Butler’s racist friends pay respects
HAYDEN, Idaho – Fellow racists, friends and family members gathered Saturday at a funeral home in this North Idaho community to pay their final respects to the late Richard G. Butler who died Wednesday of heart disease.
The body of the founder of the Aryan Nations lay in state for 90 minutes in Yates Funeral Home on Hayden Avenue, just a few miles south of Butler’s former 20-acre compound that became a gathering spot for racists throughout the United States.
The final gathering was intended to be a secret, by-invitation-only event at the wishes of the survivors of the nationally known racist who spent the last quarter century seeking and getting a lot of public attention. Much of that attention came when his followers and defectors committed a litany of crimes, including murders, robberies, counterfeiting, bombings and racial assassinations.
Dexter Yates, owner of the funeral home, said Butler’s two surviving daughters, Cindy Witherwax of Hayden Lake and Bonnie Hart of Scottsdale, Ariz., did not want a public funeral or a memorial staged by the dead racist’s friends and followers.
Instead, Butler’s closest associates were called and invited to the “visitation” at the funeral home, Yates said.
His body was dressed in a suit, but Yates would not say whether it was adorned with the Aryan Nations lapel pin or ring that Butler always wore.
Fellow racists are expected to hold their own private memorial services today at a private home in North Idaho and next Saturday at a private location in Scottsboro, Ala.
Butler is to be buried next to his late wife, Betty Butler, in a private service at Coeur d’Alene Memorial Gardens, Yates said. He wouldn’t say when that burial would occur, but it’s expected to be held early this week.
Even before Butler is buried, it appears the turf war has begun over who will be his successor. A splinter group based in Pennsylvania, that Butler described as “imposters” in his final days, now claims its leader, Charles Juba, is the new “national director” of the Aryan Nations.
But in Atlanta, Ga., Jonathan Williams said he and other “true followers” would never recognize the Pennsylvania organization founded by August Kreis. Williams said he and other “state leaders” of Butler’s remaining organization would decide soon on who will lead their organization.
Before his death, Butler repeatedly said his organization would remain based in North Idaho, but that may not materialize without a house, a compound or meeting spot.
Already in the shadows is a similar Christian Identity group, the Church of True Israel, whose founders and members include several alumni of Butler’s Church of Jesus Christ Christian – Aryan Nations.
One of that group’s founders, John Burke, of Coeur d’Alene, was spotted in the group of people who paid their respects Saturday at the Hayden funeral home.
Also attending were Butler’s long-time close friends, Chuck and Betty Tate, who moved from North Idaho in the mid-1990s and now live in North Carolina.
Rick Cooper, who heads a neo-Nazi organization in The Dalles, Ore., also was seen paying his respects. Cooper has been a faithful attendee at Aryan World Congresses, annual gatherings sponsored every July since 1981 by Butler’s group.
Sandpoint attorney Edgar Steele, who unsuccessfully defended Butler’s in a landmark $6.3 civil rights suit that brought financial ruin upon the Aryan Nations in 2000, also was in the crowd of a couple of dozen.
“I’ve have nothing to say,” long-time Butler friend Richard Masker said as he left the funeral home with a camera. Masker lives in Hayden and promotes a “conspiratology” organization that blames the world’s problems on Jews.