Vegas neighbours of Jerad, 31, and Amanda Miller, 22 — who moved to Sin City earlier this year from Lafayette, Indiana and liked to dress as fictional character Slenderman — said they were vocal about their hatred of minorities and government.
“They were handing out white-power propaganda and were talking about doing the next Columbine,” Brandon Moore told the Las Vegas Sun, referencing the 1999 Colorado school massacre that ended in 15 deaths.
Even before Sunday’s slayings, the scary pair talked up a murder-suicide plan.
“They always talked about murdering cops,” neighbour Krista Koch told KNTV in Las Vegas.
“They were going to kill as many officers as they can, and then they were going to do away with themselves.”
The couple’s neighbour, Kelley Fielder, had been holding a box of documents, three empty rifle cases, and an empty box for handcuffs, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The papers, which have been seized by police, disclosed the deadly couple’s plans to take over a courthouse and execute public officials.
Fielder called the Millers her “best friends” but said she didn’t know they were “that crazy,” according to the Review-Journal.
Jerad Miller’s last Facebook posting, made Saturday, seemed to forecast his own doom.
“The dawn of a new day. May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it,” he wrote.
On June 2, Miller posted a rambling manifesto calling for a bloody uprising.
“We can hope for peace. We must, however, prepare for war. We face an enemy that is not only well funded, but who believe they fight for freedom and justice,” he wrote.
“Those of us who know the truth and dare speak it, know that the enemy we face are indeed our brothers. Even though they share the same masters as we all do. They fail to recognise the chains that bind them. To stop this oppression, I fear, can only be accomplished with bloodshed.”
He said it’s better to die fighting for freedom than to die “kneeling as slaves.”
“May the best men of our beloved nation stand and fight tyranny, without fear and without regret. May we stand proud as free men instead of kneeling as slaves,” Jerad Miller wrote.
“May we offer our children a free and just world with our blood, sweat and tears as payment. Let our wives and lovers take vengeance upon our enemies in our absence. We cannot fail in this endeavour of Liberty, if we do we risk leaving our orphaned children to the will of tyrants.”
Amanda Miller’s Facebook profile picture is a creepy image of her and Jerad Miller, posted on April 28. They’re dressed as the Joker and his comic gal pal Harley Quinn.
“Damn babe we are Hot! Harley and Joker got nothing on us lol,” Jerad Miller wrote.
The duo had also boasted about spending time with far right wing ultra libertarian Cliven Bundy, during the standoff between government agents and militia members supporting the rancher.
However Bundy’s son, Ammon Bundy, has revealed the couple was asked to leave the ranch after a few days because their views were “very radical”.
He said that while details were still sketchy, the Millers’ did not “align themselves” with the protest’s main issues.
“Not very many people were asked to leave,” he said. “I think they may have been the only ones.”
Neighbour Krista Koch told KTNV that Jerad Miller liked to dress as The Joker or Slenderman, the fictional online character cited as the motive in the chilling stabbing of a 12-year-old girl last week.
Indiana officials are coordinating with Vegas investigators to track the couple’s previous movements.
“We were contacted in the early morning hours by Clark County (Nevada) coroner’s office asking us to follow up with possible relatives here,” Lafayette police chief Pat Flannelly said, the Indianapolis Star reported. “We have information they were here for a time ... They have ties to the area.”
Officers Alyn Beck, 41, and Igor Soldo, 31, were having lunch at CiCi’s Pizza restaurant at about 11.20am Sunday (4.20am Monday AEST) when one of the two shooters yelled, “This is the start of the revolution,” officials said.
The female assailant then came up from behind Soldo and shot him in the head, law enforcement sources told the Review-Journal.
Amanda Miller then opened fire on Beck, mortally wounding him, sources told the paper. Beck managed to squeeze off return fire, but it was unclear if he hit them.
Both killers then grabbed weapons, ammunition and badges off their victims before covering them in cloth that featured the Revolutionary War-era Gadsden flag.
The flag is a yellow banner with the image of a coiled rattlesnake and the words: “Don’t tread on me.”
In recent years, that flag has become of a favourite symbol of conservatives, who believe the government is intruding on their rights. One local report said they put a swastika-emblazoned manifesto on one of the bodies.
Investigators believe the couple might be tied to radical groups because of white supremacy paraphernalia and swastika symbols found in their apartment, according to local media reports.
Local police officers and FBI agents cordoned off an apartment complex where the couple lived, about four miles from the carnage.
An explosion was heard at that complex at 9.20pm, but it wasn’t clear if anyone was hurt or if the blast was tied to the shootings 10 hours earlier.
“It’s a tragic day,” Sheriff Doug Gillespie said.
“But we still have a community to police, and we still have a community to protect. We will be out there doing it with our heads held high, but with an emptiness in our hearts.”
For the time being, cops who generally work alone are being paired up with another officer, Gillespie said.
After murdering Beck and Soldo, the two walked across the street to Walmart, where they gunned down a shopper just inside the front doors, officials said.
The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified the bystander killed at Walmart as Joseph Robert Wilcox, 31, of Las Vegas.
The male suspect yelled “Everyone get out” before shooting at Walmart, Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill said.
The assailants exchanged fire with responding cops before Amanda Miller killed her partner and then turned the gun on herself, law enforcement sources said.
Walmart shopper Pauline Pacheco spotted the armed man inside the store before she and her dad ran for their lives.
“We saw when the man was walking, he was shouting, yelling bad words, and suddenly he had a gun,” she told KLAS-TV. “It was terrible, it was terrible. That man was crazy.”
Names of the murdered shopper and the two assailants were not immediately released.
Both officers were pronounced dead at University Medical Center.
Beck had been on the job since 2001, leaving behind a wife and three kids.
Soldo joined the department in 2006 and had a wife and an infant child.
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