American sociopath and racist man of Texas who torched Jewish synagogue in Austin had plans to join military

White supremacist Franklin Barrett Sechriest was arrested on local and federal arson charges for setting fire to the synagogue

By Edward Era Barbacena 

The journals of a Texas college student who torched a synagogue two years ago reveal he had become “consumed” by virulent racist and antisemitic beliefs he developed years earlier and joined the state’s version of the National Guard because he thought it would “give him access to like-minded people who shared his hate.”

A Nov. 20 sentencing memo filed by federal prosecutors unveils an especially disturbing string of diary entries from Franklin Barrett Sechriest, who wrote about joining a neo-Völkisch hate group preaching ethnic Germanic superiority, vandalizing Freemason lodges, and other disquieting pursuits. Perhaps the least worrisome passage is one in which the then-18-year-old decries the “insane prices” of foreskin-replacement gear, and immediately pivots to playing RimWorld, a sci-fi space colony sim.

The memo, which runs to 107 pages and suggests a prison term of no less than 10 years, says Sechrist’s parents rewarded his abhorrent behavior with access to weapons and family trips to the shooting range.

Sechriest was arrested Nov. 12, 2021, for a Halloween-night arson after investigators with the Austin Fire Department identified the Texas State freshman through security footage of his license plate at Congregation Beth Israel. The fire caused more than $150,000 in damage, destroying the temple’s historic doors, ruining its stained glass windows, and wrecking the sanctuary.

In one of Sechriest’s journal entries released at the time, he wrote, “I set a synagogue on fire.” In another journal entry now being seen for the first time, Sechriest blamed Jews for COVID-19, talked about listening to white power music, and cyberstalking vulnerable people online. He expressed support for Nazism, denigrated the Talmud, and reminded himself to, variously, “be racist” to “[c]onsider actual terrorism,” and to “test Molotov cocktails.”