A TINY blonde with DD boobs and blue eyes, Colleen La Rose looked like the typical American housewife… until a one-night stand sent her on a fateful path towards terror.
The woman now infamously known as ‘Jihad Jane’ had survived an abusive childhood and two marriage breakdowns when a chance encounter, aged 45, in an Amsterdam bar turned her towards Islamic radicalisation and a murderous plot that would see her jailed for ten years.
Her shocking story has been brought to life in new documentary Jihad Jane, which is released in cinemas today.
In it, LaRose, now 56, recalls her thrill at travelling to Waterford in Ireland in August 2009 to join the terrorist cell of jihadist Ali Charaf Damache to plot deadly attacks on Europe – and, in particular, mastermind the murder of Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist behind a controversial depiction of Mohammad.
But just how did an ordinary American woman – with no strong links to religion, let alone Islam – become America’s first white woman arrested for terror?
LaRose, who was born in June 1963 in Michigan, suffered cruelty from a young age.
Her parents were both heavy drinkers and divorced when she was three years old, acccording to Reuters journalist John Shiffman, who spent six months researching her story.
She struggled in school, once arriving at class with mouse bites on her fingers from her dirty home, and only ever achieved a seventh-grade education – the equivalent of Year 8 in the UK.
When she turned eight, her father Richard began to rape her and her sister Pam, then 11.
He never did say he was sorry for what he did to us. Too much pain is involved
Pam LaRose
They have recalled how he would turn up at their bedroom door with a bottle of lotion, which would be their cue to undress.
The attacks continued until LaRose ran away from her Detroit home at the age of 13.
“He never did say he was sorry for what he did to us,” her sister Pam said in an interview. “I still have a lot of anger. Colleen feels the same way. We don’t talk about it a lot. Too much pain is involved.”
To survive, LaRose lived on the street as a prostitute and never returned to finish school. She developed a dependency on alcohol and also turned to drugs, including crack and crystal meth.
At 16, in the 1980s, she married a 32-year-old man called Sheldon Barnum, who described her to The New York Times as upbeat and easygoing.
“She was just like anyone else,” he noted. “There wasn’t anything really different about her.”
The teenager reportedly fell pregnant by him, and suffered a miscarriage so bad that it would leave her unable to have children. They divorced soon afterwards.
A year later, she arrived at Runaway House, a shelter for teenagers in Memphis, Tennessee.
A counsellor there recalled how the petite 4ft.11 LaRose had blonde hair that needed a wash, eyes hollow from cocaine and heroin use. She had also contracted a venereal disease.
LaRose eventually moved to Texas, and at the age of 24 in 1988 she married for a second time, to a man called Rodolfo Cavazos.
After the marriage fell apart, she met boyfriend Kurt Gorman, who – at her request – paid for her to have a size DD boob job.
Despite finally finding some stability in her life, LaRose remained troubled – and attempted to take her own life by overdosing in 2005.
The policeman who found her, Michael Devlin, said she was depressed about the death of her step-father and brother in quick succession that year.
“Colleen was highly intoxicated and having difficulty maintaining her balance,” the officer, who had responded to a 911 call from her worried sister in Texas, wrote of the incident.
“I questioned LaRose about harming herself, at which point she stated she does not want to die.”
LaRose had recovered and got her life back on track when she joined Gorman, who she had been with for five years, on a holiday to Amsterdam in 2007.
However, one evening during their trip, they had a huge row and Gorman stormed off, leaving her at the bar where they had been drinking.
Shortly afterwards, she was approached by a handsome Middle Eastern Muslim man who seduced her.
She went home with him to spite her boyfriend – however, she did not know the impact the moment would later have on her.
Their opportune encounter sparked an interest in Islam which continued when she returned to the US with Gorman.
She began secretly visiting Muslim websites on her computer and even signed up to dating site Muslima.com to meet Muslim men – using her boyfriend’s credit card to pay for the subscription.
A Turkish man she met online explained to her the Five Pillars of Islam and she ordered a Koran.
Just months after her Dutch hook-up, she converted to Islam by reciting the Shahada, a pledge to accept Allah as her only God and the Prophet Mohammad, while instant messaging with a Saudi Arabian man.
She took Fatima – the name of one of the prophet’s daughters – as her new name.
However, Gorman remained in the dark about her newfound interest, while neighbours also said she appeared to be a typical “housewife”.
Over the months, she became deeply attached to the Muslim men who became her jihadist handlers.
“I talked to them so much online I just felt they were strong brothers and they were very religious,” she explained.
“I felt love for them. I loved my brothers so much, when they told me something I would listen to them no matter what.”
LaRose became increasingly upset when watching fighting in the Middle East on al-Jazeera, according to The Guardian.
“I was crying. I could hear the kids outside playing and laughing,” she said.
“I remember thinking to myself how unfair that all those children were dying and no one around here knows or cares.”
When she made the decision to join the terrorist effort against the West – and be vocal about her beliefs online, to the extent that the FBI started monitoring her – she said she felt like she had found her purpose in life.
“I was finally going to be some place where I belonged. I’ve survived through a lot of things that rightfully should have killed me,” LaRose said.
“I always thought there was a purpose for me to be alive. And when I found out about Islam I thought this is what I have to do, this is why I’ve lived so long.”
In March 2009, an al-Qaeda operative, who claimed to be hiding in Pakistan, instructed her to fly to Europe to train as an assassin and then travel to Sweden to kill Vilks.
When I found out about Islam I thought this is what I have to do, this is why I’ve lived so long
Colleen LaRose
They believed she could blend in better than most jihadists – with her white skin, blonde hair, Texas accent and American passport.
On arrival, she was met by Damache, who told her that she would be joining a “training camp” for her upcoming mission
The day after she was joined by another radicalised American woman, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, who immediately married their handler.
The trio lived in the same one-bedroom flat along with Paulin-Ramirez’s then six-year-old son
It is thought that Damache – described in the documentary as an “intelligent and literate” loner – was never intent on carrying out any attacks and was simply using the guise of a terror cell to meet women.
Frustrated by the lack of action, LaRose contacted the FBI from a public library – apparently unaware that she had committed any serious crimes.
Hopeful that they would cover her plane ticket home, she emailed them, writing: “If you let me come home, I’ll tell you the truth that you want to know.”
They did fund her airfare – but arrested her as soon as she touched down in the US in October.
She was eventually charged with with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to the FBI, and attempted identity theft.
The flat in Waterford was put under surveillance before the remaining inhabitants were arrested.
LaRose, who was released from prison in 2018, blames her background for her radicalisation.
“I have done all kinds of bad things,” she noted. “I was rebelling because of what he [her father] did and because my mother did nothing to help us.”
However, Shiffman suggests the woman now known as Jihad Jane was never really the dangerous terrorist she has been portrayed as.
Her actions, he wrote, ultimately “proved more farcical than frightful, more absurd than ominous”.
Jihad Jane, produced by Fastnet Films, lands in UK cinemas today.
