Alan Berg - Death

Death

At about 9:30 p.m. on June 18, 1984, Alan Berg returned to his Adams Street townhouse after a dinner date with Judith, with whom he was attempting a reconciliation. Berg stepped out of his black Volkswagen Beetle and gunfire erupted. He was struck twelve times. The murder weapon, a semi-automatic Ingram MAC-10, which had been illegally converted to an automatic weapon, was later traced to the home of one of The Order's members by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Hostage Rescue Team.

Four members of The Order were ultimately indicted on federal charges: Jean Craig, David Lane, Bruce Pierce, and Richard Scutari. However, only Lane and Pierce were convicted, though neither of homicide (which is a state crime). Rather, they were convicted of racketeering, conspiracy, and violating Alan Berg's civil rights (which are federal crimes). Both were sentenced to what were, for all practical purposes, life terms; Lane's sentence was 190 years; Pierce's was 252 years.

David Lane was a former klansman who later joined the Neo-Nazi Christian Identity group Aryan Nation. He steadfastly denied any involvement in Berg's murder, but neither did he regret that Berg was dead. In an interview presented as part of the History Channel documentary, Nazi America: A Secret History, Lane admitted to calling the show and goading Berg into an exchange and stated: "The only thing I have to say about Alan Berg is, regardless of who did it, he has not mouthed his hate-whitey propaganda from his 50,000-watt zionist pulpit for quite a few years". Lane, incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, died of an epileptic seizure at age 68 on May 28, 2007. One of the alleged gunmen in the Alan Berg assassination, Bruce Pierce, who was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Union County, Pennsylvania, died of natural causes at age 56 on August 16, 2010. Craig and Scutari were convicted of unrelated crimes. The leader of The Order, Robert Jay Mathews, believed, although never proven, to be a lookout in the Alan Berg shooting, was burned to death during a standoff with federal authorities on December 8, 1984, at his home in Coupeville, Washington.

Years before Alan Berg's assassination, Dr. William Luther Pierce, a former member of the American Nazi Party who went on to co-found what eventually became the National Alliance, wrote the white nationalist themed novel The Turner Diaries. Robert Mathews had named his organization, The Order, after the fictional group of the same name in the book. The Turner Diaries has also been described as the inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, due to the similarity to the book's account of the destruction of a government building in Washington, D.C., and the fact that Timothy McVeigh was an avid reader of The Turner Diaries.