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Homeboy in the 'hood
In the Democratic bastion of Harlem, George W. Bush further outlines his education plan while taking a swipe at the GOP.
By Jake Tapper
[10/05/99]

Feinstein gets a challenger
Political gadfly Ron Unz jumps into the ring for the U.S. Senate race in California.
By Anthony York
[10/05/99]

Throw the bums out
Al Gore's corporate team has struck out, so it's time for the vice president to bring some true believers on board.
By Joe Conason
[10/05/99]

Trump bombs in first Reform appearance
The Donald needs to do some homework before opening his mouth.
By Micah L. Sifry
[10/04/99]

Steve Forbes finds religion
His Christian Coalition appearance marks him as the leading conservative rival to George W. Bush.
By Jake Tapper
[10/04/99]

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Though no direct link has been established, the men all subscribed to the same general white supremacist views -- a belief that gays, Jews and other minorities are subhuman and must be eliminated if the white race is to continue to flourish.

Those appear to be the views of Matthew Williams. But before the arrest of the two brothers, many who knew them had no idea of the hatred that authorities say the two harbored against people they considered different or inferior. And until law-enforcement began describing the evidence officers had seized -- everything from the purported murder weapon, complete with Tyler's palm prints on the barrel, to handwritten notes boasting of being sought in the synagogue fires -- few could have believed either man stupid enough to leave behind such a compelling trail.

"You would like to have your daughter go out with this guy," said Dennis Williams (no relation), who manages the Redding farmer's market where the brothers as well as Matson and Mowder frequently sold organic vegetables. "I would trust him, I'm serious. It's too day and night. He had a bunch of people fooled."

Unlike the Buford Furrows and Benjamin Smiths of the world, the two boys were not misfits or loners. There is no evidence of past mental illness in either, and no one can point to any incident that could explain a hatred of Jews or gay people. On the surface, their friends, customers and neighbors knew them simply as friendly lawn boys.

The two operated a landscaping and lawn service out of their parents' house in Palo Cedro, Calif., a picturesque enclave of homes on large lots that back up to Cow Creek, about 20 miles east of Redding. Residents there say the boys were unfailingly polite and friendly.

Matthew "brought over a silver dollar for my son's 13th birthday and taught him how to read the silver prices in the paper," said Debbie O'Connell, who lives next door to the Williams home, which is shielded from the street by a fence and steel gate with a "Keep Out, No Trespassing" sign.

Tyler Williams would stop by to borrow O'Connell's computer to check gold and silver prices on the Internet, she said. The family itself was always gardening, and the boys could make anything grow. Their lot is studded with fruit trees and vegetable patches, and they prided themselves on the fact that between their produce and their ducks and chickens they were largely self-sufficient.

"They're self-contained," O'Connell said. "They eat their own chickens and ducks, grow their own food, their own eggs. It's almost like they're burying themselves in there," she said, noting the dense shrubbery that covers the property.

What made the family stand out, neighbors say, was the noise that would come blaring from inside the house at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes it would simply be religious music. Other times recorded sermons would echo through the quiet neighborhood.

"They were heavy Bible thumpers, really into that stuff," said neighbor Don O'Connell. Religion was a lifelong passion for the two boys, who grew up in a household that valued it above all else. Their father, an eccentric, religiously devout, retired U.S. Forest Service employee, raised the brothers to live off the land in anticipation of the coming apocalypse.

Before they moved to the Redding area, the family had lived in the small Butte County farming community of Gridley, about 40 miles north of Sacramento.They lived on a narrow country lane in a small, modest home that faced a field and had a one-acre backyard filled with fruit trees. During the day, Matthew Williams would wander the neighborhood communing with his God.

"He used to walk up and down the street carrying a staff and preaching to no one," said David Anderson, a Live Oak high school teacher who bought the Williams home three years ago. "That does something to kids, raising them up in that environment."

"I always felt sorry for those boys," added a longtime neighbor in Gridley, who asked not to be named. "The parents didn't allow them to associate with anyone other than people from their church. They were just held down that way. They never went to parties. Only with the church. I asked the father many times what church he belonged to and he would never tell me." That may have been because the family had changed churches a number of times, associates say, in an apparent bid to find just the right fit.

"They were zealous in their faith, but that's what pastors encourage people to be: zealous in their faith," said Craig Cook, their former pastor in Gridley at what he described as a mainstream evangelical Bible church. "But they were far from kooks. They were not cultish, as people would make them out to be."

And, Cook added, they were not anti-Semitic. "I find it extremely hard to believe concerning the anti-Semitic bit because the family are Semitic lovers -- they love the Jews because our Christianity finds its roots in Judaism. And the entire family was high supporters of the Jewish faith, so I find it very hard to connect them to that."

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