Richard Wayne Snell (May 21, 1930 – April 19, 1995) was an American white supremacist convicted of killing two people, a black police officer and a pawn shop owner whom he mistook for a Jew, in Arkansas between November 3, 1983, and June 30, 1984.

[1] Richard Snell was a member of the white supremacist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (known as the CSA), which was started in 1971 in the small community of Elijah, Missouri, by polygamist James Ellison.

Snell had claimed that law enforcement agencies, both state and those local to that area of western Arkansas, were involved in the cover-up of the Mena airport drug smuggling.

[3] In 1983, Snell, accompanied by fellow CSA members William Thomas and Steven (Stephen) Scott, attempted to dynamite a natural gas pipeline near Fulton, Arkansas, unsuccessfully.

Steven Scott, a frequent collaborator with Snell, gave this information in a federal prison holding cell to one of the then members.

On November 3, 1983, Snell, accompanied by Thomas and Scott, shot and killed pawn shop owner William Stumpp, who he mistakenly believed was of Jewish descent, in Arkansas.

[citation needed] In exchange for testimony against Snell, Thomas was allowed to plead guilty to a federal racketeering charge.

[10] He was executed on the same day that Timothy McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City bombing, which destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Fort Smith-based federal prosecutor Steven Snyder told the FBI in May 1995 that Snell wanted to blow up the Oklahoma City building as revenge for the IRS raiding his home.