Live Wire is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Modulator Media.

Previously on Live Wire the Loud Life and Shocking Murder of Alan burd There.

Could be a clue to who the murderer is in the recent threats and the records that we have at station and the police might have, but then again there may not be.

Alan was constantly joking about the threats that were made on his life.

I don't really know how seriously he took them.

Maybe he did, but he never appeared to on the surface.

And there was a tremendous amount of public pressure and pressure among us in law enforcement to find the answers and to bring these people to justice.

Well, I think I heard about the crime on the news, actually, and then I realized that an armored car robbery is most likely to be a federal crime, and so I would have some role in that, although at that time I had no idea who had committed.

That crime was a very brazen one.

They held up a sign get out or die, and they were blocking the traffic.

Most of the people who were driving on that road thought it was part of some Hollywood movie, and so it was a rather spectacular crime.

We started working on the case slowly and systematically learning more and more about this group known as the Order, which I had never heard of before this crime.

I hadn't even heard actually of the murder of Alan Berg.

It was a complete shock to learn that there was a group like that who were dedicated to a white only state in part of the United States and were committing these serious crimes.

I had never even imagined.

That the group consisted of something over twenty individuals at that particular time, all of them were led by a man named Robert pat who lived in Mede Lane Falls.

Which is.

Somewhat northwest of where I was located in Quarterlane.

And I began to identify all the memories associated with that group, and I and began to identify crimes that.

I felt were.

Associated or were crimes that were actually conducted by that group, bank robbery, counterfeiting, armored car robberies, and then some acts of viols that were not income producing, like bombing of a synagogue and things such as that.

What it started out as a shocking murder investigation with numerous potential suspects, eventually ended with investigators zeroing in on a white supremacist organization responsible for a variety of crimes, all committed with a single endgame in mind, eventually overthrowing the United States government in order to turn the country into a white ethno state.

Through the collaboration between local and federal officials, the group known as the Order was meticulously profiled along with their many crimes, including Alan Burg's murder.

But when it came to handing down indictments for all the individuals involved, things got way more complicated than a single murder charge.

Here is David Heckenbach, who at the time worked for the Denver District Attorney's office.

As the investigation continued, yet it became clear that this white supremacist group, who I think they called themselves the Area Nations the Order, were involved.

The FEDS took a very would have to call it a primary role in investigating the Areyan Nations as a whole, because they were putting together a rico prosecution based out of Seattle.

In a short period of time, investigators had managed to uncover every element of the Burg assassination, including the crucial discovery of the murder weapon.

They found a murder weapon in one of the homes of Gary Yarborough, who is one of the Order defendants one of the people suspected in the armored car robbery, and so the Bird case became part of our overall effort.

Agents last October raided his home in Sandpoint, Idaho.

It was in that raid that they recovered a submachine gun like this, a MAC ten, capable of firing one thousand rounds per minute.

The ammunition for the MAC ten is forty five caliber slugs, the same type bullets that killed al Namver.

Police Department received from the FBI test bullets from that MAC ten recovered at Standpoint, Idaho and conducted ballistic comparisons with the bullets that we had received from the Allenberg slane.

The test indictadas of the recovered MAC ten was, in fact the weapon used to kill mister Berg.

Yarbro was just one of a number of individuals identified for their role in Allenberg's murder, as well as numerous other crimes ranging from armed robbery to counterfeiting, But this investigation ultimately came down to tracking down and indicting the group's leader, Robert Matthews, an avid anti Semite and white supremacist who had formed the Order in the Pacific Northwest in nineteen eighty three, but taking Matthews into custody wouldn't be so easy.

Here is FBI agent Wayne Mannis, who by this point had spent some time profiling and tracking down Matthews.

There were several that.

Drawn to Bob Matthews, whom we had just previously encounter in an hotel.

In Oregon and had engaged in a gunbattle or one the FBI as was shot and Bob Matthews was shot in the hands, and he had escaped.

And had taken refuge in a shabbin.

And right along the shoreline at boat on the ocean at would Be Island.

I'm filmmaker and journalist Talponschewski, and this is episode eight stand off at Wildbe Island, the largest island in Washington State.

Would Be Island is located about thirty miles north of Seattle.

Other than a naval air station, it's almost entirely rural and home to a number of state and federal parks.

In other words, not a bad place for the leader of an at large criminal organization to hide out from federal agents.

We moved in to make an arrest on him, and he opened fire.

On us at the house where he was.

Fighting out.

He was the only one left in the in the house at that time.

And then.

Eventually the the encounter led into the night, and there was we still were trying to get him to surrender.

We brought in two helicopters and set him almost on top of the house.

And just in in an act of trying to create enough terror that he would inside him that he would be maybe change his mind and surrender, But instead he opened fire on the helicopters, were them off, and then it gad open fire on those of us that were engaging him from outside the house, and.

Rather lengthy firefight took place.

At that time I was engaged with two other agents directly in front of him at.

The rear of the house, where he was fired upon me and the others.

Then he fired on a team off to the west and a team off to the east, and he was very well alarmed.

He had a lot of weapons.

And after remember this started at about three o'clock in the afternoon during the day, and now we're laid up into the night and this firefight is still going on.

In the course of that time, we were.

Worried that Bob Matthews might escape out amongst us because it was.

Very dark and the lights that.

We could apply only lit up the exterior of the house, but not all that well in all portions of the of the surrounding property around the house.

A flarees fired inside the house.

On the ground level.

Matthews was upstairs and his war room was upstairs, and the the cabin caught fire.

And during the course of the cabin burning and the fire becoming larger and larger, Matthews continued to fire with his machine gun extensively until the fire eventually reached the youngstairs level, and he continued to fire, and then the firing stopped, and then the many rounds of ammunition he had there I recalled them starting to cook off from the blaze.

I knew that the entire building.

Was going to be consumed at that point, and it was.

And so the next morning the only thing that was left was the foundation and Bob Matthews lying on the ground, completely consumed by fire.

In the morning, we found Matthews was dead inside the house, and that concluded our engagement with Bob Matthews.

Following this lengthy firefight with the man he had been tracking for weeks, Manus was overcome with a variety of mixed emotions.

After all, he had spent countless hours profiling Matthews, even coming to admire the incredible power he had built and wilded through the order.

But he had been looking forward to cuffing Manas and bringing him to justice.

Instead, he was forced to settle for a brief encounter with Matthew's charred corpse.

He believed the way he was doing.

Was the right thing to do, even though it was very much wrong.

Once he had taken other people's lives, and once he had put so many people in harms away, and I had committed so many crimes.

But I knew in his mind he.

Regarded himself as a patriot, and.

I knew that his life was over.

And I thought badly that all this commitment had not been used.

In a more.

Let me say, in a more.

Constructive way, and it hadn't been so destructive, and it had been used in the manner in which it had been used.

I was glad that we wouldn't have to face his machine gun fire anymore, and that we wouldn't have him leading an organization trying to kill FBI agents and other law enforcement officers in the course of their activities, But it's so badly for the losses of the life and knowing how dedicated how community was.

When Robert Matthews was finally encountered and ultimately died and would Be Island, that was pretty much the kickoff.

Of our prosecution.

That's US attorney Peter Robinson, And with Matthews dead and a series of high profile indictments officially underway, he was about to be very busy by.

That time that they accumulated a huge amount of information about the group and its activities and its members.

So by the time we had that standoff and would Be Island, they had accumulated most of the information that we would need for our indictment.

I mean most of all.

You're sad to hear that another human being has died, regardless of what crimes he's committed, and I felt that way.

But also I felt like he was the main defendant in our case, and so it would be a little bit diminished without him in the courtroom.

And I would actually would have liked to have met him and seen what he was like and understood how he could lead those people to do all those things.

So there was that kind of disappointment.

I also felt like he might become a martyr, and I thought that was unfortunate too.

You have to understand that whether you agree when the group the owner or not, out of regard to themselves as a very patriotic organization that was interested in the survival of the America it terms as to how America was initially uh constituted, in terms of their belief that the country should be more closely aware as to what our founding fathers wanted this country to be, and they felt that the country was.

Losing its way.

So when they killed ellen Berg, they did that with the belief and understanding that he was one of the individuals that was prominently passing propaganda thousands of people that was in conflict of what they believed was what Oberica should stand for.

So they've recorded themselves as.

Patriots, is what I'm I guess I'm really trying to say.

And they felt that they were doing a patriotic thing when they assassinated him.

From that point on, federal authorities began making multiple arrests.

Here's Lori Cantillo, who reported on Berg's murder for Denver radio station KOA.

Yes, I got a call.

I believe it was right after I went to sleep early because I was working the early shift.

But I got a call from the newsroom saying they've made an arrest in the death of Alan Berg, and we need you to get on a red eye flight and head to Atlanta.

The suspect was Bruce Pearce, and I recall jumping on a plane, sleeping through the night, landing in Atlanta, and being present for a morning arraignment.

I knew Allan I was his friend, but I'm also a journalist, and I need to put my personal feelings for Alan aside and cover this as a professional.

But of course, when I would do interviews with people at KOWA, I would talk about how I felt and how the suspect appeared and so forth.

It's virtually impossible to totally separate your feelings in that situation.

But again, was able to stay busy and file reports and try to remain as impartial as possible.

Pierce has been in hiding since May, when he disappeared from Yakima, Washington, after pleading guilty to passing a phony bill.

He also is connected to several armored cars in the Northwest.

I talked with an FBI agent in kallispell Montana, who says Pierce is like a chameleon, I think.

Is extremely dangerous.

Anyone who walks around with three guns on him as a fragmentation hand grenade.

Knight would listened dynamite is a very dangerous person who also is healed the weapons over there and all the equipment available, I would call him a dangerous person.

When Bruce Gerald Peers opened fire on Alan Berg.

As he stepped out of his car at his residence one night in June nineteen eighty four, he unleashed.

Firepower on him in the form of a fully.

Automatic machine gun type weapon and the gun jam on the fourteenth round.

So we fired thirteen rounds and then the gun jam on the fourteenth round, and he.

Primarily Matthews profoundly stated that.

That is a sign from God that we're on the right path and we will be successful because the thirteen rounds had fired stands for the thirteen original states, and this is like in an ordained message to us that we're on.

The right path.

As it turned out, federal officials moved in on the order at the perfect time.

Remember, the investigation into the criminal organization took off following the holdup of a Brins armored car in Yukaya, California.

Brinks employees had actually been involved in the holdup, providing crucial information to Order members, and it turns out the collaboration with those Brinks employees may not have ended there had officials not moved in.

And at the time that we actually moved in and took down the group, they were within two weeks of conducting a robbery on Brink's headquarters in San Francisco.

The two individuals that.

Had joined and affiliated with Bob matthews group.

The Order had provided Matthews with the all the.

Interior schematics, the information they would need as to exactly when to make their assault on the headquarters, when the when the money would be the most money would be available in stock there, how to penetrate and the choir, their access to the vault, and pretty much what to expect in terms of resistance.

Two weeks before they were planning to do the brinch headquarters robbery, we.

Made the decision to take them down, not knowing at the time.

That that was their plan, only finding out subsequently.

I can't even imagine.

How that would have.

How that would have occurred about with a great.

Deal of.

Of a loss of life.

Following his fiery death in the violent standoff last several hours, Bob Matthews still managed to contribute a final piece of evidence indicating how far the Order was willing to go in its mission, and.

We moved in on him and with the island.

They had sent a letter to Congress while he was there, threatening the members of Congress, stating to members of Congress that they wanted five northwestern states turned over to them.

And they were bold enough to say to the members of Congress that they didn't care if a congress person swung to the left or to the right, they would simply swing them by the neck until dead.

So they were boldly threatening Congress.

And this was just days before we moved in on them.

With the exception of Robert Matthews, every indicted member of the Order was captured without gunfire.

Several members were tried under RICO statutes.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, RICO refers to the Racketeer, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, basically acts pertaining to an ongoing criminal organization.

In a separate trial, four members of the Order were also indicted for violating Allenberg's civil rights, but in an excruciating decision by the Denver District Attorney's office, there were no local charges in the murder of alan Berg.

To this day, no one has been formally charged with his murder.

The district attorney norm Early declined to file murder charges.

That was very controversial, and people who liked him, he was very popular, likable kind of a guy, were very angry and upset about that decision.

Felt that it was a bit cowardly and it was up to then the federal government to come after the perpetrators for racketeering charges, which wasn't nearly as satisfying as filing the murder charges.

So some people would say that it was very political, that there was an election looming, and that he just didn't want to jeopardize his political future by pressing charges and not being able to win that case.

This wasn't as simple as a district attorney willingly overlooking a hate crime.

After all, norm Early was Denver's first black DA and was considered a pioneer of crime victims' rights.

But when it came to choosing not to file charges in Allenberg's murder, there were other elements at play here Once again is David Heckenbach.

The elected DA at that time was a man named Norm Early, Dorman Strickland Early.

He was as elected DA.

He was my.

Boss, if you will.

It was ultimately his decision as to what, if anything in our office would do in terms of prosecuting mister in prosecuting Ellenberg's killers, and so he had he asked me to be involved in every aspect of the Denver police investigation.

That was.

That occurred obviously, and then to the extent that the FEDS would share information, to participate in that process of sharing and exchanging information during the investigation between agencies between the Denver Police Department, our office, the DA's office, and the FBI and the US Attorney's office up in Seattle.

And then ultimately my job would have been, had it been had Norm decided to proceed with prosecuting those killers after the Rico verdict was rendered, my job would have been to have assembled the evidence and presented the case for prosecution first degree murder here in Denver.

I think the best way to describe it was a that it was a committee decision, with a committee comprised of Normally, the elected district Attorney, myself, the then Chief of Police Peace in Denver, his division chief in charge of investigations, the homicide detectives.

But ultimately it was Norm Early's decision as to whether or not we should proceed with a prosecution.

And the issue wasn't so much whether or not these people deserved to be prosecuted by the local authorities, because at that time Colorado did have a death penalty provision that had been enacted by the legislature.

The FEDS at that time did not.

So one of the issues was is that Norm had to decide was given the cost of what it would take for security, for evidence gathering, even transportation between of the defendants to and from the Denver courthouse, security for the personnel involved, and given that the rather substantial life sentences that were handed out after the Rico trial resulted in a conviction, Norm had to weigh It was a difficult decision for him, and he struggled with it very much.

So it was not a decision that Norm took lightly at all.

It was a very very weighty decision.

And at that point of the decision making process, there were also leaders of the Jewish community that were involved in all of these discussions, and my boss and dear friend Norm early ultimately decided that we were not going to proceed with the local prosecution because all of the bad guys had been convicted and were locked away basically for the rest of their lives in the Department of Prisons for the FEDS.

And he asked me to join him at a lunch meeting with the adl Antidefamation League leaders and also some other leaders from the Jewish community at the Hebrew Educational Alliance here in Denver.

I dutifully agreed to go with Norm, and then Norm canceled and I had to deliver the news by myself to that group that the decision was made that we were not going to prosecute locally the murder of Ellenburgh.

I was pretty nervous frankly going into it, because you know, first of all, it wasn't my decision.

It was Norm's decision, and it was his to make, and I respected that man very very much, and I understood how difficult it was for him.

And to this day, I do not know whether Norm just wanted me to take the heat or if he really was unable to attend that meeting, it was obviously important.

Four decades later, that difficult moment when Heckenbuck shared this heartbreaking news with the local community in Denver still sticks out as a seminal moment in his legal career.

It's something I will remember for the rest of my life.

That it was well received.

I can't say that they were happy about the decision, but they were very understanding about it, and it wasn't delivered as a like it or lumpet.

It was delivered in a dialogue form and with explanations to the very best of my ability, and with whatever my understanding was of Norm's position, the city council's, the mayor's, all of the factors that went into Norm's very very difficult decision were shared at that meeting.

It meant a lot to me that Norm trusted me to do it, and that the reception I got was anything but angry.

It was not.

It was.

A very positive experience in my life.

The issue really wasn't so much whether or not these guys were the right guys.

We knew they were.

The issue was is it worth devoting those kinds of resources when the defendants, the criminals, the murderers, were already locked up for the rest of their lives.

What more was there to gain and at what cost in terms of resources?

And what would that cost mean in terms of all the other terrible things that can happen in a big city.

With that difficult decision made by the denver DIA's office, the trial of the Order was set to take place in a Seattle courthouse in September of nineteen eighty five, more than a year after Allenberg's murder, and with Robert Matthews no longer alive and able to face justice.

The prosecution of the Order members who had been indicted would be long and complicated.

Security would be incredibly tight in the courtroom, and there would be a mob of national media covering every detail of the trial.

All that in the next episode of live Wire, The Loud Life and Shocking Murder of Alan Burg.

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