Jason Todd Ready, reputed neo-Nazi, among five dead in Arizona murder-suicide
(CBS/AP) GILBERT, Ariz. - Police said Thursday that they believe a former Marine with ties to neo-Nazi and Minutemen groups shot four people and then took his own life in a suburban Phoenix home.
Watch: Neo-Nazi group patrolling U.S. border
Pictures: Cops believe neo-Nazi killed 4, self, in Ariz.
Gilbert police spokesman Sgt. Bill Balafas said Thursday that police believe Jason Todd Ready, 39, was the gunman in Wednesday's shootings in a home in Gilbert.
Media reports say that among the four others killed were Ready's girlfriend and the woman's daughter and granddaughter.
Ready was known in Arizona for organizing a militia in the desert with the goal of finding illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Known as "J.T.," Ready led an outfit known as the U.S. Border guard that dressed in military fatigues and body armor and carried assault rifles during patrols for illegal immigrants in the desert south of Phoenix.
Authorities say the victims include 15-month-old Lily Lynn Mederos; 23-year-old Amber Nieve Mederos; 47-year-old Lisa Lynn Mederos and 24-year-old Jim Franklin Hiott.
Balafas has said that all the evidence points to the shooting being related to domestic violence. He didn't elaborate. Officers have recovered two handguns and a shotgun.
Two men were dead outside the home and two women were dead inside, according to Balafas. A girl between 1 and 2 years old was found inside the home showing signs of life when police initially responded to the scene, but she later died at a hospital.
Ready took offense at the term "neo-Nazi," but acknowledged he had identified with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn't white should leave the country "peacefully or by force."
"We're not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore," Ready said in a July 2010 interview with The Associated Press. "This is what our Founding Fathers did."
Watch: Neo-Nazi group patrolling U.S. border
