Neo-Nazis kill 72-year-old gay man, leaving his partner heartbroken over “senseless” murder

“I can’t understand the senseless murder of this beautiful man,” said 55-year-old Ron Thompson of his 72-year-old partner Gerald Don Henderson, who was allegedly killed by neo-Nazis this last week.

Police suspect that Henderson was slain by 28-year-old Nicholas Umphenour and 31-year-old Skylar Meade, two members of the Aryan Knights prison gang who were later arrested by police in Twin Falls, Idaho, on Thursday afternoon.

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Meade escaped the Idaho Maximum Security Institution on Wednesday morning while at the Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho for self-inflicted injuries. Umphenour, who was released from the same prison last month, shot two officers who were transporting Meade in the hospital’s unloading area for ambulances. The two men then fled together. The officers survived their injuries.

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Both neo-Nazis are believed to have killed 83-year-old James L. Mauney while he was walking his two dogs. Police found Mauney’s body and returned his two dogs to his family members. Police later found Henderson dead outside of his cabin in Clearwater County, 300 miles north of Boise.

Umphenour had stayed with Henderson and Thompson during his teenage years while Umphenour was having trouble with his father. Thompson called living with Umphenour “frightening” and said that the two men kicked him out of their home after he “would always talk about shooting people.”

“He had a volatile temper, which was frightening,” Thompson said, according to The Idaho Statesman. “He would just explode all of a sudden, so it was like, ‘No we can’t have this here.’”

Umphenour visited Henderson after being released from prison last month, something that concerned Thompson. Thompson called the sheriff’s office upon learning of Umphenour’s hospital ambush and requested that police check on his partner. That’s when police discovered Henderson dead outside of his cabin and Meade’s discarded prison shackles nearby.

“He was a totally different person just out there [in his cabin],” Thompson said of Henderson. “He wouldn’t have any stress. It was just — it was his place, it was his Heaven, it was his church, he would say.”

According to the Associated Press, Thompson and Henderson met through a dating site in 2006 and were life partners ever since. They lived together in the cabin until 2018 when Thompson left to go live in a more liberal and populated area. In conservative Clearwater County, Thompson had difficulty publicly admitting they were a couple. They never married.

“It was not unknown that we were a couple, but we just never talked about it,” Thompson said, noting that Henderson had previously been assaulted by homophobes. “He loved me and I loved him wholeheartedly,” Thompson said. The couple had planned on moving to New Mexico together.

“He enriched my life so much,” Thompson said of Henderson. “He made life an adventure, and I’m not an adventurous type. So he brought me along, and a lot of times I was kicking and screaming… We had all these plans, and now he’s gone. He’s been snuffed out by evil people…. Such a senseless, senseless thing to do.”

Both neo-Nazis are now being held on a $2 million bond. The two had been cellmates in the prison and members of the Aryan Knights prison gang.

“The hate-fueled gang engages in many types of criminal activity and casts shadows of intimidation, addiction, and violence over prison life,” federal prosecutors wrote in 2021.

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