DAYTON DAILY NEWS
NEWS
The move came after a Clinton County grand jury indicted Chevie and Cheyne Kehoe on 16 counts, including attempted murder of a police officer.
The patrol identified Chevie O'Brien Kehoe, 24, as the driver of the 1977 Chevrolet Suburban that was stopped by a trooper Saturday on Ohio 73, and Cheyne C. Kehoe, 20, as his passenger. Both are charged with firing at a trooper, a sheriff's deputy and a Wilmington police officer in a volley of gunfire in which a bystander was slightly wounded.
The men are considered armed and dangerous, the patrol said.
They were last seen leaving a Ross County campground Monday morning in a white 1977 Dodge Executive "box-type" motor home with green trim, possibly bearing Montana license plates.
Richard Morton, 66, of Kettle Falls, Idaho, who is acquainted with the brothers, said they are among the swelling ranks of Americans with white supremacist and extreme anti-government views.
"It's their whole life. It becomes their religion," Morton said. "They're the good guys and they can do anything - rob, steal, shoot - and it's alright, because they're fighting the `bad government.' It's a Robin Hood thing."
The grand jury indicted Chevie Kehoe on three counts of attempted murder of a police officer, three counts of felonious assault, one count of carrying a concealed weapon, one count of possessing criminal tools, one count of improper transportation of a firearm and two counts of fleeing. Cheyne Kehoe faces two counts of attempted murder of a police officer, two counts of felonious assault and one count of carrying a concealed weapon.
The patrol said Chevie resisted a pat-down search after he was stopped Saturday, then fled back to the Suburban. As a trooper and sheriff's deputy pursued him, Cheyne fired on them, then fled on foot, the patrol said. Chevie jumped into the Suburban and fled, firing on a Wilmington officer a short time later before he also got away on foot, the patrol said.
Patrick Berarducci, senior special agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Ohio, said his agency has traced some weapons seized from the Suburban and is seeking to trace others. He declined to release any information about the weapons.
Special Agent Ed Boldt, a spokesman for the FBI's Cincinnati office, said the FBI will be seeking warrants for the Kehoe brothers on federal charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. In an affidavit, the FBI said Thursday there's reason to believe the fugitives have fled Ohio.
A R Y A N N A T I O N S F O L L O W E R S
Chevie Kehoe is in a computer database of Aryan Nations members compiled by Klanwatch, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Both brothers signed the guest book of an Aryan Nations museum a few years ago, according to a source that tracks the group's activities.
Chevie Kehoe made headlines and was interviewed by the television show Hard Copy in 1993 after he took an 18-year-old as a polygamous second "wife" during an Aryan ceremony attended by his pregnant first wife and their child. He traveled for nearly two months with the 18-year-old until she returned to her parents in Spokane.
"Great. I think it's wonderful," the second wife's father said Thursday when he heard of the indictment against Kehoe.
Robert Gumm Sr. of Spokane said his daughter, Karena, 24, has three children with Kehoe, born between 1991 and 1995, and he fears she and the children are with the fugitives. A woman and three children were seen at the Ross County campgrounds with two men identified as the fugitives.
"I've been praying to God that she'd call me up and let me know where she is," said Gumm, who described Kehoe as a `slick talker' heavily involved in the white supremacy movement. He hasn't seen his daughter or Kehoe since last fall, he said.
Gumm said Chevie Kehoe makes his living buying and selling guns.
According to the Washington Department of Licensing, Karena Gumm was the previous owner of a Chevrolet Suburban owned by Sean Michael Haines, a 19-year-old Aryan Nations youth leader from Spokane who was stopped in South Dakota in December. Haines' Suburban, a different vehicle from the one stopped in Wilmington, contained a gun that had been stolen from a gun dealer who was found slain in June in an Arkansas bayou, along with his wife and her 8-year-old daughter.
One Spokane woman who formerly used Karena Gumm as a baby-sitter said she would not allow Gumm to bring Chevie Kehoe to her home. "When I first saw him, he scared me to death. I could tell he was the white supremacist type, a skinhead," said the woman, who asked that her name be withheld.
C A M P E D O U T
The two men, a woman and three children spent a few weeks at a Ross County campground co-owned by a Chillicothe police officer. But by the time Ross County sheriff's detectives descended on the campgrounds Tuesday, the group had been gone for 24 hours.
Ross County Sheriff Ronald Nichols said managers of the Lake Hill campground on County Road 550 east of Frankfort viewed the videotape of the Wilmington shootout and identified the men in the video as the two men staying at the campground.
Witnesses said the party arrived at the campgrounds a few weeks ago in a green-and-white motor home, and left in the motor home about 5:30 a.m. Monday, Nichols said. It was the woman who registered at the campground, and she used the name Mary Thresher.
Sheriff's officials were notified by the Ohio Highway Patrol that the fugitives might be in Ross County, but by that time they were already gone.
"The bad guys pulled out at 5:30 Monday morning and we didn't know about it until 8:30 Tuesday morning," Nichols said. "I don't want to criticize my brother law enforcement officers (in the highway patrol), but I felt like I was left out a little. If these guys were in my county, I'd like to know about it."
On Tuesday morning, the owner of the IGA supermarket in Frankfort, about 2 1/2 miles from the campground, called the sheriff's office to report that a car had been sitting in his parking lot since late Sunday, Nichols said. The 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme turned out to have been stolen from Clinton County, he said. The car's owner is not sure when the car was stolen, Nichols said.
The Clinton County sheriff's office refused to release information on the stolen car.
Nichols said he is unaware of any white supremacist groups active in Ross County, except for the concentrations of Aryans in the two state prisons in the county.
R E N T E D F O R A M O N T H
`I don't know why they came here. This is a one-in-a-million thing,' said Chillicothe police Officer Phillip Krystyan, who co-owns the campground with his mother and three brothers, one of whom recently graduated from the Ohio University Police Academy. `I'm still stunned.'
He said the group had paid to spend a month at Lake Hill - a partially occupied, wooded campground at the end of a long, winding road.
`I'm just really, really thankful nothing happened,' Krystyan said. `I don't know what would have happened if they had seen me in uniform.'
Krystyan said he saw the men in a blue Suburban several times, but never connected the vehicle to the Wilmington shootout.
Phillip's brother, Greg Krystyan, administrative director of the 68-acre campground, stayed in a camper just a few feet from the men for the last few weeks. He said they seemed `pretty nice and friendly, but they just kept to themselves.' He said the men told him they were independent contractors from the south who came to Ohio in search of work.
Det. Lt. John Valdez of the Bonner County, Idaho, sheriff's office said Thursday he'd like to talk to Chevie Kehoe about the summer 1995 slaying of white supremacist Jeremy C. Scott, 23. Kehoe has not been charged in the slaying.
Another supremacist, Feron Lovelace, 39, has admitted killing Scott after a falling-out. Lovelace denied knowing Kehoe Wednesday, but Idaho and Washington officials say the two men once lived together.
Lovelace also has ties to Jacob Myron Settle, 39, a white supremacist who is the owner of the Suburban that was stopped in Wilmington.
According to Det. Sgt. Lin Casebolt of the Ferry County, Wash., sheriff's office, Lovelace has admitted kidnapping Richard Morton, a former business associate of Settle. Authorities want to talk to Settle about the kidnapping. Morton has alleged Settle was involved. Casebolt said there is no evidence of Settle's involvement, but they'd still like to speak to him.
In 1992, Chevie Kehoe and Settle filed a complaint against Morton in Ferry County, claiming Morton held a gun on them. Morton, authorities said, apparently was angry because he believed the two had swindled him out of a motor home.
1. Chevic Kehoe: The FBI will also be seeking warrents for the Kehoe brothers.
2. Chillicothe police officer Phillip Krystyan shows the campsite
where the suspects lived in a campground that Krystyan co-owns.
CREDIT: TY GREENLEES/DAYTON DAILY NEWS
3. Ross County Sheriff Ron Nichols with the stolen car recovered near Chillicothe. It is believed to be the suspects' transport to the campground after the Wilmington shootout.
CREDIT: TY GREENLEES DAYTON DAILY NEWS
* STAFF WRITERS Wes Hills, Angela Townsend, Debra Jasper, Russell
Carollo and Jim Bebbington contributed to this report.