Benjamin Nathaniel Smith
Benjamin Nathaniel Smith was a
spree killer who murdered Won-Joon Yoon and former Northwestern University basketball coach
Ricky Byrdsong. Smith targeted
Hispanics,
Blacks, Orientals, and
Jews in a thirty-six hour spate of drive-by shootings during the weekend of
July 4,
1999 in
Illinois and
Indiana,
USA. He wounded eight others and shot at and missed another nine people. Finally, Smith tried to kill himself as officers pursued him down a southern
Illinois highway. After shooting himself twice he crashed his
automobile into a
tree. He then shot himself again, in the
heart.
It is generally held that Smith's crimes were related to his affiliation with the white supremacist organization called the World Church of the Creator, which views him as a martyr. The group argued that Smith believed himself to be a soldier of the Racial Holy War Movement and, as a student at Indiana University at Bloomington, he was known for promoting racism.