One of America’s highest-profile neo-Nazi parties is “no more” after a bizarre love triangle saw its leader locked up for assault, the party’s former spokesperson, who described the incident as a “white trash circus” told The Daily Beast.
The Traditionalist Worker Party gained national attention after its involvement at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last August. Its leader, Matthew Heimbach was arrested Tuesday for allegedly assaulting his wife and his spokesman after Heimbach was caught cheating on his wife with the spokesman’s wife.
David “Matt” Parrott was the party’s spokesperson until Tuesday, when he quit in a statement to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Parrott told The Daily Beast the incident might be the end for the white nationalist group. “People have lost faith in the party on every level,” he said.
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Parrott scrapped the TWP’s website after quitting because he believes the party to be dead, he said.
The implosion began at a TWP compound in Paoli, Indiana, where Parrott’s wife, Jessica, was allegedly having an affair with Heimbach—who is married to Parrott’s stepdaughter from a previous marriage.
Heimbach and Jessica told Parrott they’d ended the relationship, but Parrott and Heimbach’s wife were skeptical. They arranged to “set up” Heimbach and Jessica in a trailer on Parrott’s property to catch them having sex.
Parrott stood on a box outside the trailer and watched Heimbach and Jessica have sex inside, according to a police report. When the box broke under Parrott’s weight, he entered the trailer to confront them. Heimbach allegedly choked him and chased him into a house, where Parrott threw a chair at him. Heimbach hit back, choking him into unconsciousness, according to the police report.
Parrott fled to a Walmart near his home and called police around 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.
After interviewing Parrott, police went to Heimbach’s home, where they met him outside with Jessica who said she was just a neighbor and left. Heimbach went inside and sent his own wife out instead, telling her “to send the police away and tell them everything was fine,” the police report reads. Heimbach “began to raise his voice at her and I heard scuffling and [Heimbach’s wife] yelling,” an officer wrote.
Heimbach’s wife accused him of becoming violent when she refused to dismiss the police. “He kicked the wall, and then grabbed my cheeks, making them bleed, and threw me with the and on my face onto the bed,” she wrote to police. “I have a recording of this.”
Police arrested Heimbach on the spot and charged him with battery, intimidation, strangulation, and domestic battery committed in the physical presence of a child. (The Heimbachs’ two young children were present when he allegedly assaulted his wife.) The police report lists Heimbach’s occupation as “white nationalist.”
Parrott, who quit his post as the TWP’s spokesperson Tuesday, claimed the incident was the end of the white nationalist group. After he announced his resignation to the SPLC on Tuesday, the TWP website went offline. Parrott claimed he’d pulled the site in order to destroy TWP membership data in anticipation of people leaving the group en masse.
“I guaranteed that all our membership data was destroyed because of lot of concern with people’s information being caught in this white trash circus,” he told The Daily Beast. “All the information is destroyed and everybody’s personal information is protected.”
He claimed Heimbach’s arrest had dealt a serious blow to the white nationalist group’s credibility.
“Obviously due to the events that transpired, people have lost faith in the party on every level. I totally respect that and it’s my job to protect that information.”
Did he expect mass resignations from the party?
“There is no more party ma’am,” Parrott said. “Goodbye.”
