prominent as a means of spreading anti-Semitism, has shown that
Jew hatred is still not so rare in the United States as is officially
maintained.
More serious than
Gibson, which is admittedly very disturbing, this year the New York Times
reported that the "Turner Diaries" were the bible of an increasing number of
soldiers in George Bush’s Iraq Army who were infiltrating the Army by the
thousands. The newspaper reported that a significant number of neo-Nazis and
skinhead extremists were joining the fight in Iraq in order to train for the
coming big race war in the United States.
According to the
paper, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups and the
like, said the numbers involved could run into the several thousands.
“We’ve got Aryan
Nations graffiti in Baghdad,” a defense department investigator said.
“That is a problem,”
he added.
According to the
Times, neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William
Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," were behind much of which was going on.
The "Diaries" were
the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma
City federal building. He was trying to train future recruits of the coming
race war.
Part of the reason
this was occurring, the newspaper said, is that the Army is having
increasing difficulty in recruiting because of the growing In the article,
Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, is quoted as saying,
"Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join
the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even
after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members.”
Probably the best
known instance of this, even before the Iraq War, was Timothy McVeigh, a
good soldier in Pierce's apocalyptical race war. He recruited at least two
fellow soldiers in his bombing plot.
Barfield, based in
Fort Lewis, Washington, said he has evidence of 320 extremists who have
joined in the past year, only two of whom ever got discharged.
The believers in
"Turner’s Diaries" take as revealed word, with all their hearts, that there
will be a coming race war. They want to help propel that race war forward
and see that their kind prevails over the Jews, the Mexicans, the blacks,
the Asians, who are polluting their gene pool. They particularly want their
soldiers schooled in light infantry units, such as those now in Baghdad.
House-to-house battle is exactly what they want experience in.
Neighborhood-by-neighborhood ethnic cleansing is great sport.
Their strange ancient
hatred of Jews is some kind of primeval thing, proudly connected to the
murder and genocide advocated by Pierce and his ilk.
The book has some odd
parallels with Jack London’s "The Iron Heel," which also predicts a war, a
revolution in the future. The difference is Jack London was a socialist, and
he saw the revolution coming which issues in socialism.
Ironically, London
himself was a contradiction in terms of what he was. He used to sign all his
letters, “Your’s for the Revolution.” But he also was much influenced by
Frederich Nietsche and others of the social darwinists. He was, frankly, a
racist. He wanted socialism, but for the white man only. He was even
something of a colonialist.
There were other
differences between London and Pierce. Pierce is a fairly mediocre writer,
possessed by ideological passion. London also had ideological passion, but
he also was one of the greatest writers of all times.
But Pierce is
speaking the language of Adolph Hitler to a new generation -- and it speaks
intensely to people like McVeigh, and perhaps a couple of characters you
will meet in this journey.
If you think we’re
overstating the case, rest assured this is not the case.
William Pierce,
founder of the National Alliance, the wealthiest and most powerful of the
neo-nazi groups, was a former physics professor at Oregon State University.
He died in 2002, leaving as his great contribution to the next Reich, "The
Turner Diaries," a wet dream of a tale of a man who is seeking an
apocalyptical race war.
The National Alliance
had strong connections with the Populist Party of Georgia. In 1900, Pierce
had sponsored his good friend John Tyndall, longtime head of the neo-fascist
British National Party, on a speaking tour to Georgia, where he spoke in
front of the Populist Party.
The Populist Party
was an old historic Georgia institution. It was started by Tom Watson, one
of the great demagogues of Southern history, which produced its share of
them, from Huey Long to Gerald K. Smith.
Watson’s party,
started early in Reconstruction after the Civil War, was originally a
coalition of ex-slaves and poor whites. Just as the Populist Party was
becoming a major force in Georgian politics, Watson suddenly switched, and
became a purveyor of racism, destroying the movement he had personally
created.
No less a person than
former President Jimmy Carter was fascinated by Watson’s career, and studied
it.
One of the
contemporary leaders of the Populist Party was a figure named James
Yarbrough. Yarbrough will figure in this story in a short bit.
Given the ideologies
and personalities involved, you will see why Zvi’s son Steve may well have
been a victim of a Jew Killing Ritual in 1979 on the Oregon coast.
It was on a windy,
rainy day that April during which hail and sleet had lashed at the rock.
Winds were gusting at 50 mph. Sometime between 5 and 6 p.m. Zvi’s
22-year-old son was found dead at the bottom of the rock. According to
Randall Lamar Mills, with whom he had allegedly climbed the sheer south side
of the rock, Mills dragged him to the shore from about five feet of water he
had fallen into.
It was a couple of
hours short of high tide, which was about 7.6 feet deep. Low tide, which had
occurred at 1:38 p.m., was 1.4 feet. Somehow, Steve had supposedly fallen 60
feet.
The first Cannon
Beach officer on the scene said that Mills smelled of alcohol and was “quite
visibly shaken.” The first paramedic said that Steve’s body was so mangled,
it was hard even for him, a seasoned paramedic, to look at it.
He immediately took
Mills word at face value that both of them had decided to climb the rock.
Mills said he was the first one to decide to stop climbing because it was
cold and slippery and the wind was blowing hard.
Mills said he told
Steve to turn around, but Steve replied, “In a minute. I want to go higher.”
He said Steve was about 10 feet above him when he tried to turn around. Then
he heard Steve cry out, and he looked up just in time to see Steve fall 60
feet down Haystack Rock.
Authorities all
conceded that there were no other witnesses to the accident and Steve and
Mills were the only two persons present.
Mills said that
the pair had stopped at a tavern in Cannon Beach, adding he didn't remember
the name of the tavern. They each consumed seven beers. They then drove five
miles to the rock and decided to climb it. About half way up, Mills said he
told Steve it was too dangerous to continue.
Mills said he "got
Steve's body and laid him on the rocks at the base of Haystack Rock. I knew
he was dead."
He said he ran to a
cottage near the beach and borrowed a phone for an ambulance. Then he
grabbed an blanket and in two minutes an ambulance was there.
"I told Officer Groh
that I would like to leave the beach area. I gave him my home address and we
drove up the beach but a block my exit," he said. The officer gave him a
cigarette. He then wrote down his phone number -- it was at Sears Hall,
USAR Center, c/o Van Halder, who receives messages for me as I do not have a
home telephone."
It was the same Van
Halder who Steve's father came to believe was in league with Mills to commit
the Ritual Jew Killing.
There was never much
more than a cursory investigation in the beginning. The authorities on the
scene quickly gave their stamp of approval to the version of Steve’s death
as told by his climbing companion, Randall Lamar Mills.
Mills said Steve fell
from about 60 feet. The authorities never seriously considered the
possibility he was pushed off because there wasn’t enough room anywhere on
the treacherous south side of the rock for two people to be.
Zvi, however, was
never convinced of this. He knew his son well enough to know that he was
always if nothing else a practical man. Why would he have driven in blinding
rain to climb an impossible rock part way into the Pacific. He had never
been the outdoor type.
But these are
subtleties that the authorities in Oregon were not anxious to entertain.
Everyone but the
acting coroner was ready to take the surface impression and not proceed to
investigate further. Dr. Robert Wayne, however, was not so convinced.
Zvi spent a lot of
time find Dr. Robert Wayne, who had filled in for the regular medical
examiner when Steve was found dead at the base of Haystack Rock.
Wayne was the General
Practitioner in the community of Cannon Beach then. He was the person there
to deliver babies, perform surgeries, and other such duties. He was much
loved by the people of Cannon Beach, but he was -- as a Oregon state
detective later “uncovered” -- guilty of the apparent crime of being from
New York -- just like Zvi.
The detective felt
compelled to say Wayne not only was from New York “but of the Jewish
persuasion.” It was never clear why exactly he said this except by
implication in his official report.
Wayne’s greatest
reservations centered around Steve’s severed esophagus. Wayne was not
convinced that even a fall from Haystack Rock would have so severely severed
his esophagus.
Dr. Robert Wayne
wrote his report on April 19, 1979.
Steve and Mills had
arrived in Cannon Beach in a “green Ford pickup truck with unknown Oregon
license plates,” according to Detective John C. Wood of the Department of
State Police in Salem.
The pickup truck was
also something suspicious, in Zvi’s own personal investigation. Harold Van
Halder said that Miller owned the truck, which Wood took at face value. But
Zvi hired a detective to find out if this was actually the case. It wasn’t.
The only vehicle Mills had ever owned while in Oregon was a Honda
motorcycle.
The motorcycle was
endorsed to Randall Mills on December 4, 1958. The registration had then
been suspended and then updated on May 9, 1978. In those days Mills had an
address of 3323 S.W. Multnomah Boulevard in Portland.
Zvi smelled a rat. A
better answer to the mysterious pickup was that it had probably been
military, since green was a military color. It also had “unknown Oregon
plates,” according to local police. Zvi figured that it would have been easy
for Van Halder, who worked as a supply sergeant, to get one for Mills to
drive. Although neither Mills or Van Halder had authority to use the truck
for a jaunt to kill a Jew on a rock in the Pacific Ocean, it wouldn’t have
been hard to arrange it.
Unfortunately, or
conveniently, Zvi learned official records of military vehicles are not kept
for very long.
Zvi came out to
Oregon and then California to investigate what had happened. He had a
letter from Van Halder that on the face of it was sympathetic to Zvi about
the loss of his son. But underneath the prose were some nasty remarks, and
giveaways of his basic hostility to Steve. And when Zvi pressed him, Van
Halder turned nasty and threatening.
Zvi gathered a lot of
stuff, hired a high-powered attorney, Dan E. Neal of Eugene, and good
investigators in Oregon and Georgia (Mills ended up returning to Georgia,
and adopting the name of his hero, James Yarbrough,, of the Populist Party).
But almost no one
official would investigate. Well, almost no one. The district attorney of
Clatsop County asked for an investigation, and John C. Wood of the Oregon
State Police ran a strange and curious investigation that seemed to raise
more questions than it answered. It was filed with the Grand Jury, but to
this date, promises have been made to release the Grand Jury’s actions -- or
lack of actions -- but authorities have never sent anything.
Perhaps he mentioned
that Wayne was from New York and “of the Jewish persuasion” because that
might explain why he doubted the official version of Steve’s death.
Needless to say, Wood
went and talked to Van Halder, and never made an attempt to find Mills in
Georgia. He accepted everything Van Halder said at face value, refusing to
question anything he said.
He quickly concluded
that there was no reason to suspect anti-Semitism was a possible motive,
thus there was no reason to investigate Mills and his associate, Van Halder.
Wood did quote one of
Mill’s military commanders, Jon Weck, who recalled that Mills “was a
rebellious type of person who appeared to resent authority and military
discipline.”
In Wood’s point of
view, there was no reason to investigate the two men Zvi regarded as
suspects in the death of his son. He saw no point in doing so.
Wood explained his
conclusions this way.
“It is felt by the
father of the victim that the death was the result of a hate crime based on
the ‘powerful anti-Semitic beliefs” of Mills. This is based on the fact that
Zvi was advised by a person or persons, not identified, that Mills was known
to articulate anti-Semitic comments, and that Mills later moved to southern
Georgia, an area known as "a hot bed of racism and anti-Semitism."
“I found no reference
in the correspondence by Van Halder, nor in my conversation with Weck, that
attributed any anti-Semitic activity or comments to Mills,” Wood writes. It
wasn’t clear if he had even bothered to ask directly about any anti-Semitic
comments.
Wood offered his
opinion: “the fact that Mills later moved to Georgia, and has been seen, 13
years after the incident, in a drinking establishment where the KKK
constitute a segment of the clientele, has little bearing on the atmosphere
at the time of the incident. Mills may or may not have anti-Semitic beliefs
at this time, however, it cannot be proven what his beliefs were in 1979.”
He also denied there
had ever been a coverup, as Zvi alleged.
He saw no reason to
look at the matter even further. So what, if Mills and Van Halder were good
old boys who sometime “played” a little tough.
“I conducted as much
additional investigation as possible, given the amount of time that has
lapsed since the incident,” he concluded.
He ended up saying
that “the information contained in this report will be submitted to the
Clatsop County Grand Jury for consideration. The results of which will be
forwarded to Mr. Neal (Zvi’s attorney in Eugene, Oregon), with a copy of the
report and the photographs.”
They never went sent
to Neal.
Wood did document
that Wayne had clearly stated that he did not believe the esophagus could
have been severed in such a manner as it was at Haystack Rock.
It seemed quite odd
that Wood utterly dismissed the notion of talking to Mills and Van Halder.
Wayne told Wood He
told Wood he wished that he had insisted on an autopsy. He said he did not
insist on an autopsy at the time because local authorities didn’t ask for
it. Had he anther chance, he told the detective, he would have done it
differently. For one, he would have ordered an autopsy. Budget constraints
were a factor in the reason he didn’t insist on one at the time, but more
importantly, an autopsy was never performed unless authorities called for
one. But police and paramedics at the scene just accepted the version of
Steve's death as fact. Mills was the only known witness.
Zvi talked to Wayne
later at his office in Cannon Beach. It took him several trips to meet
Wayne. At that point, the doctor told Zvi that Steve’s injuries could have
been caused by anything -- including beatings and murder. He wrote his
report at the time saying that Steven had fallen, because that’s what
authorities told him to write. He admits he was not experienced in the
administrative aspects of acting as a coroner then. Wayne told Zvi that if
there ever was an official investigation, he would certainly tell what he
knew.?
The doctor was
bothered by some of the case’s inconsistencies. Mills claimed that he and
Steve had stopped and consumed about seven beers at a tavern on the way to
the beach. Wayne, however, had indicated in his original report that no
medications or alcohol was immediately detectible. Wayne told Wood he wished
he had ordered an alcohol test as well as an autopsy.
Wood wrote his report
for the Department of State Police in Salem, Oregon, on Oct. 13, 1993 --
some years after Steve’s death. It was then turned over to the Grand Jury,
but despite repeated promises, Oregon never revealed what had the Grand
Jury, if anything. The results of the Grand Jury’s action remains secret to
this day.
One of the many
curious things about the case -- there may have been pictures taken but
never found. Wood said that on June of 1993, he tired to see if photos were
available of the death.
The then police chief
told him that old files had been moved into the attic, and that the file was
not where it was supposed to be. The chief offered to have a hand search
made of the boxes of stored reports if necessary. But Wayne decided it
wasn’t necessary, since he had a copy of the written documents and so did
Zvi.
Wood saw no
indication of a coverup. “I had no concern that the misplaced files in any
way indicated a form of coverup,” he said.
Wood talked to Wayne
at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria, where he was on staff. He again
repeated that he wished he had ordered an autopsy, because toxicology is a
standard part of any autopsy.
Again, it should be
noted, Wood was cryptic in his wording in the report. “It should be noted,
in light of the allegation of a possible coverup of the incident,” Wood
wrote, “that Dr. Wayne is also of the Jewish persuasion, and is from New
York.”
Zvi had another
reason to distrust Wood. Wood threatened Zvi if he insisted on wanting the
investigation to continue.
Zvi did not stop, of
course. He asked for a military investigation, but that request was denied.
Congressmen and others wrote letters favoring his position. They were trying
to to get a full-scale federal investigation, but one was never pursued.
Zvi felt that at
least the two men he suspected in the death of his son should be examined.
When he first got to
Cannon Beach, he looked up Sam Foster, who had been the correspondent for
The Oregonian for many years. Foster told Zvi he had never known of anyone
to climb the rock's south face.
In Foster’s view,
there were two possibilities. ”Either
Steve was murdered at Haystack or somewhere else and brought there,” Foster
said.
*
Steve was wearing
cowboy boots with slick soles, exactly the thing he should not have been
wearing to climb a mountain. Zvi knew his son, knew he would never have
attempted to climb Haystack Rock without the correct equipment.
Zvi remembered when
he took his son for a pony ride in New York and he imagined he was a cowboy.
He also wore his father’s cowboy hat.
When he was a little
older, his son had gone off to school on a farm settlement near Haifa, and
loved helping out with the chickens and cows. Steve remained an Israeli even
when he lived in Norway and was a champion swimmer for his class. Next,
Steve learned how to ski and he and his brother spoke Norwegian.
The cowboy boots had
been a true love of his for many years.
But Zvi also knew his
son was a practical fellow as well. He was also not a particularly outdoors
kind of man. He would not have tried to climb a dangerous rock in the middle
of a hard, driving, freezing rain in cowboy boots with slick soles on them.
Zvi had made his
living as a chemist, but his son was still searching for what he would be.
Steve had tried several academic programs, but he kept coming back to the
fact that language and writing were his true love.
“He was attracted to
writing and felt that struggling alone with his thoughts and fantasies and
ending up with an interesting story was what he most wanted to do,” Zvi
said.
Steve was also a
realist. So he took a minor in education, and had held several jobs since he
was in grade school. Just before he died, he had been working in the auto
and tire repair section of Montgomery Ward.
But he also had lived
in several countries, and had his own experiences and observations. He felt
he had earned the right to write. He intended to do both.
He was on leave from
Temple University in Philadelphia, having just completed three months active
reserve training by the time he arrived in Portland.
Part of the puzzle of
Steve’s death was Sharon, the pretty young woman who was some sort of
girlfriend of his. She was also tied to Mills. Zvi met with her and spent at
least a couple of hours talking to her after Steve’s death. She gave him a
picture of herself and Steve looking very loving. She said she decided to
get out of the relationship when she had come to realize Steve was too
serious for her and she was afraid of having a relationship with him because
she was too young for him.
At first, Zvi bought
this. But not after he thought about it more.
Zvi
had a long lunch in a
Portland restaurant about a year after Steve’s death. Sharon, her mother
Lola Marsal, and one of Sharon’s sisters, were there.
At that luncheon he
learned that Lola had yet another daughter, who was slightly retarded. She
had been beaten to death a few months after Steve's death. Zvi asked her if
she thought Mills might have been involved.
She adamantly said
no.
But the other sister
at the table was not so sure. She said she had seen Mills the night of
Steve's death, looking “glassy eyed,” as if he were on drugs, and acting
very strangely.
This sister then
looked directly at Sharon, and asked her if she hadn't gone back to Mill’s
place to get her clothes.
It was a pointed
reference. Sharon and Lola were conspicuous in their silence, even though
the other sister repeated the question, looking directly at Zvi.
This sister then said
outright that she was of the opinion that she wouldn’t trust Mills or Sharon
and gave Zvi her phone number. Later when he tried to call her, however,
they were gone. All their phones had been disconnected. Sharon supposedly
went to California and was never heard from again.
Mill drove back from
Cannon Beach to Portland that day, and then without telling anyone where he
was going, disappeared. He gave Van Halder’s address at the base to receive
mail at.
Steve’s next stop
after Portland, where he was ending his three months active reserve, was
going back to school at Temple University in Philadelphia.
He had been Mills
roommate in a garden apartment for about two weeks. Among his possessions
when he died was a receipt, showing that Mills owed him $50 on April 12.
April 12 was the day he died. Steve’s body was shipped back to his father
for burial in Montefiore Cemetery near Philadelphia.
Years later --
in January, 1993, to be precise -- Zvi learned what had apparently happened
to Mills.
He got a letter
from Laurie Wood of Klan Watch, a project of the Southern Poverty Law
Center. She sent him an article in the May 23, 1991 edition of the Carolina
Pacemaker, a black paper.
The story tells of a
meeting of leaders in the far-right movement. Jim Yarbrough is identified
and our database links this article to a file on James H. of Gainesville,
Ga."
He was a popular
speaker at various KKK, skinhead, Populist, neo-Nazi, Aryan Resistance. and
other such events.
This is important to
note because Mills was apparently enamored of Yarbrough, so much so he tried
to change his name to that of his hero.
Zvi’s attorney,
meanwhile, told his client that "a computer check that was done on Mills
listed an address in Valdosta, Georgia for him and it appears that he may
have changed his name two or three years ago to that of Yarbrough."
Yarbrough’s name corresponded with Mills’ address. Further, Michael R.
Olsen, a detective from Eugene, Oregon, said in 1993 the last known location
he could trace Mills to was Valdosta, Georgia, and then to Lake Park,
Georgia.
Zvi’s attorney said
that he needed to focus on Mills, who the one commander had dismissed as a
“rebellious type” of person he “would not turn his back on.”
Zvi hired another
investigator who learned that Mills frequented a bar in Statenville,
Georgia, frequented by neo-Nazi types, deep in the land where they still
talk proudly about how the confederacy would rise again.
Mills moved often,
dodging the law for not paying child support and getting driving under the
influence citations and the like. Zvi’s investigator also came from the same
parts of South Georgia and north Florida where Mills hailed from. His name
was Rembrandt Moses.
Moses, who later
moved to Atlanta, found that Mills frequented two bars in particular in
Statenville, whose patrons were KKK and other neo-Nazi types.
To this day, the area
is rich with such “traditional values.” One local Web site that serves as
one of the area’s community newspapers has far more than the normal share of
people in community picnics and meetings dressed in KKK garb.
It all looks sort of
innocent -- like a quaint local custom among the natives. There are young
girls that look like any typical teen-agers having a good time.
This was Mills
hometown territory.
*
Van Halder is an
enigmatic part of the tale.
He seemed to know
many details of the case. He reported that Steve had completed his military
intelligence training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and was trained “in a
specialty very much needed by the unit.”
He said he introduced
Steve to Mills after Steve completed his active duty about the middle of
February.
They became fast
friends and roommates, Van Halder said. He said Mills and Sharon were the
only ones who knew Steve well during this period.
Zvi initially
contacted Van Halder’s commander to see if there were vehicle records that
might solve the case of the mysterious green pickup truck. The commander
said that “vehicle records from that time had undoubtedly been destroyed.”
Brigadier General, US
Air Force, Ronald L. Lowe, from the headquarters of the 351st Civil Affairs
Command in Mountain View, California, told Zvi that ”the case involving
your son, Steve, was entirely a civilian matter under the jurisdiction of
the Cannon Beach, Oregon, Police Department.”
“None of the
personnel you mention in your letter were serving in any military capacity
at the time. Mr. Van Halder’s only involvement seems to be that he knew both
your son and Sgt. Mills and that he assisted in gathering your son’s
belongings to be returned to you,” Lowe wrote Zvi.
“Your son was never
officially assigned to the 20th Psychological Operations Company and that
unit never had his personnel records. He did perform some duty with the unit
while pending assignment,” Lowe said. He said that Steve’s records should
have been forwarded to his old unit, the US Army Reserve Personnel Center in
St. Louis, Missouri.
By 1989, Van Halder
was a civilian employee of the 20th Psychological Operations Company, Lowe
said. He had no authority to require him to make a statement.
Despite his
protestations of being able to do nothing, Zvi quickly got a letter from Van
Halder shortly after writing Lowe. Van Halder began complimenting Steve on
his “professionalism,” but before wasting too many words of praise, managed
to imply Steve was a hop head who had stolen a customer’s credit card to buy
his girlfriend things. He said that Steve had a police record as a result.
He also told Zvi that
“Mills was a good Christian citizen and why would he want to bring up the
case?”
When Zvi contacted
Van Halder by phone, all the niceties were gone. He got threatening -- just
like Wood had gotten threatening when Zvi pushed him too much.
In his letter, Van
Halder said that Steve and Mills “were close and good roommates.” He
continued, “Mills was a Christian, so I’m sure they discussed spiritual
things.” He said that Mills gave Steve lots of rides in his pickup truck to
preclude Steve from having to use the city buses to get to work.
He eluded to Steve
having ”some personal problems shortly before his death. This was due to his
arrest for using a customers credit card at JC Penny's to purchase items for
his girlfriend.”
Van Halder also said
Sharon “apparently ran away from home about three days prior” to Steve’s
death. Furthermore, says Van Halder, Mills told him that when he packed
Steve’s personal things to send back to Zvi, he was “surprised to see items
in Steve’s things that are used to smoke dope.”
Zvi investigated the
credit card charge and found that the case had been dismissed before Steve’s
death because Steve hadn’t committed any offense.
Zvi’s attorney wrote
that Steve had initially accepted some responsibility to protect his
girlfriend, Sharon Ellenberg, who was guilty of processing and using a phony
credit card.”
Van Halder claimed
that Steve stole a customer’s credit card. “I believe what happened, a
customer forgot his charge card after Steve sold him merchandise. Steve then
used it to charge things for his girlfriend and he was arrested.” Van Halder
said Sharon’s mother paid Steve’s bail.
Did Steve Finkelstein
just fall in with some bad company, or was this perhaps a far more sinister
case -- a young man being set up for a Ritual Jew Killing?
Rabbi Marvin Hier,
dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote the United States Attorney’s
Office a letter twice, the last time in 1987. “Stephen’s father is still not
able to be at peace with his son’s tragic death and we, therefore, ask once
again for your office to look into the circumstances surround the accident,”
he said.
In 1995, the FBI
acknowledged in 1993 that “Assistant United States Attorney Stephen F.
Peifer had reviewed the information in this matter and discussed with the
the Civil Rights Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington,
D.C.”
No civil rights
charges could be made because “this matter is outside the statue of
limitations for civil rights matters ... with the incident having occurred
over 14 years prior.” Peifer also told the FBI it had no basis for an
investigation.
So far, this is a
story with no end, no completion, no justice, at least as far as Zvi
Finkelstein is concerned.
*
Lionel Rolfe was the
editor of the B’nai Brith Messenger, Los Angeles’ pioneer Jewish newspaper,
for 10 years. He works as a journalist and has written such books as "The
Uncommon Friendship of Yaltah Menuhin & Willa Cather," "Literary L.A.,"
"Bread and Hyacinths: The Rise and Fall of Utopian Los Angeles" and "Fat Man
on the Left."
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