Final Member of FEAR Terror Group Sentenced

Heather Salmon, the last of a ring of would-be domestic terrorists known as FEAR — Forever Enduring, Always Ready — pleaded guilty last week in Georgia for her role in the execution-style slaying of two teenage sweethearts in the winter of 2011.

Prosecutors say the young couple — Tiffany York, 17, and her boyfriend, Michael Roark, 19 — was killed to keep secret FEAR’s grandiose plans to wage an antigovernment campaign of terror, including bombings, kidnappings and political assassinations.

Salmon, a 30-year-old mother of four, was the matriarch and bookkeeper of the ring of about a dozen active-duty and recently discharged soldiers stationed at Fort Stewart in rural Southeast Georgia. Herself a former soldier, Salmon faced up to 70 years behind bars before agreeing to plead guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter. She was sentenced July 9 in Long County Superior Court to 20 years in prison and 10 years of probation once she is released, undoubtedly as a middle-aged woman.

The families of the murdered teenagers opposed the plea deal. They said so in court at Salmon’s sentencing when they were allowed to address her directly as they delivered from the witness stand victim impact statements. “I feel like you need to serve the max,” York’s sister, Morgan, told Salmon. “I feel a terrorist should sit in jail.”

Salmon had already been sitting in jail for about three years, awaiting trial, all the while stubbornly insisting that she knew nothing about FEAR or the murders that took place late at night in a knot of woods a short drive from Fort Stewart and a few weeks before Christmas 2011.

Two years later, in an exclusive interview with Hatewatch in the day room of the Brantley County Jail, Salmon denied she was the gang’s number two, its steely-willed matriarch some of the members called “Momma Ray.”

“I’m nobody’s mother except for my kids,” she said, adding that to be reunited with her children, “I’d testify against everybody — if I knew anything.”

At the sentencing, in a voice so soft spectators had a hard time hearing her, Salmon apologized to the families of York and Roark.

“I’m sorry,” she said when the judge asked if she had anything to say.

Michael Jahr, Roark’s grandfather, who traveled from his home in the West for the sentencing, told Hatewatch on Friday that that Salmon’s apology “really had little conviction.”

A lack of conviction seems to have been a hallmark of the group. FEAR’s delusional dreams died along with the teenagers. Before they could do any more harm, most of the leadership of the ring was in custody within a week of the killings, confessing and pointing fingers at their comrades.

Salmon, who stayed home to babysit the night of the murders, was not arrested and charged in the case until several months later. Her husband, Christopher, who was an Army private at the time, and Anthony Peden, a sergeant and combat veteran, were the triggermen. They both pleaded guilty to murder. Christopher Salmon was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Because of his war record, Peden was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, FEAR’s charismatic 19-year-old ringleader, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Aguigui was also sentenced to life by an Army court after he found guilty in 2014 by a military judge of murdering his pregnant wife, Sgt. Deirdre Aguigui, in the summer of 2011. An initial Army autopsy was ruled inconclusive and Aguigui was not charged in the killing of his wife until after the teenagers were shot to death five months later.

It was money from a $500,000 life insurance policy Aguigui received after his wife’s death that he used to fund his antigovernment militia. By the night of the murders, FEAR had amassed almost $90,000 in military-grade weapons.

Prosecutors say Michael Roark, who was discharged from the Army just three days before he was killed, was part of the group. But he was apparently trying to quit and return to his home in Washington when he and his girlfriend were lured to the woods on the pretense of shooting under the stars with the boys.

FEAR was worried Roark might reveal its plans if he left town. Aguigui also suspected Roark of stealing money, a deadly idea that Salmon put in his head.

“I handled Mr. Aguigui’s money for him,” Salmon told the judge on Thursday, according to WSAV-TV. “And I did notice some funds were missing, which unfortunately caused this case.”

Military incompetence also caused the case, according to the families of York and Roark. They are suing the Army for $30 million, arguing that base commanders should have — and could have on numerous occasions — intervened in FEAR’s activities long before their children were killed in what the suit describes as “a heartbreakingly preventable tragedy.”

In court last week, Brenda Thomas, York’s mother, held up her daughter’s baby pictures so Salmon could see them from the defense table.

“Do you see her?” Thomas asked, her voice filled with anger and sorrow. “This was Tiff.”