HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

No other book club could approach its diversity.

There was a trust fund kid and a Dumpster diver. There were potheads, growers and dealers. There were anarchists and longtime social activists. There was a straight-A student, a high school dropout, a computer geek and a young father reportedly addicted to heroin.

Their "Book Club" was anything but typical. It was where many of them met - not to share literature and poetry, but to study arson, sabotage and subterfuge. Most went on to radical activism in a group that referred to itself as "The Family."

Before the group disbanded in 2001, it had become the focus of the nation's all-time largest investigation of arson and sabotage by underground environmental radicals - at least 20 crimes in five states with estimated property loss of at least $20 million.

Dubbed "Operation Backfire," the probe led to federal charges against 14 core members in Oregon and four less-active conspirators in Washington. One of them committed suicide in jail; four suspects remain at large; 10 have pleaded guilty.

Character sketches have emerged from court records and hearings about the conspiracy.

Jacob Jeremiah Ferguson, 34

Ferguson was the first suspect investigators linked to the conspiracy, and he was willing to make a deal.

In exchange for a single arson conviction, carrying probation and no jail time, he would cooperate to identify the others - some of whom he'd known for years.

Beginning in 2004, he wore a recording device to capture conversations with eight of his former arson partners. Investigators learned, probably to their chagrin, that they had cut a deal with one of the most prolific arsonists in the conspiracy.

Ferguson, a young father widely reported to have been addicted to heroin, took part in at least 14 of the group's crimes - including the destruction of the Oakridge Ranger Station in 1996, the Cavel West horsemeat packing plant in Redmond in 1997, the U.S. Forest Industries office in Medford in 1998, the Childers Meat Co. in Eugene in 1999, and the Superior Lumber Co. in Glendale in 2001.

With his help, investigators got on the trail of those they were looking for and learned a little about who these people were.

William Christopher Rodgers, 40

Rodgers was a principle organizer of radicals who attribute their actions to the faceless Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. He wrote "The Black Cat Sabotage Handbook," a manual for underground saboteurs, and was an instructor at conferences, protests and gatherings of above-ground environmental groups.

He used his charisma, reputation and influence to recruit at least six people into "The Family."

Rodgers worked with 13 of the 18 Operation Backfire conspiracy suspects at six arsons in four years. He almost single-handedly performed the largest and most infamous single arson by the group - the Oct. 19, 1998, destruction of eight buildings at a Vail, Colo., ski resort.

Rodgers spent days carrying buckets of fuel through snow up the mountain. He then ran several miles between eight buildings lighting the fires by hand at night. The incident brought a spotlight of national media coverage. Some considered it a "recruiting poster" for radical activism, although it failed to deter the ski area expansion.

A former roommate of Ferguson's, Rodgers lived in several states before settling in Prescott, Ariz., where he stayed in the back of the Catalyst Infoshop, a small bookstore devoted to social and environmental activism.

When investigators raided the bookstore, they found child pornography on his computer. Although details are not available in public records, his sexual behavior with women in the group was one factor in its disbanding in 2001.

Lawyers in the case claimed he "seduced" one of the members, an impressionable 16-year-old he met in 1993 at an Earth First! protest in Idaho - Chelsea Dawn Gerlach.

To the end, Rodgers defied authorities. In an Arizona jail on Dec. 22, 2005, he pulled a plastic bag over his head, propped his closed fist in the air and suffocated himself.

Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, 30

Gerlach, a Sweet Home native, was an outstanding student at Kelly Middle School and South Eugene High School. She was an environmentalist at an early age, with a sharp memory and a knack for languages. She interned with the Oregon Natural Resources Council, canvassed for the Sierra Club and led school-based environmental clubs.

Because of her intelligence, focus and maturity, her family allowed her a good deal of freedom. At Gerlach's sentencing, a judge would chastise her parents for their lack of supervision, which left her vulnerable to manipulation by Rodgers and others.

By 1994 she was living with Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff, another of the future conspirators. They moved to Olympia in 1996, traveled to Europe together and attended Evergreen State College near Olympia.

Gerlach visited the encampment at Warner Creek, a landmark protest that prevented "salvage logging" in an arson-damaged old growth preserve east of Oakridge. The protest was broken up by arrests in 1996 and the timber sale eventually was canceled. Rodgers, Ferguson and others who became part of "The Family" also were active at the site.

On the advice of Rodgers, Gerlach dropped out of college. In 1998, she qualified for "The Family" by joining him in an effort to shoot out a telescope at the University of Arizona's Mount Graham Observatory, which had been built in a clearcut. The would-be vandals scrapped the plan when they spotted a security guard.

The event marked Gerlach's plunge into the underground.

After the group broke up in 2001, Gerlach supported herself by selling marijuana, ecstasy and other drugs. She lived in Portland with fellow conspirator and illegal Canadian immigrant Darren Todd Thurston.

She was so distrustful of government that her court-appointed lawyers said they initially found her difficult to deal with. Gerlach later admitted that the shock of facing a life sentence led her to an unqualified reversal of her lifestyle and values after her arrest.

So complete was her cooperation and personal transformation in jail that federal prosecutors did not oppose her request to be released to voluntarily report to federal prison for her nine-year sentence. But the judge denied her request.

Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff, 30

The product of a broken home, abusive father and neglectful mother, Meyerhoff was a social misfit who sought Gerlach's affection by adopting her radical views. He found a family in "The Family," and personified the "eco-warrior" mentality before he turned 21.

After Jeffery Luers was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison in 2001 for burning three SUVs, Meyerhoff realized he would serve life in prison if he were ever caught. By then he was coming to doubt the efficacy of fire as a political tactic, but he did one more arson after that.

Just as his emotional anchor to "The Family" broke loose, he met another woman and turned his focus away from the underground soon after the terrorist bombings on Sept. 11, 2001.

Meyerhoff came to deeply regret his criminal acts and set a new course for his life. Several of his teachers at Piedmont Community College in Virginia testified about his intelligence and devotion to changing the world through a career in science and engineering.

He was named Science Student of the Year at the college and studied neuroscience and prosthetic devices. He also worked as an intern for a fuel cell research firm before his arrest.

He was so remorseful that within two hours of his arrest, before speaking with a lawyer, Meyerhoff began cooperating in Operation Backfire. Activist Web sites revile him alongside Ferguson as a "snitch."

He nevertheless drew the longest sentence - 13 years - among the 10 core conspirators.

Kevin Tubbs, 38

One of the most active in the conspiracy, Tubbs drew the second-longest sentence - 12 1/2 years. He was not charged with half of at least 18 acts of arson and vandalism in which he took part, primarily as a driver and lookout.

The son of a military father and a mother who instilled in him a deep love of animals, Tubbs was a member of mainstream environmental groups at age 15. He wouldn't kill insects in his home and was known to rescue animals, including a pup named Pujo who died while Tubbs was in jail.

Tubbs studied theatrical arts and philosophy at the University of Nebraska before transferring to Humboldt State University in Northern California, where he joined in Earth First! activities.

He moved to Eugene to work on the Earth First! Journal, but had few friends and no money. He was getting by on the contents of Dumpsters when he met Ferguson, who became a close friend and a conduit into the conspiracy.

Because Tubbs kept in touch with co-conspirators after their breakup, the recordings of Tubbs that Ferguson secretly made allowed authorities to locate several whose trails were cold.

Tubbs, like many in "The Family," was highly frustrated at the rapid decline in animal species and habitat. In the conspiracy he found a reprieve from the hopelessness he felt in mainstream activism. Whether it was zeal or bluster, he once suggested an effective tactic would be to blow himself up at a protest if authorities tried to break it up.

He became engaged in 2001, bought a house in Springfield, worked at an adult sex shop and was planning a family when he was arrested.

Jonathan Christopher Mark Paul, 41

A luminary among activists, Paul was quoted in news media accounts often in support of illegal actions for environmental causes. He co-founded the Hunt Saboteurs Association, whose goal was to interfere with big game hunts.

He was devoted to disrupting lawful whale hunts of the Makah Indians in Washington state. In 1992 he was convicted of grossly negligent vessel operation for making high-speed passes in front of a whaling canoe, endangering its occupants.

Prosecutors spun a controversial subplot with Paul's anti-whaling work when they highlighted a personal quarrel between Paul and co-conspiracy suspect Joseph Dibee. The two had a falling-out over their whaling activism, and prosecutors accused Meyerhoff of accompanying Dibee from his home in Olympia to Southern Oregon to murder Paul. Meyerhoff denied the accusation. Dibee is charged in the conspiracy and is a fugitive.

Through the years Paul was linked to a number of unlawful acts, including a 1986 burglary to release lab animals at the University of Oregon and a 1987 arson at the veterinary school of the University of California at Davis - the first arson ever claimed by ALF.

The only jail time he served was five months in 1992 for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury in Spokane.

Paul had a change of heart about the use of arson after taking part in destroying the Cavel West horse slaughterhouse in Redmond in 1997, his only crime with "The Family." He became a volunteer firefighter/EMT and went on more than 2,000 calls before his arrest. Ironically, Paul's sister was one of the first female firefighters in San Francisco, and he married a retired fire chief's daughter in 2002.

Paul, who inherited a fortune from his father, already has paid $250,000 to an insurance company to settle his part of the restitution in the Cavel West blaze. He pledged to promote only public acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest in the future.

He is among four conspirators who refused to testify or to name anyone else in making a deal with prosecutors. His sentence has not been determined but is likely to be less than 4 1/2 years.

Darren Todd Thurston, 37

Like Paul, Thurston was a godfather in the animal rights movement, serving for many years as the Canadian frontman for ALF. Since age 20 he has devoted himself to disrupting the fur industry, spending many hundreds of hours researching fur producers and publishing guides for setting arsons.

Described as a "computer geek," he worked with several nonprofit groups over the years. Unlike other conspirators, Thurston spent two periods in jail for his illegal activities.

He met Paul and Tubbs at an Earth First! gathering in Northern California in 1994 and visited them again in 1996 while illegally in the United States. As a publicist for ALF, he posted communiques on the Internet about the exploits of anonymous radical activists and helped settle a dispute when another publicist changed one of "The Family's" communiques without approval.

In 2001, Thurston asked to take part in an arson and animal release planned by members of the conspiracy at a BLM horse corral near Litchfield, Calif.

From then until his arrest, Thurston lived under a false name with Gerlach and used false identities and stolen credit card numbers to make purchases. The two also supported themselves by selling illegal drugs.

Although they did not charge him with any crime in the incident, prosecutors allege he traveled to California to teach representatives of a Mexican guerrilla movement how to make the high explosive HMTD.

For his role in the conspiracy, Thurston was sentenced to just more than three years in prison.

Daniel Gerard McGowan, 33

A longtime activist and native of New York City, McGowan had a track record of property destruction long before moving west.

He immersed himself in environmental and human rights issues after college and was shocked to see the pace of old growth logging when he visited the West Coast. He also became alarmed at the potential harm of genetic engineering in crops and trees.

His activism led him into the anarchist philosophy and he helped plan the rioting during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. He met his future co-conspirators after moving to Eugene in 2000 and worked briefly at the Earth First! Journal, which wasn't radical enough for him.

Already a veteran of millions of dollars in damages from brazen property crimes and secretive attacks on genetically engineered crops, McGowan was a ready recruit when "The Family" issued an invitation. He took part in two of their arsons.

But McGowan began having serious misgivings when, during its fifth and final meeting, the Book Club discussed escalating its actions to include violence against people. When terrorists struck his city on Sept. 11, 2001, McGowan vowed to return home and start his activism anew at a grass-roots, nonviolent level.

Since then he has worked in an agency combating domestic violence and has organized numerous community events to aid the poor. He also began an inmate support movement to aid Luers and others.

McGowan refused to cooperate with prosecutors. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Suzanne Nicole Savoie, 30

Savoie grew up in California and awakened to environmental causes while visiting Wales, where she joined groups working to stop fox hunts and genetic engineering.

She met McGowan over the Internet in 1997, but didn't see him until the two attended an Earth First! anti-genetic-engineering workshop two years later. They became romantically involved.

She and McGowan were in the "Black Bloc," an anarchist group at the heart of the 1999 rioting in Seattle. Savoie attended all five meetings of the Book Club. She helped destroy $1 million worth of genetic engineering property in four attacks and helped "The Family" in the same two arsons as McGowan in 2001.

Soon after the arsons she rejected violent tactics and broke ties with "The Family." She moved to the mountains of Southern Oregon intent on leading a simple, sustainable life while working with above-ground activists to preserve old growth forests.

She worked with disabled adults, met a man with similar goals and established a homestead in the mountains where they grew their own food and generated their own power.

She was sentenced to four years, three months in prison.

Kendall Tankersley, 30

The daughter of lawyers, Tankersley moved from Ohio to Eugene to attend college in 1995. She met Ferguson two years later during a logging protest. After an Earth First! rendezvous in 1998, they became romantically involved and quickly set fires at two log trucking companies in Northern California.

Tankersley was a vocal member of Eugene's anarchist movement in 1998, the same year she joined "The Family" for the one arson she would commit. It scared her.

She broke up with Ferguson in 1999 and moved to California to attend Humboldt State University, where she took up a distinctly different lifestyle. She worked full time while earning high grades toward a degree in cellular molecular biology. She escaped an abusive marriage to an alcoholic and volunteered with the local Planned Parenthood clinic.

Numerous professors mentored her in her dream of attending medical school, which was dashed with her arrest in Operation Backfire.

Tankersley is appealing her three-year, 10-month sentence.

Joyanna Lynn Zacher, 29,

and Nathan Fraser Block, 26

Zacher and Block occupy their own odd branch of "The Family's" tree.

They met at a party in Seattle before the 1999 riots. She was a dreadlocked 21-year-old steeped in anarchist philosophy. He was an 18-year-old high school dropout convinced that society was verging on collapse.

Zacher was with the "Black Bloc" during the Seattle riots, while Block freelanced his part in the ruckus with a backpack full of rocks that he threw at store windows.

Soon after, the couple attended an Earth First! gathering in Southern California, where they joined in discussions about "direct actions" to destroy property for environmental causes. A few months later, they attended the Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, after which they were invited to a Book Club meeting in Springfield.

Little is revealed in public records about Block's background. He was the youngest member of "The Family," and apparently was estranged from his family in Maine.

Zacher grew up in Wisconsin. Unexpected responsibilities were piled on her as a teenager when her mother fell ill with cancer. Family friends describe her then as a generous, caring person who volunteered in flood cleanups and other projects. She was interested in literature, art, cooking and camping.

She moved to the Northwest in 1998 and took an office job, where she filed a lawsuit claiming harassment. Her Social Security disability claim, based on post-traumatic stress from the job, was approved in 2000.

She was active in the arts community and served food to the homeless in Olympia, where she was known as "a quiet, respectful hermit." She and Block lived in a residence described by some as a "rural cabin," by others as "a cabin in a junkyard."

They were not well received in "The Family." Members worried that Zacker's radical look might draw suspicion and be easily remembered if she were seen at a "direct action." Block was viewed as unindoctrinated.

Nevertheless, they joined in several actions to destroy genetically engineered crops before Meyerhoff recruited them for the 2000 arson at the Romania SUV dealership in Eugene, one of two arsons they took part in.

After the conspiracy broke up in 2001, Block and Zacher ceased their activism and holed up in their cabin, reading books and growing marijuana. They were married while in custody.

Both were sentenced to seven years, 10 months in prison.