Cross burning case inactive: No leads, suspects

Four months after a cross burning and an apparent hate letter were left at a Moscow activist's home, police still don't have enough information to solve the crime.

Moscow Police Chief Dan Weaver said Wednesday that the hate-crime investigation of Lori Graves' Harrison Street home is inactive. There are no leads and no suspects.

Weaver is also still waiting for glass from the Molotov cocktail left on Graves' porch and a hate letter reportedly found in her mailbox to come back from the state crime lab. Unless that evidence proves helpful, the only answers Weaver has about the mysterious December incident is a completed police report that, until now, has not been made public.

The report, completed by officers in December, questions whether Graves' roommate, Sarah Scranton found the hate letter in the home's mailbox and whether it was written by the Aryan Nations as Graves suspected.

Graves, a 29-year-old, Washington State University graduate student, protested the Aryan Nations' parade in Coeur d'Alene last summer. After a 4-foot wooden cross was found burning in her yard along with the Molotov cocktail and hate letter, Graves said she believed she had been targeted for being vocal against the Aryan Nations. The letter said, "You are a disgrace to your race E The time of reckoning is here for you and those like you. Your days are numbered."

But according to police reports obtained by the Daily News, there was no evidence to confirm that Scranton found the letter in the mailbox the morning of the Dec. 1 cross burning as she had reported.

A written statement from Cpl. Carl Wommack said there was water in the mailbox on Dec. 2 when he checked it. It had been raining the morning the cross and letter were found. In the report, Wommack said the letter Scranton brought in was dry with "no water spots or any sign that water had gotten on the paper.

"It is also clear, by the evidence, that the note that Scranton is claiming to have found in the mailbox could not have come from that mailbox," Wommack wrote. "This is clear because the box is in poor condition and any item of mail that goes into the box must be retrieved from the box very quickly or become water damaged. The box had a piece of mail in it from the previous day when the mail carrier dropped off the mail on Tuesday (Dec. 1). Scranton said there was no mail. The piece of mail the mail carrier found still in the box was very damp with water/moisture. The note Scranton claimed to have found in the mail box was dry with no evidence that it had ever been damp."

Scranton no longer lives at the Harrison Street home and could not be reached for comment Wednesday. In police reports, Scranton did say she believed the FBI would have reason to commit the arson so they could have access into the house. Scranton and Graves told police they believed the FBI had files on members of their environmental group, Earth First!.

Graves also was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

Weaver would not draw any conclusions about the letter from the report but did say investigators from North Idaho who are familiar with the Aryan Nations indicated that the activities at Graves' home weren't consistent with things the Aryan Nations had been involved with.

According to police reports, investigators at the Coeur 'd Alene Police Department said the cross found in Graves' yard was not similar to the Aryan Nations' style of crosses. Investigators also told MPD that the note was too well written to be from members of the Aryan Nations.

Graves' Berkeley, Calif., attorney, Larry Hildes who specializes in defending demonstration cases and also has experience in information gathering against the Aryan Nations, said in December that the hate letter sounded like something from the Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel by William Pierce, the leader of neo-Nazi National Alliance. Moscow City Attorney Randy Fife said Wednesday that there is not enough evidence or information to move forward with prosecution at this time.

"If we had enough information to proceed against someone, we would," he said.

Fife also said it's the city's policy not to release a criminal report unless it's requested.

After the Aryan Nations' protest, Graves was charged with resisting arrest after she refused to let police search her backpack at the march. Charges were dropped against Graves but she and her friend Jonathan Crowell are suing the city for allegedly violating their constitutional protection from search and seizure.

A $13 million federal suit was filed in Pocatello Wednesday against the city of Coeur d'Alene for the alleged violation of civil liberties, false arrests, physical and mental abuses and malicious prosecution of Graves, Crowell and three other protesters.

Graves also is involved with the Cove Mallard Coalition and was one of three women who challenged and were successful in proving the vagueness of Moscow's indecent exposure ordinance. As a result, women are allowed to be topless in the city.

Days after the burning cross, Molotov cocktail and letter were found at Graves' home, a vigil against hate was held in Friendship Square where community members showed their support for Graves. The following week, a town meeting to protest hate also was organized.