MAN WITH TIES TO HATE GROUP QUESTIONED IN TROY DOUBLE HOMICIDE
By Marisol Lopez
An ex-con with ties to a right-wing hate group was questioned in relation to the murders of Quantrell Hamilton and Michael Wilkins, police sources say.
Conrad “Connie” Hall, 56, was questioned and released Thursday.
Hamilton and Wilkins were shot execution-style in their Troy apartment on February 19. Police suspect that the murders were drug-related.
Hall has a long criminal history, including a nine-year prison term for manslaughter. He was arrested in January 2009 with members of the so-called Greene Freemen at a demonstration on the day of President Obama’s inauguration. Hall and about 20 protesters, some carrying firearms, attempted to enter the Capitol building. Charges against him were later dropped.
The Greene Freemen are listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch as a white nationalist group.
Neighbors told the Times-Union that Hamilton and Wilkins had recently moved into the Troy apartment and were believed to be using it as a holding place for guns and drugs.
A woman who answered the phone at Hall’s residence refused to comment on the case.
I copy and paste the article’s URL into an e-mail and send it to Larry, along with a note:
The guy Pessie used to be engaged to is/was in a relationship with Conrad Hall’s son Ryan. Do you know what happened with this homicide? Anyone ever caught? Thoughts?
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Web site lists more than forty New York-based organizations that they consider to be “hate groups,” including the Radical White Persons Party and the Suffolk County Aryans. The Nation of Islam makes the list, too. The Greene Freemen-who the SPLC identify as both white nationalist and Aryan Nations-don’t appear to have their own Web site, so I click on a link for the Rochester-based Caucasian Caucus and am redirected to a no-frills Web site called The Protected. The banner at the top of the site reads, in flashing red letters: WE ARE THE WHITE MINORITY! PROTECTED BY GOD! SWORN TO FIGHT FOR OUR RACE! Below the banner are dozens of discussion threads, beginning with “Introduction to the Protected,” then “Rules of the Board,” then “News Links,” “International,” “Money,” “Self-Defense,” “Strategy,” “Events”; there are even threads for “Poetry,” “White Singles,” and “Ladies.” I click into “Strategy” and see that there are more than two hundred pages of discussions with thousands of views. I scroll down and click on a thread called “The Problem with Jews.” The post is written by a user named John March. He starts by telling readers that although they might think Jews are just harmless white people in funny hats, they are actually responsible for the destruction of the white race and “civilized” society more than any other group-“even niggers.” He goes on. Jews are parasites who suck the life out of whatever country they are in, and then move on when there is nothing left. They are also sexual perverts who encourage pornography, masturbation, bestiality, and all manner of ugly stuff to keep the white race weak and distracted from their evil ways. He goes on and on, linking to various speeches and videos, several by David Duke, and then turns to “History,” tracing the origins of modern Jews’ use of sexual perversion as a weapon to Freud. Finally, he takes on “The Holocaust Myth.” I click out, disgusted. Obviously, it’s not a surprise to me that neo-Nazis and white supremacists exist; I mean, I’m from Florida. I’ve seen plenty of trucks flying Confederate flags, and I’ve spent at least a couple weekend afternoons half-watching cable news documentaries about Aryan prison gangs. I saw American History X like everybody else. What I didn’t understand, though, and what this Web site proves, is how much thought, how much imagination, these people put into building their ugly theories and alternative histories. It’s not posturing. It’s not just provocation. It’s fucking serious. John March is an articulate writer. He doesn’t sound unhinged or particularly angry. In fact, the post reads like an above-average academic paper-he even embedded images of newspaper articles from during World War II. Someone predisposed to hating Jews would find much to bolster their beliefs in this post. And someone who had been the victim of sexual abuse by a Jew-someone like Sam-might find an easy excuse to think that what happened to him was part of some larger, ongoing conspiracy. As if the poor kid’s mind hadn’t been fucked with enough.
I’ve been sitting in Saul’s car for almost two hours when my phone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize.
“This is Rebekah,” I say.
“Rebekah? This is Officer Van Keller.”
“Hi,” I say. “How are you?”
“I’m calling you from my cell. Are you still in town?”
“I’m in New Paltz,” I say.
“Can we meet?”
“Now?”
“If possible. I’ll come to you.”
We agree to meet at a diner just off the New Paltz exit from the Thruway. I order a bowl of potato soup and send Levi a text asking him to call me. If I can get him to comment on Pessie’s apparently secret friendship with her ex, that might be enough for a story. After about an hour, Van Keller appears in the doorway dressed in jeans and a Carhartt jacket. I wave to catch his attention and he slides into my booth.
“Must be important,” I say, trying to keep my smile salutary, not flirtatious. It’s difficult. Poor guy; must be annoying to have every woman he meets turn into a giggling, stuttering teenager in his presence.
“Yeah,” he says, taking off his coat. “We’re off the record, okay?”
“Okay.”
He nods. The waitress appears and he orders a Diet Coke.
“I’m probably going to lose my job for talking to you,” he says. “But I’m not sure what else to do. You’ve already written about the case, so it makes sense that you’d keep digging. I read your other stuff. About that murder in Brooklyn? I guess this is your beat. So. And you have that plate number. I’m sure somebody at the Trib can figure out who it belongs to. Maybe you already have. Have you?”
I don’t answer immediately, which he takes to mean yes. He’s nervous, talking fast, tearing at the paper napkin in front of him.
“Right, yeah. So the truck Pessie’s neighbors saw is registered to a man named Conrad Hall. You’re not from around here so you probably haven’t heard of him, but Connie Hall is a bad dude. He’s Aryan Brotherhood. You know them?”
I nod.
“I don’t think he advertises it, but that’s blood in blood out. The Brotherhood controls most of the drugs and the guns coming into the state-outside of New York City. Heroin has become a big problem here in the past couple years. Everybody hooked on prescription pills is losing their prescription since they started cracking down on doctors, and heroin is almost as good, and cheaper. Most of the robberies we see are heroin-related. Junkies stealing just enough to get a fix. Breaking into cars and houses. It’s not as bad in Roseville, partly because the Jews aren’t into that shit and they’re more and more of the population. But the rest of Rockland and Orange County. Plus Dutchess and Greene and Ulster and up in Albany. And if they’re not robbing-and they’re white-they can sometimes make a little cash moving product for people like Connie. Which means they want to carry a gun. And if you’ve got a record, you can’t get a gun in New York State. Well, you can’t get it legally. But the Brotherhood has people all over, so they bring guns up from the Carolinas, Virginia, even Pennsylvania. And guns just up the ante for everybody. Now we gotta think about getting shot every time we pull over some stoned asshole, you know? I mean, it happens. Last year a probation officer got killed checking on a meth head in Woodbury. He knocks, and the guy’s out of his mind, and armed. Shoots the officer through the door. Cop’s wife had just had a baby. And, like, even the tweaker, he didn’t know what he was doing. Without that gun he’d have gotten violated, sure, but now he’s life without parole for capital murder.”