The Kehoe Gang: A Timeline

The saga of Chevie Kehoe, his family and the men who followed him is one that stretches across many states and years. Here, drawn from court records, interviews and media accounts, is a timeline of significant events.

Although criminal cases have established some facts, many events listed here are allegations from the government's indictment of Kehoe and other sources that have not been proven in a court of law.

Jan. 29, 1973 Chevie Kehoe is born in Orange Park, Fla., the eldest son of Kirby and Gloria Kehoe. Nurtured from an early age in the tenets of the racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity religion, Chevie will adopt radical antigovernment views as he grows up that shape the rest of his life.

1991 Chevie's rage at the government is heightened by a federal raid on a neighbor's house near his own family home in Colville, Wash.

A year later, the deadly Ruby Ridge, Idaho, standoff between authorities and the family of white supremacist Randy Weaver adds to Chevie's hatred of the government.

1993 Chevie and others launch a terrorist conspiracy to create the Aryan Peoples Republic, a whites-only homeland. Eventually, at least five people will be murdered.

1994 Around this time, Chevie meets members of the Aryan Republican Army, along with members of his own future gang, at Elohim City.

Members of the white supremacist ARA gang later go to prison in connection with the robberies of 22 Midwestern banks meant to finance a revolution. It's later established that the ARA used weapons supplied by the Kehoes.

Feb. 12, 1995 Tilly, Ark., gun dealer William Mueller tells authorities that masked men took $50,000 in guns, coins and equipment in a home invasion.

Later in the month, Chevie and Faron Lovelace stop at Elohim City with a truckload of Mueller's weapons.

March-April 1995 Witnesses place Chevie at The Shadows Motel and RV Park in Spokane, Wash., where he's involved in illegal gun sales.

A former manager later tells The Spokesman-Review newspaper that he believes Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh met Chevie at the motel. The former manager says Chevie appeared to have advance knowledge of the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma bombing. The FBI says it can't confirm the report.

June 12, 1995 Supermarket owners Malcolm and Jill Friedman are robbed and kidnapped near Colville by a man dressed in camouflage, who authorities later identify as Lovelace. Malcolm is kidnapped but released unharmed near The Shadows Motel.

Chevie, who once worked at the Friedman's supermarket, and his father Kirby allegedly drove Lovelace to the Friedman home.

July-August 1995 Chevie orders Jeremy Scott's murder in north Idaho after persuading Scott's common-law wife to become his polygamous second wife. Lovelace is later convicted of the killing.

Sept. 20, 1995 Lovelace robs Colville jewelry wholesaler and gun enthusiast Dick Morton of his gun collection during a home invasion. Morton also is driven to Spokane and forced to withdraw $480 from a bank machine before being released near The Shadows Motel.

January 1996 Chevie and associate Daniel Lewis Lee leave Yukon, Okla., where they have been living, and head for the Mueller home in Tilly, Ark.

Jan. 11, 1996 Mueller, his wife and her 8-year-old daughter are abducted, robbed and murdered as they leave their Arkansas home for a gun show. The killers tape plastic bags over their heads and shock them with electric cattle prods as they suffocate.

Later that month, Chevie buys a motor home with $10,000 cash. Weapons owned by the Muellers are eventually linked to the Kehoe brothers and Kirby.

February 1996 Travis Brake is arrested while carrying a gun traced to the Mueller collection. He tells authorities he bought the weapon from Kirby at a Seattle gun show, giving investigators their first break in the Kehoe case.

April 29, 1996 A pipe bomb goes off outside Spokane City Hall. Cheyne Kehoe later says that his brother Chevie carried out the attack. Eventually, Lee also is indicted in the bombing.

June 28, 1996 A fisherman finds the found bodies of the Mueller family in a bayou near Russellville, Ark.

The same month, neo-Nazi Skinhead Sean Michael Haines, an Aryan Nations youth leader, allegedly swaps guns with Chevie at The Shadows Motel.

Aug. 18, 1996 A heavily armed Lovelace is arrested after being lured from his home to Priest River, Idaho, to assassinate supposed Hispanic drug dealers recruiting young girls into prostitution — a story concocted by agents to trap Lovelace. Lovelace leads authorities to Scott's buried body.

August 1996 Apparently fearing arrest after Lovelace's capture, Chevie and his family abandon a stolen trailer home where they had been living in the Kaniksu National Forest in Idaho. Chevie heads to "the Yaak," a river valley in northwest Montana, where his parents are living.

Dec. 10, 1996 After being arrested in possession of a Mueller rifle at a freeway rest stop in Sioux Falls, S.D., Haines implicates Chevie in the Mueller gun theft.

Learning of the arrest, Chevie convinces Cheyne to join him in his flight from the Spokane compound where both have been living. They sell stolen Mueller weapons as they go.

January 1997 The Kehoe brothers and their wives pay a month's rent in advance at a campground near Frankfort, Ohio.

Feb. 15, 1997 Police making a routine traffic stop are fired on by Cheyne. The ensuing shootout is captured on a patrol car video camera.

In the Kehoes' Chevrolet Suburban, police find heavy weapons, 4,000 rounds of ammunition and FBI caps. In a second shootout a few minutes later, Chevie shoots at other officers, wounding a bystander.

The Kehoe brothers escape separately, and a nationwide manhunt begins.

Feb. 28, 1997 Officials find the Kehoes' abandoned motorhome, containing bomb-making components, outside Casper, Wyo.

Chevie reportedly travels through Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana before making his way to Utah. Cheyne's path takes him through Wyoming and Arizona before he arrives in Utah, where both brothers live under assumed names with their families. The two fugitives find work on a ranch near Gunlock, Utah.

June 16, 1997 Cheyne flees the Utah ranch, saying later that he feared his brother. He drives straight to his hometown of Colville and gives himself up to authorities. He immediately begins cooperating.

June 17, 1997 With information from Cheyne, authorities arrest Chevie as he goes into a feed store in Gunlock.

July 1, 1997 Authorities begin a fruitless search in north Idaho for the body of a Chevie associate, neo-Nazi Skinhead Jon Cox. Chevie is believed to have murdered Cox because he was writing to friends about Chevie's plans to rob a series of armored cars.

March 18, 1998 Kirby is arrested in Springdale, Wash., by agents who seize hand grenades, machineguns, and ammunition. He had been sought after violating a judge's order to remain in Montana while facing charges of possessing a handgun stolen from the Muellers.

In May, he pleads guilty to federal weapons violations.

July 7, 1998 A federal grand jury in Little Rock, Ark., issues an amended indictment accusing Chevie, Kirby and Lee of racketeering and other violations. Lovelace, already on death row for the murder of Scott, is dropped from the initial indictment, issued on Dec. 12, 1997. The trial is set for Feb. 16.