Randy Weaver Biography

Randy Weaver was born Randall Claude Weaver, on January 3, 1948, in Villisca, Iowa, to Wilma and Clarence Weaver. He grew up as one among four children in the family that struggled with difficult financial conditions. He was raised in a deeply religious family; however, his family could not find a religious denominator that could match their views.

His family had some strict rules which were disciplinary and religious in nature, which needed to be followed by the children. Randy’s confused upbringing somehow played a big part in his racist sentiments later on in his life.

Randy Weaver was baptized at the age of 11, which led him to profess his faith in Jesus Christ. However, years later, he stated in an interview that he was an atheist.

While attending a local high school in his hometown, Randy Weaver was an avid football and baseball player. He was not very good in academics and only scored enough marks to graduate from the high school.

He did not want to take up farming like his parents. He enrolled into a community college in Iowa following his high school graduation but he did not complete his college and dropped out when he was 20 years old.

It was 1968 and the Vietnam War was at its very peak when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He received his training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In 1970, however, he took a leave from the army and returned back to his hometown.

Randy Weaver said that in the army he was friends with men from many racial and religious backgrounds and stated that he had no issues training side by side with them. He was a part of Green Berets. In 1971, he was honourably discharged from the Army.

Soon after he was discharged, Randy Weaver married Victoria Jordison, in a small ceremony at a church in Iowa. He also began working in a local factory while his wife was a secretary at first and then she became a full time homemaker.

After his discharge from the army, he planned on studying criminal justice, to join FBI, but he could not afford to pay the tuition fee and hence, he dropped the plan.

Randy Weaver and his wife followed some very extreme religious and racial beliefs. They hailed from a school of thoughts which believed in the ‘Christian Identity’ and believed that all the Christians hail from a lost tribe of Israel.

Over the years, the couple became more orthodox and fundamentalists in their beliefs. Victoria believed in an imminent apocalypse and Randy believed that the government would be incapable of doing anything to save its citizens. In the early 1980s, the Iowa farming crisis also became one of the reasons for Randy and his wife to settle somewhere else.

Coming on terms with his wife’s apocalyptic beliefs, Randy Weaver shifted with his family to a remote location in Idaho, about 40 miles away from the Canadian border. It was also done due to their lack of beliefs in the education system. Randy decided to home-school their children, which led the family to shift to the hilly side near Ruby Ridge.

The couple had four children. Keeping in terms with his religious beliefs, Randy and his wife thought that the women giving a birth is unclean and hence, she must be kept away from the main house. Hence, Victoria had to give birth to her fourth child in a separate cabin in Ruby Ridge.

In the late 1980s, Randy came in touch with Aryan Nations through some of his friends. It was a white supremacist group that held secret meetings for the members. The meetings were held near Hayden Lake, Idaho, and both Randy and his wife attended the meetings regularly.

However, Randy said that he never quite became the official member of the group but he did share some political and racial views with it. More than anything else, he found like-minded people in the group that had severe distrust towards the government.

He attended three or four meetings with the group Aryan Nations, during which he befriended a man who turned out to be an informant of the ATF, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. In October 1989, Randy sold the man two shotguns and as a result, weapons charge was pushed against him. He was given the option of becoming an informant for the ATF, but he refused. It resulted in federal agencies making him a prime target.

He was arrested and later released and his trial was announced to be beginning in February 1991. However, a probation officer made a mistake and in the letter that he sent Randy, he mistakenly wrote that the trial was set to begin in March 1991. This led to confusion and when Randy refused to appear for the trial, a bench warrant was issued for his immediate arrest.

U.S. Marshal Service was assigned with the task of arresting him. But considering Randy being an owner of dangerous firearms, the Marshals knew that there could be a violent resistance. Hence, an elaborate plan was made to approach Randy and his family.

Randy was given conflicting dates for his court appearance and he thought something was ‘off’ and hence, he did not appear in the court. In August 1992, a few Marshals carefully approached Randy’s cabin. The situation turned violent when Randy’s dog started barking at the Marshals who had entered the property by then. The Marshals shot and killed the dog, which led Samuel Weaver, Randy’s eldest son, 14 at that time, to open fire on the Marshals.

Kevin Harris was one of Randy’s friends who was also living with the family at that time. Samuel was killed after he was shot in the back while Kevin also attacked the Marshals and ended up killing one. This made the Marshals aware of the fact that the Weavers were carrying dangerous firearms and they needed assistance from FBI.

An FBI team arrived the next day and the house was put under a siege. An FBI sniper opened fire and the bullets which were aimed for Kevin Harris and Randy, hit Vicki Harris in the face and she died. Her dead body lay there in the cabin for 11 days.

The stand-off between the federal agencies and the Weaver family went on for a week more, and eventually ended in late August when Kevin Harris and the Weaver family surrendered.

Randy Weaver and his family, along with Kevin, were acquitted of all charges, except Randy was charged with the violation of the court order for not appearing for the trial. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and was fined.

Immediately after that, Randy and his daughters filed lawsuits against the government, for killing his wife. The federal government settled the lawsuit in 1995 and Randy won $3.1 million.

In 1999, Randy married Linda Gross. Randy has since moved back to Iowa with his wife.

In 1995, before a senate subcommittee, he claimed that he was not a racist, but believed in separatism of the races.