Curtis Allgier | |
|---|---|
 Mug shot of Curtis Allgier | |
| Born | August 25, 1979 Custer, South Dakota, U.S. |
| Other names | "Wood"[1] |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated |
| Conviction(s) | Aggravated murder |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment without parole |
Curtis Michael Allgier (born August 25, 1979)[1] is an American white supremacist[2] skinhead who is being held in the Utah State Prison[3] in Draper, Utah, for the murder of corrections officer Stephen Anderson.[4]
Allgier's criminal history began in 1998 with convictions for theft and reckless driving in South Dakota. He was charged with felony burglary, forgery and theft in Utah during October 2000, after he burglarized a neighbor's apartment and made out a stolen check to himself for $300. That month, he was also charged in another county with carrying a concealed handgun and sentenced to 180 days and probation.[5]
Allgier fled Utah in August 2001, which led to a one-to-15-year sentence. Paroled in May 2003, he was then arrested and sent back to prison in July 2004 for traveling to California without authorization, and possessing two knives. He was paroled in October 2006. In November, he became a fugitive for two days on a parole violation. Allgier, armed, barricaded himself inside a hotel room but was captured by a Salt Lake City SWAT team after falling through the ceiling where he had tried to hide. On June 14, 2007, he was sentenced to 104 months in prison for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.[5]
On the morning of June 25, 2007, corrections officer Stephen Anderson escorted Allgier to the University of Utah, where Allgier was scheduled for an MRI, because he had been complaining of back problems.[6] While waiting with Anderson in an examination room at the university's orthopedic center, Allgier was unshackled. He then overpowered and disarmed Anderson and shot him once in the chest and once in the head. Allgier later stated that the gun went off accidentally during the struggle.[7] After fleeing the clinic on foot, Allgier carjacked a Ford Explorer,[8] and led police on a high-speed chase.[9] Allgier was captured at an Arby's restaurant a few miles away, where he tried to shoot an employee but the gun malfunctioned.[10][11] Eric Fullerton, a Vietnam veteran and former Army paratrooper, confronted him and managed to take his gun away. Allgier fled to the back of the restaurant, where police found him hiding in the manager's office.[12]
Allgier's murder trial was initially set for June 2012. In March 2012, the judge granted a motion postponing the trial.[13] On October 3, 2012, Allgier unexpectedly pleaded guilty to murder and several other charges, and also pleaded no contest to three charges of attempted murder.[14] He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.[15]
In January 2015, Allgier lost his right to legal representation after repeatedly making frivolous objections to, and threats against, his court-appointed attorneys during his appeals of the life sentence.[16]
In November 2017, the Utah Supreme Court rejected Allgier's self-represented motions to withdraw his guilty pleas.[17] The court ruled that Allgier knew conditions of his guilty pleas and was unable to withdraw them due to missing a deadline, and furthermore that Allgier had failed to establish that his lawyers did not adequately represent him.
Allgier has numerous tattoos, many of which express his white supremacist beliefs. He has multiple swastikas, including ones tattooed on either side of his nose, earlobes, chin, center brow, and front of his ears.
Other tattoos include:
with stylized "Armanen" sig runes). The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler, and was a Nazi police force that administered death camps, in addition to staffing mobile killing units known as Einsatzgruppen. The Nuremberg judges declared the entire SS a criminal organization after World War II.