On the night of 3 October 1981, a group of white-hooded racists burned a 25-ft cross wrapped in burlap and drenched in kerosene until it lit up the North Idaho sky. It was a ceremony: the commemoration of the Ku Klux Klan uniting with the Aryan Nations in eternal hateful brotherhood.
Bill Morlin was a 34-year-old newspaper reporter for the Spokane Daily Chronicle in the small city of Spokane, Washington, then. He also covered the Idaho Panhandle, an isolated region known for its pristine lakes, rugged forests and people who prefer to live far from the rest of society.
