May 31, 2009

Susan Peters talked with the Tiller murder suspect's ex-wife via phone from her home near Kansas City. She tells her she has been divorced from her ex-husband since 1996 and that they have a 22-year-old son together. "Someone was pounding on my door and apparently they had our house staked out ..not knowing where he lived or where he would go" the suspects ex-wife said. She asked us not to use her name.

She said the FBI came to her door as soon as she returned from church this morning. She says their son has minimal contact with his father. "He doesn't share any of his dads views... religiously or politically and...neither do I," she said. In fact she tells me one of the reasons for their breakup over a decade ago, was because of what she called his radical views.

"He was very vocal about his feelings of abortion...he has been like this for several years. He was a part of different militia things..anti-government, anti-abortion, obviously, and just a lot of anti-stuff."

In a post from May, 2007 on Operation Rescue's website, the suspect writes " sometime soon would it be feasible to organize as many people as possible to attend tillers church. (inside not just outside) to possibly ask questions of the pastor, deacons, elders and members while there?"

According to a website called "Militia Watchdog", the suspect was sentenced to 16 months in prison for parole violations following a 1996 arrest near Topeka for possession of explosive devices in his car trunk.
His ex-wife says "he did some time in El Dorado there but he got out on a technicality because they didn't have the right kind of search warrant apparently."

This afternoon, he was arrested without incident. One of the arresting officers Lt. Mike Pfannestie of the Johnson County Sheriff's office said, " He didn't ask you know, why several officers were on the scene trying to get him or anything. So i think he knew what was going on. but we didn't interview him or anything " Lt Pfannestie also added, he didn't know if the suspect was headed home. But his ex-wife tells us he lives in Westport in Kansas City.

Earlier, she was shaken when she told us she wanted to apologize to Tiller's wife, children and grandchildren for her ex-husbands actions. "It just didn't happen to Dr Tiller's family, " she says. "It happened to his entire church family and the entire community of Wichita. "I just can't imagine someone being shot in their church... I just can't.. unbelievable," she said.