Death Sought For Kehoe

A federal prosecutor says she will seek the death penalty for two white supremacists charged with killing an Arkansas family.

U.S. Attorney Paula Casey said she will try to prove aggravating circumstances that would justify a death sentence for Chevie Kehoe of Colville, Wash., and Danny Graham if convicted.

U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele has expressed interest in setting a trial for August.

Kehoe and Graham, also known as Daniel Lee, each face seven charges, including racketeering and three counts of murder in aid of racketeering, in the 1996 deaths of William Mueller, Nancy Mueller and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell. The bodies of the family members were found in a bayou in Pope County.

Kehoe and his brother, Cheyne Kehoe, also of Colville, were convicted in a high-profile shootout with police in Ohio.

The two brothers and their families hid out in southern Utah for several months last spring. They worked for a farmer after he discovered them living off the land.

In the federal case in Arkansas, Chevie Kehoe, Faron Lovelace and Graham are accused of participating in a group called the Aryan Peoples Republic to foment revolution and create a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.

The indictment alleges the murders of Mueller, 53, his wife, 28, and her daughter were part of that conspiracy. It alleges that Kehoe and Graham broke into the family’s home in Tilly while the family was away.

Upon returning, the family was held at gunpoint. They were bound and their heads were covered with trash bags, sealed at the neck with duct tape.