Ruby Ridge - Development

Development

Randy Weaver, a former Iowa factory worker and U.S. Army combat engineer often described as a Green Beret, moved his family to northern Idaho during the 1980s in order to "home-school his children and escape what he and his wife Vicki saw as a corrupted world." Vicki, the religious leader of the family, believed that the apocalypse was imminent and believed her family would survive the apocalypse in a remote mountainous area. They bought twenty acres of land on Ruby Ridge in 1983 and began building a cabin. The Weaver property was located in northern Idaho in Boundary County, on a hillside on Ruby Creek opposite Caribou Ridge near Naples.

In 1984, Randy Weaver and neighbor Terry Kinnison had a dispute over a $3,000 land deal. Kinnison subsequently lost the lawsuit and was ordered to pay Weaver an additional $2,100 in court costs and damages. Kinnison wrote letters to the FBI, Secret Service, and county sheriff alleging Weaver had threatened to kill the Pope, the President, and John V. Evans, governor of Idaho. In January 1985, the FBI and the Secret Service started an investigation. In February, Randy and Vicki Weaver were interviewed for hours by two FBI agents, two Secret Service agents, and the Boundary County sheriff and his chief investigator. Although the Secret Service was told that Weaver was a member of the Aryan Nations and that he had a large weapons cache at his residence, Weaver denied the allegations and no charges were filed.

The investigation noted Weaver associated with Frank Kumnick, who was known to associate with members of the Aryan Nations. Weaver told the investigators that neither he nor Kumnick were members of Aryan Nations, and described Kumnick as "associated with the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord." On February 28, 1985, Randy and Vicki Weaver filed an affidavit with the county courthouse alleging that their personal enemies were plotting to provoke the FBI into attacking and killing the Weaver family. On May 6, 1985, Randy and Vicki Weaver sent a letter to President Ronald Reagan claiming that Weaver's enemies may have sent the president a threatening letter under a forged signature. No evidence of a threatening letter surfaced; however, the 1985 letter was cited by the prosecutor in 1992 as Overt Act 7 of the Weaver family conspiracy against the federal government.