An anti-Semite who went on a shooting rampage at a community center and a retirement home in Kansas had set out to murder Jews but ended up killing two Methodists and a Catholic, officials said Monday.
Frazier Glenn Cross, 73, was booked into Johnson County jail following Sunday’s bloodbath in Overland Park, Kan., that took the lives of a 14-year-old boy, his grandfather and a woman.
Anti-hate and civil rights groups immediately flagged Cross — also known as Frazier Glenn Miller — and said he’s been a vocal leader of America’s fringe racist movement.
“Frazier Glenn Miller is definitely in the top 10, he’s been involved in hate groups going back to the ’80s — the Klan, the White Power Party, and he’s been a poster in the [racist] Vanguard News Network [Web site],” said Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks hate groups and activists.
Cross was a good pal of racist murderer Joseph Paul Franklin, who was executed in Missouri last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In researching Franklin’s background, Beirich said she spoke at length with Cross this past fall.
“This guy is the most anti-Semitic person I’ve ever talked to — and I’ve talked to a lot,” Beirich told The Post.
“He kept calling, wanting to chat about his views.”
The suspect — who did not know the victims — yelled “Heil Hitler” as he was loaded into a police car after his arrest, KSHB-TV reported.
Dr. William Lewis Corporon, 69, was taking grandson Reat Underwood to the center for auditions for a play, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” when they were killed.
They were members of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Mo.
“Reat had a passion for life, and touched so many people in his young age,” his family said.
A mile south, Cross allegedly killed Terri LaManno at the Village Shalom senior community, where she was visiting her mom.
LaManno, 53, was a longtime parishioner at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Kansas City, Mo.
“She was a loving mother and wife and a gentle and giving woman,” said the Rev. Stephen Cook, the pastor of St. Peter’s.
Heidi Beirich, head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, said Cross, a k a Frazier Glenn Miller, has led raci
Oddly, Cross always came off as a remarkably social person — aside from his racist, anti-Semitic hate, according to Beirich.
“He had sort of a friendly demeanor to him, then he’d say we need to kill all the Jews,” Beirich said. “But yeah, he could come off as a guy you could have a beer with.”
Cross lives in a single-family home in Aurora, Mo., about 180 miles south of Overland Park. The house has barbed-wire fences on three sides of it.
A red Chevy with Confederate flag stickers was parked outside. There was no answer at his door early Monday when a reporter for the Associated Press knocked.
The suspect has been credited with founding the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its “grand dragon” in the 1980s before going on to construct the White Patriot Party.
He unsuccessfully sought statewide office in North Carolina twice — first for the Democratic Party nomination for governor in 1984 and then as a Republican for a US Senate seat in 1986, according to state records and the law center.
Running as “Glenn Miller,” he finished eighth out of 10 Democrats in 1984, receiving 5,970 votes — about 0.6 percent.
He was back on the campaign trail in 1986, seeking the GOP nod for Senate. The suspect grabbed 6,662 votes, or 3.1 percent, to finish last among three Republicans.
In each race, he ran on a racist platform, according to the SPLC.
Cross was on the run from authorities in 1987 after violating terms of his bond while appealing a conviction for operating a paramilitary camp in North Carolina.
Federal agents eventually caught up with him and three other men in an Ozark mobile home filled with ammo, automatic weapons and grenades.
“You never know what’s going to push people like this over the edge,” Beirich said.
The attack happened one day before the Jewish festival of Passover begins on Monday night.
“We are investigating it as a hate crime. We’re investigating it as a criminal act. We haven’t ruled out anything,” said Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass.