Stephen Singular's Blog, page 3

Crime, Punishment & the War on Terror

After law enforcement arrested Faisal Shahzad for attempting to set off a bomb in Times Square on May 1, officials made a point of saying that while Jack Bauer solved all of his terrorists' problems within the course of one day on Fox's fictional TV show, "24," the real cops had done a pretty fair job of taking Shahzad into custody within 53 hours of the failed bombing. American criminal justice agencies, working together in a crisis situation, had moved fast...

Thou Shalt Not Kill

            I've been spending time in prisons lately speaking with murderers in Colorado and Kansas, which raises fundamental questions for me as a journalist. What's the job of a reporter in this situation -- to challenge the false or outlandish things a killer is saying or simply let him or her talk? "InColdBlog" obviously gets its name from the gold standard of all true crime writing, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and I've often thought about Capote having a full five years to...

"Anti-Government Violence & Free Speech"

            Last June 10, James von Brunn was armed with a rifle when he burst into the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., as several thousand people milled around and looked at exhibits. He emptied his gun into the crowd, killing an African-American security guard, 39-year-old Stephen T. Johns, before being shot and hospitalized in critical condition (he died in early January 2010).  

            On February 17 of this year, Joseph Stack of Texas sent a very personal...

The Rise of Hate Crimes -- Again

On this mid-June morning, I'm driving across Kansas and into the heart of America's second civil war. Up ahead is Wichita, where two weeks ago Dr. George Tiller, the nation's most prominent abortion doctor, was gunned down in the lobby of his Lutheran Church. It was well known in the anti-abortion movement that Dr. Tiller always wore a bulletproof vest, so his alleged killer, Scott Roeder, shot him once in the forehead from only inches away. This landscape of flat farm country and...

Columbine/Teaching Non-Violence

April 20, 2009, was the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School, just a few miles from my Denver home. My wife, Joyce, and I visited the school a few days after the shootings and my lasting image of the event was seeing the adults kneel down in the springtime mud and sob, mystified over why our children were killing one another. In recent weeks leading up to this ten-year milestone, America has seen an outburst of mass killings -- in Pittsburgh, Oakland, Seattle...

Was Oprah Duped?

Earlier this week, Oprah Winfrey did a one-hour program on the first-year anniversary of the Texas raid on the YFZ ranch, where Warren Jeffs took a 12-year-old bride when he was a fugitive in 2006. Since the raid, a dozen FLDS men, including Jeffs, have been indicted by Texas authorities for a variety of crimes involving bigamy, underage marriage, and sexual assault on a minor. Controversy has erupted among journalists who've covered the Jeffs's case for years who feel that Oprah saw...

Stephen Singular's Senate Hearing Testimony

               July 24, 2008

 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate Judiciary Committee,

            I'm an investigative journalist and the author of 19 non-fiction books. Since 1985, I've been writing about that line where religion crosses over into criminal behavior. In early 2006, my wife, Joyce, suggested that I look into the story of Warren Jeffs and the FLDS, because she believed that women in particular would be interested in this story. She was right, and this is a significant point...

Senate Hearing on FLDS

On July 11, 2008, I received a call from a lawyer in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office who invited me to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing planned for July 24. Senator Reid had followed through on his commitment to launch a federal investigation and introduce a bill in the Senate regarding crimes associated with polygamy. He'd also invited the Attorney Generals from Texas, Arizona, and Utah to testify, along with two U.S. Attorneys. I was on a panel that included Dr...

Senate Majority Harry Reid endorses "When Men Become Gods"

After reading "When Men Become Gods," Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) called our house and wanted to speak with me about the book. I was in San Angelo, Texas attending the second round of hearings in the child custody case, after 460 children had been removed from the FLDS compound near Eldorado. Senator Reid was very enthusiastic about the book and asked me to write him a detailed letter outlining the potential crimes of Warren Jeffs and the FLDS sect. He wants to launch a  federal...

Religious Community or Crime Family?

    I'm often asked how the FLDS generates money. Where did all the financial resources come from to support Warren Jeffs when he was on the run from law enforcement for two years? How did the sect pay for the 1,700 acres and huge limestone temple down on the ranch just raided in Texas? One answer is that FLDS men are highly industrious and very successful in the construction business. They have numerous companies spread across the Southwest, which until recently has seen a building boom...