Vicki Weaver’s Parents Still Seeking Justice

Jean and Dave Jordison say they’ve never blamed their son-in-law, white separatist Randy Weaver, for their daughter’s death during the standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

But they do want someone held accountable, and they don’t think a Senate report this week gives them that.

“You sometimes think that if somebody had admitted they’d made a mistake, it wouldn’t have snowballed like it did,” Jean Jordison said Thursday in her Fort Dodge home.

Vicki Weaver, 42, was shot in the head by a federal sniper on Aug. 22, 1992, the second day of an 11-day standoff between her husband and federal agents. She was standing in the doorway of the family’s remote mountaintop cabin, holding her infant daughter.

On Thursday, a Senate panel released its report on the siege at Ruby Ridge.

The report concluded that the shot by sniper Lon Horiuchi that killed Vicki Weaver was unconstitutional. It did not address whether he should be prosecuted.

“Sometimes I wonder how high in the FBI it has to go to get justice. We think that somebody should be held responsible,” Dave Jordison said.

Weaver’s death came one day after her 14-year-old son, Sammy, and a deputy U.S. marshal were killed in an exchange of gunfire between marshals and Weaver family friend Kevin Harris. The marshals were scouting Weaver’s property in anticipation of arresting him on a weapons charge.

Harris and Randy Weaver were acquitted of murder charges in the marshal’s death. No charges have ever been filed in Vicki or Sammy Weaver’s deaths.

In August, the Justice Department agreed to pay Weaver and his three daughters $3.1 million to settle their claims over Vicki and Sammy Weaver’s deaths.

Randy and Vicki Weaver both grew up in Iowa, and in 1983 they moved from Waterloo to Idaho. Randy Weaver has since returned to Iowa and lives in Grand Junction with his daughters.

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