James Alex Fields, the self-identified neo-Nazi who allegedly killed Heather Heyer when he drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017, said "It doesn't fucking matter" that she died, as reported by Buzzfeed News.
To review, the rally was held to protest the decision to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a Charlottesville park. Hundreds of white supremacists carrying tiki torches marched at the University of Virginia. Fields reportedly drove his car, a 2010 Dodge Challenger, into the crowd, striking and killing Heyer, a counterprotester. About 35 people were injured in addition to Heyer’s death. The charges Fields is facing include first-degree murder, malicious wounding, aggravated malicious wounding, and failing to stop at the scene of an accident involving a death. Each of these charges on its own can mean a penalty up to life in prison.
At this point, Fields’ defense lawyers are not denying that he struck and killed Heyer. Their focus is on his intent. They’re hoping the evidence will suggest that he acted out of a need to defend himself because he feared for his life. But based on evidence that’s been brought before the jury so far, they have their work cut out for them in defending the white supremacist.
And as reported by Buzzfeed, in his phone calls to his mother, Samantha Bloom, from prison, Fields doesn’t seem remotely remorseful. In one such call in December 2017, he referred to the woman he allegedly killed as “that one girl who died, or whatever.”
In the same call, Fields said Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, was "one of those anti-white communists."
"She lost her daughter," Bloom answered.
"It doesn't fucking matter. She's a communist," Fields said.
"Stop talking like that," Bloom said, to which Fields replied, "It isn't up for questioning. She's the enemy, mother.”
This is a marked change from what Fields told an officer before his arrest: “I'm sorry for, for...I don't know. I didn't want to hurt people, but I thought they were attacking me. Even if they were attacking me, they're still people.” In an interrogation room, after an officer told him someone had died as a result of him plowing his car through the crowd, he seems to cry hysterically for a few minutes, captured on video.
But in March 2018, while again on the phone from jail with his mother, Fields said, “I spent my life not doing anything wrong, then I get mobbed by a violent group of terrorists and jailed for defending my person.”
As reported by the Washington Post, Bloom warned her son to be careful when she learned he was traveling from his hometown in Ohio to Charlottesville for the rally. His reply says it all:
“We’re not the one who need to be careful,” Fields replied via text. And attached? A meme of Hitler.
The trial began earlier this week, and is currently ongoing.