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KLANSMAN: Oh, yeah.
All right.
[somber orchestral music]
♪♪ ♪♪
PERSON: For 2,000 years, God Almighty
has seen fit to have a separation of the races.
Either you are for the white, or you are for the Black.
PERSON: Ladies and gentlemen,
there is a white day coming in the United States.
♪♪ ♪♪
[spirited rhythmic beat]
JOE: Living with all of these ghosts around me,
the things that I have done and the knowledge I have,
it is life altering.
- The white people of this nation
are sick and tired. [cheers and applause]
TERRILL: This was the Klan, seeking to kill someone
because of their skin color.
PERSON: It is not malice when we protect ourselves.
JASON: And it wasn't 1965. It was 2015.
SINGER: ♪♪ The bottom of the river ♪♪
LATONYA: The KKK wanted to catch my son,
cut him up in pieces on the creek,
and leave him there.
JASON: This is a modern-day lynching
of a Black man in the Deep South.
- The facts of this case are despicable.
JOE: I asked the question,
"Do you want him 6 feet under?"
GEORGE: He was a rising star of the Klan.
He actually became the Grand Nighthawk.
- He came home with a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
And I was like, "Oh my God. What is this?"
SINGER: ♪♪ Meet me at the bottom ♪♪
GEORGE: Tapes don't lie.
You fear for your safety now?
JOE: Yes.
JOE: If something were to happen to me,
I need the world to know the truth.
SINGER: ♪♪ Bottom of the river ♪♪
[fire crackling]
[insects chirring, birdsong]
[tense music]
TAMEKA: There are many different Floridas.
Not many people appreciate that.
♪♪ ♪♪
I would tell people that I was from Florida,
and they immediately thought about beaches
and palm trees, about Disney.
But that's not the Florida that I grew up in.
- North Florida is significantly more rural.
It's more farmland. It's old plantation.
JASON: It's a region that has been left behind
by the modern economy.
There is a lot of agriculture jobs here,
but the other big job in rural communities is prisons.
In Florida, the prison system is the largest state employer,
employing thousands of people.
There are about 150 facilities,
about 80,000 inmates,
and even though Florida has about a 17% Black population,
half of inmates are Black.
I think a place like this that has such a long history
of racial strife should not be surprising to anyone
that the largest employer is also going to have
members of the Klan in it.
The members of the Klan when they join,
join something called the Invisible Empire.
[eerie music]
They exist among us in society,
not in their robes and hoods,
but in everyday street clothes
working everyday, regular jobs.
♪♪ ♪♪
Obviously, this is not an everyday kind of story.
In 2015, there was a press release
by the state of Florida.
It said that they'd arrested three prison guards,
and it turned out that the guards were members
of the Ku Klux Klan
plotting the murder of a Black man, an inmate,
once he got out of prison.
♪♪ ♪♪
I just started looking into it,
and I kind of became obsessed with it.
And I did a story for the AP wire,
which went national,
but there were just a lot of questions,
a lot more questions than answers.
It was only after I wrote the second article
in my series that I received an email,
and my heart stopped.
♪♪ ♪♪
There was someone who was in the Ku Klux Klan,
and he came forward to me.
The subject was, "This is Joseph Moore."
"Hello, I do not go by Joseph Moore anymore,
"but that was me.
"There is and was much more going on
"in the white supremacist circles
than I can discuss at this time..."
JOE: "But I am not restricted at this point that I know of.
"My family and I are under constant threat
"from white supremacists.
"I want to give you information I have
"in case something happens to me
"and I can no longer speak.
Joe."
[tape rewinding]
[dramatic music]
When you first put that robe on,
that persona that you put on can overcome you.
[indistinct speech]
♪♪ ♪♪
I was Grand Nighthawk
of the realm of Florida and Georgia.
♪♪ ♪♪
JASON: The Grand Nighthawk is basically the Klan's
top security officer.
JOE: Cross burnings are sacrosanct to the KKK
and one of the most closely guarded secrets.
I, as the Grand Nighthawk,
would be the person that lights the fire.
JASON: So there's a big nighttime cross lighting
at a farm in rural North Florida.
- It was very remote, very wooded, very rural,
and there would be no traffic.
JASON: All of the Klan members in the region would show up
in a field and light a cross on fire.
JOE: The night of the cross burning,
there were approximately 40 people there.
JASON: They were members of a violent group of the Klan
called the Traditionalist American Knights
of the Ku Klux Klan.
They were comprised of members who had violent felonies,
violent crimes in their past.
[indistinct shouting]
JASON: The Klan tries to present a public face
of being kind of a social club.
But behind the scenes, oftentimes,
they're plotting violence.
♪♪ ♪♪
- The Grand Nighthawk has been sort of a hit man for the KKK.
I embraced the fact that the KKK might
call upon me for violence.
GEORGE: The crosses are burning, the moon is full,
and that night changed everything.
- Yes.
[ominous music]
After the ceremony and the cross lighting,
I stepped away from the crowd.
And as I'm looking up at the moon,
I hear something coming my way.
♪♪ ♪♪
Charles Newcomb, the Exalted Cyclops,
which is essentially the local leader,
walked up to me and said,
"Hey, Brother Joe, we got a situation
we wanted to, uh, talk to you about."
♪♪ ♪♪
"We got Brother Driver and Brother Moran over here.
They want to talk to you about something."
David Moran was a Klansman working his way towards
a position directly under Charles Newcomb,
the Exalted Cyclops.
Thomas Driver was a newer Klan member,
not even first or second level yet.
- The other thing these three had in common
was they had all worked for
the Florida Department of Corrections
as prison guards.
- Thomas driver explained that he got into a fight
with this inmate, and they handed me
a paper with an inmate's picture on it
and the inmate's biographical information.
The inmate was Warren Williams.
♪♪ ♪♪
I asked, "What do you want to do?"
Driver and Moran looked at one another.
I asked the question,
"Do you want somebody to talk to him?"
They looked at each other, said no.
I said, "Do you want someone to beat him up?"
They looked at each other and said no.
Then I asked the question,
"Do you want him 6 feet under?"
And they said yes.
♪♪ ♪♪
I said "OK, you need to put that paper away,
"and then we need to meet another time
"to talk about this outside of this environment.
Brothers, uh, y'all enjoy the rest of the evening."
[eerie music]
GEORGE: So three men have talked to you
about a potential murder, but they didn't know
something very important.
- They don't know that I was
undercover for the FBI.
[suspenseful music]
♪♪ ♪♪
- So this is the Reception and Medical Center
in North Florida, Lake Butler.
And it houses thousands of prisoners,
as well as being the hospital for the prison system
in this region.
Driver and Moran worked here during the murder plot.
Newcomb was a former employee,
and all three were members of the Klan.
ANTWAN: Lake Butler Reception and Medical Center
has to be the worst prison--
it is the worst prison in Florida.
Lake Butler is known to be so bad that you can leave,
go to another prison, and you can tell the officer,
"Man, I'm glad I ain't at Lake Butler."
Well, you know what they tell you?
Rednecks don't play down there. Kill your ass, huh?
[blues music]
When I was there, I knew Sergeant David Moran.
♪♪ ♪♪
We called him Chief.
Back then, he had a little size on him,
barrel-chest dude, and inmates feared and respected him.
They knew--they knew Chief--
they were like, "You know, man, Chief'll kill you."
JASON: In the eight years that I've covered this region,
there have been a number of stories
that had involved Klansmen
being unmasked law enforcement.
ANTWAN: You not gonna surprise no Black person
by telling them the Klan is working in prison,
not Southern Black people.
- And with the resurgence of white supremacist groups...
[people chanting and screaming indistinctly]
JASON: You have seen an emboldened Klan.
CHRIS: We had been receiving a series of directives
going back to 2006 concerning the threat
from domestic terrorism extremism groups.
GREG: It's always best, in any criminal investigation,
to have somebody on the inside
because you're not only having eyes and ears
where yours can't be, but in many cases,
you're getting real-time feedback.
- Hence, the approach to Joe Moore.
[indistinct chatter]
- Good to see you. - Nice to meet you.
Have a seat.
So you don't go by the name Joe Moore anymore?
- No, we've gotten identity changes.
- Can I call you Joe? - Yeah, that's fine.
That's what most people call me anyway.
- Let's start out at-- at the beginning.
[bright music]
♪♪ ♪♪
JOE: I was born in 1971 in Jacksonville, Florida.
♪♪ ♪♪
I guess I always wanted to be in law enforcement.
[chuckles]
I was close to my sister, and I was her protector.
In high school, I ran track, played football.
After college, I enlisted in the Army as a private.
- You really did well at the beginning.
- I was a distinguished honor graduate
in my basic training class,
making rank pretty quick,
and was selected to become a sniper.
Eventually became the sniper section leader.
I began learning breathing techniques,
maintaining your composure,
being able to get control of what would
otherwise cause people to panic.
For me, I was serving my country.
I was fulfilling who I was.
[soft dramatic music]
- But after that, you ran into some challenges.
- Yes.
I received an honorable discharge,
and I was already receiving treatment
when I left the Army, for depression,
and within a year of being discharged,
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
GEORGE: How do you manage it? JOE: You see multiple doctors.
And of course, you get onto a medication protocol.
And when I'm feeling manic,
I imagine I'm wearing a heavy suit.
And then when I'm depressed,
I imagine zipping out of that heavy suit,
as well as constantly practicing
my breathing techniques that I've learned as a sniper.
♪♪ ♪♪
LATONYA: When you have kids,
you want the best for 'em in all situations.
[laughs]
But he just didn't go the route
that I would have had him go.
I'm Latonya Crowley. I'm Warren William's mother.
♪♪ ♪♪
JASON: Warren Williams is a young man who grew up
in the Central North Florida town of Palatka,
which is on the St. John's River.
He lived with his mother and three younger sisters,
protective older brother.
LATONYA: He had a great spirit,
and he liked outdoors,
always, you know, hands on with dirt,
flowers, stuff like that.
He get it from his granddaddy.
JASON: He spends time quietly fishing
in St. John's River.
- He's not a people person.
He never have been, never have.
- Warren suffered from some pretty severe
mental illness diagnoses throughout his life.
LATONYA: Warren has some mental issues,
and they kind of arose when he was in high school.
And that's when I start noticing the little changes.
He didn't see it, but I seen it,
you know, with bipolar.
They put him on medication.
He'll take it for a while, and then he'll stop
because he feel like he's not himself.
- Sometimes, he would have one of these episodes,
and his mother or other people he was with
would, you know, have to call the police
because they couldn't deal with him.
LATONYA: Because he's not taking his medicine,
he had taken a baseball bat to my car.
Because I know he wasn't in his right mind,
I had to call the police.
[soft dramatic music]
You know, he needed help. He just needed help.
[faint police sirens blaring]
♪♪ ♪♪
The police came to the house.
And Warren was, you know, sitting on the porch.
You know, and I told them,
"Don't try to attack him."
JASON: The police came when he was having a mental breakdown,
and he became violent.
Warren hit one of the police officers,
which would send him in to that prison.
[gun shots]
JOE: There are bad things that happen daily,
and you certainly can't build fences around life.
My identity and how I was formed as a person
were the result of some criminal things
that were done to me as a child.
When I was eight years old, I was victimized by two men
over a period of approximately three months.
JASON: First time I met Joe,
he brought up his childhood abuse.
It's clearly something that is not only traumatizing,
but that he's turned into a major life-motivating force.
JOE: Instead of deciding to become a victim
of those tragedies,
I decided to be the person that would speak out
against things that were wrong.
♪♪ ♪♪
I was giving classes at a local shooting range
to active duty military personnel,
police personnel.
[indistinct chatter]
While I was conducting a class, I guess,
a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force noticed me,
and I received a phone call after that.
- He--he fit the bill.
And by that, I mean he had certain qualifications.
- Like what?
CHRIS: Well, he had a military background.
Physically, he sort of fit the bill.
I mean, he's a white male. He was from--from that area.
He could walk the walk.
JOE: When I was growing up, I lived in a very swampy,
rural part of town, and where I lived at,
those people flew Confederate flags,
those people used the N-word.
- The FBI asked you to go undercover.
What was your mission?
JOE: My mission was go inside the KKK
to identify people that are involved
and to forewarn the FBI of any illegal activities.
[gun shots]
- Was there a threat in northern Florida at the time?
- Yes, clearly.
[eerie music]
GEORGE: KKK?
CHRIS: The KKK has-- has the history,
the image, so to speak. - We do not...
CHRIS: They're capable and dangerous.
GREG: Florida has been a bastion of the Klan.
I usually call the KKK
the granddaddy of white supremacy movements
because you can see the roots if you study the history.
TAMEKA: The Klan was founded after the end
of the United States Civil War
by whites who were determined to maintain their supremacy.
In 1921, it was estimated
that there were approximately 100,000 Klan members
across the United States.
A full one-third of them were believed
to have been in the state of Florida.
African Americans living in the state of Florida
have the highest likelihood of being lynched
of any people in the United States.
During the Civil Rights Movement,
you're going to see a lot of these Klan members
be active in confrontations of civil rights demonstrators.
You see that very vividly
in Saint Augustine, Florida, in 1964.
JASON: Local leaders, officials, sheriffs
were openly members of the Ku Klux Klan
who ran these towns 100 or less years ago.
So it's still a very active part of the culture
and history of this region.
GEORGE: And to do your job well,
you have to make them believe you're one of them.
How do you even start though?
- So this wasn't my first time undercover for the FBI.
Back in 2007, I spent about four years
undercover for the FBI
in a different Klan organization.
- Joe walks into the FBI office in Gainesville, Florida
to report what he thought was a crooked cop.
The FBI agent saw Joe's military background,
saw something in him and thought,
"Here's someone we could recruit to help us out."
- Initially, I wasn't surprised that they contacted me,
but I was-- I was honored.
I realized that I had a second chance
to serve my country again.
I had the opportunity to help someone else,
just as I wished somebody was there to help me
when tragedy happened to me as a child.
GEORGE: But something went wrong there.
They believed your cover had been blown?
- The problem was my family issues.
- Joe was under a lot of pressure
and stress from his wife.
JASON: There was some secret.
Sooner or later, he came clean,
and when the FBI discovered that he told his wife,
they severed the relationship immediately.
- So he broke the rules?
CHRIS: He broke a rule, he broke a rule,
and a decision was made to sever ties.
GEORGE: So if a guy breaks the rules once,
why bring him back?
CHRIS: Because it was, in a sense,
almost understandable.
JASON: This time, they were able
to strike up a new deal
where his wife would know from the beginning.
CHRIS: You also consider the need to bring somebody in
who already has that experience.
The decision to reopen him, so to speak,
was really an easy decision.
[people shouting and chanting indistinctly]
JASON: In 2013, there were more than 100 Klan groups
operating in the United States.
CHRIS: Really, the first year or so was,
be on the lookout, gather intelligence,
evaluate the threat.
- I was learning how to be a part of that organization
and getting close to them.
This is the application
to the Traditionalist American Knights of the KKK.
And it simply asks,
"Do you support white supremacism?"
They want people that have skills.
They want people from the military.
The KKK has a formal structure
similar to a military unit.
The KKK has what is essentially
a commander-in-chief in the Imperial Wizard.
The governors of the regions would be the Grand Dragons,
and the Grand Nighthawk would be that state
or that region's leader of the National Guard.
They use acronyms in order to ensure
that impostors were not infiltrating
the meeting or the Klan.
They would use terms like AYAK, are you a Klansman?
And the proper response, if you are a Klansman,
is AKIA, A-K-I-A, a Klansman, I am.
If you don't respond with AKIA,
they know you're not a Klansman.
- They also have a blood oath.
- Yes, they do. When you sign the blood oath,
they tell you that if you violate
or disclose secrets of the KKK, you'll pay with your blood.
[tense music]
♪♪ ♪♪
GEORGE: What does it mean to be operational for the FBI?
JOE: I was constantly in contact with the Klan,
nearly on an hourly basis,
transferring information, attending meetings.
I perhaps, would be having dinner or lunch
with my family, or at church or something,
and we'd get a phone call,
and I knew it was a Klan member.
- The KKK, who did they think you were?
- Someone far more qualified than myself.
GEORGE: A warrior? JOE: Yes.
[exhales deeply]
My Zodiac sign is Gemini.
Being the twins,
there were two aspects of myself,
one undercover, and one who I really was.
- They were really interested in his military background
and training as a sniper.
He took on a character that inflated his credentials
even further than what they already were.
CHRIS: He took military experience
and made it sound almost sexy to them.
So he talked about being a sniper,
alluding to killing people in Delta Force,
which they clearly were attracted to.
- I was able to rise through the ranks
to the point that they made me a Nighthawk and, eventually,
the Grand Nighthawk.
- It's clear from his ascent that he impressed them.
They trusted him.
He displayed admirable patience
throughout that process,
which easier said than done,
particularly in a situation like that
that's potentially very dangerous.
[Klansmen chanting]
- So in his first year, Joe was leaking intelligence
to the FBI here and there,
but there were no major plans he's disrupting.
But that would all change.
It was the height of
North Florida deep South summer,
which anybody knows is one of the most humid,
sticky, hot places.
Many of the rooms inside the RMC
are not air conditioned.
It makes conditions even more tense
between the inmates and the guards.
Thomas Driver worked in the dorm area
where Warren Williams was an inmate.
They crossed paths at numerous times.
But one day, Thomas Driver had brought Warren
into a room inside the prison to reprimand Warren
for losing his ID badge.
Driver just smoking a cigarette,
started blowing smoke at Warren's face.
LATONYA: And he said he asked him to stop,
and he wouldn't.
You know, he kept saying, you know,
"Get out my face with the cigarette smoke."
You know, "Get out of my face. Get out my face."
ANTWAN: They would do things, outrageous things,
that push you in a corner,
just things that just not necessary.
JASON: Warren asked him to stop.
Driver refused to stop,
and it was at that point that Warren jumped on him,
and the fight started.
LATONYA: Warren and Driver was fighting,
wrestling, you know, on the floor or whatever,
and the other COs came in. They beating him.
♪♪ ♪♪
They beaten him so bad, they took him to the hospital.
JASON: Williams had gotten the better of Driver
in the fight, and during the fight,
had also bit Driver and broken the skin,
and Driver had required a series of tests
to make sure that he didn't have some
serious communicable diseases, hep C or HIV,
and because of the worry over whether or not
he'd picked up one of these diseases,
he said it had caused his family
immeasurable stress and that he just
wanted this guy assassinated.
♪♪ ♪♪
So Warren was released from prison
right around Christmas time and returned back
to his mother's small home in Palatka.
[soft dramatic music]
He began working a landscaping job,
trying to stay out of trouble.
He was on probation,
so he's going to regular probation meetings,
fishing when he can,
just trying to get his life back to a peaceful state,
but at the same time, the Ku Klux Klan
is plotting to snatch him up and murder him.
JOE: I ask the question,
"Do you want him 6 feet under?"
And they said yes.
I said, "OK, brothers,
y'all enjoy the rest of the evening."
Get in my vehicle,
just running the night over in my head
over and over and over.
When I got safely down the road,
I immediately called the FBI to tell them
that these guys were prepared to murder.
CHRIS: So December 6...
everything about that meeting...
was chilling.
It's not illegal to engage in hateful speech.
What is illegal is to go from hateful speech
into the planning of a criminal act,
a violent act.
- And once he hears some talk about murder,
that's when you need him to wear a wire?
- Yes.
They've had this conversation in December.
Now he has to go back, wearing a wire this time,
and recreate important parts of that conversation.
PAUL: It's invaluable to have those recordings
to validate and corroborate exactly what the informant
is telling us so that we know precisely the words used.
PAUL: There are many hours and many meetings.
Countless hours of him spending time talking with them
so we could try to keep a good pulse
of what were they thinking.
CHRIS: If you've ever had a cotton ball
and you try to pull it apart, if you pull too hard,
it won't come apart.
If you pull easily, it comes apart.
That's what Joe Moore was able to do with this organization.
CHRIS: He never pushed too hard.
He would inquire, listen, go along with things.
- It was obvious that they did harbor
racial animosity toward the victim.
- And the other thing that was apparent to me
was there was absolute intent to see this carried out.
PAUL: He's obviously interacting with
and around people that have expressed
a clear intent to commit murder.
If it came out that Joe was cooperating
and working with the FBI, we feared his--
his life could very well be in danger.
- Joe was in danger. He also had a wife and kids.
- He did.
With sources, it's a constant challenge
and a struggle, particularly if they have family,
if they're trying to lead a normal life.
To have that going on on the side is--it's tough.
- Make sure they're all the way over here, love.
[indistinct chatter]
GEORGE: When you're in it, how do you go
from a cross burning at night to having breakfast
with your kids the next morning?
JOE: It's difficult.
With whatever operation
you're conducting with the FBI,
you still have family life to deal with.
ZOE: Lord, thank you for watching over us.
I thank you for our many blessings.
You know, I always say everything is for a reason.
And we weren't together six months when we got engaged.
About six months.
- And we've been together 15 years.
- Yeah, yeah.
[upbeat rock music]
♪♪ ♪♪
JOE: I have four children in total,
one from a previous marriage.
ZOE: Joe just told me that there was a man
that they was wanting to kill
and that this was gonna be some dangerous waters.
He didn't even know what he was going to be stepping into,
so I was always worried.
- Good job, bud. Yeah.
I would wonder about what would happen to my family
if I was discovered all the time,
every day, every second
of being operational.
- The burden that it put on me--
and it wasn't just me. It's our children.
We were worried.
Is he gonna be safe?
Are we gonna be safe?
[soft dramatic music]
JOE: After the holidays,
I got a call from Charles Newcomb
that he wanted to go on a reconnaissance.
JOE: It is Charles Newcomb who, in fact,
did take charge of the overall operation
and was essentially the puppet master
of all the pieces that were moving.
I was told by Charles Newcomb
that we were going to surveil his location
in order to further identify the plan to murder him.
And I asked him if Brother David Moran
would be attending. He said yes.
And I said, "What about Brother Driver?"
JOE: He said, "Brother Driver will be working that day."
In the back of my head, I'm thinking,
"You're making sure he is working on the day
we're just doing reconnaissance."
So there's a little red flag that popped up for me there.
The morning I left my home,
I had to secretly meet with the FBI.
JASON: They had outfitted Joe's truck
with numerous microphones.
And Joe, of course, had a recording device as well.
GEORGE: What would have happened to Joe
had they discovered the wire?
- On the surface, you would think they would
probably react emotionally, violently.
- Would they have killed him? - I think so.
I showed up at Charles Newcomb's home.
And I'm thinking, "OK, I have to hope for the best,
but I have to expect the worst."
JASON: The general plan was to case the area
and get intelligence for a future drive.
What he'd find out is that Newcomb had other plans.
JASON: Injecting someone who's not diabetic
with too much insulin poisons them.
It kills them.
- They were gonna take him out on the spot using those drugs.
- They also had thought ahead
how to get rid of all the evidence.
JOE: Yes.
- So the fishing pole that day that they introduced
was really to set the scene to make it look like
it was a normal day, the victim was out fishing,
and then he had had a medical condition collapse,
and he was face down in the water.
- So he puts the fishing gear in the back of my SUV,
where some of the FBI equipment is.
And I'm thinking... - Don't open that.
JOE: David Moran showed up,
and there was an exchange of firearms.
I was not able to inform the FBI
of the intent of these guys to kill Mr. Williams.
- It's easy to watch TV and believe the FBI is--
is everywhere and that they're--
that they're in vans down the street.
The reality is the idea that we can
have an immediate response-- it's just not feasible.
Joe Moore was out there operating on his skills,
on his instincts, on his ability to react.
- They're talking through how they might even
alternatively dispose of the body.
JOE: The closer we got to Palatka,
it's like these guys just--
Moran got more excited. Newcomb got more serious.
JOE: When we pulled into Warren's neighborhood,
there were people walking on the sidewalks,
sitting outside their front doors.
- Almost immediately, as we turn on to the road
where Warren Williams lived, there was an obvious presence
of law enforcement.
CHRIS: Enough law enforcement presence
was arranged in that area, visible,
to dissuade them from doing
anything rash and sudden.
JOE: They told me law enforcement would
be in the area, but I had no idea what the plan was.
- Now, there's much that goes on in the background
that we don't necessarily tell the informant.
JOE: An unmarked vehicle showed up immediately
and pulled right in behind us.
I saw the expression on Newcomb's face.
He was ready to jump into battle,
and I'd be right in the middle of it.
- You're thinking he could pull the gun out at any moment?
- Absolutely.
CHRIS: While we're in control of parts of it there,
we can't control Newcomb and Moran's reaction.
And it does pose danger to Joe Moore.
- I kept driving. I kept my mouth shut.
I turned left,
and that vehicle stayed right behind us.
Moran kept turning around, watching them.
JOE: We went around the block twice,
and that patrol vehicle stayed behind us the whole time.
Newcomb let out a breath of exasperation,
as if he was getting even more pissed.
JOE: It was like I almost had to have three eyes,
one on Newcomb, one on the road,
and one on Moran.
I was thinking to myself, get myself under control,
breathe, focus, observe.
- I put my hand on my sidearm.
I turned right onto the highway
and drove out,
and that vehicle pulled over and did a U-turn.
I thought to myself, "Thank God."
However, Newcomb was very suspicious.
- What they were planning to do became more and more
shocking and disturbing.
It was clear they wanted him killed.
PAUL: And so what we needed to do was come up
with an alternative so that it prevented them
from taking independent action,
and we can ensure the victim was safe at all times.
LATONYA: Warren did, I think, almost a year in prison.
And you know, when he came home,
he told me, he said,
"Mama, ain't nobody gonna ever hear my story."
I was like, "OK.
Well, sit down and tell me your story."
[soft dramatic music]
♪♪ ♪♪
WARREN: I believe it was about three months into my sentence
that I got into the incident with him.
Some type of feeling overcame me,
and I took it out on him.
After what I did to him,
he told me to get on the floor,
and another officer demanded that he whoop my ass.
Broke my finger, hit me in the mouth,
hit me in the eye,
and I think he Maced me, too, in the same eye.
And I was feeling like, you know,
he might as well just go ahead and kill me.
♪♪ ♪♪
LATONYA: Warren had went to probation one day,
and, you know, he was doing fine.
So he went, and later,
driving with a friend of mine,
and we was at a red light.
♪♪ ♪♪
And this--this van,
you know, waving me down.
The man presented himself. You know, "We FBI,
And I can't tell you anything else."
I said, "Well, you don't have to tell me anything else
because I already know."
I said, "Somebody done put a hit out on Warren."
PAUL: She spontaneously just mentioned
that it was those correctional officers
that had the confrontation With her son,
and they hadn't gotten over that.
We didn't confirm who was behind it,
but she assumed accurately.
LATONYA: So, you know, we turned around
and went back to the house.
They said they needed to get some pictures
that seemed like that somebody did kill him.
WARREN: You know, they was telling me
that I have an option to go with them
because someone was after me.
CHRIS: We need to make sure you're protected,
and, hey, we need to stage this murder.
[clock ticking]
Williams was positioned on the floor
with what appeared to be gunshot wounds to his chest,
which had been discussed with Driver.
LATONYA: So you know, they--
they knocked some stuff around on the floor.
- They poured water on me like I peed my pants,
and they took a couple photos.
[camera clicking]
And after, we were to leave and go to a hotel
until the situation was under wraps.
TERRILL: He had been required to stage his own death
and was whisked away.
It's--it's just something that's unimaginable.
[camera clicking]
LATONYA: When they took Warren,
they didn't tell me where they was taking him.
It just something that needed to happen.
[bluesy music]
WARREN: They didn't tell me exactly who was after me,
because they wouldn't want to ruin an ongoing investigation.
But I was able to, you know, just trust them.
♪♪ ♪♪
CHRIS: The more evidence you can bring
only helps the prosecution's case.
To round out the case and prove
that this was more than just talk,
Joe Moore was given a photo
to show them and ask again, "Is this what you wanted?"
JOE: No one told me beforehand
that they were going to set that up.
♪♪ ♪♪
SINGER: ♪♪ Hell, brimstone ♪♪
♪♪ Fire burn on ♪♪
♪♪ This is the fire ♪♪
♪♪ ♪♪
GEORGE: The FBI hands you a phone
with a picture of Warren Williams on the ground.
What did you think when you saw that?
JOE: I'm thinking... I failed.
And then they sort of snickered
and laughed and said,
"It's just a staged death scene.
We wanted to see how effective it was."
♪♪ ♪♪
- And what did the FBI ask you to do with that photo?
- I was to present this photo to the three guys,
as I was the hit man.
I did this job to sort of
give the defendants a chance
to say they really
didn't intend this,
or to suggest that, yes, this is what they wanted.
♪♪ ♪♪
JASON: He was outfitted with a secret video camera.
And he knows that his life is in danger.
He's seen what these men are capable of.
They would kill him if they found
that he was wearing a wire.
♪♪ ♪♪
JOE: I made messages for my wife and children.
- In case something happened to you?
- Because every day,
there's a chance I wasn't coming home.
- What were they?
- The last words that
I felt they wanted to hear from me.
♪♪ ♪♪
GEORGE: So what happened when you showed them the phone?
JOE: When I drove to meet with David Moran
to show him the photo, I had a little bit of time
to get into character slowly
and think about what I had to do.
♪♪ ♪♪
Moran was known for being
an extremely dangerous person,
beating prisoners to within an inch of their life,
and I was very worried about showing him the photo.
- He was excited and gleeful,
and I thought to myself,
"How disgusting can someone be?"
But I just had to maintain my composure,
maintain my character.
- Don't interject, and let him do the talking.
[engine turns over]
JOE: It was upsetting, but I can't dwell on that.
I can't quit. That's not an option.
It's on me to make this case.
JASON: At this point, Joe is so deep in this case.
Even with all the stress, there's a job to finish.
JOE: I met with Thomas Driver
at a parking lot of a shopping mall
in Lake City, Florida.
Since this particular case started with him,
it needed his approval.
- If Thomas Driver had said that he didn't want
the target, Williams, dead,
the entire case would have fell apart.
[chuckles]
JOE: He appeared to get the blood that he wanted.
When I got back into the vehicle...
I felt a huge relief.
[dramatic music]
However, when I had to go meet with Charles Newcomb,
that was probably the most intense meeting.
♪♪ ♪♪
He was certainly the ringleader
and probably the most driven of the three.
♪♪ ♪♪
Newcomb was so meticulous and had an attention to detail.
It was alarming.
JOE: Charles Newcomb was perhaps
most likely to ask a dangerous question.
I expected him to ask, "Where's the body?"
Because there's a guy murdered.
We don't see anything about it in the news.
Where's the body?
I had to come up with a way
to get him off of his normal thought processes.
And I thought, "OK, what can I do?"
I can pretend to be sick,
had powder on my face to look like I was pale.
He looked at me, and I kind of tried
to look like I was tired and exhausted.
- I keep telling myself, "Breathe, focus, listen,
breathe, focus, listen."
JOE: The moment where Charles Newcomb
became happy with it, I thought to myself,
"Thank God."
I have reached that crest.
But I had seen so many false peaks
that I questioned myself, "Is this really the end?"
REPORTER: Shocking case coming to light.
Three KKK members, who are current
and former Florida corrections...
REPORTER: The Attorney General,
Pam Bondi, was fired up about these arrests.
- Hey, guys.
ANTWAN: Up at Charlotte Correctional,
that's the prison I went home from,
you know, the 6:00 news came on.
So I'm like, "Man, what is that?"
- Today, in conjunction with the FBI,
three defendants were charged,
all with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
ANTWAN: They showed the pictures of the officers.
And I recognized chief.
I said, "That's Chief. Man, what the hell?"
And then I heard the story.
PAM: All three were employees
of the Department of Corrections
and are known alleged members
of the Ku Klux Klan.
- So it was--[chuckles] I went through
all the emotions sitting there watching this.
I'm not gonna lie, my first thought was,
"These guards, they done went crazy now."
- And, again, no one has been convicted yet.
These are pending charges,
but the facts of this case are despicable.
[soft dramatic music]
♪♪ ♪♪
WARREN: I saw that the officers had gotten arrested.
I knew that everything had worked out.
It was time for me to go back home.
JOE: After Driver, Newcomb, and Moran
were taken into custody...
my wife, my children, and I were taken
into protective custody.
- The FBI had called us, and they said
to get what you need and you have to leave.
So fit everything that you can into your car, and that's it.
♪♪ ♪♪
JOE: It's an incredibly emotional feeling.
But I had to struggle with this character
that I had been for so many years.
You try to get back to your life,
but it becomes more and more difficult...
to discard or insulate yourself from that character.
♪♪ ♪♪
- Joe being undercover for so long,
it just--it takes a toll.
I was ready to start over new.
CHRIS: The arrests occur in April.
And then two years later, a trial.
Now Joe Moore
is going to testify
as the key state's witness.
JASON: Driver got a reduced, four-year sentence
after entering a guilty plea to a lesser charge.
Both Moran and Newcomb
stood trial for conspiracy to commit murder.
LATONYA: We got in the courthouse.
They had FBI agents there.
They had so many polices there,
and Warren, he was all right.
He don't show a lot of emotions.
He just hold 'em in.
♪♪ ♪♪
JOE: The defense in this case was not able to attack
the facts of the case.
They couldn't deny the fact
of Williams as being the victim.
The only thing they could attack was me.
[tense music]
♪♪ ♪♪
- You got paid by the FBI? - Yes.
- How much?
- For the 10-year span,
somewhere over $100,000.
GEORGE: And at the trial... JOE: Yes.
GEORGE: The defense tried to make an issue of this?
- Yes.
- But you say you weren't doing this for the money.
- I was not.
At one point, I actually told the FBI,
"Don't pay me anything. Just cover expenses."
- The concept that Joe Moore would not have been paid
or his payments were contingent
on positive reporting or results is just a fallacy.
If his payments were dependent on arrests
or successful operations,
then we wouldn't have been paying him up to that point.
- Defense also tried to argue that your mental-health issues
made you an unreliable witness.
- That's fine.
Prove it.
- Not one element of his mental-health struggles
dealt with truthfulness,
and they can say his truthfulness
was suspect all they want.
Tapes don't lie.
JASON: Joe weathered the cross-examination well,
and the jury found him credible enough
to find these men guilty.
Moran and Newcomb were sentenced to 12 years each.
LATONYA: And I thank God for it,
and I thank God for the informant
that told his story,
that put his life on the line for us,
because this could have been so wrong.
It could have been so wrong.
[instrumental hip-hop beat]
JASON: For Warren, even though that plot
was foiled and these men were put in prison,
he lives with a constant fear that someone's gonna come
and finish what their Klan brothers couldn't.
LATONYA: People know who we are,
but we don't know who all they are.
TERRILL: And so he found himself
just stuck in the house and looking out the window
and making sure no strange cars were around.
And that's a very difficult place to be
for years, for a lifetime.
WARREN: I kind of like being alone more,
but I try not to have too many friends because...
I really can't trust everybody in the world.
LATONYA: He will sit in the house and make beats,
He write poems.
He's more into poetry and music.
I don't really think he even talk to people.
You know, it was hard for him
to come out the house.
Warren hasn't been fishing.
- That serenity has totally been shattered
because that thing that he loves to do
was part of the plan of the Klan to kill him.
[soft dramatic music]
♪♪ ♪♪
I had one very simple question after reporting
this story for Florida's corrections officials.
If you know that there were Klansmen
working in one of your prisons,
what have you done
to investigate whether or not
this is a wider problem?
And I was told by them that there was no indication
or evidence that would lead to a wider investigation.
I know that's not true in a couple of ways.
One, Joe Moore told me that he had evidence
that other members of the Klan
had also worked at that same prison.
JOE: As Grand Nighthawk,
I had access to membership lists,
and that information was vetted.
This list has not only Thomas Driver,
David Moran, and Charles Newcomb on the list,
it has other law enforcement officers
on the list as well.
JASON: Beyond Joe's list, my investigation
found numerous more recent cases
of Florida prison guards
who are suspected members of white supremacist groups
at prisons throughout the state of Florida,
not just the Florida Reception and Medical Center.
This is QAnon symbolism here.
It's like a "Punisher."
If you drive to the parking lot of the prison
where these Klansmen work, you will see
symbols that are used by white supremacist groups
slapped on as stickers on the cars
in the employee parking lot,
and you would think that as somebody who works
for a state institution, those types of symbols,
while covered by the First Amendment,
would still be frowned upon.
There's an institutional indifference
by the Department of Corrections
to my questions and to this problem as a whole.
And we know this is just not a Florida problem.
It's just not a correctional problem.
- White nationalists are seeing it as their time.
[people chanting]
[impacts, people screaming, tires screeching]
MERRICK: The top domestic violent extremist threat
we face comes from racially
or ethnically motivated violent extremists,
specifically those who advocate for the superiority
of the white race.
JASON: Louisiana...
- Tonight a Lake Arthur police officer
is out of a job over a controversial picture...
REPORTER: Taken at a Ku Klux Klan meeting.
- Michigan...
- Muskegon police officer is now on leave
after KKK memorabilia was discovered in his home.
- Ohio...
- The Sheffield Lake police chief has resigned
after video emerged of him placing KKK imagery
on a raincoat belonging to a Black officer.
JASON: So the Klan is also evolving and morphing,
often joining up with other more modern groups.
all: [shouting indistinctly] Stop the steal!
GREG: From the Proud Boys to the Oath Keepers
to the Klan,
that ribbon of racial identity or white supremacy
runs through all of them.
PERSON: You fucking traitors!
GREG: These groups are trying to recruit law enforcement,
and they're using and twisting these symbols.
CHRIS: They're armed. They've had training.
They have access to confidential information.
GREG: When we talk about extremism
within law enforcement,
I've heard 1%. I've heard 2%.
Nobody wants to hear, "It's OK. I have 2% cancer."
It's going to spread.
JASON: The states that have tried to implement screening
have come against the correctional guards unions,
and they're powerful.
You see in the federal level,
hearings and discussions, at least,
of these types of problems, but at the state level,
they're not seemed to be taken very seriously.
[indistinct shouting]
TERRILL: And it's something that has to stop.
Until America decides
to live its creed...
and face up to its flaws,
there will continue to be stories
that shock the conscience.
JASON: After the trial, Joe's identity
is now discoverable
because he testified in open court.
- It's the last goal of the Bureau,
or any law enforcement, is to expose your informants.
Is it the case in some states and jurisdictions?
Sometimes you're required to.
- He is responsible for putting away
members of the Ku Klux Klan.
It's a betrayal, not only of his Klan oath
from the Klan point of view,
but also these men who he'd befriended.
The FBI gave him and his family
a new identity, new names
and put him into Witness Protection.
But at some point,
someone who is affiliated with the Klan contacted Joe
and said, "We know where you are."
JOE: We have had representatives
from the KKK come to our house,
let us know they know where we live.
We've had supporters of KKK contact us on our phones.
I have no choice but to come out and speak
to the general public
in an effort to try to bring light to the issues
that I uncovered when I was undercover.
If something were to happen to me
because of the threats,
I needed the world to know the truth.
ZOE: So the youngest doesn't grasp
what Daddy has really done,
but as far as my two older children,
they look at my husband as a hero.
- You recently met Warren Williams.
JOE: Yes, I did.
[soft dramatic music]
How you doing, Warren? Nice to finally meet you.
- Nice to meet you, too.
- Thank you so much for coming over.
- I'd like to say thank you for what you did for me.
- You got it, man. You got it.
- Thank you.
JOE: When I met Warren Williams...
I...
I was fighting back the tears.
You just want to open that gate right there for me?
Warren and I, we both like to fish.
I could see that when he's fishing,
he's just-- it's just him and nature.
♪♪ ♪♪
And it's just mind-blowing
how people can have so much disdain
for a fellow human being,
certainly one as such as Warren is.
- Can I ask a personal question?
- Sure. - It's not towards you.
- Oh, you can ask me anything. - It has to do with me.
- OK.
- No matter who you are, no matter how old you are,
you don't always make good decisions.
- Uh-huh.
- Someone has to be there to protect you.
Through thick and thin, somebody should be there...
right?
- Like...
having somebody you can go to for advice...
or...
- The kind of person you are.
- Oh. [chuckles]
So, in your situation,
you were not treated fairly.
There were so many things wrong with that.
And...
I sympathize with things
that you might have gone through,
and...
it's not any more complicated than that.
[tender music]
LATONYA: Warren have a beautiful soul.
He do.
He's a great person.
I raised Warren
to be the man that I would want to marry one day.
[laughs] And he is.
He is.
JOE: All right.
There you go, buddy-- a little one-pounder.
LATONYA: I want him
to at least try to move on with his life...
but I don't know if that will ever happen.
♪♪ ♪♪
TERRILL: But I think he's found a way to continue on.
He'll be able to talk about his experiences
through poetry.
♪♪ ♪♪
WARREN: "Love is trust. Love is compromise.
Love is a must in order to survive."
TERRILL: He has a story that America needs to hear.
He has a story that the world needs to hear.
And he's got a voice
that's gonna allow him to share that story.
WARREN: Love is a promise. Keep love alive.
♪♪ ♪♪
Know who you love before you define who to hate.
♪♪ ♪♪
The love you give is the love you get.
♪♪ ♪♪
No matter where you stand, no matter whom you're with.
♪♪ ♪♪