White supremacist J.T. Ready, 39, the thug who killed four people and then himself in Gilbert, Arizona, on Wednesday, disliked little Lilly Mederos because the 15-month-old toddler was half-Hispanic. According to a family friend, Ready referred to Lilly as "50 percent ugly."
The sick shit killed Lilly Wednesday. It's hard to fathom the horror in that suburban home, after hearing the first shot. For months, everyone in the family had been afraid of and hated J.T. Ready; they knew he was a violent psychopath who talked about guns as the solution to his crackpot conspiracies. A former acquaintance said,
"He was always telling me about plans for killing people.... He had lots of guns in the house.... He always believed the government was conspiring." Arizona Republic
Reports say Lisa Mederos, 47, Ready's recent girlfriend, talked to a 911 operator just before he stalked through the house and shot everyone -- taking out three generations of the Mederos family: Lisa, her 23-year-old daughter Amber, and
her daughter Lilly, just over a year old. Also killed was Jim Hiott, Amber's fiancee.
It should surprise no one that neighbors and friends characterize Ready as "cruel and controlling" toward his girlfriend Lisa and, after he'd lived with them a few months, toward the entire family:
Several months ago, Ready delivered a crushing blow, splitting the family apart as domestic-violence offenders are known to do: He told Amber and [her sister] Brittany they had to move out, and both girls left... Arizona Republic
Although Lisa was rebounding from a divorce and a near-fatal car accident, which friends said left her "lonely and ready for love," even she could not stand J.T. Ready any longer. In February she filed a domestic violence charge, to report a choking that took place months ago, but nothing came of it. That wasn't the first time someone notified the authorities about J.T. Ready. In 2003 and 2009, two other women sought orders of protection against the creepy bigot.
Like most violent racist dickheads with an ego always set at 11, J.T. Ready was simply incapable of having a relationship that is not consumed by the hate and control he embodied. Court martialed twice in the Marines, he was eventually kicked out for basically being a corrupt shit-for-nothing. He was fired from the AutoZone store where he met Lisa Mederos. Heck, Ready even became too crazy for Senator Russell Pearce, who, in 2004, helped the rising young star in the GOP join the LDS Church. Pearce then watched J.T. become a precinct committeeman in his hometown, and later he supported Ready during his 2006 race for Mesa City Council. Hurrah for the people of Mesa, who did not elect an avowed white supremacist and traveler with neo-Nazis.
Stormfront, New Saxon, and most of the websites where Ready posted have taken down his final racist rants, although New Times and ADL have captured them if you're interested, but you already know what they say. Better yet, remember 23-year-old Amber's Facebook post on Tuesday evening.
"Time to get the drama out of [my] life and make a better life for me[,] my daughter and my love." Reuters
Her mom, she hoped, was getting J.T. Ready out of her life. Her baby girl had learned to walk last month, and
she was getting married. Amber's first husband and Lilly's father, Jess Boggs, remained close to the family after the divorce. He even became good friends with Amber's fiancee, 24-year-old Jim Hiott, an Afghanistan veteran who was also slain Wednesday:
Hiott made Lilly and Amber happy, and that was all that mattered to Boggs. The first time he heard Amber talk about Hiott, "I could tell when she met him, that's who she was going to be with [by] the amount of joy, happiness in her voice." So he and Hiott became friends. He helped Hiott get a job and they worked together for some time. Tucson Citizen
According to a
CBS5.com report, since Wednesday,
1. The website of the US Border Guard, the group of vigilantes that Ready founded and led through the desert scouting for immigrants, expressed sympathy to the family and friends of J.T. Ready, but that was all. "God bless you, J.T." it read. I checked and they've taken the site down but Think Progress has the screen capture (h/t jan4insight). Associates of Ready and the USBG vow that the militia patrols will continue, but some hate-group monitors believe this is the end of the USBG.
2. Ready's Facebook page includes comments from vigilantes like, "We've got men on the way, payback's a bitch."
3. Harry Hughes, who took over as state director of the National Socialist Movement after Ready stepped down, said it's a shame that his friend will be "unfairly branded a hate monger and white supremacist." Unfairly?! What does a guy have to do to be fairly branded a hate monger and white supremacist, Mr. Hughes?
4. Senator Russell Pearce issued a statement about the killings and J.T. Ready saying, "there has never been and will never be any room in our Party or our lives for those preaching hatred." This from the man who authored SB 1070 and spent his career vilifying anyone not white and male. In his statement, the recalled jackass actually paints himself as the victim, because the media aren't being nice to him.
Russell Pearce is running for the Senate again in November, so he's Etch-a-Sketchin' all over the place to erase his ties with the ugly side of J.T. Ready (and that would be all sides). Pearce says he rejected Ready after he discovered his friend's goose-stepping tendencies, except he didn't, writes Stephen Lemons. Even after the ADL warned Pearce of J.T.'s neo-Nazi back-slappin', the Senator supported Ready in the 2006 Mesa City Council race, calling him a "true patriot ... kinda like the Republican platform that we have." Later, he attended a 2007 anti-immigration rally at the State Capitol featuring swastika-waving brownshirts, where Ready loudly introduced Russell Pearce to Ted Nugent Nation as a "statesman."
Unlike a lot of the a-holes at that rally, Jess Boggs, Lilly's dad, didn't think she was 50 percent anything:
She was perfect.
UPDATE: Sunday morning's front page of the
Arizona Republic:
The state has long had a homegrown fringe right-wing element, but its more recent status as ground zero in the heated national debate over illegal immigration has made Arizona a beacon to out-of-state White supremacists, neo-Nazis, skinheads and militia types... Seventeen hate groups, including Ready's armed search-and-rescue squad, had a presence in Arizona as of 2011, according to the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremism across the country. Others include the National Socialist Movement, which has an authorized Phoenix unit that Ready once led; the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; and the Vinlanders Social Club.
I don't think this'll make it into the Arizona Office of Tourism brochures.