The tattoos that covered a man's face show the hate that was once in his heart.
Bryon Widner was one of America's most violent and well known white supremacists, and his heavily-tattooed face displayed it proudly.
After shunning his racist beliefs, he was still unable to hold work because of his facial scarring, and went through a long and complicated
journey to have the tattoos removed, in hopes of truly starting his life anew.
The long, slow process: Byron Widner was determined to erase the traces of his skinhead past by removing all of the facial tattoos that he had accumulated
After 25 surgeries that took a total of 16 months to complete, Mr Widner's past is now gone from view, leaving him a happy father and employed member of society.
It wasn't always that way, and during one of his darkest periods of despair, Julie Widner was terrified afraid her husband would do something reckless, even disfigure himself.
'We had come so far,' she says. 'We had left the movement, had created a good family life. We had so much to live for. I just thought there has to be someone out there who will help us.'
After getting married in 2006, the couple, former pillars of the white power movement (she as a member of the National Alliance, he a founder of the Vinlanders gang of skinheads) had worked hard to put their racist past behind them. They had settled down and had a baby; her younger children had embraced him as a father.
And yet, the past was ever-present tattooed in brutish symbols all over his body and face: a blood-soaked razor, swastikas, the letters 'HATE' stamped across his knuckles.
Wherever he turned Widner was shunned on job sites, in stores and restaurants. People saw a menacing thug, not a loving father. He felt like an utter failure.
The couple had scoured the Internet trying to learn how to safely remove the facial tattoos. But extensive facial tattoos are extremely rare, and few doctors have performed such complicated surgery.
Besides, they couldn't afford it. They had little money and no health insurance.
So Mr Widner began investigating homemade recipes, looking at dermal acids and other solutions. He reached the point, he said, where 'I was totally prepared to douse my face in acid.'
In desperation, Julie did something that once would have been unimaginable. She reached out to a black man whom white supremacists consider their sworn enemy.
Daryle Lamont Jenkins runs an anti-hate group called One People's Project based in Philadelphia. The 43-year-old activist is a huge thorn in the side of white supremacists, posting their names and addresses on his website, alerting people to their rallies and organizing counter protests.
In Julie he heard the voice of a woman in trouble.
'It didn't matter who she had once been or what she had once believed,' he said. 'Here was a wife and mother prepared to do anything for her family.'
Mr Jenkins suggested that Widner contact T.J. Leyden, a former neo-Nazi skinhead Marine who had famously left the movement in 1996, and has promoted tolerance ever since. More than anyone else, Leyden understood the revulsion and self-condemnation that Mr Widner was going through. And the danger.
'Hide in plain sight,' he advised. 'Lean on those you trust.'
Most importantly, Mr Leyden told him to call the Southern Poverty Law Center.
'If anyone can help,' he said, 'it's those guys.'
Love is blind: Both Mr and Mrs Widner were active white supremacists but worked for different groups
When Mr Widner called, says Joseph Roy, 'it was like the Osama Bin Laden of the movement calling in.'
Mr Roy is chief investigator of hate and extreme groups for the SPLC. The nonprofit civil rights organization, based in Montgomery, Alabama, tracks hate groups, militias and extreme organizations.
Aggressive at bringing lawsuits, it has successfully shut down leading white power groups, bankrupted their leaders and won multimillion dollar awards for victims.
The SPLC hears regularly from people who say they are trying to leave hate and extreme groups. Some are fakes. Some are trying to spread false intelligence. Many are in crisis, and return to the group when the crisis passes.
'Very rarely have we met a reformed racist skinhead,' says Mr Roy.
Over the years, Roy had dubbed Mr Widner the 'pit bull' of skinheads.
'No one was more aggressive, more confrontational, more notorious,' Mr Roy said.
And yet, over several weeks of conversations with Mr and Mrs Widner, he became convinced. There was something different about this couple a sincerity, a raw determination to put the past behind them and to seek some sort of redemption.
Family time: Mr Widner often plays video games with his son Tyrson and has cared for Mrs Widners children from a previous relationship, including Mercedez in the background, like his own
Hunted: Given his history, Mr Widner and his family are targets of death threats and attacks on their home
Fear: Widner's stepdaughter Isabella, 9. The family say they feel safe, as several police officers live nearby, but there are risks in publicly denouncing the violent world of white supremacism
Facing life anew: Mr Widner allowed MSNBC to film his tattoo removal for a documentary in hopes of inspiring others
All smiles: After the screening of the documentary by filmmaker Bill Brummel a black woman embraced Mr Widner in tears. 'I forgive you,' she cried.
Recognition: Widner, center left, and his wife are applauded after the screening of the film about their family
They've thrown out everything to do with their racist past, including photographs of Widner and his crew posing at Nordic fests and of the white power conferences Julie used to attend. And yet there are reminders all around, and not just the remaining tattoos. Tyrson's name inspired by the Norse god of justice, Tyr troubles them for its connection to the racist brand of Odinism his father practiced with the Vinlanders. But how do they ask a 4-year-old to change his name to Eddie?
The child tugs at his daddy's Spiderman T-shirt, begging him to come play video games. 'OK, buddy,' Mr Widner says. 'Let's go shoot a few bad guys.'
With that, the man who once brandished his hate like a badge of honour scoops up his son and turns on his Xbox.
Mr Widner plays the role of Captain America. The bad guys are Nazis.
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