An avowed anti-Semite who fatally shot three people at Jewish sites in Kansas in 2014 has died in prison, the Kansas Department of Corrections said Tuesday.
Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 80, died Monday at the El Dorado Correctional Facility, where he was serving a sentence for capital murder, attempted murder, assault and firearms convictions.
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Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. in court after he killed three in Kansas Jewish Community Center attack
(Photo: AP)
He was sentenced to death in November 2015 but had appealed the death sentence.
An autopsy will be performed to determine a cause of death, but preliminary indications were that Miller died of natural causes, Carol Pitts, a spokeswoman for the corrections department, said in a news release. She declined to comment further on Miller's death or medical condition.
Miller, who was also known as Frazier Glenn Close, testified during his trial that he drove to the Kansas City area in April 2014 to kill Jewish people before he died. He said he didn't expect to live long because he had chronic emphysema.
He ambushed and killed William Corporon, 69, and Corporon's 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas. He then shot 53-year-old Terri LaManno at the nearby Village Shalom retirement center. None of the victims were Jewish.
During his trial and at his sentencing, Miller frequently interrupted the proceedings to give rambling statements about his belief that Jewish people were running the government, media and the Federal Reserve.
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Police at the Jewish community center after a shooting in Overland Park, Kan. in 2014
(Photo: AP)
During his closing arguments at trial, Miller said he had been "floating on a cloud" since the killings. When he was convicted and when he was sentenced to death, Miller raised his arm in the Nazi salute.
Miller was a Vietnam War veteran who founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in his native North Carolina and later the White Patriot Party. He also ran on a white power platform during campaigns for the U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010 in Missouri.
In arguments before the Kansas Supreme Court in March appealing his death sentence, Miller's attorneys argued that he was incapable of understanding the legal intricacies of a complicated death penalty case and should not have been allowed to represent himself, even though he insisted on being his own attorney.
Miller had appealed his death sentence and was awaiting a ruling from the Kansas Supreme Court.