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Planning Clinic Murders? By Bill Berkowitz
In the hullabaloo surrounding Waagner's capture and sentencing, no one has reported on that list. Prior to his sentencing, Waagner told U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baker, that he had "no remorse about closing abortion clinics." According to the Champaign, IL-based News-Gazette, The 44-year-old Kennerdell, Pennsylvania., man estimated that after escaping from the DeWitt County jail in Clinton last February, "his threats to abortion clinics around the country resulted in his saving 1,500 to 2,000 babies. 'I'm very proud of that. I wish I could have done more. History will prove out that what we've got going on with abortion is an atrocity,' said Waagner, who has repeatedly threatened to murder anyone affiliated with the abortion industry." Waagner had been on the lam for several months after escaping from prison while awaiting sentencing for a December 2000 conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a stolen vehicle. Those charges stemmed from Waagner's arrest on Interstate 74 near Oakwood, Illinois on September 12, 1999. He was in a broken-down Winnebago that had been stolen from Lynchburg, Virginia. In the vehicle were several loaded guns, Waagner's wife and his eight children. According to the News-Gazette, Waagner was asked by Judge Baker to describe how he had managed to escape from prison. "For nine months, I worked on one door in my cell. I gained access to the roof area above the cells. I spent two weeks of working on it in half-hour increments because that's all I was allowed," Waagner said. "I made my way through the drain vent onto the roof at 10:30 at night on February 22. I jumped off the roof and followed the railroad tracks west to a cornfield. I hid in the cornfield for two days and two miserable nights. I came back into Clinton and thought I was in Bloomington," he said, at which point Baker interrupted his detailed narrative. "I did in fact, leave the DeWitt County jail unescorted," Waagner said, chuckling, adding that he stayed away some 9 1/2 months. While on the run, it is believed that Waagner "robbed banks in Pennsylvania and West Virginia as well as stole a car in Tunica, Mississippi., and possessed a pipe bomb in Memphis, Tennessee. He faces federal charges for those alleged crimes as well as state charges in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and North Carolina for armed robbery, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and burglary." CBS News reported that U.S. Attorney Gregory Lockhart, the federal prosecutor for southern Ohio, said that they "must now decide whether he should be brought to Cincinnati or taken to Philadelphia for prosecution on charges stemming from the alleged clinic threats." Waagner made both the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List and the U.S. Marshals Service 15 Most Wanted List. He was also profiled many times on the television program America's Most Wanted. The White Rose Banquet During his sentencing hearing Steve Beckett, Waagner's court-appointed lawyer presented Judge Baker with a letter that his client wrote on January 13 to the White Rose Banquet. Fred Clarkson, author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy which looks at antiabortion violence in the context of the wider Religious Right, described the affair:
U.S. Marshals Wanted Poster for Clayton Lee Waagner
"The White Rose banquet is the annual meeting of the above ground elements of the Army of God. It is organized by convicted felons, celebrates the crimes of still other convicted felons; encourages others to commit felonies and raises money for felons who got caught. And it does so in public, a half hour drive from the White House, depending on traffic." Waagner's letter read in part: "Our Lord was very good to me in 2001. He blessed me by allowing me to escape jail and gave me a chance to redeem my first failed assault on the abortion industry with another chance. In my pre-escape confinement I was miserable and tormented by my failure. I prayed and pleaded with God to give me another chance. When He freed me I was not surprised. Today I feel no misery, only Joy and Peace. It is the Peace that only God can grant and I rejoice night and day." In a January 14 article posted on Neal Horsley's Christian Gallery website, Michael Bray, author of A Time to Kill and co-host of the White Rose Banquet, commented on Waagner's activities while he was on the run. Bray writes: "The use of anthrax or the threat of the same is not popular, especially in the wake of 911. But it was certainly effectual. Abortuaries were closed all around the country. Babies were, by all facts of statistics, saved from death. Waagner disrupted abortuary operations throughout the country with the very fact of his being on the lam following his simple statement to the agents. He added to the fears of abortuary personnel by re-issuing direct threats when he held Neal Horsley at gun point while informing him that he would proceed to kill 42 specific abortuary personal on whom he had already gathered data. The chosen could be spared only by contacting Horsley so that ! their names could be seen on Horsley's web site as having ceased to practice abortion and relieved. Several abortionists did contact Horsley and notified him of their decision to abandon baby killing." There is no independent confirmation of Bray's assertion. Ann Glazier, Director of Security for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said she "has not talked to any doctor or staff member who has quit or written to Horsley's website. I find it very difficult to believe," she said, "that anyone would deal with either Waagner or Horsley at all. Most doctors and clinic workers reacted to the Waagner threats by reassessing their own safety and by being more willing to cooperate with law enforcement's efforts." Waagner's Abortion-Worker Hit List
Despite Waagner's sentencing, some unfinished business remains. While more charges are expected and additional legal proceedings await him, questions about his "hit list" are still to be answered. Did Waagner's list ever exist? If so, what happened to it? If it did exist, have the people on it been told? Is it possible Waagner may have passed the list on to other anti-abortion activists? "To my knowledge, Waagner never shared his list, if it existed, with anyone," Clarkson said. In fact, "when Waagner met with Horsley he was asked how people would know if they were on the list, and Waagner replied that the Holy Spirit would tell them." Glazier acknowledged that while Waagner's claim of a hit list has not been confirmed, "it is known that he had been doing surveillance and had enough information on abortion workers so that he could find them and kill them. He never was more specific about who might be on such a list." Because the investigation is ongoing, Glazier said "we have not gotten any specific names, or seen a specific list nor has law enforcement called us about any particular person." Glazier pointed out that law enforcement officials confiscated two of Waagner's computers and she was hopeful that "more information would come out during any future legal proceedings." At this point, It's anybody's guess whether Waagner's list ever existed -- on paper or in his computer -- or whether it was a product of his fevered anti-abortion imagination. Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering right-wing movements. Contact him at wkbbronx@aol.com |
Clayton Lee Waagner 
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