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At Griffin's trial, a clinic nurse testified that she saw Burt and another protester shake hands moments after Griffin fired his gun, something that Burt denies. Though he is now a target of the Morris Dees civil suit, Burt was never charged in the murder. He defended his role on a television talk show, saying, "If I am a general with troops under me and I give them a game plan and send them out, I can't be responsible for every soldier in that army."
Within two hours of the Gunn murder, Don Treshman, the national director of Rescue America, based in Houston, was heralding the shooting in a press release that solicited donations for Griffin's family. "While we think that Gunn's death is unfortunate, the fact is that a number of mothers would have been put at risk today and over a dozen babies would have died at his hands," wrote Treshman, a former metal salesman who now devotes all his time to organizing clinic protests.
Five months later, an Oregon housewife named Shelley Shannon shot and wounded Dr. George Tiller outside a Wichita, Kansas, abortion clinic. Evidence seized after Shannon's arrest linked her to arsons at clinics in four other states. It also hinted at the existence of a clandestine network. Police found correspondence with two men who were imprisoned for abortion-related violence buried in Shannon's backyard. Also unearthed was a manual for attacking abortion facilities, published by something called the Army of God.
Shannon's trail led to a modest blue house in Portland, Oregon, where Andrew Burnett publishes Life Advocate, a magazine regarded as the handbook for abortion militants. Each month it chronicles movement activities and carries a list of prisoners serving time for clinic attacks. But the magazine specializes in identifying doctors who perform abortions. A September 1993 article described how Burt and Hill went about learning the identity of Gunn's replacement in Pensacola. Ten months later the replacement and his escort were dead, and Hill was under arrest.
Burnett insists he would never commit violence but refuses to condemn those who do. As for a conspiracy, he claims that if there is one, he knows nothing about it. Burnett says he and several magazine staff members were called last year before a federal grand jury in Portland that was investigating Shannon's involvement in a series of arsons. When the indictment was handed up, only Shannon was charged in attacks at nine clinics in Oregon, California, Nevada and Idaho. Prosecutors and federal agents are still pressuring her to implicate others. "There is no question that the government thinks she possesses a wealth of knowledge about the radical end of the antiabortion movement," says Andrew Bates, her lawyer. But so far, Shannon has refused to talk.
THE REV. MICHAEL BRAY SPENT nearly four years in prison for the bombing of 10 clinics and related facilities. Today he ministers to a small Fundamentalist Christian church and writes a newsletter about stopping abortion, through which he markets a bumper sticker that reads EXECUTE ABORTIONISTS-MURDERERS. His recent book, A Time to Kill, was published by Burnett.