FBI agents seized a rifle and more than 150 rounds of ammunition, along with life insurance paperwork and a handwritten will, from the Annapolis apartment of James von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist accused of killing a black guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum last week, according to search warrant records filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
Computers, financial records, personal correspondence, a note "regarding plant care," and a "painting of what appears to be Hitler and Jesus" were also taken with dozens of other items, the documents say.
Representatives from the Washington field office of the FBI, which is overseeing the investigation, did not return calls seeking comment. Von Brunn, who lives with his son and his son's fiancee, is charged in D.C. federal court with two murder counts in the death of Special Police Officer Steven Tyrone Johns, whom he's accused of shooting June 10 after double-parking his red Hyundai outside the museum. Two other officers on duty within the museum returned fire, shooting von Brunn in the face.
Von Brunn is hospitalized in Washington and listed in critical condition, according to court records filed Monday. His initial court appearance has been rescheduled for next Monday.
An affidavit filed in support of the search warrant by Special Agent Christy Shaffer says law enforcement needed access to the Admiral Drive apartment to investigate whether "the gunman was working alone and whether additional targets were established." The document says von Brunn had ties to white supremacist groups and agents needed to assess whether there were any other "potential immediate threat[s]."
FBI agents interviewed Brandy Teel, who's engaged to von Brunn's son, in their shared apartment, according to the affidavit. She told agents that von Brunn had moved in with them about two years ago and pays about $400 in rent per month for a room. She added that he brought two rifles with him when he came, a .30-.30 and a .22-caliber. The latter might be the rifle found lying next to von Brunn at the museum.
Teel was staying with relatives the evening the warrant was executed, and her fiance, Erik von Brunn, was in Florida at the time.
In a statement to ABC News, the younger von Brunn condemned his father' views and said the elderly man, not Johns, should have died that day. An elder brother, who died in 2007, was estranged from their father, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
The FBI affidavit describes von Brunn as espousing "hate speech directed specifically toward Jews for an extensive period of time." He allegedly wrote a book about the government being run by Jewish people who wanted to "extinguish the white race."
The search warrant, executed June 11, has 33 entries for items seized, the lines often containing multiple things. No. 32, for example, lists three books and five letters found in the books.
At a news conference after the shooting, Joseph Persichini, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office, said the agency was aware of von Brunn because of a Web site he maintained spewing "hatred against various groups and government entities."
