INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS

Gene Nail

GENE NAIL WAS A NEWS PAPER REPORTER DURING THE TIME OF GORDON KAHL'S

DEATH IN ARKANSAS. He went on to investigate what he considered a cover-up

and ended up quiting the news business behind his disillusionment.

NAIL#11/10

GENE NAIL INTERVIEW:

START @ 11:10:15

10/56 ...and so he'd go out and do a good story and then flush, it was

over and done with...I never learned to do that...I got involved with my

stories. ....

11/45 ...when I was in college I never even though of investigative reporting...but

I broke several stories...

(story of college insurance scam)

16/27 ...I graduated from florida and worked in the state government,

then I got disappointed in the work and went back into the journalism...came

back to the Democrat and was there when the GK incident occurred...

17/36 I remember reading the newspaper stories and all about the incident

in ND and then the

ARK paper started printing more stories, then they thought he was in

Ark... during that period of time, at the Demmocrat we recieved a letter

that GK had written...being a writer I critiqued it, not just the content...

later I had a chance to contact GK and things might have been different.

The next thing I knew about was our front page story about him being

killed in the shootout in Smithville. ...

NAIL#11/10

19/50 ...I was working for the ARK Democrat... we recieved a letter at

the paper between Feb and June from GK...I think this was the first one,

and it tried to explain the rationale of what he'd done...it didn't make

sense, because I didn't know him...someting that was interesting, but not

enough to go on from there...

21/16 ... most of the papers I ahd worked for I worked in investigative

reporting...

21/56 ..but I had the reign of the state, I worked on stories wherever

they came up...I remember the morning of JUne3...I picked up the paper and

all of the stories dealt with what happened in Smithville... they were all

second hand, no reporter had been there... all of them were second hand

stories. ...but outside of that, nothing made me feel uncomfortable about

it.

24/00...apx...and so I read it, and set it aside... I guess it was a

month or so later, maybe even after the famed foot was found... some friends

of mine came to me and wanted me to get interested in it. ...It all sounded

kind of stupid to me and kinnd of, sounded like they were a bunch of fringe

people... in the end, I told myself that I'd take a look at it so that they

would leave me alone... they thought that I was a professional... so I really

expected to just prove to them that all their hairbrained ideas were full

of water...

25/42 ...ed had been a source for me before and they usually turned out

to be good stories...he kept telling me something was there and I said Ed,

this story about flame-throwers and ...most people don't realize how the

trail they live...go thru records and learn a lot about you... most police

depts require a report every time a gun is fired... I started out with the

reports... there was a lot of a paper trail that I started on.

27/50 ...you stories as time passes get cold and peolpe lose interest

in them...they start on the front page... as follow ups come along they

get relegated to the back of the paper...the police know this and they delay

releasing...I really belived they wanted to sit on these autopsis...it was

clear

28/56 ...becasue it was clear we threatened to go to court..they kept

saying the investigation was over, but you know, Gordon was dead and there

was no investigation. There was no investigation of anything, there never

has been an investigation of anything....why they didn't want it to come

out was that it clearly contradicted everything that happened up there.

30/28 ...well, in this case I knew that these reports were available,

and internal reports that would be available, this was months after this

and they wouldn't let me have them..I only got one report and it was flawed...

it was from the state police...31/45 ...one of the commanders told the st.

police officers. they put em all in a room and told them to write up a report,

they wanted one story...32/23 ...it's one thing when you ask all the witnesses

to get together and agree on the story and that's essentially what the state

police did. ...

32/33...they wrote up this little three page story and avoided all the

questions, but it at least gave them an official report of what happened...

there was something that Dero knew that he hadn't said and I can't remember

what it was...

END TAPE @ 11:30:00

NAIL#11/35

START @ 11:35:10

35/30 ... when I got the autopsy report, I had spent weeks in walnutridge

going thru court files, ...the harboring cases were under way...I couldn't

get to Norma Ginter...Leonard stayed in Walnut ridge...I'd never met Leonard

and I went up and talked to him..I'm not sure that talking to him was the

turning point

36/28 ... you know there was some crucial times, I guess there was a

half hour, you've probably run across this in your interviews. ...the police

destroyed all their radio logs which would prove times, there's a half hour

difference between when they say they came over the hill, which was 6:05

, and the time when Leonard says they came over the hill...I'm inclined

to agree with Leonard who has no reason to change the time...He explained

how he and NOrma and their guest had been watching the news, and he went

out to put his fishg tackle in the car and was starting to leave, and he

says that was 5:30 when the news was over and he couldn't have wasted more

than five minutes..there's exactly a five minute difference be when he and

the police say he came over the hill...depending on what happened during

the half hour could be very crucial,,, because they wouldn't give you the

records that's why I would tend to believe one over the other, if one person

has no reason to lie or cover it up , why would you not belive him as opposed

to somebody who gives you a different time and has a reasoon to...

38/14 so when I talked to Leonard, Leonard helped create problems for

me, I guess that's how I looked at it...where I was trying to solve poblems,

he gave me more things to be resolved.

38/38 ....I don't believe until I actually got the autopsy report which

took a lot of badgering, we threatened to sue em, talked to the Governor's

...we did everything we could short of going to court, before they caved

in and gave it to us. ...38/58...When I got that report it just blew me

away. Because what it said was that two people who the FBI said shot each

other in a shootout, had both been shot in the back. and so that tells

me that they lied, everything was a lie. ...and then all the little peices

tht didn't solve all the little pieces. ...there are still things that

I can't provbe, a ttheory that I developed solve most of those problems...but,

if you take the story handed out by the FBI...

39/41 ... alittle background might help, as a reporter I might have a

jaundiced view of govt. anyway . most of the investigative story's concern

the operations of govt. or they deal with people who interface with govt.

40/03 ...so if you tend to believe that you can trust govt., you don't

challenge things like I do. so you need to have a little jaundiced view

to be a good reporter...and so that jaundiced view is how I looked at things,

not always giving people the benefit of the doubt.

40/30 ...when I got that examiners report and it told me dirctly what

people had been telling for months. it was a lie. and so in some of my

initial interviews...Blasingame, I knew him, I'd known him all along, from

other stories and he didn't show a refusal to talk to me about it...so I

went to him...to try to solve some problems...I said Jim, how do you account

for the fact that GK was shot in the back of the head and he was killed

in a shootout ...and then sheriff matthews was clearly shot on the arm

and the bullet had to come from the back , he wasn't shot in the back, but

he was clearly shot by a bullet that came from behind him...you quoted as

saying these two guys killed each other in a shootout...and so he came up

with all kinds of gyrations, as to, some of the stories were , GK was hiding

on top of the refrigerator and he shot Matthews as he entered the house

and then he wheeled around and shot him in the back of the head... you know

some preposterous stories that wouldn't even if a guy was falling, falling

off a building, you know and then he could be shot anywhere...and where

the bullet went in and out...wouldn't make sense...

42/22 ...but to think that two guys who, one of them was killed instantaneously,

when GK was shot, he didn't live one second ,,,...42/30... the bullet blew

his brains to smithereens. And to think that after he was shot that he

did anything is preposterous...and when Matthews was shot his arm was gone,

now he was right handed , and he had a gun in his right and I understand

that he could have done something with his right handbut if a person got

shot to the trauma that he had to have been, the odds are that he fell down,

in fact , all of the stories, I think Matthews fell down when GK was shot,

because I think he was so suprised that somebody fired a shot...

43/13 ...and so to believe that these stories that they came out with,

and then if there was a shootout, then what was Matthews doing in the house

? When he was uspposedly, the first story that Blasingame gave out was that

he was shot as he was approaching the house, well , that has to be a clear

lie becasue we know he was in the house,...Fitz. Hall, everybody admits

that they went into the house. And also GK was shot at close range, so

he couldn't be shot from outside, so all these questions, even after I got

the autopsy report it took me a long time to come up with an acceptable

theory as to what happened...I guess the thing that made matters worse for

the people involved with the thing, was that I kept getting lies, and then

people would make up more lies to cover these lies...and until there was

one crucial piece of evidence that I got that convinced me that I was right...

44/16 ...well, at one point in time, along into my investigation,,, I

found out that officers at the scene, about 9:30 by 9:30 had been dead for

three hours, Matthews had already been shot , taken to the hspital and might

have been dead by this time, the house had been burned and the rain had

put it out...this was late at night, there was not level of excitment any

longer ...and yet the officers on the scene tried to get Gov. Clinton to

release a national guard helicopter to try and blow the house up...the house

was a concrete box... even a light explosive would have completely detroyed

it... I believe they intended to destroy and another thing that enforces

that in my mind is that they never did a crime scene search...the outside

of the house was police in utter detail, where evidence inside the house

you know they'll admit, the FBI and Marshals service will admit, they never

did an internal search of the house. which is kind of stupid ...they rarely

walk away from a crime scene without doing some type of an investigation...to

me that enforces my belief that either right then or even later that they

planned to blow that house up so that there would be no evidence inside

of it...

49/09 ...there are alot of, there are a lot of funny stories that indicate

how far out of control things got...there is court testimony, when Jim Blasingame

was put on the stand and asked who was in charge...well, I was in charge...then

why did this happen? And he could explain nothing...and he wasn't really

in charge , nobody was in charge, ...49/40...it was a scene gone crazy,

police out of control, peple did the wrong thing and started covering up

and all , but one of the key characters, interms of being and out and out

liar, is FBI officer Jim Handley, at the time , Jim was the head of the

ARK FBI swat team, and to me a guy that heads up a swat team, has to have

the character and dispositon of a cold , calculating killer type , in other

words , under stress, he has to be real good at stress...to me that 's what

type of swat team guy...

50/22 ...I'll tell you two funny stories , one of the funny stories that

I don't know any details of, was that there were two swat teams up there

, there was the marshals swat tream, which had 12 to 15 guys on it and the

FBI, which had 6 or 7 and Jim Handley was in charge of that... well before

they came over the hill, they sent the marshals service swat team out to

make a loop and come on in and they got lost and never did find their way.

and so here a large contingent of this great assault force, once they got

into three feet of woods, you know they were totally lost, that's how asinine

the whole thing was. Well, so Jim Handley, who's supposed to be this calculating

person who can manage the stress associated with a swat team type situation.

Leonard Ginter told me this first and other people have told me the same

thing, right out maybe thirty degrees off from the front door, there was

a stack of wood, some kind of diversion out there, that Jim and one other

officer wer hiding behind, when quote the assault was made on the house.

and then after everybody was out of the house Jim was sitting there with

a machine gun, a milatary automatic rifle with some kind of cardboard box

full of clips, loaded, he probalbly had, from what I'm told about a dozen

of em, and to show you the coolness that he exhibited, here's the way Ginter

explained it...

...52/07 ...Jim would jump up from behind this diversion and just point

in the direction of the house and pull the trigger , BBBRRPPTTT, you know

he was using long clips of thirty rounds, flaying his rifle , and when he

would run out, he would drop down, throw that one, grab another one, stick

it in there and shoot it until he ran out of ammo....Leonard said that if

he and his wife hadn't been handcuffed and laying on the ground when all

this firing was going, he'd a been over there laughing.... it was so preposterous,

when there was nothing to be shooting at and yet that was the scene

...52/51 going back to the ammo, right there Handley had to shoot off

a hundred rounds of ammo. You can look at the front of the house, and I

counted at one time over a hundred pockmarks on the house and that doesn't

include the shots that missed the house, even without exagerating, to say

that 300 rounds of ammo were shot towards the house, shows how out of control

everything was, even if it only lasted three or four minutes. to have that

much ammo expended when nobody had shot at them. Nobody had been in any

danger, somebody got scared and they just started shooting at this house.

..assume that 200 rounds were fired , there had to be empty casings all

over the yard , becasue there were officers scattered all around the house,

in fact there had to be one guy up in the woods, he's the guy that killed

the sheriff

...53/51 ...but you know that there wqas empty caseings all over the

place, and yet, the wades and others and Leonard himself have gone all

over that property and not one empty casing by the law enforcement was found

on that property, so they took utter detail and care to make sure that they

got every cartridge from every one of their handguns, shotguns and automatic

wepons to not leave any evidence of what happened out there , yet they never

did it on the inside, to the best of my knowledge...

54/33 ...there were only two shots fired on the inside of the house and

we have the casings from both of those. and they were fired I think by Jim

Hall. And what the FBI call "Hot 38s" , and there were two of

those, it's aluminum case, bought by the govt. , it can be shot in either

a 38 special or a 357 magnum, and Jim Hall was carrying a shortbarrel 357

magnum and believe he was the one that fired it. and he never went back

in and got it. I can understand why, because they burned the place and

all before and Hall wouldn't have been able to find it. And all he would

have wanted would have been those two cases...and we found them and he didn't...

55/21 ...that had been fired ...they're called Hot-38s, but they were

shot from a 357 magnum because that's what Jim Hall had. and there only

two other officers in the room at that time,...Sheriff Matthews carried

a 41 magnum that was never trigger fired, it exploded from the heat ..and

then Ed Fitz. went in and ed had a shotgun and so nobody else had a handgun

that could have fired those , Leonard G. and GK didn't have one, so it couldn't

be anyone else except Jim Hall...

56/06 ...not only is it contrary to, the little evidence that is available,

whenever I do any investigative work, I remember once I did a story right

56/44 ...Public records are required by law to be kept...destroying records

is only a misdeameanor, so they did that to cover up numerous felonies...

57/33 ...the first official version is real close to what the ARK Democrat

printed on June 4...it went two men were killed in a shoot out as law enforcemtnt

officials approached a house where a dangerous federal fugitive was hiding

out...and it identified those two men as ND fugitive GKand Sheriff Gene

Matthews,,,and it says as Matthews and other law enforcment officers were

approaching the house that GK opened fired on them , mortally wounding the

sheriff who later died in the hospital and GK died in the shoot out...and

then it said as officers fired on the house , it caught fire and ammo expoded

and created a fire that burned the house down...

...58/35 ...so you can see everything I've told you can easily be proved

a lie , there was no shoootout, I remember months after I proved there was

no shootout, TIME AND NEWSWEEK Magazines would do perspective type articles

and they still called it a shootout ...even thoug it was proven it wasn't

NAIL#11/35

58/55...well there was no fire by teargas cannisters either, the fire

was caused by law enforcement officers went to a neigbor and brought back

5 gallons diesel and five gallons of gas and dumped it into the house and

even after they dumped it in they had problems getting it started, so all

that appeared in that first story was a lie, everything was a lie.

59/56 ...and it's certainly probably not the same explanation that I've

been given or the other people...

12:00;37 ...it travelled up the arm and into the armpit...

12/02/40 ...well at first Fahmy wouldn't discuss the autopsy report with

me at all, after much badgering, he gave me the report but he wouldn't discuss

it with me. ...

END TAPE @ 12:03:00

NAIL#12/34

START TAPE @ 12:34:40

I think let's go back and accept that what happened the house...

36/27 ...when gene M. walked in the door hapened in 15 seconds...and

so it wasn't like there was a lot of time...the sheriff walked in and Jim

Hall walked in and shoot...36/40......ed panicked and busted out the window,

boom, boom, boom...when fitz opened fire, quite possible that Jim Matthews

ran out of the house ...yelling the sheriff's been hit, the sheriff's been

hit..everybody believed that GK had shot the sheriff when he'd been hit

by Ed fitz...

38/02 ...the entire incident took place in 5 to 15 seconds...

the sheriff walked in and turned around, by then Jim Hall had already

fired a shot and blown the head off of Bill WAde... before the sheriff could

come to grips with murder had been committed that a law inforcement officer

had blown Bill wade...... ed fitz was pumping shotgun into the window and

hitting him... maybe even Jim Hall turned and shot the sheriff...all this

is happening within a matter of seconds...well when the sheriff had went

down, after he had already told Jim H. that he'd shot the wrong person,

here the two people had come in to cover him and they'd shot him...and all

he'd done is say you shot the wrong man...Jim Hall probably turned and ran

out yelling the sheriff's been hit, the sheriff's been hit, but he doesn't

say who's hit him, everybody outside presumes GK had hit him... everybody

sitting out side just dumped on the house, shot all their ammo...now where

...I'm convinced that Jim Hall wasn't shoooting...

40/40 ...I'll bet if the truth was known Jim Hall fired two shots from

his revolver in the entire thing, whereas everybody else unloaded everything...

A BIG WHAT IF THEORY THAT JIM HALL DIDN'T SHOOT HIS GUN BECAUSE HE KNEW

GK WAS DEAD.

42/47 ...there is undisputed evidence that someobody or group of bodies

went into the house and did some engineering betwn the time that GK was

murdered...and the time that the fire burned the house...43/10...somebody

had to go in there and chop the hands and feet off, steal some teeth or

put some teeth in...don't forget to talk about the shotgun...or do some

other things...

...43/41 somebody had to go in there and arrange some stuff...either

before or after Jim Hall ran out...

...44/34 I believe that the state police officer that was carrying him

to the hospital is the one that put that on the air. because Sheriff Matthews

told him that...

45/01 ...in fact let me tell you something that makes me as suspicious

as the dickens... Sheriff Matthews was, I'm guessing, six feet beyoind the

garage door when he was shot, with his hands out, like this...the first

person to get to him and take him somewhere, was guess who? Jim Hall. I

don't think Jim Hall wanted him to get to anybody else...now I don't think

that Jim Hall is a mean enough, or he was trying to make the sheriff die...I

think he wanted to be there if the sheriff said anything, to accuse him

of murdering Bill Wade...jim hall told me, he claimed that he helped him

out of the house, which I don't believe he did. I believe that where the

sheriff fell outside, that Jim picked him up and put him next to the garage

until the police car came and got him. I dont believe that he got him out

of the house...that's a lie, sheriff matthews was not bleeding when he came

out of the house there was no blood ...the only blood was outside where

he was sitting. and I beleivie that when he came out and got shot , and

I don't know that the person that shot him had anything to do with Jim Hall,

quite conceivable that here was one of the state poilice, FBI snippers sitting

up on the hill. They saw a guy walk out with his hands up in the air, he

was wearing a camoflage outfit...this guy had just heard 10 or 15 minutes

of shots and they thought GK came walking out with his hands up and he just

shot him... that's the best off stories, but the thing to dispute that is

that I believe that there was only one shot fired, that would lend credience

to the worse off stories, that says that gene matthews was murdered, in

other words the person on the hill who shot the sheriff, knew who he was

shooting at and intended to kill him, he didn't shoot at the vest, he had

a sniper, it's possible ...he knew exactly what he was doing, to shoot under

the vest...

NAIL#12/34

47/51 ...this is an atrocious story about our govt.. it's like an abused

child story...something that people hate to believe is that parents who

are supposed to love their children can molest em and abuse them. and we

as Americans who have spent 200 years trying to convince ourselves that

we can trust our govt. ...can't readily accept the fact that the FBI and

the us Marshal's service whic is supposed to be the worse for integretty

in law enforcement in this country can murder people and then lie about

it.

this isn't an accident ...

the best thing that could have happened up there is one person was murdered

and the other was killed by accident.

48/45... the worse thing is that two people were murdered by cops and

they've lied about it and then they've gone to extensive means to destroy

evidence which is felonys . and then if that's not bad enough to accept

about our govt...then the courts and the whole judiciary and ..the fed courts

as well are aware of the charges...they know that they exist cause I've

published them in the newspapers...they're afraid of the truth to come out...

if any one of them had the integrety..

POLICE FRATERNITY RAP...

50/30 ...proably, there's only about a dozen of em that know the truth...nobody,

not one person has come forward and said, folks, I'm willing to be interviewed...that's

what should disturb the American public about this story...

NAIL'S DISTURBING STORIES OF HIS PROFESSIONAL DISILLLUSIONMENT.

...if my name goes on a story, it's my integrety...54/35

55/07 ...you have right to do it as a business man, to cheat em, but

I'm not going to be a part of that...that's why I left a job in Tuscon...the

editor, I think he had reason's for the story not being printed...he allowed

me to print the first 4 or 5 stories.... I knew that I had enough that the

FBI had lied... well within a week or two of those stories broke, they said

those stories show our govt. lying and cheating us... they realized what

a slap in the face of the govt. these stories were...

57/40 ...at some point in time he told me I couldn't travel anymore...within

a week he told me to drop the story...after a few weeks I went and told

him what I thought happened...there was some reason why they wouldn't let

me complete the story...and so I quit...I haven't gone back into the conventional...

news...they burned my integrety.

13:00/15

...some people went in that house, fully beliving the wrong person

had been murdered... their intent to destroy evidence...their intent was

to make the body unrecognizable...I think the teeth thing may have been

done after the fire, the hands and feet were cut off before the fire.

13;01/10 after ...another thing that was done I believe was that automatic

weapon that GK was carrying with him

NAIL4

...now you have to remember that GK HAD FLOWN, from ND to ARK in feb...he

had remained hidden at an undisclosed location in western ark. for 2 or

3 months before moving to Art Russell's and then the Ginters. ...so there

are a number of people...and I've talked to the previous people he stayed

with and he did not have a shotgun. In other words everything that he had

was in a knapsack and the rifle he carried over his shoulder...if there

was a shotgun... everybody I talked with, none of these people told me they

saw him with a shotgun...after the house was torched, they found the remains

of a shotgun from ND...now I need to give a little background so this will

make sense...

02/35 ...during the shooting in ND, there's a letter, proably not the

only letter he wrote...GK explained the shooting... Gordon walked over to

this wounded man...he had a shotgun right beside him and Gordon reached

down and took the shotgun away from him... GK did not take the shotgun with

him... when the house was burned down the shotgun was found there. ..now

here's what I believe happened... I know how to prove it... if I could get

to US Marshal airplance records...I believe there's a guy named Kurfener...ordered

someone to go back and get that shotgun that night. ...someone had been

murdered here who they could not identify and some steps had been taken

to be sure he was misidenified...if they had just one piece of evidence

that this person had come from ND, then even if the house was blown up,

and the only thing they found was a shotgun from ND, then everyone would

believe that was GK wouldn't they?

05/06 ...see I believe at some point their full intention was to blow

up the house and have this shotgun there, they burned the house and then

put the shotgun in later that night , the next morning, after the shotgun

was put in the house , they abandoned the house, never did a grid search...just

abandoned it. ...I fully believe that somebody flew back to ND and

END TAPE @ 13/05/40

CREDITS

with interviews of...

Joan Kahl
Yorie Kahl
Lynn Crooks
Toots Mathis
Dennis Fisher
John Noah
Irv Nodland
Bill Kennelly
Prof. Ed Gran
Jack McLamb
Delores Everts
Scarlet Skiftu
Herman Widicker
August Pankow
Victor Seil
Marlys Klimek
Ron Perleberg
Len Martin
Brad Kapp
Robert Holiday
Tom Lee
Ed Fitzpatrick
Gene Nail
Buford Terrell
Marlene Gaysek
Bob Ralston
Darrel Graf
Steve Schnabel
Jack Swan
Loreen Dyck
Lorna/Loreen
Mark Stagg
Sheriff Ray Weatherby
Jack Miller

cinematography

Tracy Adams
Allison Hoffman
Jeffrey F. Jackson

production design

Jim Haddon
Peter Lloyd

film editing

Tracy Adams
Martyn Hone
Jeffrey F. Jackson

original music by

Tracy Adams

sound department

Tracy Adams
Jeffrey F. Jackson

stunts

Rex Reddick

produced by

Jeffrey F. Jackson
Angela Kaye

writing by

Jeffrey F. Jackson

directed by

Jeffrey F. Jackson

CHRONOLOGY

A timeline of the life of Gordon Kahl, from early childhood interests, to his marriage to Joan Kahl, his decorated military experience, his outspoken tax protest, the Medina shootout, and his unusual death in Arkansas in 1983.

REVIEWS

VARIETY / Indie documaker Jeffrey F. Jackson sticks it to the IRS and the Feds in "Death & Taxes," a hard-hitting reinvestigation of the 1983 Gordon Kahl case, about which questions still linger. Jackson's unfazed, investigative reporting-style approach and inventive handling of familiar material make this a controversial item for fests and progressive webs. Non-U.S. viewers will also get a charge out of its conspiracy theme. read more

CHRONICLES MAGAZINE / Gordon Kahl was a simple farmer who became famous for not filing income tax returns. Imprisoned and hounded by IRS agents who never did prove he owed any amount of money, Kahl and his son were involved in a shootout with police. The son is still serving a prison sentence, but the father was surrounded and shot in Arkansas by police officers who mutilated and burned his body. read more

GUNS & AMMO / A new video documentary, Death & Taxes, details a case of government murderously out of control that was briefly mentioned in the October 1994 Guns & Ammo article "The Ugly Truth About Gun Control." Death & Taxes is the story of Gordon Kahl, a North Dakota farmer and decorated World War II veteran, and his apparent death at the hands of federal agents. read more