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Christian Identity: The Kehoe Family's Ties to Terrorism
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Christian Identity: The Kehoe Family's Ties to Terrorism
The Bath School disaster, also known as the Bath School Massacre, occurred on May
18, 1927, in Bath Township, Michigan, when Andrew Kehoe assaulted numerous children. The
attacks killed at least 58 people, including 38 pupils and six adults from a neighboring
elementary school (Zibulewsky, 2001). Kehoe had previously murdered his wife, Nellie Price
Kehoe, and set fire to his farm before detonating his explosives at the Bath Consolidated
School. Kehoe was killed after driving to the site of the school explosion and detonating
explosives stashed in his truck.
Kehoe, the 55-year-old school board treasurer, was outraged by growing taxes and his
defeat in the township clerk election on April 5, 1926. People around him suspected he had
planned his "murderous vengeance" in the aftermath of a public defeat. Kehoe is well-known
as a fierce negotiator and school board member. In addition, he received notice that his
mortgage would be foreclosed in June of 1926 (Ellsworth, 1927). Kehoe purchased explosives
during the majority of 1928, up to May. He buried them on his property as well as beneath the
school.
On May 18, 1927, Kehoe simultaneously detonated bombs at his farm and the Bath
Consolidated School. His artillery demolished the farm buildings and ripped through the north
wing of Bath Consolidated School (Ellsworth, 1927). As rescue workers began working on the
structure, Kehoe drove up to it and detonated the dynamite in his truck. The truck explosion
killed Kehoe and four others and injured bystanders. The south wing of the building held an
extra 500 pounds (230 kg) of dud dynamite and pyrotol that had been planned to blow
simultaneously with the first explosives in the north wing, implying that Kehoe intended to
demolish the entire school and murder everyone within.
Andrew Philip Kehoe was born on February 1, 1872, to a family of thirteen in
Tecumseh, Michigan. He finished high school there. Kehoe worked as an electrician in St.
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Louis after high school before attending Michigan State University in East Lansing to major in
electrical engineering. On this occasion, he passed out and, as a result of head injuries, stayed
in a coma or near-coma for an extended period. He finally returned to Michigan to live on the
property his father had left him.
After the death of Kehoe's mother, Philip remarried a much younger widow, Frances
Wilder, and had a daughter. On September 17, 1911, his stepmother was killed when the home
oil stove exploded in her face (Ellsworth, 1927). Kehoe soaked her body in water, but the oil
in the fire enabled the flames to spread swiftly and devour her. She had received horrible
injuries and died the next day. Kehoe's stove subsequently exploded in Bath, and his neighbors
accused him.
In 1912, Kehoe married Ellen "Nellie" Price at 40. They moved to a farm in the Bath
region after seven years. Kehoe is well-liked in the community since he is always prepared to
chip in and help. He was known to become enraged when things heated up, as illustrated by
the occasion he shot and killed a neighbor's dog that had wandered onto his property and been
aggravating him with its barking. If a horse did not satisfy his standards, he would violently
beat it to death.
Due to his reputation for frugality, Kehoe was elected as a school board trustee for three
years and treasurer for one year in 1924. Following that, M. W. Keys, the board's
superintendent, stated that he was "against the expenditure of monies for the most critical
equipment." Kehoe was regarded as a thorny problem to work with because of his propensity
to go against the board's intentions, his insistence on always having his way, and his conflicts
with the township's finance authority. He claimed that he was paying too much in taxes and, as
a result, took measures to reduce the market value of his home. Farmer Kehoe paid $12.26 in
school taxes on a $10,000 farm in 1922 (equivalent to $161,889 in 2019) due to Bath
Township's high tax rate (Ellsworth, 1927). The school board opted to raise the property tax
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from $18.80 to $19 in 1926. As a result, Kehoe's tax burden climbed from $122.60 in 1922 to
$198.00 in 1926. Kehoe received word in June 1926 that the mortgage on his property had been
foreclosed upon by the widow of his wife's uncle. Sheriff Fox claimed Kehoe told him in
hushed tones, "If it were not for the $300 school tax, I would have been able to pay off this
mortgage" (Ellsworth, 1927). Fox had served the foreclosure notice prior to the disaster. When
mortgage holder Mrs. Price mentioned foreclosure, Kehoe allegedly responded, "No one else
will live there if I cannot."
Kehoe was elected town clerk on April 5, 1926, despite losing his temporary position
in 1925. The open antagonism he witnessed in the community increased his rage. Ellsworth
believes that after this loss, Kehoe planned his "murderous retribution," destroying the Bath
Consolidated School and killing the students, staff, and many local residents (Ellsworth, 1927).
In Bath Massacre, Arnie Bernstein claims that Andrew Kehoe "fits the profile too well" on
Robert D. Hare's Psychopathy Checklist. Dr. Mary Ellen O'Toole, head of Carnegie Mellon
University's Department of Forensic Science, has described Kehoe as an "injustice collector"
who compulsively collects perceived slights in addition to their misfortunes, hoards these
feelings of persecution, and eventually feels compelled to lash out.
A. McMullen, Kehoe's neighbor, noticed that he had not been working on the farm in
over a year and suspected that Kehoe was contemplating suicide. In April 1927, Kehoe sent
McMullen one of his horses as a gift, and McMullen returned it for this reason (O'Toole, 2014).
Kehoe had purposefully damaged all his wire fences, girdled young shade trees to death, and
replanted grapevine vines on stumps. He demolished the tool shed, where he stored lumber and
other supplies, with an incendiary bomb.
At the time of the bombing, Nellie Kehoe had a chronic disease similar to tuberculosis
for which there was no cure. Her frequent medical visits could have exacerbated the family's
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financial situation. Kehoe has been late on his mortgage and insurance payments for quite some
time.
Nobody knows when Kehoe decided to murder so many students and locals, but a
neighbor named Ellsworth believes it was after Kehoe lost the clerk election in 1926 (Parker,
1992). The locals agreed that he had begun strategizing in August of the previous year. M. W.
Keyes, a Bath School Board member, was quoted in The New York Times:
I have no doubt that he made his plans last Fall [1926] to blow up the school ... He was
an experienced electrician and the board employed him in November to make some
repairs on the school lighting system. He had ample opportunity then to plant the
explosives and lay the wires for touching it off (Ellsworth, 1927, pg. 52).
Kehoe was free to explore the campus throughout the summer of 1926 while school
was out. He began gathering more than a ton of pyrotol, an incendiary explosive often used by
farmers at the time to dig up and burn garbage, around the middle of 1926. In November 1926,
he traveled to Lansing and purchased two boxes of dynamite from a sporting goods store.
Because dynamite was often used on farms, the fact that he purchased small amounts of it from
several retailers on different dates did not raise any red flags. A neighbor began referring to
him as "the dynamite farmer" after hearing multiple explosions on the property. Following the
event, Michigan State Police claimed that Andrew Kehoe was being questioned about stealing
a large amount of dynamite from a bridge construction site. The detectives discovered another
gasoline container in the school's crypt (Buhk, 2011). According to the investigating team,
Kehoe planned for the gasoline fumes to catch fire from a spark and spread across the basement.
Brand new tubing has been fitted to the bottle. Kehoe used six lengths of eavestrough pipe,
three bamboo fishing lines, and so-called "windmill rods" to conceal the explosives in the
basement ceiling of the untouched area of the school.
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When questioned by a Michigan State Police investigator from the Department of
Public Safety, Lieutenant Lyle Morse stated that Kehoe purchased a.30-caliber Winchester
bolt-action rifle in December 1926 (Ellsworth, 1927). Before May 18, 2018, Kehoe had
accumulated deadly metal shards on the truck's back seat in the case of an explosion. He then
bought new tires for his truck to guarantee it did not break down while delivering the
explosives. He searched everywhere for other bombs, including his residence, town, school,
and even Lansing. Ida Hall, who lived next door to the school, observed much activity in and
around the building throughout May. One night after midnight, she noticed a shoplifter at the
convenience store. Several times in the early morning, she noticed automobiles driving in
circles around the building. Even though Hall informed a family member about these instances,
no one ever called the police.
Nellie's husband murdered her shortly after she was released from St. Lawrence
Hospital in Lansing on May 16. The bombings took place two days later. Following the blasts
and flames on the property, Kehoe placed her body in a wheelbarrow and deposited it behind
the chicken coop (Parker, 1992). The cart was surrounded by stainless steel flatware and a
metal cash box. Some charred banknotes could be seen through a hole in the cash box. Before
wiring them together, Kehoe planted homemade pyrotol firebombs across the mansion and
outbuildings.
The scientific community has long recognized that a sense of victimhood boosts support
for political violence (Gurr 1970). There are numerous approaches to victimization, the most
prominent of which are the egocentric and systemic views (Armaly & Enders, Forthcoming).
Theories that link religious nationalism and violence advocating predict that all forms of
victimhood would act similarly to strengthen this link. Systemic victimhood is consistent with
the findings of numerous social psychological studies on "chosen trauma" in the study of group
identification, in which "participants believe [their] side is under personal attack and are
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compelled to defend their vast community" (Volkan 2001, 87). Personal prejudice was
substantially connected with support for suicide bombing, according to Victoroff, Adelman, et
al. (2012), who also discovered links between egocentric victimhood and suicide bombing.
Ginges (1997, 170) and Knutson (2000) both underline the role of feeling "outside, alienated
from, society" in motivating terrorist behavior (1984, 293). Even though Christianity has not
been prohibited and they have not been denied the opportunity to better their life, people may
regard themselves as victims and allow this to influence their opinions on the proper use of
force.
Religion is frequently associated with race, class, and individual identity. If a group of
Christians feels threatened, they may use the demonstrable and culturally significant phrase
"religion" to develop a "we against them" mentality. The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the
development of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda are two cases where this is especially
evident because both groups' members share the same cultural heritage (Chatlani, 2007). When
opposing ethnicities are more diverse, different skin tones and cultural behaviors may be used
to distinguish one ethnic group from another. Terrorists may claim Christian identification
under these conditions, even though their activities have nothing to do with any particular
understanding of Christian theology. Anders Behring Breivik, a cultural Christian, claimed he
was acting to defend Christianity in Europe. This interpretation of Christianity can justify
violent behaviors and public solidarity with a broader social community. The term "Christian"
is not always connected with Christian works of literature, thinking, or conduct. According to
researchers, the more earnestly one practices their faith, the less likely they are to become
radicalized.
Terrorists' Christian identities are frequently supported by media and political sources
that represent the opposing group negatively or overstate the danger it poses. In the Central
African Republic, ethnic and religious issues have become politicized, contributing to the
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country's instability and violence (Debos, 2014). This type of terrorism can be conducted
against anyone the perpetrator perceives as a threat, including members of the LGBT
community or any group that does not adhere to the perpetrator's idealized picture of that
community.
Even if its members share Christian ideas but belong to a different Christian sect, it is
usual to characterize an opposition group as non-Christian or anti-Christian. To explain the
attacks against Catholic churches, the Orange Volunteers' leader, who referred to his group as
fundamentalist Protestants, said they were "bastions of the Antichrist."
There is evidence that the development of Christian nationalism in the United States
has contributed to increased support for political violence, such as the January 2021 riots in the
United States Capitol. In a broader sense, however, the effect of religious ideology on the
approval of violence is conditional. At low levels of white identity, victimhood, or QAnon
support, Christian nationalism was not a strong predictor of violence. This demonstrates the
need to examine Christian nationalism in its historical and cultural context rather than consider
it in isolation (Egger & Magni-Berton, 2019). The findings suggest that as the study of
Christian nationalism progresses past its tremendously promising infancy, scholars interested
in religion and political violence will find the conditional effect of religious ideology to be a
fruitful field of investigation.
Christian Identity (CI) ideology, linked to multiple domestic terrorist acts in the later
part of the twentieth century, has significantly impacted the rise of far-right extremism in the
United States. Christian Identity is an anti-Semitic and racist doctrine that rationalizes domestic
terrorism. Despite the demise of the previous Christian Identity movement, Christian Identity
has emerged as a radicalizing and mobilizing component inside pre-existing neofascist
accelerationist communities.
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In conclusion, Christian identity may have played some role in his decision to carry out
the attacks. Christian identity is a far-right, extremist ideology that holds that white Christians
are the true Israelites, chosen by God to rule over all other races and religions. This belief could
have motivated Kehoe to target the Jewish community with his bombings, as he may have seen
them as enemies of the Christian race. Christian identity also teaches that Jews are responsible
for all the world's ills, which could have further fuelled Kehoe's hatred towards them.
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References
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Chatlani, H. (2007). Uganda: A Nation in Crisis '37 California Western. International Law
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Debos, M. (2014). "Hate" and "security vacuum": how not to ask the right questions about a
confusing crisis. Hot Spots, Cultural Anthropology Website, https://culanth.
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Egger, C., & Magni-Berton, R. (2019). The Role of Islamist Ideology in Shaping Muslims
Believers' Attitudes toward Terrorism: Evidence from Europe. Studies in Conflict &
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