Tiller’s alleged killer talks about ties to Operation Rescue

Scott P. Roeder

The Kansas City Star splashed the thoughts of Scott Roeder on the front of the Sunday paper just days before the man accused of killing Wichita late-term abortion provider George Tiller is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on Tuesday.

Reporter Judy L. Thomas tried to get to the bottom of Roeder’s relationship with Operation Rescue, and Roeder told her that he was disappointed that the anti-abortion group’s president, Troy Newman, had condemned the killing and denied any ties to Roeder.

“He said that I never was a member and I never contributed any money,” Roeder said. “Well, my gosh, I’ve got probably a thousand dollars worth of receipts, at least, from the money I’ve donated to him.”

Newman sort of denied taking Roeder’s money, claiming he can’t find Roeder’s name in his database of more than 50,000 donors.

Roeder also wrote Newman a letter from jail.

“I told him, ‘You better get your story straight because my lawyer said it’d be good for me to show that I was supporting a pro-life organization.'”

But Thomas’ story doesn’t address one big piece of the Roeder-Operation Rescue story. Why did he have the phone number of Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s senior policy adviser, in his car on the day that he allegedly shot Tiller in the head and killed him?