By his own account, Gautier (pronounced "go-chay"), who was 50 at the time, had carried out the killing with three other members of two separate but allied Klan chapters, or "klaverns," that roamed the backwoods of semi-rural central North Carolina in 2001, stealing guns, making bombs, plotting murders, and carrying out at least one.

The others seemed to pay the killing no mind. But Gautier was different. He kept driving to the hayfield and standing over the grave like he was paying his respects, and he had recurring nightmares in which he sat across a table from the dead man, unable to speak or move.

On Jan. 1, 2003, Gautier called the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and said he knew all about a Klan killing, that he'd been there when it happened, that he'd tell them who else had done it, and that he'd show them where the body was buried.

The next day, at one in the afternoon, Gautier met with detectives from the SBI and the Sampson County Sheriff's Office in a room at the Southern Belle Motel, where he spilled his guts. His confession triggered parallel state murder and federal gunrunning cases. They've since dragged on for years but are now finally approaching resolution, either by trial or plea bargains.

These investigations have opened a rare window into the inner workings of the modern-day Klan in the South, a secret and sordid culture of violence, racism and paranoia, where coon dogs are traded for liquid dynamite, crosses are burned next to the local Waffle House, and a Klan grand dragon presides over meetings in a ramshackle clubhouse on the edge of a swamp.

The following account is based on interviews with law enforcement authorities as well as court records, including hearing transcripts and detailed notes on interviews of seven Ku Klux Klan members, both suspects and witnesses, conducted by investigators from the SBI, the Sampson and Johnston County Sheriff's Offices, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Although resolution of both the gunrunning and murder cases now awaits the psychiatric evaluation of the main Klan leader, almost every part of this account is supported by multiple sources. Most participants, including the Klan leader's son and wife, have pleaded guilty to charges in the gunrunning case and have made concurring official statements detailing their activities.

Charles Barefoot

At the time, Gautier was staying in a singlewide trailer on a small plot Barefoot owned next to a marsh, a few miles off a winding state highway lined with cotton fields. Barefoot lived in a house on the same land with his wife and hunting dogs. Flying from a flagpole in the front yard were a Confederate battle flag, a Ku Klux Klan banner, and a tapestry bearing the likeness of country music legend Hank Williams Sr. Signs on the fence read: "No trespassing. Your ass will be shot if you come upon my property, signed owner."

Within a few months, the klavern had about 20 members who each paid $13 to join and $5 a month in dues. They met on the third Sunday of every month at five o'clock, either at Barefoot's house or their alternate clubhouse, a large wooden chicken shack a few miles away. The meetings opened with a Bible reading and then rapidly degenerated into alcohol-fueled bull sessions about the plight of the white man.

So it went for about a year. Then, in March 2000, Larsen put Barefoot in touch with Michael Anthony Brewer, a 28-year-old plumber with a long criminal record. Brewer was the grand dragon of a klavern based in Lumberton, N.C., a Robeson County town about 90 miles south of Raleigh.

Larsen, the imperial wizard from Indiana, wanted the two grand dragons to get to know one another and to consider merging their klaverns. Barefoot and Brewer exchanged E-mails to arrange a meeting at a Burger King in Benson. There, they made plans to bring their klaverns together the following Sunday at Brewer's home in Lumberton.

At this initial gathering of the two klaverns, Brewer's wife Sissy served a chicken dinner while the grand dragons and their klaverns formalized the alliance. As Barefoot later put it in a statement to investigators, they agreed to "take care of each other's problems" and "kill snitches."

The grand dragons had a rocky relationship. At one meeting, fellow Klansmen told officials later, Barefoot told Brewer that he didn't like the way Brewer was looking at Barefoot's wife and threatened to skin Brewer alive, "like he had a boy in Florida." Brewer replied that if Barefoot wanted a war, Brewer would give him one.

Violent boasts and death threats were as common at the klavern meetings as the Bible readings they opened with. Klansmen boasted of shooting a black man five times before lynching him near Godwin Lakes in Harnett County that spring. Barefoot hinted that he'd had a hand in killing two black men in the late 1980s, saying their bodies had been dumped within the space of a week near Stricklands Crossings. Brewer claimed he was "responsible" for the body of a "gutted prostitute" he said had been found near his property.

According to North Carolina law enforcement authorities, none of these details match any unsolved homicides.