A Death in Wichita (34 page)

Several hours after Dr. George Tiller was assassinated in Wichita on May 31, 2009, I began the process of making contact with Charlie Spicer at St. Martin’s Press. I knew that Charlie, like me, had a deep interest in books about crimes, especially ones with large social implications. The murder had occurred in Kansas, where I grew up, and I knew people involved in the situation unfolding that day in Wichita, as the police hunted for the killer. Beyond that, I’d begun writing about domestic terrorism twenty-five years earlier and instinctively felt that this story would lead in that direction. In recent years, nothing had struck me as more important than how fear, rage, and a sense of being victimized by the outside world had moved from the edges of our culture into the mainstream. What used to be clearly on the margins was now packaged and sold as prime-time entertainment. I was very pleased that Charlie was interested in this subject, and a few weeks later I was sitting in a Wichita jail cell with Dr. Tiller’s assassin, Scott Roeder. His Kansas roots were just a few miles from mine and he was more than willing to share with me the thinking behind his own brand of terrorism. In a way that was almost eerie, his crime led me straight back to my first book,
Talked to Death
, about the 1984 neo-Nazi murder of the Denver talk-show host Alan Berg. The death of Dr. Tiller seemed like a natural sequel to that story. All the elements were in place, but I’d yet to meet the most important figure, from my perspective, in the building of the book.

The first time I sat down with the killer’s ex-wife, Lindsey, we were in the basement of her church and she talked for three hours straight, describing how she’d met Roeder and married him in 1986, and how their union had gradually disintegrated and ended in 1996. As I got to know her and we spoke on other occasions, I realized that I was hearing what it was like to fall in love with a man, have a child with him, and then watch him turn into an American terrorist. In recent decades, as I’d observed the normalization of hatred and demonization in our politics, media, and religion, this was the subject I most wanted to write about, but I hoped to find the human side, and the human cost, of this evolution. Lindsey had lived it.

When I got together with her in June 2009, it was as if she’d been waiting for years to tell someone about her wrenching experience with Scott Roeder. She knew the timeline of events and the people involved, and could recall details of the distant past. Learning that her ex-husband had gunned down Dr. Tiller unleashed her own need and desire to tell her family’s story, and her courage and honesty are at the core of this book. I’ve often been asked about writing long pieces of nonfiction and my answer is always the same: in order to do this kind of book justice, you need at least one person who’s critically important to the events, is ready to talk, and is willing to tell the truth. In this instance, it was Lindsey, which is why I’ve dedicated the book to her.

I’d like to thank Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder for speaking with me on numerous occasions and sharing his writings about the abortion conflict. This extremely busy physician always found the time to help make this a better and more complete story. Photos were provided by Dr. Hern, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Marjorie Signer, by Georgia Cole of Wichita’s Eighteenth Judicial District, the Kansas attorney general’s office, Lindsey Roeder, and the Kansas Historical Society. Thanks to all of them. My understanding of this topic was assisted throughout the past year by studying
The Wrath of Angels
, the excellent history of America’s abortion wars written by Judy L. Thomas and James Risen. I also want to thank my agent, Mel Berger of William Morris, for working with Charlie Spicer to make this book a reality.

A special note of gratitude goes out to my mother, Mary, my wife, Joyce, and to my lifelong friend Bob Haight for his inspiration and stream of provocative questions and thoughts during the course of researching and writing
A Death in Wichita
. He was there when it counted. Last, and perhaps most important, my editor, Yaniv Soha, deserves praise for his distinct gift for focusing a story and moving it forward. His critical eye, his deft touch with handling a first-person narrative, and his understanding that every word should serve the story and nothing but the story are behind all of these pages.

The best part of covering any nonfiction subject is when you get in your car for the first time, fill up the gas tank, and begin driving in search of something new, uncertain where you’re headed but sensing that a story out there is ready to be told. Then the right people seem to show up and start talking and take you into realities that are richer than you could have imagined—as if everything had been prepared for your arrival and all you really needed to do was trust your instincts and start the engine.