KKK Leader Who Recruited in New Lenox Reportedly Found Dead in River

A Ku Klux Klan leader who once recruited in New Lenox and said his life had been threatened by others in the KKK was reportedly found dead in a Missouri river.

“Frank Ancona called himself the imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and went missing Wednesday,” U.S. Uncut reported. “Sheriff of Washington County, MO, Zach Jacobsen, says the department learned from Ancona’s son’s Facebook post of the disappearance, which was deemed suspicious. Jacobsen confirmed that a body found earlier today by a family fishing by Big River was that of the missing Ancona.”

In 2014, Ancona told Patch he received death threats “all the time.”

“I don't get death threats from black groups or Jewish groups,” he said. “I get them from other Klan groups."

Another KKK guy, Robert Jones, told Patch Ancona was nothing more than a fraudulent schemer and accused him of being Jewish.

“Frank Ancona is also Jewish and his wife is Jewish and he’s being exposed all through the Klan world as a fake and he ain’t even white and you can actually look his family tree up which we’ve got his family tree which we can give y'all too and you can post it," Jones said.

Ancona denied being Jewish.

"If I was a Jew, I'd admit it," he said, calling Jones and his group "drunks and druggies." He said some in that outfit had been kicked out of his organization for substance abuse and other criminal activity.

In 2014, Ancona’s faction of the KKK distributed recruiting fliers in New Lenox. A rival Klan group also left literature around town that year.

Besides claiming Ancona was Jewish and a scammer, Jones also said Ancona was not white and was possibly working as an undercover government agent. Jones went on to make a vague threat about getting his organization’s issues with Ancona “straightened out.”

"I don't want to say on any type of telephone," Jones said. "But we're going to get it straightened out."

Frank Ancona | submitted photo