The body of Frank Ancona, 51, Imperial Wizard of the Traditional American Knights of Ku Klux Klan, was discovered Saturday on the bank of Big River outside of Belgrade, Mo., four days after he went missing from his Leadwood, Mo., home, reported The Root.
Ancon was last seen Wednesday morning at his residence in Leadwood, Missouri, his wife told authorities this week.
Law enforcement officials said a safe in Ancona’s home had been forced open with a crowbar and emptied, and all of his firearms were gone. They do not suspect burglary.
A Federal Forest Reserve employee found Ancona’s vehicle on a forestry service road on Friday.
“Deputies responded on Friday and located [Ancona’s] vehicle and secured it,” said Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen. “We left deputies at the scene and secured it overnight due to the loss of light. On Saturday morning we conducted a search of the area by foot by member of the Potosi Fire Protection District and the sheriff’s office. We didn’t locate much of anything in the woods, but we did locate evidence of a burn pile near Mr. Ancona’s vehicle.”
Ancona’s body was discovered Saturday by a family who had gone to Big River for a fishing trip.
Ancona achieved national notoriety due to his leadership role with the Traditionalist American Knights, a KKK-faction described as “a White Patriotic Christian organization” by its members, but otherwise branded a racist hate group by those not in the group. He was extensively profiled by CNN in 2012. In a November 12, 2014, segment of MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes, Ancona said that the call for white supremacist violence was supported by many people throughout St. Louis County. In 2013 he publicly claimed responsibility for distributing recruitment fliers in neighboring Iowa.
“In the last 6 years that I’ve been president of this organization I’ve seen the numbers probably triple,” he boasted in a 2014 interview with a local NBC affiliate. He appeared on MSNBC that same year to defend the use of lethal force against demonstrators who protested the officer-involved shooting of a teenager in Ferguson, Mo.
(Article By Jeremiah Jones)
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