Jury Shown Murder Defendant's Tattoos
March 6, 1999
By Howard Pankratz
Denver Post Legal Affairs Writer
Used with Permission
Photographs of skinheads Nathan Thill and Jeremiah Barnum were presented to a Denver jury
late Friday showing a heavily tattooed Thill giving the Nazi salute and a bare-chested
Barnum sporting a skinhead tattoo and the slogan "Blood and Honor'' across his chest.
Prosecutors claim Barnum, 25, and Thill, 21, terrorized West African immigrant Oumar Dia
on Nov. 18, 1997, at a Downtown Denver bus stop because of their racist beliefs and that
Thill killed Dia because he believed too many blacks were in the United States.
The photographs of Thill, who has claimed he is a "warrior'' for the Nazi cause,
showed Thill giving a Nazi salute. It also showed a mosaic of tattoos on Thill's
shoulders, chest, and stomach of Nazi storm troopers and dive bombers.
The photographs were shown to the jury during the third day of Barnum's first-degree
murder trial. Kelly Spicuglia, a close Barnum friend, testified that one of Barnum's
tattoos was for the American Front skinheads, which Barnum got while in Georgia.
The tattoo on Barnum's back shows German SS "runes'' which appear as lightning bolts
or the letter "S'. The SS, or "schutzstaffel,'' was the Nazi Party's elite
military branch used to carry out party policy, including mass exterminations.
Spicuglia had picked up Thill and Barnum from their gas station jobs on the night of Nov.
18, 1997, and dropped them off at the Red Garter striptease club in Downtown Denver.
Also allegedly shot by Thill was Jeannie VanVelkinburgh, who is now paralyzed.
Spicuglia said Barnum came home about 4 a.m. The next night, while watching TV reports
about the shooting, Barnum told her Thill provoked the incident. "He (Barnum) said
Nate asked (Dia) if he was a n----- and if he was ready to die,'' Spicuglia said.
"That's when (Thill) showed his gun and (Barnum) tried to get away from there.''
Spicuglia said that when Barnum asked Thill about VanVelkinburgh, Thill replied she was
"Mexican.''
Earlier witnesses testified that in the immediate aftermath of the shooting,
VanVelkinburgh told consistent stories about what happened that night.
The witnesses - bystanders and police officers - said VanVelkinburgh was in great pain.
But she mostly was worried about her two children.
They testified that VanVelkinburgh described the shooting in simple, understandable terms.
Copyright 1999 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.
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