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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A white supremacist accused of killing three people at two Jewish centers in Kansas says he plans to plead guilty to capital murder to avoid a lengthy trial because of his failing health.
Frazier Glenn Miller, 74, of Aurora, Missouri, told The Associated Press in a phone call from jail on Monday that he doesn't think he has much longer to live and wants a chance to speak in court about why he committed the crimes.
Miller is accused of fatally shooting William Lewis Corporon, 69, and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City in Overland Park, Kansas, on April 13, 2014. The two were there so the teen could compete in a singing contest.
Minutes after they were shot, Miller killed Terri LaMano, 53, at a nearby Jewish retirement home where she was visiting her mother, prosecutors said. He was taken into custody after that shooting.
Miller has told the AP and other media outlets that he planned and executed the fatal attacks, and that it was his intent to use the trial as a means to "put the Jews on trial where they belong."
He called the slayings justified, though he said he regrets killing the 14-year-old.
Miller, who has chronic emphysema, has repeatedly insisted on receiving a speedy trial despite his attorneys' insistence they need more time to develop a defense strategy.
He said he's afraid it could take at least six months before he gets a trial date and even longer before sentencing, and he doesn't think he will be around that long.
"I'm not sure I have the stamina to go through all of that," Miller said. "I want to get it over with."
Neither Steve Howe, the district attorney for Johnson County, Kansas, nor Miller's defense attorney immediately returned calls seeking comment. Howe told the AP last year a judge has issued a gag order that prevents him or other attorneys from talking about the case.
Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross, is a Vietnam War veteran who founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in his native North Carolina and later the White Patriot Party.
He was the target of a nationwide manhunt in 1987, when federal agents tracked him and three other men to a rural Missouri home stocked with hand grenades and automatic weapons. He was indicted on weapons charges and accused of plotting robberies and the assassination of the Southern Poverty Law Center's founder. He served three years in federal prison.
Miller also ran for the U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010 in Missouri, each time espousing a white-power platform.
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