“Teddy Von Nukem, a southwest Missouri man featured prominently in photos from the infamous 2017 Charlottesville white-supremacist rally, died Jan. 30 this year, the same day he was scheduled to go trial for allegedly trafficking fentanyl across the Mexico border,” a local newspaper reported on Tuesday, February 14, 2023 (read story here).
The newspaper said, “Some people knew Ted and understood he was a different type of fellow and had different views of things.” He sure did. He also was a drug trafficker. “Under police questioning, Von Nukem admitted to smuggling contraband into the United States but denied knowing the drugs contained fentanyl.”
Von Nukem’s trial was to begin Jan. 30, 2023, but he was a no-show. While the judge was issuing a warrant for his arrest, he “walked out in the snow behind the hay shed and shot himself,” Daily Beast says (read story here). The hometown newspaper didn’t mention he committed suicide rather than face trial, probably out of sensitivity toward the wife and five children he left behind.
The newspaper showed them more consideration than he did. Now his kids are going to grow up without a father. He, no one else, did that to them.
Even world-class jerks have mothers, wives, children. We shouldn’t celebrate their bereavement. But that doesn’t mean the world isn’t a better place without him.
Famous photo below: Nukem is the neo-Nazi in the black shirt
