Later that day, Chevie Kehoe shot at two Wilmington police officers who pulled up behind him in a parking lot. Again no one was hurt, but the brothers escaped.
A massive manhunt ensued and the Kehoes disappeared for four months. Not only were they wanted in connection with the Ohio incidents, but with the disappearance and murders of three members of an Arkansas family, William Mueller, his wife Nancy and her 8-year-old daughter.
Their bodies were found some 40 miles from the family’s home in June 1996, six months after they disappeared. They had been bound and then suffocated with plastic trash bags taped over their heads.
Noted white supremacists, the Kehoes made the FBI’s most wanted list and became household names across the nation.
Authorities say they provided weapons to various white supremacists who committed robberies across the Midwest. They also believe the family was involved in a plot to overthrow the federal government and establish the Aryan Peoples Republic in the Pacific Northwest, where they are from.
In June 1997, Cheyne Kehoe surrendered at his home in Washington and told F.B.I. agents where to find his brother, who was arrested the next day.
Cheyne Kehoe told investigators that his older brother had killed the Muellers. Paint from the brothers’ truck, seized when Cheyne surrendered, matched the light blue paint found on duct tape used to bind the family, according to court documents filed in the Arkansas case.
Cheyne Kehoe was convicted of assault and attempted murder in the Ohio shooting and sentenced to 24 years in prison on Feb. 24, 1998, though it was later reduced to 11 years. He was released June 13, 2008.
Chevie is serving a life sentence in federal prison for his role in the Mueller killings.
Kirby Kehoe, their father, has a history gun charges, including possessing a handgun stolen from Nancy Mueller. He was sentenced in 1999 to nearly four years in prison for racketeering and possession of illegal weapons in a case related to the plot aimed at overthrowing the government. The elder Kehoe, however, has maintained he was never involved in his sons’ efforts to establish a whites-only nation and that he isn’t a racist.
In the current case, Kirby and his son Cheyne, now 37, had an initial court appearance Tuesday in Flagstaff, Ariz.
They were arrested after authorities received a tip that Kirby Kehoe had weapons on his 40-acre property near Ash Fork, about 140 miles north of Phoenix, said Tom Mangan, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Mangan said due to the violent nature of the family’s past, authorities planned the Monday raid carefully, first setting up surveillance on the property before moving in with search warrants, heavily armed tactical teams and armored vehicles.
He said the raid was conducted in cooperation with law enforcement from around the country and was planned to avoid the potential for a violent confrontation.
“The reason and rationale for having executed the warrant on the property in that manner was driven by public safety, just based on the past history of this individual and the sons,” Mangan said Tuesday. “When a traffic stop was being conducted in Ohio, it turned into a nationwide manhunt, and we obviously didn’t want to revisit that issue.”
— Staff report