Jewish Center Shooting Suspect Was Pen Pals With Would-Be Bomber
Suspect wrote to the man who tried to blow up an MLK parade in 2011.
April 15, 2014— -- The former KKK leader accused of murdering three people at two Jewish centers in Kansas was pen pals with Kevin Harpham, the man who plotted to bomb the MLK Day parade in Spokane, Wash., in 2011, the government says.
ABC News acquired from prosecutors copies of the postcards and letters they allegedly exchanged in March and April of that year shortly after Harpham was jailed.
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Frazier Glenn Miller, currently facing murder charges, encouraged Harpham to “stay strong,” and offered to help set up a legal defense fund for the convict, who later admitted to planting a backpack bomb along the parade route.
Miller appeared to believe Harpham was innocent.
“The vast majority agrees with me that you’ve been set up/framed,” Miller said in one letter.
“Your dad appeared on the TV and stated that you were living with him and caring for him during the time the crime was allegedly taking place.”
Harpham responded to Miller, thanking him for the support. He declined the legal help, referring advice he had gotten from Alex Linder, founder of the anti-Semitic, white supremacist website Vanguard News Network.
“Alex Linder once said it is best to just take the public defender and not waste personal money on a trial and that is what I’m doing,” Harpham wrote.
At one point, Harpham wrote that he might need Miller to house-sit. He also complained about the jail’s “hard bed, limited clothing and blankets to keep warm.”
Harpham wrote that he had more to say but couldn’t put it in writing.
Miller, who appeared in court today and is being held on a $10 million bond, had other friends behind bars. He kept in touch with Joseph Paul Franklin, who was executed in Missouri last November, and Craig Cobb, a white supremacist serving time in North Dakota.
