Chaos and Cops at the Compound
Neo-Nazi National Alliance Chairman William White Williams arrested in alleged battery of female employee
Every now and then, a self-described "tough guy" gets taken at his word.
After months of allegedly threatening and physically assaulting employees and manipulating local law enforcement, National Alliance (NA) Chairman Will Williams, 68, left his office in handcuffs Wednesday afternoon.
A convoy of heavily-armed state and county law enforcement officers converged on the Mill Point, W.V., compound of what was once America's preeminent neo-Nazi group at around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon and arrested Williams for the charge of battery after he allegedly attempted to beat and strangle Garland DeCourcy, a slight but scrappy middle-aged woman who has been employed as a clerk at NA headquarters since April.
The arrest couldn't have come at worse time for the embattled neo-Nazi leader. Williams has complained that the legal fees from defending his control of the NA in a lawsuit with a competing faction and the steep operating costs of keeping the Alliance compound running have wiped out much of his life savings. And his attorney, Timothy Kalamaros, of Mishawaka, Ind., is reportedly encouraging Williams to shut the NA down, declare bankruptcy and walk away. (A call and email to Kalamaros for comment were not replied to.)
At this point, Williams can no longer walk on to the NA property in rural West Virginia. Under the terms of his release Thursday afternoon he is effectively banned from the site. His alleged victim and a witness to his alleged crime still reside on or near the group’s headquarters and both have a judge’s Order of Protection requiring Williams to stay at least 1,000 feet away from them.
And to make matters even worse, they are the only two people left on the NA compound.
In the year since Williams seized control of the NA, he has effectively accelerated the group’s decline at a pace even faster than the dozen or so years of Erich Gliebe's tenure. Comparing a May 2015 illustration by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of an executive flow chart of Williams' organization to what the Alliance looks like today tells the story.
They Don't Even Say Goodbye
Because of the level of intimidation Williams is noted for, a number of NA members and supporters have simply left the organization without notice. Tyler Moses, for example, had been in the Alliance for a number of years. He and his wife, Shaylyn Hughes Moses, reportedly recruited Kevin Strom's young fiancée, Meredith Kellar, into the racist movement. (Strom is Williams’ main producer of propaganda and he was also convicted of possession of child porn.)
Moses evidently responded to a bulletin request for help at the NA's West Virginia compound and agreed to work on the property last summer. A former soldier and skilled carpenter, Moses was going to provide some level of security to the property by living in the gate house at the entrance, along with his friend, a Canadian college student studying law enforcement, who also agreed to help out on the property.
But upon arrival at the group’s headquarters sometime in the late spring or early summer, the two unpaid volunteers were shocked to find the NA compound was not as it was described in the NA bulletin. The gatehouse was filthy, full of rats and reptiles with broken windows and rotting floorboards. It was basically uninhabitable, even for an infantryman and an aspiring police officer.
And the former Green Beret in charge, meaning Williams, was nowhere to be found. Having never actually moved to the compound he now controlled, Williams evidently preferred to live in his cozy, custom-built cabin in Tennessee with his young Russian wife. Williams seldom visited the NA property, and he usually stayed at a pricey bed and breakfast in nearby Hillsboro when he was in town.
With no leadership and no real instructions regarding their responsibilities or purpose, both of the young NA volunteers were gone without explanation within a week. Knowing Williams would try to talk them out of leaving, Moses claimed he had to go to a VA hospital appointment in Pennsylvania and abruptly drove off the property, taking his Canadian friend to the train station on his way back home. The two never returned. Attempts to reach Moses and his wife, whose voice mail box was full, for comment were unsuccessful.
The racist movement in general seems to have had its fill of Williams this year. He was reportedly rejected from attending the Stormfront conference this fall after he got in to an argument with organizers over being denied permission to sell National Alliance material at the event. And a number of Stormfront supporters are no longer providing much support to the NA. Albert Hess, AKA "Jay" on Stormfront Radio, is said to have agreed to donate part of his neo-Nazi book and artifact collection to the NA and, along with Francis John Gilroy, was expected to move to the property to assist in rebuilding the decaying infrastructure last summer. Both seem to have backed away without explanation.
Even Michael Storm, who is said to be one of Williams' most staunch loyalists on Stormfront, makes no public statements in support of the NA on the racist forum and quietly left his staff position on the compound months ago.
The NA rank-and-file's fundamental criticism of Erich Gliebe, Williams' predecessor, was that Gliebe refused to move to West Virginia to run the organization under the rough wilderness conditions where William Pierce, the group’s beloved founder, seemed to thrive. Williams is facing similar criticism from his shrinking cadre of donors and supporters. And, according to former NA accountant, Randolph Dilloway, when Williams did occasionally show up on the property he was mostly noted for his disruptive, tyrannical outbursts and incoherent rants about the lack of money and support from the racist movement.
After Dilloway fled the compound in fear of Williams, all that was left was a woman, Garland DeCourcy, for him to bully and berate. But now, as a result of his assault on her, Williams is no longer legally allowed to be on the compound owned by the organization he heads.
Exactly what precipitated Williams' alleged attack on DeCourcy last September is unknown. Her decades-long history in the racist movement suggests she has never shown much tolerance for bullying or bluster from the tough-talking Alpha males that claim to be leading America's race war. Known as smart, funny and habitually sarcastic, DeCourcy has never been described as quiet or particularly submissive.
According to the police narrative in the charging documents attached to Williams' arrest warrant, "Ms. DeCourcy stated that on 09-30-15 she entered her office in Mill Point and William White Williams met her. Ms. DeCourcy stated that Mr. Williams lunged towards her and began choking her. Ms. DeCourcy stated that Mr. Williams force[fully] knocked her into the corner of the room away from the door.
"Ms. DeCourcy stated that Michael Oljaca, who also worked for the National Alliance, was present during the incident and pushed Mr. Williams away and pried his hands from her neck.
"This officer spoke with Michael Oljaca who stated that he was standing outside Ms. DeCourcy's office doorway. Mr. Oljaca stated that Mr. Williams was sitting in Ms. DeCourcy's office and began arguing with her immediately on 09-30-15. Mr. Oljaca stated that Mr. Williams got up from his chair and lunged at Ms. DeCourcy while making a motion with his left hand to smack her. Mr. Oljaca stated that Mr. Williams then took his right hand and started choking her. Mr. Oljaca stated that as soon as the incident took place he pulled Mr. Williams off of Ms. DeCourcy and had to physically restrain him so that he would not do further damage."
Internet Tough Guys Who Live with Their Moms
Will Williams has created a certain mystique about himself as a tough and uncompromising warrior in the racist movement. A self-described artist by profession, he illustrated a crude, racist comic book about himself in the 1990s, called "The Saga of White Will," that shows him confronting Jews and punching out minorities. The NA published and sold thousands of copies of these comics, intended to recruit high school students to the racist right.
A supposedly decorated Vietnam combat veteran who says he is under treatment for PTSD, Williams claims to have joined the US Army Special Forces in 1967, right out of high school, telling Stormfront members that John Wayne personally autographed his green beret
Known for carrying a chip on his shoulder and a hammerless .38 revolver in his right front pocket, Williams has probably picked a verbal fight with virtually everyone in the racist right at one time or another over the past 30 years.
Though a tough talker online, aside from a few frames in his comic book, there are no records of Williams getting in to any actual physical altercations with any males in or out of the racist movement. DeCourcy, however, is not the first female Williams has allegedly stalked, bullied or beat up.
Three years ago, in July 2012, Williams proudly circulated an email exchange he had with a 57-year-old Georgia woman that Williams claimed owed him $200. The woman had just mailed $20 in payment to Williams, which was evidently intercepted by his wife, Svetlana.
Williams' wife, who goes by "Lana" and is originally from Russia, was evidently unaware of Williams' relationship with the woman or of the $200 "loan" Williams had given her the year before. Svetlana Williams sent an email to the woman demanding repayment and threatened her in broken English:
"I would advise you to pay us back the whole amount ($200-$20=$180) ASAP. Knowing Will very well, I can assure you that he might be as wild, when he is angry, as he is kind and generous sometimes. He is not one to abuse, believe me.
"He has already dealt with very similar situations and after he started causing serious problems to those dishonest people they immediately found solutions to pay the whole amount back."
As the threats escalated the Georgia woman finally advised Williams and his wife, "I have made a copy of your email where you threatened me with physical violence and have put it in my bank box for safekeeping. I have also given a copy of it to a neighbor should anything happen to me or my property...If you communicate with me further, I will provide a copy to the local police department and let them handle it as they see fit. I cannot believe that you two would be so stupid as to actually send me a written letter threatening me with physical violence."
According to the widely-circulated email exchange that followed, Williams began to aggressively cyber-stalk the woman, including researching her employer, collecting personal information on her neighbors and geo-mapping her residence. In a creepy and menacing email to the victim, Williams wrote:
"We won't be harming you with ‘physical violence,’ [victim's name], nor damaging your home, the back door of which is less than 100 yards from that green on the golf course. If anyone damages your property, you should first look for suspects from all those golfers who play by the back of your home... We'll see who is stupid before this is resolved. You are not going to scam me.”
The email then became even more threatening:
"Who is the neighbor friend that's your confident [sic]? [Name Deleted]? [Name Deleted] ? [Name Deleted]? I've got the names and addresses and phone numbers of all your neighbors on [Street Name Deleted] plus those behind you on [Street Name Deleted] and [Street Name Deleted]. I'll write to them all with a form letter telling them all about Miss [Name Deleted] and her scam, borrowing money from men she meets on WN forums -- because I can, because you've foolishly challenged me. I'll also put up threads at VNN, E-nat, Phora and everywhere else I discover you have posted, warning others of your scamming. I'll research [Victim's Business Name Deleted]; contact your clients, and your [Deleted] employer. You've never been outed like I'm going to out you, Sister, unless you pay up in full during the next 30 days. You've got until August 4th."
Williams went on in the same email to state the name of the victim's local police chief and provided his phone and email address, writing, "I will be communicating with you and anybody associated with you until you pay your debt to us. Please send this entire email to Chief [Name Deleted], or we can send it, if you want to continue to play games, call my wife and me 'stupid,' flip me off, or call me a 'f------ whiner' for calling due this outstanding loan made to you more than a year ago."
Williams also claimed the woman had sent nude photos of herself to someone, though it remains unclear if or how he was able to access these supposed images. He told a fellow racist recipient of his exchange with the victim that she had "fried-egg titties."
Williams has gone after other females as well. Virtually everyone in the online racist community has observed Williams obsessively engage in his coarse and cruel online battle with former fellow NA member, April Gaede. For more than a decade, he has cyber-stalked the middle-aged mother of three across multiple racist forums.
This appears to be a life-long trend for the self-described "uncompromising race warrior." Reports of Williams' abusive treatment of women date back at least to the 1980s.
In his 1993 autobiography, Church of the Creator (COTC) founder Ben Klassen devotes an entire chapter to Williams' brutal physical abuse of his wife, whom he lived with on the COTC property in 1988. In chapter 35 of Klassen's book, Trials, Tribulations and Triumphs, he recalls repeatedly witnessing Williams kicking and beating Lucinda Williams. Klassen wrote:
"I got a phone call at the house from Cindy. She was sobbing into the telephone and she wanted me to come over right away and protect her from Will. They were apparently having one hell of a fight and Will was beating up on her... When I got there, she was still crying, and Will was still in a vicious mood as Cindy recited all the cruelties he had inflicted upon her. He tried to pass it off as just another one of their domestic spats, and resented the fact that I should even appear on the scene and get involved. This got my dander up, and as Cindy showed some of the bruises she had sustained, I laid down the law to both of them. I told Cindy that I never wanted her to call me again to intervene should they have another fight."
Later, in the same chapter, Klassen recalled an even more violent attack by Williams that left his wife, Lucinda, with bruises and broken bones:
"The fights had been continuing, although they did not drag me into them. In one fight, Will had kicked Cindy around with his hob-nailed army boots, and when she tried to protect her behind with her hand, he kicked her so hard he broke one of the metacarpus bones in her right hand. They had to go to a doctor and have the bone set and the whole hand and arm up to her elbow set in a cast."
Oedipal Supremacists
The misogynistic, male-dominated white supremacist movement seems to be overpopulated with domestic abusers of women. Why male racists in Europe and the United States frequently relate violently to women in their generational cohort has not been adequately studied.
Sociologists have, however, begun to make note of the number of white supremacists leaders who, like Williams, are found to still be living with their mothers well in to their fifties. Until Williams began to collect a psychiatric disability check from the federal government, records show NA bulletins and correspondence were sent to him at his mother's address well in to the early 2000s.
Williams has never denied living with his mother for most of his adult life. Among his fellow neo-Nazis, he seems to consider his mother's life-long support of his racist activities a point of personal pride. Indeed, Williams again cited his "dear" mother by name in a recent fundraising appeal.
In the August 2015 NA membership bulletin, Williams admits he is not getting much financial support in his efforts at rebuilding the organization. When he took over the NA from Erich Gliebe in October 2014, he writes: "Alliance membership, when I took the helm, had declined from a high of nearly 1,300 (achieved soon after the death of our founder Dr. William Pierce) to a grand total of just 24."
Williams then claimed he had since "quintupled" that number. In a long-winded financial appeal titled, "It Takes Money," Williams published a photograph of his mother, Jean, who passed away last year and advised the reader that he is now paying Alliance taxes and operating expenses with his inheritance from her estate.
"My mother always supported my work as a radical political soldier for Our race. (Other family members did not, for fear that it would embarrass them in the eyes of others and bring disapproval, not to mention hardship.) She met Dr. Pierce and Kevin Strom, David Duke, Ben Klassen, Gary Gallo, Gordon Ipock, Ron Doggett, and so many other outstanding leaders. She knew that what I was doing during all those years of struggle and disappointment was necessary and right. She once said, ‘Just because others don't believe you doesn't mean you are wrong, son.’”
Williams continued: "So, please forgive this personal tribute to Jean Boring Williams, my dear departed mother, daughter of Ward and Naomi, who managed to live to the ripe old age of 91. She was the epitome of Aryan womanhood and would be happy to know that, as things have turned out, she helped to rebuild the National Alliance."
In the same August 2015 NA member bulletin Williams features a photograph of his current wife, Svetlana, on the front page and writes that his young Russian mail-order-bride is fully supportive of his work rebuilding the NA. "Look at Lana now; working daily at Alliance-building as an unpaid volunteer, absolutely dedicated to Our Cause. She accepted that the libraries I'd bought were worth divesting our 'nest egg.' She even accepted, once committed, my spending the settlement from a lawsuit, and more of our savings, to pay considerable Alliance debts and past taxes that had accrued under my predecessor. There wasn't much left of our savings after that."
Under Williams' watch there isn't much left of the National Alliance either. And those few who remain are said to be working towards his ouster as NA chairman.
Known to hold a death grip on a grudge, Williams has trolled the major racist forums and conducted Internet guerrilla campaigns against his perceived movement enemies, sometimes for decades. He has hired lawyers and private investigators to drag his detractors into court and he has reportedly manipulated more than one law enforcement officer over the years to help him retaliate.
Persistent rumors of Williams' escalating paranoia, menacing management style and confrontational behavior have circulated in the racist movement for more than a year. He is now openly mocked on Stormfront without moderator intervention and his reputation on the other racist forums is even worse.
But the Internet and comic book version of "White Will" seems almost reasonable in comparison to his recent activities in real life. The wheels started to come off the wagon earlier this year, when Williams' allegedly assaulted Randolph Dilloway, his accountant on the compound. After grabbing him and allegedly threatening to throw him off the roof of the NA headquarters building last April, Dilloway, homeless and without any friends or family nearby, went to the West Virginia state police asking for help.
The trooper on duty filed an assault report over the April 1 incident, which reads in part, "The victim continued, Mr. Williams then grabbed him at the shoulder and at the right side waist and jerked him forward like he was going to throw him off the roof."
But when Dilloway was advised by the state police that Williams would likely be charged with assault for the alleged attack, he evidently became fearful. The report reads: "[The victim] did not want to pursue charges of any kind at this time, and believed it would only make it worse. At the writing of this report, the victim has refused to cooperate."
Though he remains in hiding, Dilloway has spoken extensively with federal law enforcement, the IRS and the SPLC over the past few months. He said in an email this week that he is not at all surprised that Williams finally got arrested for attacking someone on the compound.
Williams' public unraveling has been devastating for Alliance recruitment and member retention. Major donors have challenged him directly, demanding, for example, to see documentation of his military service-related mental disabilities, for which Williams receives thousands of dollars a month in VA benefits. Senior NA supporters and board members have also recently demanded Williams explain how he was issued a concealed carry permit for a handgun in his home state of Tennessee if he is psychiatrically disabled, on medication and reportedly seeing a VA psychologist.
For the most part, Williams has basically ignored these and other queries and concerns from donors and, as a result, the money has begun to dry up. Christopher Larsen, among the most generous financiers of the new NA, reportedly resigned in disgust in October after learning of Williams allegedly assaulting and threatening DeCourcy at the NA's office.
Indeed, that unexpected, psychotic assault on a fearless little middle-aged woman answering the phones and raising vegetables and chickens on a decaying neo-Nazi compound in rural West Virginia last September might mark the beginning of the end for a former green beret, tough guy named "White Will."
And it may also help hammer the final nail in the coffin of William Luther Pierce and what little is left of his National Alliance.
