- Hello, and welcome to "The Bookmark".

I'm Christine Brown, your host.

Today, my guest is Donna Marie Miller, author of "Texas Secessionists Standoff: The 1997 Republic of Texas 'War'".

Donna Marie, thank you so much for being here today.

- Thanks for having me.

- Or I should say welcome back because this is your second appearance.

If you don't remember, her first book was called "The Broken Spoke", which is a really fun story, a really great book.

If you haven't read it, I would really recommend picking that up.

But- - Thanks.

- My first question is gonna be, this book actually came out of that one, and the subject matter's quite different, so could you tell me how they connect?

- Yeah, I was at "The Broken Spoke" in 2017, signing copies of my book that had just come out.

And this woman, Jo Ann, I mean Molly McKnight, approached me.

And she had this big stack of paper clippings, and she said, "I know what your next book's gonna be."

And we started meeting and she introduced me to Jo Ann Turner, who served as a secretary of sorts for the Republic of Texas militia in the 1990s.

And so I started meeting with her once a week, and sometimes with Molly McKnight at my house or at different restaurants, and I would record our interviews and transcribe them into Microsoft Word.

When we first started, we thought, "This is gonna be a book about Jo Ann," but then we realized real quick that many, many people were involved in the standoff, and I began looking for them and hunting them down, and Texas Rangers, and FBI, and prosecutors, judges, attorneys, and residents of Fort Davis.

And so I was off and running right away.

- And did you travel to the area to do some of that research?

Can you talk about the research and interview process for all these folks involved?

- Yeah, I've been through the Davis Mountains so many times because I'm from El Paso, and we travel back and forth to see family often.

And so I always thought my husband and I would retire there.

And so I really knew about this story, but I didn't know the whole story.

And I quickly learned about Joe Rowe and his wife, Margaret Ann, who were held hostage at the beginning of the standoff.

So my husband and I traveled to the Davis Mountains and spent a whole day with him.

Then we began interviewing like the sheriff, Sheriff Bailey, who is quite a character.

He taught me a lot about fishing.

And all of the Texas Rangers, David Duncan, Jess Malone, and Barry Caver, who is the commander, who is now in other places other than Davis Mountains.

And some people, I did interview by phone, but a lot of them I interviewed in person.

- And I wanna ask you about the biggest interview get of all maybe, which was Richard McLaren, who was the self-appointed head of this Republic of Texas, or the militia, as most of us would call it.

How did you get access?

Spoiler alert, everyone, he's still in jail.

How did you get access to him to do that interview?

- I am so blessed because Thom Lemmons, the executive editor of Texas A&M Press, wrote a letter for me that I sent to William C. Clements Prison asking for permission from a journalistic standpoint to interview Richard Lance McLaren one-on-one.

And they agreed.

And so I flew there and checked into a hotel, got up in the morning, drove out to the prison, got there, I had a mic on with a camera, with a Bluetooth, and wasn't like "Silence of the Lambs" or anything.

It was a plexiglass between us and there was a guard behind him.

He was wearing a mic that went to my Bluetooth.

And he was very cordial, but he still believes that he is the leader of the nation of Texas appointed by his militia.

And he still believes that he is right.

He's petitioned to the Hague and all kinds of different international governmental groups saying that he is held hostage, that he is the leader of the nation of Texas, that it was annexed illegally in 1845 by the United States, that it didn't make quorum.

But what he fails to always mention is that Texas joined the Confederacy in the Civil War.

Once the North won, all bets were off.

Texas versus White Supreme Court ruled it's illegal to secede.

So he talks a good talk and he knows what he knows, but not enough to really win the war, I guess.

And he's not a native Texan.

He always aligned himself with the Heroes of the Alamo who were not native Texans.

He thought that he could win Texas back for the people and become like the Heroes of the Alamo.

He's from Missouri.

- That was, to me, the most surprising thing I learned from the book is that he was... Forgive me for being not a native Texan and thinking, "Well, who is this guy coming in?"

And that was just an interesting detail to me.

And we won't have time to get into it, but you do a lot of... You interviewed family members of his to talk about his background and where he came from, and that's why I would encourage.

We can't get to everything today, but the book has a real thorough look at his life and kind of how he got to where he got.

But I wanna go back to Jo Ann for just a second because...

I guess because maybe this is how you came to the story.

You used her as like a framing device to get us as the readers, I guess, into this book and into this story.

Why did you choose to frame the story that way?

- It was just so logical.

Here's this beautiful West Lake woman who joins a militia, and you have to wonder why she seemingly had everything, but she lost it all through foreclosure and not paying her mortgage and her taxes.

And because she lost everything, she was contacted by the Republic of Texas militia and they said, "We're gonna take back Texas.

You get to keep your house, you get to keep all your possessions, and you won't have to pay a mortgage or taxes anymore."

And she totally believed that.

She wanted desperately to believe that.

But I compare her to the Ancient Mariner's tale that as she paid the terrible price for believing in this false profit, that she suffered so much loss, and she wanted to tell her story so that other people might not make the same mistake.

So her thread goes all the way through the book.

I tell you how she grew up, how she got involved with the militia, how she lost everything, her husband's death, her daughter's murder.

And then as the standoff begins, she starts each of those chapters 'cause she's in jail for 40 days.

She was kind of the bait that the Texas Attorney General Danny Morales at the time wanted to keep her in jail, hoping that the Texas, Republic of Texas militia, would come to her rescue, but it didn't work out that way.

- I think that using her story this way as the through line is it's a wonderful way to tell the story because as a reader, I can't necessarily relate to some of these militia members, but Jo Ann is very sympathetic, and even if I wouldn't make me the same choices she made, I can understand her point of view.

I think she... Like you say, she was desperate, she got in over her head.

It's a very human story, and I think being able to empathize with that person makes it an easier story to understand.

And it kind of... We're always wondering: How does this happen?

How do people get swept up like this?

Well, here it is very clearly laid out, and she kind of very clearly now, at the end of her life, understood.

And like you said, wanted to warn people.

And I think she does a great... You and her get to do a good job of getting that out in this book.

- Well, I tried to keep my opinion- - Oh, yes.

- Completely removed from the story, and just to let the people, there's 75 people interviewed, to tell their story about what happened.

And I do put all of their stories in chronological order for seven days.

And then there was this wonderful FBI consultant, Gary Noesner, who was also the consultant and negotiator at Waco.

And that standoff ended so badly because there were so many other factions involved.

But the US Attorney General, at the start of this standoff, Janet Reno, said, "I don't want any feds in there.

Take out the ATF, take out the FBI, let the locals handle this."

And so Gary Noesner stayed without being paid, just as a consultant in the background at Port Davis, to help the Texas Rangers negotiate this standoff peacefully.

And they did a wonderful job.

They were so calm and resilient, and they made good choices, and it went very well.

And I think that the only voice that really is strongly opinionated is Gary Noesner's 'cause he says he defines some of the people involved in the standoff on the Republic of Texas side.

And some of the things that he says really help you understand where their thinking comes from.

'Cause it is hard from an outsider's point of view to understand how they thought that they own Texas as a nation.

- And I wanna take a moment to highlight on something you just said.

This is 1997.

We are post-Waco Branch Davidians, we're post Ruby Ridge.

Even though there wasn't a lot of federal entities involved, those things were very much present on the minds of all law enforcement there.

And many of them mentioned it in their interviews.

This was forefront, they did not want a similar outcome, they wanted to do this without any violence if possible.

- Yes.

- So can you talk about their mindset in that way of working so hard to resolve it peacefully?

- Well, from day one, when Jo Ann Turner called Richard Lance McLaren from the Travis County Jail on April 25th, 1997, and she said, "I've been arrested."

At that moment, Richard McLaren began thinking he was next.

And that his stronghold, which was just a shanty and a trailer attached up in the Davis Mountain Resort, he thought, "The feds and everybody's going to converge upon me," so he began making ready for that.

And this one person, Robert Scheidt, who was leaving the compound, was arrested by the local sheriff.

And everything just from that point on just goes haywire.

The communications between a dispatcher in a multi-county area spanning thousands upon thousands of miles.

And everyone back then lived off the grid and they all had dispatchers in their homes.

So they're all listening and everyone's story begins to get garbled, including Richard McLaren's.

But these people believed that from Richard McLaren's standpoint, that Texas was illegally annexed and they were going to take it back.

It was only a matter of time.

They were having these practice military drills on his land.

He had some 900 acres, and every weekend they were going out there, and they were practicing their war games with ammunition, and pipe bombs, and trip wires, and you name it out in this wilderness that was the Fort Davis Mountains and Resort.

And these people just really and truly thought that they were going to take back Texas one way or another.

And the local 300 law enforcement agents converged, thinking, "We've got to somehow calm them down, negotiate them."

And even Jess Malone, who was an excellent negotiator, he said, "These people are emotionally on a rollercoaster, and I just would listen, and listen, and listen, and not try to exacerbate the situation and get them riled up."

But there were some times in the book where they got riled up and he had to calm them down.

And one of my really pointed parts of the book is when Jess Malone hires this M88 tank to come in and flatten all the cars around the embassy, and then they realize it's getting real.

We gotta stop the war games now.

But they did handle it so peacefully.

They did a beautiful job, the Texas Rangers did.

Only one person died.

- Yes.

- As opposed to 51 at Waco.

- Yes, and that was, I don't wanna say fully justified, but they shot first and then the Rangers were defending, but it was an isolated, they were out in the wilderness.

There were no hostages present.

It's very clear that from your interviews with them that in their own words, they desperately didn't wanna take any lives whatsoever.

- Nope.

- And almost succeeded, but it just didn't work out that way.

So I wanna talk about the media circus a little bit too, because as you mentioned, everybody's got listening on the radio.

And so I think once things start to escalate, then the media finds out about it, and that probably added a lot of pressure to the whole situation too.

- It did, and 1997 was dial up.

Was dial up internet, okay?

You hear that beep?

Yeah.

You've got mail kind of thing.

And so one and only internet service in the Davis Mountains was owned by this guy named Jagger, no relation to the rockstar, but I interviewed him and he said that they were using that, the dial up, they were using ham radios, they were using telephone service and they were using the local radio stations, the media, the newspaper there in Presidio, and anything they could to get more members.

And at one point, Richard McLaren boast in a radio interview that they have 10,000 members.

But the day that they began the war with Texas, which was April 29th, 1997, there were a handful of members in the embassy.

More were on the way to do their war games for the weekend.

But he, Richard Lance McLaren, always boasted there were more members than were present in the embassy area.

But all of them were listening on the radios and listening to the ham, and he would get on the ham radio and he would say, "We're being invaded.

Help, send reinforcements."

And then he would taunt the Texas Rangers a little bit.

And there were other voices too that sometimes would get involved in the radios and the telephone calls, one of them being Robert Otto.

He was a little bit...

Sometimes, he would get sort of foulmouthed and Jess Malone would try to calm him down and say, "Look, you're talking to Texas Ranger.

You don't need to talk with that kind of language to me."

But everybody who was...

Anybody in the Davis Mountains was listening to this going on.

And ABC, NBC, CBS, all the affiliates showed up and they were at the Point of Rocks, which is like a popular resort area before you go into the Davis Mountains.

And a lot of rock climbers use it to this day.

And so that's where they stationed.

And a good friend of mine who kind of ran the wires and electronics to the area because there was nothing there, he told me that these people would camp out in their cars and pretty much just sleep there because there was no hotels or anywhere that were available 'cause all the Texas Rangers were using them.

But yeah, it was a busy place between Point of Rocks and then the Stronghold, which was just a few miles down the mountain where 300 law enforcement vehicles were parked.

- Can you talk about the hostages and what their experience... You got to interview them, what their experience was like?

- Well, Joe Rowe is a former Shell Oil employee who likes to live off the grid.

He loves his guns, he loves his house, which is so beautiful.

It's like a bonanza house made out of real wood timbers.

He had a lot of help building it with some craftsmen from across the border who would come 100 miles every day to help him build it, he said.

But he built this beautiful house in this wilderness, and he and his wife lived there very peacefully, and they raised their son, and then his son got married.

And that night that this war started, they were celebrating Michael's birthday with his wife.

And Joe Rowe looked up on the hill and he saw a bunch of camo fatigued military-looking guys with their guns pointed down at their direction.

And so he and Michael got in the car and drove up there and told them to get away, and they had a little shout match and he got back in.

Well, he thought, "I'm just gonna call the sheriff," because he always called the sheriff 'cause his house was right at the entrance to the resort.

It was the only way in and the only way out.

And that made him vulnerable.

The Republic of Texas militia wanted to take his house and him because it stood right at the entrance to the resort, which was really resort is stretching it.

This is like 50 miles of dirt roads and mostly people who wanna live off the grid.

And some of the houses are nice, some of them are not-so-nice, like Richard McLaren's house was.

But they all want to be left alone.

And they took Joe's house by force the next morning.

Just Joe and his wife were there, Margaret Ann, they called her Ma for short.

And Joe opened the door, and Greg Paulson and his wife Karen were there with their guns and threatened to shoot.

And Joe says that he put his gun down 'cause he had his dog on the porch and he didn't want his dog to get shot.

And Greg Paulson fired a rapid round, which they had modified their semi-automatic weapons to be rapid fire.

And they shot through the door, through Joe's shoulder, through the wall, which still has bullet holes in it, and into a bathroom and shattered the glass.

And pieces of the glass embedded themselves in Joe.

And Joe is such a very, I think, strong-willed person that he's small-framed.

And he had been on Coumadin for heart problems.

So he suffered physical, I think, really some serious life-threatening problems from that firing being shot at.

And he opened the door and let them in.

And thus it began.

- I wanna ask if I zoom out a little bit here.

This is the first book written on this event.

There's been articles, of course, written about it, contemporarily and then later looking back.

But I would...

I don't know how many books have been written about Waco, I'm sure there's a dozen or more.

Why do you think this story hasn't gotten the full book length treatment until now?

- It was a success story.

Success stories aren't as thrilling and exciting, some people think.

But Mike Cox, who was the DPS chief at the time, in his book about what it's like to be a DPS chief, he wrote a chapter of two about the standoff.

And then Gary Noesner, who wrote my books forward, who I interviewed for my book, he put a chapter in his book.

But at the time of the standoff, it was in every newspaper from here all the way to Canada and even in the European media because Texas was such a valuable and important part of the United States and still is.

And it was on the heels of these other anti-government movements.

And for a time when all these people were going through their trials, the media continued to cover them.

But it's been forgotten for more than 20 years.

Last year was the 25th anniversary, we're in 26 years now.

Richard Lance McLaren is still serving 99-year sentence at William C. Clements in Amarillo.

And there's only one of the militia that's been let out, and that's Otto.

And I think he's on probation.

And Karen Paulson, who was a native of Germany was extradited to Germany to serve her sentence.

It's not a forgotten story, but it is a story that many, many people don't hear about anymore because it was such a success.

One person died, he was a escapee, and he did shoot one of the tracking dogs named Sugar, which is one of my favorite stories in the book, and in helicopter overhead.

And that's why he died, he shot first.

- Well, I take your point that the failures are gonna get more books, but it's also important to write about the successes because you can look at what went wrong and try to do the opposite, I guess.

But here, we can see what was done right and maybe try to replicate that.

I think reporting and preserving the positive, it's a part of our history, it's recent history, sure, but it is a part of our history and I think it's just as important to remember and document this one as it is the ones that didn't go so well.

- It is.

Unfortunately, we don't... As Texans, we love the stories, the bloodshed in the wars and all of those things, but we don't often embrace the success stories.

And I think that this is a way to...

There's plenty of blood and fighting and stuff in this story, but I think this is a way to honor those people who really try to set everything right in Texas's history with anti-government groups.

And they did a beautiful job.

- Well, you and I were talking before, and I know the book isn't the end of you telling this story.

So can you talk about future plans for how to further distribute and promote the story?

- Yeah, it's really exciting.

From the minute I started writing this story, I began to think of it as a book that could possibly become a movie.

A lot of people have have said to me that it reads like a novel, even though it's true.

And I love that.

I did use a lot of creative descriptions from Jo Ann and from the people that they talked about.

I made sure that they gave me lots of details.

But I was contacted by Cynthia Uhrich, who is formerly an actress, a director, and a producer.

And now she's a screenwriter, and she and I have plans to collaborate on a script television series.

And we're working on a contract right now.

We hope to have that signed this week so we can start working on the television series.

And she is the owner of In The Moment Productions.

And so it is a nonprofit company that does produce short films, but this will be a series, a four to six-part series for television.

And if you've seen "Waco" on Amazon, you kind of get a taste of what they did with that story.

So I'm hoping it ends up being like that on Amazon.

- I can, 100%.

You told me this before I read the book, and so as I was reading it, I could just picture.

I mean, of course, we love our Texas stories and a lot of... Like you say, you've got those details that make it very picturesque that make me able to picture these scenes or these moments and put me there.

So I think it would translate really well.

I'm ready to click play.

So I hope this happens soon.

- [Donna Marie] Thank you.

Thank you.

- Well, sadly, we are running short on time.

If you want the full story, of course, always read the book, so in our final three minutes here, can you tell us what you hope the listeners and the watchers take away from this story?

- Yes, Gary Noesner, who was the consultant here in Waco, has told me that there are more secessionists in the United States than there were in 1997.

And 1997 was kind of the tail end of the anti-government movement in Texas.

And so there, this is sort of like the Ancient Mariner's tale, a foreboding sense of what can go wrong if you put your hopes and dreams in people who don't have all the information in all the ways to make those dreams come true.

Jo Ann Turner in the epilogue before she passed away, she said, "I hope that people will know that this was my regret.

Don't do what Jo Ann did."

That's what she said.

Choose another way.

If only I had paid my mortgage, and paid my taxes, and not put my hopes and dreams in the anti-government militia who called themselves the Republic of Texas, which forever besmirched that name, the Republic of Texas.

But we can hope that Texans will learn from this story, all the things that Jo Ann did and not make those same mistakes.

- Well, thank you so much.

I really can't sing this book's praises enough.

I think you did such a wonderful job of capturing what I think is a very important piece of our recent history and maybe younger people.

I was alive, I do remember this 'cause it was all over the news, you couldn't get away from it.

But younger people may not know.

And this is an important part of our history.

We should remember all of our history is Texans, the good, and the bad, and everything in between, and try to take a lesson from it as you say.

So thank you so much for- - [Donna Marie] Thank you.

- Telling the story and writing the book, and hopefully making the show about it too.

- Yay!

(Christine laughs) - Well, that is all the time we've got for today.

The book again is "Texas Secessionists Standoff: The 1997 Republic of Texas 'War'" by Donna Marie Miller.

Thank you so much for joining us and I will see you again soon.