Soldiers at Georgia Army Base Charged in Deadly Antigovernment Plot
The plot that authorities say developed on an Army base in Georgia this year might have been taken as a joke had not the conspirators allegedly murdered a young couple they feared might talk and acquired an $87,000 cache of weapons. At least 10 people are implicated in a group that appears motivated by far-right ideology.
The delusional but deadly plot to overthrow the United States government started out as 鈥渏ust guy stuff,鈥 as one of the accused conspirators recently described it in court: an all-American band of brothers from the Fort Stewart Army base getting their kicks by harmlessly shooting off guns under the stars in the Georgia woods.
But soon they were buying and stockpiling more and bigger weapons. Soon they were talking about using them to wage a second American Revolution. Soon they were in way over their heads, when, faster than it takes to pull a trigger, everything fell apart in a spasm of betrayal and blood.
A couple of weeks before Christmas 2011, two young lovers 鈥 Michael Roark, 19, a recently discharged soldier who had served at Fort Stewart, and his girlfriend, Tiffany York, 17, a high school junior and photographer on the school yearbook 鈥 were lured to the woods with the promise of starlight shooting.
There, around midnight on Dec. 5, they were each shot twice in the head in an attempt by the group, prosecutors charge, to eliminate a 鈥渓oose end鈥 and keep the plot secret.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how it got to the point where two people got murdered,鈥 Pfc. Michael Burnett told a Georgia courtroom in late August, confessing his role in the killings in a plea agreement to testify against his former comrades and avoid the death penalty.
鈥淪ay that again,鈥 the judge demanded, as if he could not quite believe the plans for domestic terrorism he was hearing from the mouth of an active-duty American soldier.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how it got to the point where two people got murdered,鈥 Burnett repeated.
Indeed, if not for the killings, the funerals, the devastated families and the $87,000 worth of military-grade weapons and explosives stockpiled by the group, the scheme would be laughable. Even the group鈥檚 name spoke of grandiose aspirations 鈥 Forever Enduring Always Ready, FEAR for short.
鈥淪o you talked about revolution?鈥 the judge asked Burnett.
鈥淵eah,鈥 he said, 鈥減atriotism.鈥
A prosecutor described the group as a militia of 鈥渁narchists,鈥 a charge that sparked headlines around the country. But there appears to be little evidence, beyond a tattoo several members wore that reportedly resembles an anarchist symbol, that FEAR members were believers in a stateless society. 鈥淭he United States military is many things, but a haven for an anarchist cell it is not,鈥 said Daniel Levitas, author of The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right.
Mark Pitcavage of the anti-racist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) also expressed doubt that FEAR was made up of antigovernment leftists. 鈥淎narchist militia is an oxymoron,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very common for prosecutors and police to mischaracterize or very loosely characterize extremist groups. They don鈥檛 know the ideologies or the differences.鈥 He said the ADL had researched FEAR in recent weeks and 鈥渨e found nothing to suggest ties to anarchists.鈥欌
鈥淎ll signs that we found pointed to them being conservative, not extremist,鈥 Pitcavage said. 鈥淚f they did become extremists it was a sort of right-wing variety.鈥 Or as one alleged member of FEAR, Timothy Joiner, 21, told The Associated Press, 鈥淚鈥檓 a proud Republican.鈥
As the Southern Poverty Law Center (人兽性交) reported earlier this year, the antigovernment 鈥淧atriot鈥 movement has experienced a resurgence, growing explosively since 2008, when President Obama was elected to office. In 2012, the 人兽性交 identified 1,274 antigovernment Patriot groups that were active the prior year. Of these groups, 334 were militias and the remainder included 鈥渃ommon-law鈥 courts, publishers, ministers and citizens鈥 groups. At the same time, domestic terror plots have multiplied.
FEAR and Loathing in Georgia
FEAR鈥檚 grand plan, according to state prosecutors, called for a sort of military coup that included taking over Fort Stewart, home of the 3rd Infantry Divison; poisoning the apple orchards of Washington state; blowing up a fountain in Savannah, Ga.; and someday assassinating the president of the United States 鈥 all under the unlikely leadership of a bright, charismatic 20-year-old private named Isaac Aguigui, who founded the group.
Aguigui was a page at the 2008 Republican National Convention who attended the West Point preparatory school in New Jersey before being dismissed for a forbidden affair with a classmate, the female soldier he later married. In FEAR, Aguigui was the least experienced warrior. Unlike several of his older co-conspirators, he had never been deployed to a combat zone. Aguigui鈥檚 war was still just in his imagination.
But he was by far the richest. After his wife, Deirdre 鈥 an army sergeant, swimmer, runner and linguist who served a tour of duty in Iraq 鈥 died in their home on the sprawling base in July 2011 under what a prosecutor described as 鈥渉ighly suspicious鈥 circumstances that are still being investigated, Aguigui received a $500,000 life insurance settlement. Prosecutors say he used that money to bankroll the group鈥檚 arsenal, including more than $30,000 worth of weapons he purchased while home in Washington state on bereavement leave in the fall of 2011. Deirdre Aguigui, 24, was nearly six months pregnant at the time of her death. Her Facebook profile photo is of a sonogram.
Aguigui, who turned 21 in April, Sgt. Anthony Peden, Pvt. Christopher Salmon and Burnett were arrested Dec. 10, 2011, just a few days after the young couple was found dead. Aguigui, Peden and Salmon have been charged in state court with murder. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty. Burnett was also initially charged with murder but pleaded guilty to lesser crimes in exchange for his testimony.
In September, five more men, including four former soldiers from Fort Stewart, were indicted on lesser charges connected with FEAR, including gang activity and breaking into houses and cars to help fund the group.
鈥淚鈥檝e heard so many bizarre rumors and tales about what鈥檚 going on,鈥 Brett Roark, Michael Roark鈥檚 father, told the Intelligence Report. 鈥淚t seems like every time you turn around, there鈥檚 another snake under a rock at Fort Stewart.鈥
The Army also charged the members of FEAR with a number of offenses but dropped the charges in August, saying the slain couple were civilians and were killed off base.
Salmon鈥檚 wife, Heather, herself a former soldier, has also been charged with murder in the case but does not a face death sentence. At the time of the killings, prosecutors say, she was at home, babysitting Burnett鈥檚 infant son, while Burnett allegedly accompanied Aguigui, Peden and Salmon into the woods close to midnight on Dec. 5, 2011, to take care of the 鈥渓oose ends.鈥
鈥淭iffany knew these guys. She wasn鈥檛 afraid of them,鈥 her mother, Brenda Thomas, told the Report. 鈥淚 know they would go shooting and she鈥檇 go with them. She would talk about Isaac Aguigui. How he lost his wife. They were supposed to go shopping to buy him some stylish clothes. She was trying to set him up with her stepsister, who went shooting with them, too.鈥欌
Roark had apparently been helping FEAR buy guns, and the group, according to prosecutors, was afraid he would start revealing what he knew about the antigovernment plot once he was out of the Army 鈥 and out of their reach. He planned to move home to Seattle. His girlfriend was also planning to leave Georgia. She was headed to California to live with her father. They had been dating for only a few months.
鈥淭hat evening,鈥 Aguigui and the others 鈥渄ecided they needed to kill them now,鈥 said Assistant District Attorney Isabel Pauley. 鈥淭here was urgency to the matter.鈥
The Ringleader
Two fishermen discovered the bodies of Roark and York off a dirt road in the woods near Fort Stewart in the mid-morning of Dec. 6 in Long County, a rural stretch of the state that does not even have its own jail. Agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the search for the killers. 鈥淭hey had to answer who committed these heinous murders and why,鈥 prosecutor Pauley said. 鈥淭he answer to these questions of who and why center around one man, Isaac Aguigui.鈥
The son of a 20-year Army veteran, Aguigui, like most of his six siblings, was homeschooled for much of his life, according to his father, Edward, 46. 鈥淲e moved around a lot,鈥 Edward Aguigui told the Report. 鈥淚t just made sense rather than pull the kids out of school every two or three years, we opted to home school them.鈥
There were other reasons the family chose home schooling. 鈥淢aybe there was some curriculum we didn鈥檛 agree with,鈥 he said, 鈥渓ike evolution versus creation. We wanted to teach them in our way.鈥欌
For as long as he can remember, Edward Aguigui said his son wanted to be a soldier. Isaac used to volunteer at the local senior citizen center where he called out the bingo cards. He loved listening to the war stories of the old veterans.
He also loved guns. Young Aguigui got his first gun, a .22 rifle, when he was 12, but only after he took a gun safety course at his father鈥檚 insistence. As a teenager, he used to go shooting with his grandfather twice a month. 鈥淚鈥檝e only had one weapon and that was the weapon the Army issued to me,鈥 Edward Aguigui said. 鈥淚鈥檝e never bought a weapon. I know what a weapon can do and don鈥檛 want to fill my house with them.鈥
When Aguigui came home on bereavement leave and went on a gun-buying spree at a local gun shop, father and son got into an argument. Edward Aguigui said his son initially lied to him about the guns. He said he and a buddy had been collecting them for years. 鈥淭hey were military grade weapons,鈥 Edward Aguigui said. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 see them all. It looked like a lot of them.鈥
A concerned relative notified the authorities that young Aguigui was buying a lot of weapons. The federal agents came calling on the family. 鈥淭hey were asking me about Isaac,鈥 his father said. 鈥溾業s he stable?鈥 He鈥檚 never threatened us. I know that.鈥
Since he had done nothing illegal, Aguigui was allowed to return to Fort Stewart, where he continued to purchase weapons, sending fellow soldiers such as Burnett and Roark to buy them to avoid attention. 鈥淚saac is a very intelligent and capable young man,鈥 said Alma Wetzker, Aguigui鈥檚 former father-in-law. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not everybody who gets appointed to West Point鈥 prep school.
Wetzker only met Aguigui twice. Once after his daughter and Aguigui got married in 2009. And once at his daughter鈥檚 funeral in 2011. 鈥淲hile I was superficially conversant with his politics, I can鈥檛 state in depth what they are. But he was conservative, actually fairly conservative.鈥
鈥淚鈥檓 not sure exactly where he jumped the rails,鈥 Wetzker said. 鈥淚 just wish there was some way to redeem him.鈥
