He grew up in rural Eastern Washington, played football in high school and worked at a fast-food restaurant as a teen.

 Childhood friends remember him as quiet and normal – far from the angry racist that Kevin William Harpham portrayed himself as in more than 1,000 posts on a hate-themed message board for white supremacists.

But acquaintances later in life recall an eerie loner who unabashedly disparaged other ethnicities and seemed to have big plans. 

A former neighbor in East Wenatchee said Harpham, now accused of attempting to bomb a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Spokane, once laughed at the idea of transporting black people to a desert island and blowing them up.

“I think Kevin was serious,” said Jill Truax. “My son just told me flat out, ‘I think he’s some white supremacist person … think he has an artillery in there.’

“It was like he on a mission or something,” Truax said.

Read my full story here.

Past coverage:

March 10: White supremacist arrested in MLK bomb plot

March 11: MLK bomb suspect wrote on race wars  

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