Richard Snell (criminal)

Richard Wayne Snell (May 21, 1930 – April 19, 1995) was an American spree killer, convicted for the killing of two people in Arkansas on June 30, 1984. Snell was sentenced to death for one of the murders, and executed by lethal injection in 1995.

Richard Snell was a member of the white supremacist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (known as the CSA), which was started in 1971 in the small community of Elijah, Missouri, by polygamist James Ellison. He was also a believer in the Christian Identity religion, and frequented Elohim City, a private community located in Oklahoma. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had ongoing investigations into the organization. By the end of their operations, the ATF obtained 155 Krugerrands (gold coins), one live light antitank rocket (LAW), 94 long guns, 30 handguns, 35 sawed-off shotguns and machine guns, one light machine gun (a Japanese copy of the World War I Lewis, in .303 caliber), and three and a half bars of C-4 explosives. Much of this arsenal was stolen.

Snell was involved in the filming of planes that landed at Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport in Mena, Arkansas, thought of by Snell and many conspiracy theorists to be used in a government-sanctioned operation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to smuggle drugs into the United States. Snell had claimed that law enforcement agencies, both state and those local to that area of western Arkansas, were involved in the cover-up of the Mena airport drug smuggling. He had also made claims that he had filmed the then-Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, at Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport, but that claim has never been proven. Snell further claimed that one of the Arkansas state troopers who was assigned to the Governor's security team at that time had beaten Snell's wife in an attempt to force her to reveal the location of the alleged video footage Snell had taken at the airport.

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