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Prosecutors said the invasion was an attempt to steal drug money to fund her group's border operations. Forde was expelled from the Minuteman group in 2007 amid allegations of lying and pretending to be a senior leader. At the time of the killings, she was the head of her own group called the Minutemen American Defense. The SPLC's report said the killings cast a pall over the entire civilian border militia movement. But Ready began patrolling the desert with his group after the killings, dressing up in head-to-toe camouflage gear, helmets and boots, and carrying high-powered guns as they traveled out into the desert to look for illegal immigrants or smugglers. Rose said that he never joined the group on patrols, but that he and Ready would go out with a handful of others about a dozen times a year on similar outings. Rose and other friends of Ready's said they are reluctant to believe that he killed four people and himself, and say they feel drug cartels are more likely to blame even though police have discounted that possibility. Police say all the evidence points to a domestic-violence situation. Those killed in the rampage in Gilbert on Wednesday were Ready's girlfriend, her daughter; her 16-month-old granddaughter; and her daughter's boyfriend. Harry Hughes, another close friend of Ready's and a regional director with the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement, said he plans to continue his own one-to-two man desert patrols. Members of the National Socialist Movement promote white separatism, dress like Nazis and display swastikas. They believe only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be citizens and that anyone who isn't white should leave "peacefully or by force." Ready was a former member of the group who said he quit to focus on his desert patrols. "Just because Mr. Ready is no longer with us doesn't mean we're going to stop," Hughes said. "After we pay our last respects and get our ducks back in a row, I'm pretty sure business will continue." He added, "I don't think JT would have wanted us to stop."
[Associated
Press;
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