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In Arkansas shooting, echoes of local town’s past

Police escort Danny Lee (left) and Chevie Kehoe (right) from the federal courts building in Little Rock, Ark, in this March 2, 1999, file photo. White supremacists Chevie and Cheyne Kehoe of Washington were involved in a shootout with local and state police in Wilmington in 1997. Associated Press file photo

MIKE WINTROATH/STR Police escort Danny Lee (left) and Chevie Kehoe (right) from the federal courts building in Little Rock, Ark, in this March 2, 1999, file photo. White supremacists Chevie and Cheyne Kehoe of Washington were involved in a shootout with local and state police in Wilmington in 1997. Associated Press file photo

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By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer Updated 10:37 PM Saturday, May 22, 2010

NEW VIENNA — Until late last week, this town of 1,400 near Wilmington thought its reputation as home to a white supremacist group was behind it.

Then a deadly police shooting in Arkansas last week dredged up a short-lived chapter in the town’s past.

In the mid- to late 1990s, the upstairs of an old two-story brick building here had housed meetings of the Aryan Nations’ Church of Jesus Christ Christian. By 1999, with its leadership in trouble with federal authorities, the church had disbanded.

So Mayor Keith Collins said he was surprised to hear a white minivan involved in the shooting deaths of two West Memphis, Ark., police officers on Thursday, May 20, was registered to the House of God’s Prayer at 143 W. Main St. — the same building that had housed the Aryan Nations’ church more than a decade ago.

The father and son inside that van, Jerry R. Kane, 45, formerly of Springfield, and his 16-year-old son, Joseph, were killed during a subsequent shootout that wounded two Crittenden County, Ark. sheriff’s deputies.

Jerry Kane, who lived locally intermittently until 2007, has been described by those who knew him as an anti-government figure who didn’t recognize authority. In recent months, he had given seminars across the country, lashing out against the foreclosure process, which he labeled a fraud perpetuated by the government.

There has been no evidence that Kane harbored white supremacist views. But it’s not unusual for white supremacists to harbor anti-government views, said Dave Hall, a former FBI informant who spied on the Aryan Nations during its days in New Vienna and co-authored a book about the experience, Into the Devil’s Den.

An anti-Semitic view that foreclosures are a legacy of the Biblical practice of usury is popular among Aryan Nations adherents, he said.

“Ninety percent of them were your Joe Six Packs, blue-collar workers just barely getting by. That’s why the message resounded with them,” said Hall, who lived in Dayton for many years and worked with the FBI in lieu of going to jail after federal agents caught him introducing a buyer to a seller in a marijuana deal.

Hall said he succeeded in infiltrating the Aryan Nations, eventually becoming right-hand man to Harold Ray Redfeairn, the Dayton man who headed the church and died in 2003.

Hall attended church services in New Vienna while the group was active there. He recalls the building in which the Aryan Nations group met had a large upstairs room. Some windows had been bricked off, leaving small areas within the window casings in which the group stored assault rifles and handguns. The weapons were concealed by large flags. From a raised platform, Redfeairn sermonized on the superiority of white people.

In 1997, white supremacists Chevie and Cheyne Kehoe of Washington were involved in a shootout with local and state police in Wilmington that was seen nationwide on TV newscasts. Redfeairn also appeared on TV, denying involvement between his group and the Kehoes.

Hall’s cover was blown in April 1999 after he helped thwart Kale Kelly of Warren County’s attempted assassination of an official at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which is known for tracking hate groups. Hall has since lived in an undisclosed location outside of Ohio.

In his book, Hall identified the church building’s current owner, Hoge Tabor, as a long-time member of the Ku Klux Klan. Reached at his Middletown home on Saturday, Tabor declined comment.

The connection of the Kanes’ van to New Vienna remains a mystery to the public. But Mayor Collins and other village officials said they hadn’t seen the Kanes around town.

“I want people to understand that there’s really no connection with the village other than just an address,” Collins said.

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