Frank Ancona (MSNBC, All In With Chris Hayes screenshot)

Updated Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, 5:12 p.m. EST: Malissa Ancona, wife of Frank Ancona, and Paul Edward Jinkerson Jr., stepson of Frank Ancona, have been charged with first-degree murder in his death. They have both been charged with “abandonment of a corpse, first-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence,” KMOV.com reports.


Updated Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, 11:41 a.m. EST: Malissa Ancona, wife of Frank Ancona, is being held on suspicion of murder in her husband’s death. Ancona is reportedly on a 24-hour hold on suspicion of first-degree murder but has not been formally charged, KMOV reports.

Updated Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, 10:30 a.m. EST: Autopsy results reveal that Frank Ancona died as the result of a gunshot to the head. As The Root previously reported, all of Ancona’s firearms were allegedly taken from his Leadwood, Mo., home when he went missing last Wednesday. Charges should be filed as early as Monday morning, the Daily Journal Online reports.


Earlier:

The body of Frank Ancona, 51, imperial wizard of the Traditional American Knights of Ku Klux Klan, was discovered Saturday on the bank of Big River outside of Belgrade, Mo., four days after he went missing from his Leadwood, Mo., home.



Local law enforcement said they discovered that Ancona was missing Thursday on Facebook. A Federal Forestry Service employee located Ancona’s vehicle on a forestry service road on Friday, the Daily Journal Online reports:

“Deputies responded on Friday and located [Ancona’s] vehicle and secured it,” said Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen. “We left deputies at the scene and secured it overnight due to the loss of light. On Saturday morning we conducted a search of the area by foot by member of the Potosi Fire Protection District and the sheriff’s office. We didn’t locate much of anything in the woods, but we did locate evidence of a burn pile near Mr. Ancona’s vehicle.”


Ancona’s body was discovered Saturday by a family who had gone to Big River for a fishing trip.

According to Leadwood Police Chief William Dickey, Malissa Ancona, Frank Ancona’s wife, was the last person to see her husband alive Wednesday. She claimed that Ancona received a call from work informing him that he would have to travel across the state to deliver a part.


The name of Ancona’s place of employment has not been reported, but his employers did tell police that they did not send him anywhere and he didn’t come in to work.

Malissa Ancona made a Facebook post the day after her husband went missing in which she inquired about a roommate. She told law enforcement that she made the post because she and Ancona had discussed divorce and he took a bag of clothes with him when he left, so she assumed that she would need a roommate.




According to law-enforcement officials, a safe in Ancona’s home had been forced open with a crowbar and emptied, and all of his firearms were gone. They do not suspect burglary.

Ancona, who is known for claiming that the Ku Klux Klan is a Christian organization, not a racist one—as if the two are always mutually exclusive—waged war on protesters in Ferguson, Mo., after Darren Wilson executed Michael Brown Jr. on Canfield Drive in 2014.


Ancona called peaceful protesters “terrorists” and began posting recruitment fliers. The virulent racist said that protesters had awakened a “sleeping giant” and the KKK would use lethal force to defend themselves, their families and police officers.

In a Nov. 12, 2014, segment of MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes, Ancona said that the call for white supremacist violence was supported by many people throughout St. Louis County.


No police officers were killed in Ferguson and no white people were injured. The full violent force of the state was directly solely at black people seeking justice for Mike Brown.