Ken Mieske was a skinhead from Portland, OR who beat to death Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw, Mieske, known as “Ken Death” during his days as a death metal rock musician, took a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and beat Mulugeta Seraw to death.

On the night of Nov. 12, 1988, Mieske and two other Skinheads, Kyle Brewster and Steve Strasser, spotted Seraw as he stood outside a countryman's Oldsmobile, parked in the middle of the narrow side street where he lived. The skinheads screamed at the Africans to move before attacking with boots and a baseball bat. Brewster was punching Seraw when Mieske moved behind and struck the African twice on the head with the bat. Seraw fell bleeding on the cold pavement when Mieske took a final swing. "It crushed his head between the bat and the hard pavement,'' said Portland police Detective Sgt. Tom Nelson, a key detective in the case.

All three of the skinheads were arrested and later pleaded guilty to murder, assault, and racial intimidation. In a 1990 subsequent civil suit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a jury returned a $12.5 million verdict against Metzger -- a record judgment for a U.S. racism case at the time. Mieske was serving a life sentence for murder at the Oregon State Penitentiary before he died in 2011, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Tonya Sly. Many years after Mieske’s incarceration, white power groups still referred to him as a “prisoner of war.”

One page handwritten letter. Letter is general content and is signed Ken. Original matching handwritten envelope is included.