Weavers Writing Book On Ruby Ridge Siege Randy, Sara To Tell Their Story In Book Marketed On Internet

Randy Weaver has done a lot of reading about what happened to him and his family during the infamous Ruby Ridge standoff.

Now, the Marion-area resident and his daughter Sara are coming out with their own version of the story in a book called “The Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge.”

Publication of the book is under way, and the Weavers have launched a business, Ruby Ridge Inc., with an Internet site to market the book.

Sitting in the kitchen of his modest home 28 miles west of Kalispell, the 50-year-old Weaver chain smokes and chats about religion, politics, his legal battles and the book. He is congenial and garrulous on this spring day.

“Sure we’ll make money on it,” says Weaver, who moved his family to northwest Montana about two years ago. “But what’s wrong with that? Eight million other people and their dogs made money on it. I’ve sat for six years and read and heard everybody else’s idea on it, and a lot of it I didn’t like. I think it’s just our right to tell our story.”

He says there have been eight to 10 other books written about the events that claimed the lives of his son Sam and his wife, Vicki. He was approached for endorsements for some of those books and also for movie deals, but he declined in every case.

What emerged over the last few years, he said, was a series of distorted tales.

Weaver summed up his account of what happened: He lost part of his family because he had sold two sawed-off shotguns to a “snitch” for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. And when he failed to appear in court because he was given a written notice with the wrong court date Weaver says he was branded a fugitive, white supremacist and religious zealot.

And the federal government already highly active in investigating Aryan Nation activities in North Idaho was more than eager to pounce, he said.

As federal marshals closed in on his cabin to make an arrest, a firefight erupted in which one of the marshals was killed, along with Weaver’s son and his dog.

After that, Weaver holed up with his family in the cabin for 11 days. Weaver says he was unsure and worried about their fate in the hands of the surrounding agents who had killed his son.

An FBI sniper shot his wife as she stood in the doorway of the cabin holding their baby daughter. In the end, Weaver and family friend Kevin Harris surrendered and stood trial for the murder of the federal marshal. Attorneys for the two men argued that it could not be proven that it was Harris who killed the marshal, and that perhaps another marshal was responsible.

Weaver has a picture of the front page of The Spokane Spokesman-Review in his living room, with the headline: “Feds Lose Big.”

The news story tells how Weaver and Harris were acquitted in the trial, which became infamous since it was largely the testimony of federal agents that undermined the government’s case.

Weaver went on to be convicted for failing to appear in court, a felony that led to 16 months in jail.

Weaver says the events of August 1992 were for years difficult for him and his two oldest daughters to discuss. Aside from occasional interviews, and testifying before a special Senate committee, he says he has never told his side of the story, in its entirety, until now.

Weaver rejects the caricature that’s been made of him as a religious zealot. He long ago disavowed his strict Baptist upbringing in Iowa, and developed his own brand of theology.

He rejects organized religion as nothing more than another business, and he thinks people should do more thinking and learning for themselves when it comes to God.

And he says he is not a white supremacist; rather, he is a white separatist who thinks that races are meant to be apart. He insists there is a huge difference.

“I am not better than another man because he is a different color,” he says. “I believe the races were created differently and separately, kind of like mule deer are different than whitetail deer.”

Asked if he wishes he could have done anything differently to avoid the death of his wife and son, Weaver responds with a “yes and no” answer.

“If I had surrendered, my wife and son would still be here,” he said.

But it’s difficult to accept even partial responsibility, he added, when he considers the actions of the federal law enforcement officers: “What they did was so blatantly wrong,” he said. “And there was no way I could see in the future what would happen.”