Accused killer raged against abortion

updated 7:25 p.m. ET June 1, 2009

WICHITA, Kan. - Scott Roeder harbored a burning, "eye-for-an-eye" anger toward abortion doctors. He once subscribed to a magazine suggesting "justifiable homicide" against them, and apparently likened Dr. George Tiller to the Nazi death-camp doctor Josef Mengele.

Roeder, 51, was in jail Monday on suspicion of murder, accused of shooting Tiller to death on Sunday as the doctor served as an usher at his Lutheran church in Wichita.

Police said it appears the gunman acted alone, and some anti-abortion groups moved quickly to distance themselves from the killing. Outside Tiller's clinic, the Kansas Coalition for Life placed signs saying members had prayed for Tiller's change of heart, "not his murder."

Roeder's ex-wife said his extreme anti-government beliefs contributed to the breakup of their marriage more than a decade ago. And Roeder's brother said he suffered from mental illness at various times in his life.

"However, none of us ever saw Scott as a person capable of or willing to take another person's life. Our deepest regrets, prayers and sympathy go out to the Tiller family during this terrible time," his brother, David, said in a statement to The Topeka Capital-Journal.

Roeder's family life began unraveling more than a decade ago when he got involved with anti-government groups, and then became "very religious in an Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye way," his former wife, Lindsey Roeder, told The Associated Press.

'Anti-tax stuff came first'
"The anti-tax stuff came first, and then it grew and grew. He became very anti-abortion," said Lindsey Roeder, who was married to Scott Roeder for 10 years but "strongly disagrees with his beliefs."

"That's all he cared about is anti-abortion. `The church is this. God is this.' Yadda yadda," she said.

Lindsey Roeder said that the early years of the marriage were good and that Scott Roeder worked in an envelope factory. But she said he moved out of their home after he became involved with the Freemen movement, an anti-government group that discouraged the paying of taxes. The Roeders have one son, now 22.

"When he moved out in 1994, I thought he was over the edge with that stuff," his ex-wife said. "He started falling apart. I had to protect myself and my son."

In 1996, Roeder (pronounced ROW-der) was arrested in Topeka after being stopped by sheriff's deputies because his car lacked a valid license plate. Instead, it bore a tag declaring him a "sovereign" and immune from state law. In the trunk, deputies found materials that could be assembled into a bomb.

He was convicted and sentenced to two years on probation and ordered to stop associating with violent anti-government groups. But the Kansas Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 1997, ruling that authorities seized evidence against Roeder during an illegal search of his car.

The appeals court ruling appeared to energize him, Lindsey Roeder said.

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