Guns May Link Kehoes To Triple Murder Charges Say Handgun Held By Father, Parts Found In Son’s Car, Were From Arkansas

Gun parts tied to a triple murder in Arkansas were found in a car driven by Chevie Kehoe after a highly publicized shootout with Ohio police, court documents reveal.

The documents, filed in U.S. District Court in Spokane, charge Kehoe’s father, Kirby Keith Kehoe, with possessing a handgun believed stolen during the 1996 Arkansas murders.

The evidence may help explain why Chevie Kehoe and his brother fired at Ohio police officers who were making a routine traffic stop last February.

A federal grand jury in Spokane is expected to review evidence against Kirby Kehoe, whose two sons became fugitives after the shootout, caught on police videotape.

Kirby Kehoe was secretly charged with the federal firearms violation June 17, the same day his fugitive son, Chevie Kehoe, was arrested near Cedar City, Utah.

Those developments came after another son, Cheyne Kehoe, surrendered in Colville, Wash., on June 16 to face attempted murder charges stemming from the Ohio shootings.

Court papers charging Kirby Kehoe initially were sealed from public inspection at the request of agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. On Aug. 13, ATF agents met Kirby Kehoe at a cafe in Troy, Mont. Instead of arresting him, they served a summons ordering him to appear Sept. 2 in U.S. District Court in Spokane.

When he showed up for the hearing, the court documents were unsealed.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno allowed Kirby Kehoe, formerly of Colville, to remain free without bond. He returned to his rural home near Yaak, Mont.

Routinely, federal criminal complaints are followed by the filing of indictments after the case is reviewed by a federal grand jury.

No one has been charged with the murders, but a major investigation continues, involving Arkansas authorities and federal investigators.

ATF agents and sheriff’s detectives from Arkansas have traveled to Spokane and Colville during the course of the investigation.

They are focusing on members of the Kehoe family and their friends, law enforcement sources say.

The Arkansas murder victims were William Mueller, a 58-year-old gun dealer; his wife, Nancy, 28; and her 8-year-old daughter.

Plastic bags, secured with duct tape, were pulled over the victims’ heads, and they apparently died of suffocation. Their decomposed bodies were recovered five months later in an Arkansas bayou.

Authorities now say the Muellers and Kehoes knew each other and were associated through gun shows and militia-survivalist activities.

“Investigators were informed that before the murders, there had possibly been a feud between” the Muellers and Kehoes, court documents say.

Kirby Kehoe is accused of having a .45-caliber Colt handgun believed stolen from Nancy Mueller. Other gun parts belonging to her gun-dealer husband were stolen during the abduction-murders.

“These firearm parts were recovered from a vehicle being operated by Chevie Kehoe, in Ohio, in February, subsequent to a shootout with Ohio law enforcement,” court documents say.

Chevie Kehoe was indicted Feb. 25 in Spokane for possessing another firearm, stolen at the time of the Muellers’ disappearance in January 1996, and a second weapon taken in a March 1995 burglary at the Muellers’ home in Tilly, Ark.

Investigators say an arsenal of military-style assault rifles, handguns, smoke grenades and an estimated 500,000 rounds of ammunition - stolen from the Muellers - were brought to Spokane and later sold at gun shows.

The cache was stored for a time in a shed at The Shadows Motel and RV Park, 9025 N. Division, witnesses and investigators confirm.

Chevie Kehoe was living in a motor home at The Shadows and another nearby RV park until his friend, Sean Michael Haines, was arrested last December at a freeway rest stop near Sioux Falls, S.D.

Haines, a neo-Nazi skinhead, was caught with an assault rifle that authorities quickly traced to the murder victims.

After news reports about Haines’ arrest, Chevie Kehoe fled the Spokane area and traveled to Ohio and elsewhere, authorities say.

Chevie Kehoe is in custody in Xenia, Ohio, facing state charges associated with the February shootout with police. Cheyne Kehoe is in the Spokane County Jail, awaiting extradition to Ohio.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo