David Neiwert - And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing the Dark Side of the American Border

This book would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by two people, both daily news reporters working ingloriously in the journalistic trenches:

Scott North, a veteran reporter and editor at the Herald in Everett, Washington, who happens to be a longtime friend and colleague. It was North who first exposed Shawna Forde as a pathological fraud, even before she became a child killer, and it was North who uncovered the entire story of her career in crime in the aftermath of the Flores murders. Scott was also the first to interview the first known victim in her spree of murderous violence, John Forde, and to track down the turmoil of her upbringing. North shared his notes and information with me freely, and this book would not have existed without his hard work and upstanding diligence. It also helps that Scott North is as decent a man as they come; not only did it open many doors for him, it also drove him to pursue this story deeply.

Dave Ricker, a part-time reporter for the Green Valley News and Sun, the biweekly paper published out of Sahuarita and the hometown paper for Arivaca. Ricker was the only reporter who covered nearly every day of all three of the Tucson trials in the Flores murders, and his dogged pursuit of the story revealed a hundred nuances and previously unknown details, especially as the facts of the case played out in the courtroom. I met Ricker while covering the trials myself and was impressed by his attentiveness to detail and his keen insights, and I was deeply appreciative that he was willing to share notes, details, and a broad range of background information with me as I put this book together.

Two of my other colleagues at the Tucson trialsTerry Greene Sterling of the Daily Beast and Kim Smith of the Arizona Daily Stardeserve special thanks; covering trials is always a cooperative venture, and we all wound up getting help from each other and helping in turn.

I also owe a thanks to Rickers editor at the Green Valley News, Dan Shearer, who was himself the first reporter on the scene the morning of the murders; Dan was kind enough to share his insights about those events with me, as well as his perspective on daily life in that part of Arizona.

There are a number of other reporters who delved this story in some depth, and I hope their fine work is reflected in this text toonotably Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star, Rick Anderson of Seattle Weekly, and Stephen Lemons of Phoenix New Times.

Several independent sources were invaluable in obtaining a fuller picture of Shawna Forde and her operations, especially private investigator Michael Carlucci, who spent many hours with me poring over the facts and details of the case. I also deeply appreciated the time and insights provided by her mother, Rena Caudle, and her half-brother, Merrill Metzger, and by her ex-husband, John Forde, whose courage and strength are truly an inspiration.

Many people in Arivaca were kind enough to lend me their time and their perspectives, and many made me feel as welcome as possible, given the unhappy and delicate nature of the interviews I was conducting. A number of those people asked to remain anonymous, and so they shall. Those who did not include Mary Noon Kasulaitis, the towns librarian and bona fide historical expert, who assisted me greatly in understanding the towns long history. Photographer Karl Hoffmann was especially helpful in introducing me to folks around Arivaca and getting a sense for the lay of the land, and he has my deepest thanks for that. Among the people who knew Junior and Brisenia Flores, I owe special thanks to Andrew Alday and Alan Wellen, who were willing to speak their minds publicly. Finally, I owe special thanks to Ellen Dursema of the Arivaca Community Center, who helped me get oriented when I first arrived in town and who gave me important insights into the personality of her young friend Brisenia Flores.

There are many people who have written about the Minuteman movement over the years, and their work was also essential in putting this text together. Most important of these is the staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which remains the most assiduous, detailed, and dependably factual of all the organizations that gather and publish information on the radical right in America. In addition to my friend Mark Potok, who heads the SPLCs intelligence project, I owe special thanks to the many SPLC reporters who over the years have tracked the activities of the Minutemen, especially Heidi Beirich, Susy Buchanan, Dave Holthouse, and Casey Sanchez.

I have a debt of gratitude to the many people who have worked with me on the story of the Minutemen and, later, of Shawna Forde over the years. Leading the list is Esther Kaplan at the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute, who funded and edited my investigative work into the Minutemens finances, as well as my coverage of the Forde trials; and Joe Conason, who has consistently championed my work at the Fund. Im also grateful to the editors at American Prospect, who published the financial investigation in 2009, and Joshua Holland, my editor at AlterNet, who published my initial report on the Forde case in 2012. Finally, I owe thanks to the editors at Seattle magazine who published my initial foray into reportage on the Minutemen in 2006.

My agent, Jill Marsal, played a key role in shaping this manuscript, and her insights, as always, have proved invaluable along the way. Carl Bromley, my editor at Nation Books, has been a fantastic cohort and a wise counselor.

Id also like to thank my copy editor, Beth Wright, for her sharp-eyed, sensitive, and creative input, and my friend Beth Nauman-Montana for her superb indexing. And Id like to thank the people who read the manuscript in process and offered me their edits and their insights, notably my wife, Lisa Dowling, and her mother, Diana Dowling. Lastly, I need to thank my daughter, Fiona, for giving me all the inspiration a father could wish.

October 2012
Seattle

AND HELL
FOLLOWED
WITH HER

ALSO BY DAVID NEIWERT

In Gods Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest

Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America

Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community

The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right

Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day.

CORMAC MCCARTHY,
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

To Len and Dee, Who Taught Me to Stand Up

AND HELL
FOLLOWED
WITH HER

Crossing the Dark Side of

the American Border

DAVID NEIWERT

Copyright 2013 by David Neiwert

Published by Nation Books,