As we find with most extremist violence, the urge to  classify killers as act-alone outliers is comforting but normally wrong and often dangerous.

Amanda Robb writes a great investigative piece for Ms. Magazine about the web of pro-life extremists and killer Scott Roeder.

Scott Roeder is now serving a life term for murdering abortion doctor George Tiller. But did he really act alone?

AS SOON AS SCOTT ROEDER WAS NAMED THE SOLE SUSPECT IN THE point-blank shooting death of Wichita, Kan., abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in the vestibule of the Reformation Lutheran Church Tiller attended, a predictable story began to be told. Following the lead of a recent Department of Homeland Security report characterizing right-wing terrorists as lone wolves, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC, NBC and FOX News all ran stories calling Roeder a “lone wolf” gunman.

It is the oldest, possibly most dangerous abortion story out there.

August 13, 1994, The Washington Post: “Many anti-abortion leaders have… denounced Paul Hill [who killed abortion provider Dr. John Britton and his security escort James Barrett]…as a lone, sick extremist.”

October 26, 1998, The Independent (London): “A doctor defiant [is] shot dead for his beliefs by a lone abortion terrorist [referring to James Kopp, who killed Amherst, N.Y., abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian].”

But for loners, these guys have a lot of friends. A lot of the same ones, in fact.

Over the past six months, I have interviewed Scott Roeder more than a dozen times, met several times with his supporters at the Sedgwick County Courthouse in Wichita where he was tried and convicted, and permissibly recorded numerous three-way telephone conversations Roeder had me place to his friends. Using information gleaned from these sources, along with public records, it is possible to piece together the close, long-term and ongoing relationship between Roeder and other anti-abortion extremists who advocate murder and violent attacks on abortion providers.

Continue reading the article at http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2010/lonewolf.asp