Anti-Abortion Violence

A grand jury in Erie County, N.Y., has indicted longtime abortion protester James "Atomic Dog" Kopp in the slaying of obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Barnett Slepian.

Slepian, director of Buffalo's best-known abortion clinic, was gunned down in front of his family by a single rifle bullet fired through his kitchen window last October.

Kopp had been arrested more than a dozen times from Georgia to New York to Italy during protests, and was sought as a witness almost immediately after the doctor's murder in the suburban Buffalo area. Witnesses and forensic evidence — including a hair found in a cap — placed Kopp near Slepian's home around the time of the shooting.

The indictment charges Kopp, a devout Roman Catholic said to attend Mass daily, with second-degree murder, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon. He also has been charged with violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, and his name has been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.