savior. he discovered the pro-life movement. i don t think he had really given abortion a thought up until 92 or 93. sir, what are your feelings on the practice of abortion? from conception forward, it is murder. it is not man s job to take life or-it is our heavenly father s. that s when he really began to meet people. it was shortly after that that he started talking about paul hill and how paul hill had killed the doctor in florida and you that was great. that was wonderful. reporter: around the same time roeder began reaching out to rochelle shannon, the imprisoned anti-abortion extremist who had attempted to murder dr. tiller in 1993. and did there come a time when you had face-to-face visits with her? yes. so you would go to the prison in topeka and have visits with rochelle shannon? yes. did you admire shelly
he was saying good-bye to me. reporter: the next morning, saturday, may 30th, roeder visits his brother in topeka and then returns to wichita, checking into a motel by sunday. do you remember what you did that night? watched tv, ate dinner and went to bed. pretty calm evening? yeah. were you preparing yourself for the next morning. yes. sion. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that s why i have the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business. that s huge for my bottom line. what s in your wallet? and sleep deprived. bring us those who want to feel well rested.
defense strategy that s based on his feelings about abortion. the defendant s belief was that he was justified in shooting dr. tiller because it was imminent that he was going to do abortions the next day and, therefore, he, scott roeder, was protecting the lives of the unborn by killing the killer before he committed the act. and then, of course, roeder testified. i ve been trying cases on both sides for 20 years. it was kind of a surreal experience knowing that i m going to put my client up and he s going to admit to this crime. why did you kill him? the lives of those children were in imminent danger if someone did not stop george tiller. he was going to continue as he had done for 36 years prior to that time. if someone did not stop him, they were going to continue to die. the babies were going to continue to die.
kansas board of healing arts had filed indictments. i think it was clear that george tiller was very close to retirement. his abortion clinic was closing very soon. reporter: on march 27, 2009, the jury in the case of the state of kansas versus george tiller leaves the courtroom to deliberate. they quickly return with a verdict. we the jury unanimously find the defendant not guilty of illegal abortion as alleged in count one. and he was acquitted as somebody said in less time than it takes to eat a ham sandwich. the jury came right back and said, not guilty on all charges. it was a big load off of his shoulders. oh, yeah. i think for the anti-abortion people, it was a huge disappointment. we were so close to having tiller lose his license. i wanted to beat him. reporter: scott roeder is not a member of operation rescue, but he attends the trial nearly every day. here he s seen sitting beside operation rescue president troy newman. when the trial concludes, roeder is devas
shannon? she was i guess, yes. you admired her. and you admired her because she had tried to kill dr. tiller? i admired the fact that she is that a yes or a no, sir? yes. he started talking about how it was how it was murder. that these doctors were murdering babies. if they re going to murder the babies, well, we re going to murder them. if they kill, then they should be killed. it was hard to live with. nick went to school one morning. i went to work. i came home and scott was gone. money was gone. his clothes were gone. he was just gone. reporter: after leaving his family, roeder gets involved with an anti-government militia known as the montana free men. in 1996, he is arrested on the side of a kansas highway. he had sovereign citizen tags on his car so he was pulled over. he had a rifle in the car. and the makings of a bomb.