PORTLAND, Ore. -- David "Joey" Pedersen spent nearly half his life in prison, building a lengthy rap sheet that includes a conviction for repeatedly hitting a prison guard in the face with a hot iron. He also threatened to kill a federal judge and committed a litany of other crimes including robbery and assault.
But his crimes were never deemed serious enough to warrant a sentence longer than a few years, and Pedersen walked out of prison on May 24 a free man. He was actually let out three months early for good behavior, despite the fact that he was in prison in the first place for attacking a guard.
And his bad behavior while behind bars - 68 incidents in 14 years - landed him in solitary confinement for most of his stay. While being locked down and kept away from other prisoners, he accrued time for early release
The quirks in the justice system that let Pedersen get out when he did allowed the 31-year-old white supremacist to begin a new life on the outside, taking up cage-fighting and meeting a female companion who had done time herself. Prosecutors said they soon began killing people, starting with Pedersen's father and stepmother. They then killed an Oregon teenager, stole his car and killed a fourth person in California before being caught, prosecutors said.
Pedersen was unrepentant when questioned about the assault on the prison guard.
"I would have killed him if that other guy hadn't stopped me," Pedersen told an investigator looking into the 2001 assault in documents obtained by The Associated Press. "I'm just not putting up with their bull---- anymore. I ain't got nothing else to say to you."
At the time of the assault, he had been in prison for one day. Prosecutors sought to bring attempted aggravated murder charges against Pedersen, but a grand jury decided the incident merited a first-degree assault charge. It was later dropped to second-degree assault.
Pedersen and Grigsby have admitted in separate interviews to a California newspaper that they committed the crimes. Pedersen said he did it because he said his father molested his sister. Grigsby, also a white supremacist, said she was trying to preserve the white race.
"I'm hoping the sacrifice we have made will open some people's eyes and they will wake up and hear the call. It's not as hard as they think," Grigsby told the Appeal-Democrat newspaper. "This is what I was born to do."
With an image of Adolph Hitler on his stomach and the tattoo of a swastika just above his heart, Pedersen's long rap sheet includes 68 offenses in 14 years of incarceration.
But for most of his prison sentence, he was segregated from the prison population. In the last 20 months of his latest sentence, it was an opportunity to accumulate "earned time" to the tune of one day off his sentence for every five days in prison.
The 122 days taken off his sentence changed his release date to May 24. His scheduled date of release without earned time credits would have been Sept. 23. Three days later, on Sept. 26, authorities believe he and Grigsby killed Pedersen's father and stepmother.
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