White supremacist Frazier Glenn Cross was convicted Monday of capital murder in the killings of three people at two Kansas Jewish centers last year — convictions he’d predicted and told jurors he expected.
Cross, 74, pleaded not guilty even though he defiantly admitted having killed Dr. William Corporon, 69, and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Underwood, outside Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Terri LaManno, 53, outside the Village Shalom retirement center in April 2014. None were Jewish.
The jury will return Tuesday morning to begin deciding whether Cross gets the death penalty.
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Cross — a former leader of the defunct White Patriot Party of North Carolina who is also known as Glenn Miller — gave a Nazi salute and said “Sieg Heil” after the verdicts were read.
Cross was also charged with three charges of attempted first-degree murder for shooting three other people who survived.
The verdicts came after a wild morning in Olathe, Kansas, that saw District Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan eject Cross from the courtroom after he denounced all of the court officers as Jewish sympathizers.
Cross testified in his own defense and spent much of Friday explaining how he wanted to kill as many Jews as possible at the Jewish centers.
Cross erupted during jury instructions when Ryan told jurors not to consider “sympathy and prejudice” for either side, The Associated Press reported. The AP reported that after Ryan told him to show respect for the court, Cross replied: “Respect? I have no respect for you, this court or any damn thing associated with it. In fact, I hate every damn one of you because you are whores of the Jews.” Earlier, Cross told jurors in closing arguments that he wanted to avenge “the genocide against white people by Jews” and asked jurors to “show great courage” by finding him not guilty.
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