Frank Ancona, the imperial wizard of the Traditionalist Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was found dead Saturday near Belgrade, Mo.The body of the 51-year-old Leadwood, Mo., resident was located near the Big River by a family fishing in the area, according to a statement issued Saturday night by Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen.Jacobsen said an autopsy is being conducted and a cause of death has not been released. He called the incident a “tragic and senseless act of violence.”Jacobsen said authorities learned on Friday that Ancona had disappeared and that his car had been located by a U.S. Forest Service employee on Forest Service property near Potosi. He said deputies secured the area. On Saturday, Jacobsen said, he requested assistance from the Missouri Highway Patrol. “During the investigation, one subject was arrested on an unrelated warrant and two search warrants were executed in Washington County,” Jacobsen said. “Subsequently, a body was discovered on the bank of the Big River near Belgrade, Mo., in southern Washington County ... The body was identified as Mr. Ancona, and his family has been notified.”, had posted recruiting videos and cross burnings on YouTube and was profiled in The Star’s 2015 domestic terrorism series. The group’s national headquarters is in Park Hills, Mo., about an hour’s drive southwest of St. Louis.In a series of interviews with The Star, Ancona described his Klan as a Christian organization and a fraternal order.“The only things secret about the Klan are that our rituals and ceremonies are only for members to see,” he said. “That’s part of the mystique of being a member.”“I’ve actually taken a lot of heat from other white nationalists because of that,” he said. “I’m called an N-lover and a Jew, blah, blah, blah. I’m doing everything I can to hold it to the principles it’s supposed to be by.”It also said: “This does not mean that we are enemies of the colored and mongrel races. But it does mean that we are organized to establish the solidarity and to realize the mission of the white race.”Ancona, a self-employed contractor, said his organization has members from every state except Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah. Missouri contributes many members, he said.He told The Star that there were few Klan organizations in the country that he considered legitimate and had been in squabbles with some of them. Some said that his Klan wasn’t authentic and that Ancona was Jewish.“I’m actually Italian and Irish,” Ancona said.He said at least one of the groups attacking him was a fake Klan and another was upset at him because he revealed that the leader was a convicted felon.Although Ancona claimed thousands of members, actual figures are impossible to come by for such groups, which don’t share their membership lists. Watchdog groups say the numbers are grossly overstated.Ancona said he doesn’t buy into Christian Identity, although some members “kind of believe in that to a certain extent.”“I don’t have anything against Jews,” he said.He said he had worked hard to let people know that his Klan isn’t associated with neo-Nazis.“I see a lot of younger folks going toward this Nazi movement,” he said. “But it’s not the Klan’s philosophy.”Ancona also said his organization does not condone violence. Those who do, he said, “are not following the Klan doctrine.”But in 2015, authorities in Florida arrested three members on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. The suspects, current and former employees of the Florida Department of Corrections, allegedly plotted to kill a former inmate after his release from prison. The murder allegedly was to be in retaliation for a fight between the inmate, who is black, and one of the corrections employees.Critics said the Klan was trying to incite violence.The hacker group Anonymous launched what it called the #OpKKK and #HoodsOff campaign, briefly disrupting the Klan’s website and revealing the identities of some Klan members as well as what it said was Ancona’s credit card information and Social Security number.Ancona told The Star that he was not inciting violence but letting those making terrorist threats know that they wouldn’t “sit back and let somebody throw a Molotov cocktail” at them.On a video posted online, however, he used much harsher language.“These people are acting like savage animals,” he said of protesters. “And that’s what they are, is a bunch of savage beasts.”Ancona told The Star that members of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan would gather at his house for an annual Christmas party.“And we had a cross lighting right in my backyard,” he said in 2015. “The police kept their eye on us, and people were driving by and taking pictures, but we didn’t have a single incident.”