Killer talks about abortion doctor’s death in YouTube video

February 10, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The convicted killer of a Kansas abortion provider has little sympathy for the family of his victim, comparing them to the relatives of a hit man in a recording posted online.

In his first public comments since his trial for the murder of Dr. George Tiller, Scott Roeder also criticized those who sought to keep the issue of abortion out of the proceedings altogether, saying it was like asserting that the trial for abolitionist John Brown was not about slavery.

“My beliefs were that the lives of unborn children were being taken by abortion,” Roeder said in the video posted on YouTube on Monday. “How you can keep that out of the trial is beyond me, because that was the one entire motive for the action that was taken.”

His 10-minute conversation with abortion opponent Dave Leach is the first in a series recorded last week that will be posted online with Roeder’s blessing, Leach told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Roeder, 51, was convicted Jan. 29 of first-degree murder for shooting Dr. George Tiller last May as the doctor served as an usher at his Wichita church.

He also was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two ushers who tried to stop him after the shooting. He will be sentenced March 9.