He grew up in rural Eastern Washington, played football in highschool and worked at a fast-food restaurant as a teen.
Childhood friends remember him as quiet and normal - far from theangry racist that Kevin William Harpham portrayed himself as in morethan 1,000 posts on a hate-themed message board for whitesupremacists.
But acquaintances later in life recall an eerie loner whounabashedly disparaged other ethnicities and seemed to have bigplans.
A former neighbor in East Wenatchee said Harpham, now accused ofattempting to bomb a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Spokane,once laughed at the idea of transporting black people to a desertisland and blowing them up.
"I think Kevin was serious," said Jill Truax. "My son just toldme flat out, 'I think he's some white supremacist persona[128][broken bar] think he has an artillery in there.'
"It was like he on a mission or something," Truax said.
Under the name Joe Snuffy, military slang for a low-rankingsoldier, Harpham, 36, wrote of race war fantasies in Internetcomments that, over the years, spiraled into vitriolic rants aimedat nearly every ethnicity.
Joe Snuffy registered on the white supremacist message boardVanguard News Network in November 2004 and identifies himself as aColville native living in northeastern Washington. The SouthernPoverty Law Center said it has confirmed Snuffy is Harpham.
Early posts discuss his decision to quit smoking and chewingtobacco and ask for help understanding computer software.
Soon, Harpham was talking of ways to dismantle society, seekingadvice on stockpiling ammunition and acquiring guns - explainingthat he already owned assault rifles - and offering to house aprominent white supremacist and Canadian hate crime fugitive.
He described himself as an electrician and discussed ways todisrupt society by vandalizing electricity stations.
"The only drawback to this kind of attack is I happen to useelectricity too," Harpham wrote in May 2008.
He also contributed cash to the racist movement. A posting on theVanguard News Network by avowed racist Glenn Miller in December 2006thanked him for a "gigantically large" $500 donation. The cash paidfor nearly 7,000 copies of the hate group's newspaper, said Miller,who added that Harpham was one of the top 5 or 6 donors from thewebsite.
In a phone interview from his Missouri home, Miller said Harphamalso donated to his congressional campaigns in 2006 and 2010, whichincluded racist television advertisements that gained nationalattention.
Miller said he was "shocked" by Harpham's arrest and believes hewas framed by the federal government. Miller, founder of theCarolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said that Harpham, likehimself, views Jews as a bigger threat than black people.
"I don't believe he did it because he's never advocatedviolence," said Miller. "Of course, I didn't read all of his posts."
QUIET UPBRINGING
The son of a farmer, Harpham served three years in the militaryafter attending Colville and Kettle Falls high schools in the late1980s and early 1990s. He played football in high school and workedat McDonald's, then attended Spokane Community College in 2002 and2003. College officials say student privacy laws prevent them fromreleasing his course schedule.
High school friends remember Harpham as a quiet teen who enjoyeddriving his 1966 Chevelle and who never displayed racist behavior.
Until his arrest last week on federal charges of attempting touse a weapon of mass destruction and possession of an unregisteredexplosive device, his criminal history included only a minor inpossession of alcohol charge in 1994. Harpham currently is beingheld in Spokane County Jail without bail.
As a young boy, Harpham lived in Pleasant Valley, near Rice,Wash.; one of his neighbors there was 43-year-old Matt Taylor.
Taylor said Harpham's father, Cecil, is a longtime farmer whotends cows, chickens and alfalfa and has never displayed racistviews.
Harpham's Internet postings support that.
"My dad who is 65 still thinks Russia is going to nuke the USsomeday. He isn't racist but he is a (Christian) just like klanmanhere," Harpham wrote as Joe Snuffy. "He thinks that is what Jesuswants us to do. LOL!"
Harpham's mother, Lana Harpham, appears to have recently moved toWaxhaw, N.C., where his older sister teaches math at a middleschool.
Taylor described Cecil "Bill" Harpham, 68, as a "bulldog" of aworker who eventually bought a farm on U.S. Highway 395, just northof Kettle Falls. Taylor happened to buy a neighboring property.Cecil Harpham told Taylor last year that he was training his son totake over the farm.
But the younger Harpham apparently didn't stay.
In 1997 he bought 10 acres on a hillside just north of Addy,Wash. A 672-square-foot home was added in 2007. A friend saidHarpham borrowed materials from his father and built the homehimself.
He was arrested Wednesday as he drove across a bridge outside hishome at 1088 West Cannon Way. Federal agents finished searching theproperty late Thursday.
In 2004, he was living in East Wenatchee; that's about the sametime he began posting on the white supremacist message board.According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Harpham that yearjoined the racist group the National Alliance, which was founded bythe late William Pierce, author of "The Turner Diaries." The group'scurrent leader denies Harpham is a member.
East Wenatchee resident Dennis Dexter remembers Harpham as amodel tenant at a duplex he owns on North Kentucky Avenue.
"There's nothing negative I know about him, other than thecurrent allegations," Dexter said. "I don't know where he got hisbizarre views."
Truax owns a home near the duplex. She said her ex-husband alsoserved in the military, and he and Harpham sometimes discussed theirracist views. But Harpham mostly kept to himself.
"He was friendly enough to speak to us," she said. "What reallyamazed me was he never had any girlfriends. Frankly, he was, I'dsay, a good-looking guy."
Truax said Harpham seemed to be obsessed with buying her home,which she said is on a secluded property. "He seemed to almost wantto pressure me into it," she said. "It kind of makes me think he waskind of on a mission."
Her son, then a teenager, remembers hearing Harpham use racialslurs; the boy sensed extremist views.
"My son definitely thought he was capable of something likethis," Truax said.
EMBRACING EXTREMISM
An employee at an Addy convenience store where Harpham was aregular customer said knowledge of explosives is common in the area.
"Almost every boy I grew up with knows how to make a bomb," saidChristy Ludwick, 23.
But investigators say the bomb found Jan. 17 on the northeastcorner of Washington Street and Main Avenue in Spokane was unusuallysophisticated and had lethal potential. Sources say the device wascapable of being detonated remotely and contained shrapnel dipped inrat poison to enhance bleeding.
Domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph used similar backpack bombspacked with shrapnel in the 1990s
Harpham served from 1996 to 1999 as a fire support specialistwith the Army's 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, atwhat is now Joint Base Lewis-McChord. An Army spokesman has said theposition wouldn't have taught Harpham about bomb construction.
Harpham seemed to disdain religion.
When Miller wrote in January 2005 that racists should not attackChristians, Harpham said he agreed.
"If whites want to practice Judaism or take up Islam orChristianity party members should not ridicule them. And while wereat it lets not poke fun at them homosexuals either, lets just betotally neutral," Harpham wrote as Snuffy in response to a posting.But, he added, "There is a need for a new party or group simplybecause there is not a single white org. that is Christian free andwe need one that with a policy that excludes these nut ball hymnsingers."
In a May 2008 post asking for contacts in northeasternWashington, Harpham wrote, "I am interested in meeting people closeto me unless they are the kind of people that are waiting for Jesusto come back, then I can do without."
He also wrote of being influenced by writings and podcasts byEdgar Steele, the former Aryan Nations lawyer who is currentlyawaiting trial on federal charges that he hired a man to kill hiswife. Harpham promoted a speaking engagement by Steele in Florida in2006 and wrote in 2007 that he "finally broke down and had to go outbuy some silver," because of Steele's influence.
Harpham eventually became an active supporter of U.S. Rep. RonPaul's bid for the Republican presidential nomination; he urgedothers to make individual rather than group contributions to helpavoid any links between white supremacists and Paul's candidacy.Harpham claimed in 2007 to have made two contributions, one for $50and another for $25, to the Paul campaign but contradicted himselfin other posts, saying he supports the campaign but wouldn't spendmoney on it.
"I don't care about getting America back on its feet, what I wantis for Ron Paul to provide the conditions for us to build Whitecommunities with our own businesses and schools," he wrote onChristmas Eve 2007. "We could do very well under these conditionsand start amassing great wealth to expand."
But as Paul's presidential prospects faded and the U.S. economytanked, violent themes began emerging in more of Harpham's onlinecomments.
Harpham last posted on Jan. 16, a day before the bomb wasdiscovered. Ten days earlier, he had offered to let fugitive whitesupremacist Craig Cobb stay at his home. It's unclear whether Cobb,who faces hate crime charges in Canada, took him up on the offer.
Frank Harrill, agent in charge of the FBI's Spokane office, saidonly Harpham was arrested at the property on Wednesday, and Canadianofficials say Cobb's whereabouts remain unknown.
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