Kehoe and two others were charged with trying to ignite a revolution by assassinating police and public officials. They planned to finance the Aryan People's Republic by robbery, kidnapping, murder and dealing in stolen property, the indictment alleges. They also were prepared to kill police and disloyal co-conspirators to avoid capture.
Citizenship in the Aryan People's Republic would be open only to white people, the indictment said, and its leaders believed in engaging in polygamy to increase the republic's population.
Kehoe `was the leader of the enterprise and functioned as the primary planner and decision maker, as well as directing and carrying out acts of murder, theft, interstate transportation of stolen property and money laundering,' according to the indictment.
Kehoe of Colville, Wash., and Daniel Lewis Lee of Oklahoma City, both 24, were named in the seven-count indictment charging them with racketeering, conspiracy and murder, including the January 1996 killings of an Arkansas gun dealer, his wife and her 8-year-old daughter. Convicted murderer Faron E. Lovelace, 40, who is in prison in Idaho, also was indicted on a racketeering charge alleging he and Kehoe killed fellow white supremacist Jeremy Scott in August 1995. Kehoe and Lovelace also allegedly kidnapped a Washington couple in June 1995.
"We will seek permission from the Department of Justice to pursue the death penalty against Kehoe and Lee," said Dan Stripling, an assistant U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark.
Stripling declined to say whether any further indictments are expected.
According to Friday's indictments, Kehoe and Lee broke into the Tilly, Ark., home of gun dealer William Mueller on Jan. 11, 1996, waited until Mueller and his family returned home, subdued them with guns and suffocated them by taping trash bags over their heads, then weighted the bodies with rocks and dumped them in an Arkansas bayou.
Pope County, Ark., prosecutors plan to drop state murder charges and cooperate with federal officials. But the Clinton County charges will proceed, even though they are duplicated in the federal indictment as a racketeering offense.
"It was our understanding all along that the Clinton County prosecution would go forward," Stripling said. Kehoe's brother, Cheyne, is scheduled to stand trial in Clinton County Common Pleas Court on Jan. 7; Chevie Kehoe on Feb. 23. Both are charged with attempted murder of a police officer, felonious assault and carrying a concealed weapon.
Cheyne Kehoe was not named in the federal indictments.
The brothers' Chevrolet Suburban was stopped by a state trooper near Wilmington on Feb. 15. A video camera mounted on his cruiser captured the action as a man alleged to be Cheyne Kehoe fired at the trooper, who returned the fire. No one was injured.
The suspects split up and fled on foot, and Chevie Kehoe allegedly traded gunfire with Wilmington police before escaping. A passerby was hit by a bullet fragment. The abandoned Suburban was loaded with guns and ammunition.
The brothers eluded police until June 16, when Cheyne surrendered in Spokane, Wash., and pointed authorities to Chevie, who was arrested in Utah the next day.
Clinton County Sheriff Ralph Fizer expects the local cases to be tried before the more serious charges.
"Our understanding was they were going to go (to trial) here, then Arkansas could have them, and I haven't heard anything different than that," Fizer said. "We've got them and we've spent a lot of money to get them here and we've been keeping them here all this long time."
He said the notion that the brothers should be tried on the most serious charges first is "beside the point. They shot at our police officers and we'd like to see them get something here, too."
Clinton County Prosecutor Bill Peelle could not be reached for comment.
Chevie Kehoe is being held in the Warren County Jail, where he is well-behaved and resides in the general population with no special security measures, according to Sheriff Tom Ariss. Kehoe had not been served with the indictment Friday afternoon, Ariss said.
"He's no different than any other prisoner," Ariss said. "As long as he's compliant with the rules, he's fine - and he has been."
Cheyne Kehoe is a well-behaved inmate in the general population at the Greene County Jail, said jail supervisor Sgt. Douglas Morgan.
The key link between the Kehoes and the triple murder in Arkansas came by accident in February 1996, when a man acting as though he was high on drugs walked into a Seattle antique store carrying a .45-caliber pistol, said Seattle homicide Detective E.M. `Sonny' Davis, who along with his partner investigated the case. The owner of the store called police.
The gun, it turned out, was among some items stolen from Mueller, the slain gun dealer. The 26-year-old man, Travis Brake of Bellingham, Wash., said he purchased the weapon at a gun show from Chevie's father, Kirby Kehoe, whom he identified from a photograph. The man also identified Chevie Kehoe as one of the people at the gun show.
The Mueller family vanished in January 1996, but it wasn't until June that their bodies were pulled from a river in Arkansas. A short time later, a computer check revealed that Brake's gun was one of those taken from Mueller.
On Aug. 15, 1996, a law enforcement task force met at the federal building in Spokane. The task force was targeting Chevie Kehoe, his father, his brother and several known associates in an attempt to link them to the Arkansas triple murder and possibly to the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, and to a string of bombings and bank robberies in Spokane.
Days after the task force meeting, FBI agents coaxed Lovelace out of this mountain retreat on the Idaho-Washington border and jailed him for the execution-style murder of Scott, a fellow white supremacist. Lovelace led police to Scott's shallow grave and was later convicted of murder.
Lovelace once lived on Kehoe's remote property in the Kaniksu National Forest in Northern Idaho. But in an interview in the Bonner County, Idaho, Jail earlier this year, Lovelace denied even knowing Kehoe.
In December 1996, a Kehoe associate named Sean Haines was stopped by police in South Dakota. He was in possession of an assault rifle that had been stolen from Mueller. Haines told authorities he got the gun from Chevie Kehoe.