Lovelace Gives Grisly Murder Replay Shunning Representation, He Hints He May Take Stand And Question Himself

Faron Lovelace prayed out loud for strength and forgiveness, then fired one shot into the head of a fellow white supremacist.

“He had his back to me, and I leveled the .38 (caliber pistol). I was amazed at how quickly his legs buckled,” Lovelace said in a tape-recorded confession detailing the 1995 murder of Jeremy Scott.

On Tuesday, a Bonner County jury heard more than two hours of Lovelace’s calm, matter-of-fact account. The 40-year-old, self-described racist admitted to the murder after being arrested for a parole violation last August.

Authorities didn’t even know the killing had occurred, but Lovelace agreed to lead them to Scott’s buried body if they promised to give him a death sentence.

He also wanted assurance that his wife would not be arrested, strip-searched or harassed by police.

To speed the court process along, Lovelace decided to shun court-appointed attorneys, saying he “didn’t like lawyers.”

Lovelace is representing himself at the murder trial, questioning agents who arrested him and took his confession. He hinted he will take the stand and question himself when he couldn’t get answers he was looking for from witnesses.

Lovelace, sporting a crew cut and unshaven face, appeared in a jail-issue blue jumpsuit and ankle chains. It was the attire he requested. He turned down offers from the state to provide him with a suit and tie.

Bailiffs freed Lovelace’s hands from handcuffs so he could take notes.

Jurors heard his death request in the taped confession, along with a plot to kill Bonner County Sheriff Chip Roos and former Sandpoint Mayor Ron Chaney.

Lovelace feared Scott was about to betray him and tell of the planned killings. Scott was “losing his mind,” Lovelace said, so he killed him at his Upper Pack River home north of Sandpoint.

Lovelace held Scott prisoner for a day and hit him twice in the mouth with the barrel of a rifle.

“He kept saying, ‘Help me, help me.’ But by that time I was committed. That is when I began praying for strength to do it,” Lovelace said in his confession.

Lovelace took Scott outside his cabin and put a bullet in the back of his head. “I stepped away and said, ‘It will be OK now, brother. It’s over.’ Call it cold-blooded if you will, but it was not easy for me,” Lovelace told police.

“This was my first assassination, my first kill,” he added, describing how little Scott bled and how he loaded his body into a pickup before burying him.

“I think you’ve got your conviction now,” Lovelace said after recounting the murder.

He was supposedly training to be an assassin. Scott and Lovelace were to help each other kill the local officials. The two had the “equipment” to do it, Lovelace said, telling police they hid weapons, cyanide and books on how to make bombs.

It would have been better, Lovelace said, if he had been killed when arrested by agents near Priest River. They lured him from his camp in the mountains. Police made up a story and had an informant ask Lovelace to kill a Mexican drug dealer who was prostituting white girls.

Lovelace rode in on a bike when agents ran him off the road with a car. He said he should have pulled his gun.

“I blew it. I should have died right there,” Lovelace said.

Testimony continues today. Lovelace is expected to give his statement to the jury once the state finishes its case.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo