Aryan Nations left out of will

COEUR D’ALENE – The Aryan Nations lost a chance to get a new 10-acre compound when one of its followers died, 10 days after drafting a will that leaves his Kootenai County property and other assets to his neighbor, who is a member of the sheriff’s posse.

Arthur Eber Sherman, a highly decorated World War II bomber pilot and longtime confidant of Aryan founder Richard G. Butler, apparently was more concerned about the care of his dog, Buster, when he drafted his will May 24.

In that document, Sherman bequeathed his assets, including his 10-acre home on Rocky Road west of Rathdrum, to Fred D. Cecil, with the requirement that the neighbor provide care for Sherman’s Labrador. But on Wednesday, no one, including Cecil, was sure what had happened to Sherman’s dog. Coeur d’Alene attorney Michael McFarland, who drafted and filed the will, said he was told by a friend of Sherman’s that the dog had died just days after the will was written.

“I was told he had stopped eating and didn’t want to go on without his dog,” McFarland said Wednesday.

Sherman’s will was filed Wednesday in Kootenai County District Court, naming the Rev. Michael David Walker, of Faith Tabernacle in Post Falls, as executor of the estate and Cecil as the sole beneficiary.

The estimated value of Sherman’s estate isn’t mentioned in the public documents. He never married and has no immediate next-of-kin, public documents say.

A memorial service for Sherman was held Wednesday afternoon at the church, and Butler and Cecil were among about 15 people who attended.

“He did what he wanted to do,” Butler said after the funeral, when asked if he felt slighted because he and the Aryan Nations were left out of Sherman’s will.

Butler said Sherman would give monthly to the Aryan Nations, but the two “never discussed” whether Sherman would leave a portion of his estate to the white supremacy group he’d been a member of for two decades.

On June 3, Sherman was found dead, apparently of natural causes, inside his rural Kootenai County home. A sheriff’s report makes no mention of the deceased man’s dog.

A death certificate filed Monday said he suffered from hardening of the arteries and probably died from a heart attack. An autopsy wasn’t conducted.

Two days before his death, Sherman stopped answering his door when, Cecil said, he would make nightly checks on his neighbor’s welfare.

“I don’t have anything to do with the Aryan Nations – never have, never will,” said Cecil, a construction superintendent and a member of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Posse.

Cecil said Sherman told him he had taken the dog to a kennel in Rathdrum, but the owner there said Wednesday he hadn’t seen Buster in months.

Cecil and his wife befriended Sherman about seven years ago when he moved in next door, and had “no clue” until recently that he had ties to the Aryan Nations, Cecil said.

“We treated him just like we did our dads,” Cecil said. “He would eat dinner here almost every night, up until about a month ago.”

After dinner, Sherman, who spoke very rarely, would quietly retire and continue his daily pursuit of copying Bible passages in long hand, Cecil said.

In April, while he was helping clean Cecil’s house, Butler showed up to pay Sherman a visit, Cecil said.

“That was the first time I realized they were friends,” Cecil said. “Butler came in and talked to Arthur, but he didn’t say a word back to Butler. I kind of thought the two may have had a falling out.”

But Butler said that wasn’t the case. “Sherman just didn’t like to talk much. We remained friends right up to the end.”

Both Butler and Sherman were in the Army Air Corps in Burma in 1944, during World War II. Sherman flew B-25s and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with two oak leaf clusters and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.

“We were there at the same time but didn’t know each other over there,” said Butler, who was a B-24 pilot and technical advisor for that aircraft.

Butler said Sherman, a former lawyer and civil engineer, had been a “faithful church member” since the mid-1980s when he started attending the Aryan World Congress, the group’s annual white supremacy gathering.

Sherman, who had lived and worked in Canada, eventually moved to North Idaho and became a regular at Aryan Nations gatherings.

“I think he’s marched in every parade we’ve had in Coeur d’Alene and planned to be there again this summer,” Butler said of his late friend.

“He used to walk with his dog every day,” Butler said. “He told me the dog was getting old, and he had to put him to sleep, I think it was back in April.”

Butler said he was at a loss to explain why his friend, in the will he signed May 24, would have been talking about provisions for his dog.

Sherman came to Butler’s home in Hayden on May 30 to attend weekly “Church of Jesus Christ Christian” services held in his home, Butler said. The Aryan Nations headquarters moved there in 2000 after Butler lost his 20-acre compound in the wake of a bankruptcy after a $6 million civil rights suit.

Sherman was at Butler’s side during the civil trial and the bankruptcy proceeding.

His cremated remains will be scattered from an aircraft in the next few days over the Coeur d’Alene National Forest.