The Neighbors Should Have Known

The neighbors should have known that something was up in this case - there seemed to be plenty of clues, like the half naked shrieking women, the clothes that needed to be kicked back into the neighbor's yard, the steel shipping container itself, the racial slurs directed at children, the televised drug sales... It's really rather a horrible story - hence the reason it's showing up on the Southern Povery Law Center site. But statements like "she was suspicious of their stories", "'He likes black women, I guess,' Boozer said during an interview late last month. 'That's why I can't understand him being an Aryan'", and "Why in the hell did he have to do that when he had a wife right here?" give it more than a touch of the surreal.

White supremacist charged for 'chamber of horrors' (direct link to Inquirer story)
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Published on January 18, 2005

Then one day a flatbed truck with a steel shipping container rolled up the block, stopped at a blue rancher, and deposited the box in the backyard.

Neighbors thought Jerome L. Wigmore Jr., a drywall contractor who lived there with his wife, Betty, and mother-in-law, Alice Boozer, was using the container to store his work equipment.

"I thought, 'Hey, that's a pretty good idea for a tool shed,' " Kenneth Koen said last week. "I didn't know it was going to end up being a chamber of horrors."

According to police, Wigmore held at least two women captive in the padlocked container, which he had turned into living quarters complete with air-conditioning units...