JP
08-13-2008, 07:44 AM
MOST WANTED: Josephine Sunshine Overaker on Eco-Terrorism Charges
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
By Sara Bonisteel
This is a weekly series that profiles America's most wanted criminals.
Under the cover of darkness on an October evening in 1996, Josephine Sunshine Overaker began her life as an eco-terrorist, officials said.
The long-haired, vegan activist, sporting a slight moustache, worked at times as a midwife, sheep tender and firefighter, but this night she ignited her own dangerous blaze, officials said.
Along with several other environmental extremists, Overaker slipped into the Willamette National Forest and struck the U.S. Forest Service's station in Detroit, Ore., officials said.
Clad in black, they allegedly left graffiti and burned several Forest Service vehicles before disappearing into the night. Overaker and her cohorts broke the law for a branch of the Earth Liberation Front that called itself "the Family," investigators said.
"Once they did an action, they never went back to that place," FBI Special Agent Timothy Suttles said. "And the people involved in that action would never talk about it, ever."
Two days after the attack in Detroit, investigators said Overaker and fellow extremists struck again 140 miles away in Oakridge, planting within another ranger station an incendiary device crudely fashioned from milk jugs and sponges with fuses made of incense sticks. It was designed to ignite the accelerant long after they'd gone, and it worked; they succeeded in burning the Oakridge Ranger Station to the ground.
"They would pick their targets sometimes a year in advance and do significant surveillance, getting the timing down of the guards
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
By Sara Bonisteel
This is a weekly series that profiles America's most wanted criminals.
Under the cover of darkness on an October evening in 1996, Josephine Sunshine Overaker began her life as an eco-terrorist, officials said.
The long-haired, vegan activist, sporting a slight moustache, worked at times as a midwife, sheep tender and firefighter, but this night she ignited her own dangerous blaze, officials said.
Along with several other environmental extremists, Overaker slipped into the Willamette National Forest and struck the U.S. Forest Service's station in Detroit, Ore., officials said.
Clad in black, they allegedly left graffiti and burned several Forest Service vehicles before disappearing into the night. Overaker and her cohorts broke the law for a branch of the Earth Liberation Front that called itself "the Family," investigators said.
"Once they did an action, they never went back to that place," FBI Special Agent Timothy Suttles said. "And the people involved in that action would never talk about it, ever."
Two days after the attack in Detroit, investigators said Overaker and fellow extremists struck again 140 miles away in Oakridge, planting within another ranger station an incendiary device crudely fashioned from milk jugs and sponges with fuses made of incense sticks. It was designed to ignite the accelerant long after they'd gone, and it worked; they succeeded in burning the Oakridge Ranger Station to the ground.
"They would pick their targets sometimes a year in advance and do significant surveillance, getting the timing down of the guards