Prof. Ed Gran Professor at University of Arkansas GRAN#15   PROF. ED GRAN WALK THRU HOUSE:   00/36...ok, when the fifty or so law enforcement officers came in they drove up to this point right here. And Leonard had been leaving to go on a little fishing trip. They called Norma out of the house and they were standing here. They took Norma on up the hill...00/50... ...handcuffed her, and placed her beside a car up there. ...00/55...All this time Leonard was demanding a search warrant from Jim Blasingame, who was head of the FBI and in charge of the operation. While Leonard was demanding a search warrant, three of the officers...1/04... ...left the party right there, came across the corner of the garage right here and enteree the washroom of the house right here. Now as they entered the washroom of the house there, ...1/15?...if you look down the house, the second window is the kitchen area. And just inside the kitchen area according to the testimony of Leonard and Norma. Showed that GK was sitting at the kitchen table facing down the livingroom, watch TV...1/33... ...keep in mind Gk was very hard of hearing, so the TV was turned up very, very loud...1/40... ...so the three officers walked in the washroom here...   1/52...All the individuals on the outside of the house testified basically that there was a series of several rapid shots, bang, bang, bang, real quick...2/02... ...when that happened, Ed Fitz. came out of the door here, came around, this was his testimony, he's an ARK state police trooper, came out around, went to the kitchen window, which was right over there, the second window and stuck his shotgun up thru the window and fired off several shotgun shots into the kitchen area...2/27... ...2/39...okay, when the law enforcement officers came down into this area here, leonard had gone to go fishing and he had backed into this area here. With officers behind him. Leonard of course wanted to know what was going on, they told him to call his wife Norma from the inside of the house out...2/55... ...so, leonard came over to the corner of the house and called his wife, she was eating..she came outside. And Leonard at this time was demanding a search warrant from this army of law enforcement officers...3/08... ...While he was doing that, three of those officers came from the area right here, came up across the front of the garage, around the corner here...3/18... ...and entered thru the washroom area right here. The three officers after they entered the washroom area here. ...GRAN WALKS INTO THE HOUSE)...3/26...   ...3/35...(GRAN @ CORNER OF GARAGE, MS) ...OKAY the troop of law enforcement officers, roughly about fifty, came in from up on top of the hill there, came down this way. Leonard previously had gone fishing...and ran into to them and he backed all way down the hill to right here...3/50... ...they asked leonard to then please call his wife outside. So he came to the corner of the garage and called his wife outside. Norma came...4/00... ...outside, they went back over there to that area. Leonard at that time was asking Jim Blasingame of the FBI, asking him for a search warrant...4/12... ...and he refused to give him one. And while that was transpiring, three of the law enforcement officers left the area there. CAme across the front of the garage there, came around the corner, and entered the washroom at this point right here...4/26...(GRAN ENTERES HOUSE)   ...4/35...(GRAN WALKS OUT OF THE HOUSE) ...the first one to come out of the building after the shots were fired was Ed Fitz.. And when he came out of the building, and by the way, the Ark. State Troopers were the only ones that had shotguns, So he came out of the building, went down the building to the second window, which is the kitchen window...(PAN TO WINDOW)...4/57... ...AND JUST INSIDE that window is where Mr. Kahl had been eating lunch and watching TV...5/01... ...he stuck his gun up in the window and just fired four or five of the shotgun shots inside the window. Now we know that because Fitz. testified...5/12... ...at one of the hearins that he was the first one to come afterward and he was the one to fire the shots inside the window...5/19... ... ...5/30...after fitz came out of the house and fired in the window there, the second law enforcement officer to come out was Jim Hall, a US Marshal, he came out and went to a corner of the building...5/43.... ...basically yelled out that they killed each other and went out to where the other officers were...5/50... ...at that point in time, the whole place was inundated with rifle fire. You can see that later on as you look at the front of the house...5/59... ...after the rifle fire subsided a little bit. The last law enforcement officer in the house was Sheriff Gene Matthews. And according to Jim Hall he had been shot. What we believe happend though is he may have been shot, but he had a vest on...6/13... ...and he wasn't killed and he came out this door here, Sheriff Matthews and entered this is a single stall garage here with a root cellar in the back. Came out here, all the time now there is a lot of rifle fire this way, but he's protected from the corner of the garage by that rifle fire...6/31... ...and he went ahead then and entered the garage here, there is a window on the far side over there, there's all kinds of bullet holes in the frame over there...6/41... ...he went in the garage, immediately noticed that it's not safe there. And he went ahead and went on back to the root cellar...6/47... ...now how do we know he went back to the root cellar? The medical examiners office in their report show that his boots and his clothes were caked with mud. And the only area in the whole place for any mud at all was on the root cellar floor...it was real wet and it's a dirt floor...7/08... ...7/16...okay when Sheriff Matthews came out of the hallway here, when there was a lull in the firing , he came into the garage area here. And testimony of the law enforcement officers says that they heard him in this area here...7/27... ...and we believe that he didn't just stay in this area here. their testimony is that he was shot inside the house. If he had been shot inside the house, there would have been a lot of blood on the floor in the garage...there is none at all, so...7/42... ...testimony from the medical examiners office showed that he had a lot of mud on his clothes. And the only mud was in the root cellar in the back of the garage area. So he went back there for immediate safety because there was a lot of firing coming in the window...you can see a lot of bullet holes in the window over there...It would have been very ...7/57... ...unsafe in this part of the garage. So when there was a lull in the firing. Sheriff Matthews left the root cellar and came out thru this door here. there is a lull in the firing now. He is a law enforcement officer and wants to get back to the safety of where everybody else is...8/15... ...so he comes out around the corner here as such...8/20...   (NEW ANGLE BY CORNER OF GARAGE)...8/21... ...sheriff matthews came around the corner of the garage and across the front of the garage here. And the law enforcement officers are standing over there. He got right to the corner here and lets just stop for a minute. Up on the top of the hill...8/40... ...there were several law enforcement officers. Perry Webb was one of them, he was a deputy sheriff. And when he got to the corner of the building right here. What we believe...8/49... ...happened was. One of the sheriff's fired. They couldt see who it was. All they knew , somebody was coming out from behind the corner of the building...8/59... ...the killing shot that killed Matthews, came in his shoulder here from the side, exited underneath his arm here, went in just above his vest, just a fraction of an inch. all the way thru his chest cavity. Penetrated the lung. Into the downward area here. One of the FBI agents, Dero Downing...9/17... ...from over at the jonesboro office , testified in the transcipt that the killing shot for Matthews came at the corner of the garage. Now that's been all been ignored by law enforcement authorities. but that we think is extrememly significant...9/31... ...so we believe that the sheriff was killed right here accidently by one of his own officers...9/38... ...well, the angle that the shot entered Matthews is at a downward slant. And to sort of check that out. I got a surveying instrument that measures angggular elevation. Set it up here, set it on top of the hill over there and that angular evelvation is virtually identical to within a franction of a degree of the angle that the killing shot came in across Sheriff Matthews in a downward trajectory...10/07... ...we think that tends to very strongly confirm that theory...10/13... ... (NEW ANGLE INSIDE OF HOUSE) ...10/19...okay three law enforcement officers came in thru the door of the utilitity room here, came across to this portion of the utilityroom here. In the utility room there was a door...10/30... ...I mean a wall that went all the way across covered up the stove, this is the back of refrigerator. There was a door heregoing from the utility room ...10/42... ...then into the kitchen area. Now at this point in time the testimony of Jim Hall and Ed Fitz was that the sheriff went thru the door first...10/55... ...there was dispute to that. So Matthews was the first one to enter the kitchen area. He went thru this door right here. Keep in mind...11/05... ...keep in mind on the int. now, the TV was on. It was turned up very loud because GK was hard of hearing. It was about six oclock in the evening, the sun was going down in the west over there...the whole area is very very shady, it was very dusky, the lights were out in this area here so they could watch the TV and even though there was quite a bit of light out, it was very dusky...11/32... ...that sort of sets the scene for when sheriff matthews enters this area here... ...11/45...(WREATH SHOT)...todays day is June 3rd, 1990. This is the seventh anniv. of the incident that occured here in Smithville. We don't know who did it, but somebody has obviously brought a memorial wreath out here to commerate the events and of which there has been no formal investigation to date...12/05...   12/10...(NEW ANGLE INSIDE)...Sheriff Matthews went in thru this door here first. A few seconds later, Jim Hall testified, course this is the only testomony that we have, that he went in behind sheriff Matthews. And when he entered now, there were two law enforcement officers inside, just a few seconds after he went in Fitz testified that there were a rapid series of gunshots that transpired...12/35... ...and fitz. then left the utility room , went out around to the kitchen window and fired the shotgun into the kitchen area. Now at this point in time we have two law enforcement officers inside the kitchen...lets go over to the other side and see what might have happened over there...12/52...   ...(NEW ANGLE) ...13/03...SHERIFF MATTHEWS CAME in thru this doorway here followed by jim hall. And when they came in thru the doorway, Norma and Leonards testimony was that GK was sitting in a chair right here facing this way watching TV...13/20... ...you can see this is the kitchen area, this is the stove here, refrigerator here, stove there, there is the sink area over there right underneath the window that Ed Fitz fired the shotgun thru. there's six chairs, eight chairs here with a table...13/36... ...and the govt story basically was GK was somewhere over in the stove, refrigerator area. And when Jim Hall came around the corner, he and the sheriff fired almost simultaneously, killing each other...13/52... ...GK died instantly, and Jim Hall then immediately left the kitchen area , went back out thru the door , got over to the corner of the building and yelled, they both killed each other...14/08... ...and went out to the safety of the law enforcement group out there...14/11... ...Now there is some serious discrepancies with that story and just a few of them. First of all the autopsy that the state medical examiner did on GK ...14/20... ...showed that the bullet entered the portion of the head right here, upper, rear, right, and it exited at a downward angle right here. GK died instantly...14/34... ...okay at the same time the shot that killed Matthews , entered the left side of the shoulder right here, went thru the arm, broke the arm, penetrated, went in just above his vest, into his chest area on a downward slant and it was a rifle shot...14/51... ...so somehow we have to have the very unusual situation, where GK was watching TV with his assault rifle right next to him. He was obviously sitting donw. And at the same time he had to be in a position to fire downward to kill Sheriff Matthews...15/10... ..but at the same time, Matthews had to be above GK to fire downward...for GK to have shot the sheriff he would have had to had his rifle pointed behind him, in a downward trajectory like that to fire the killing shot that killed ...the sheriff...and there's no way...15/31... ...that two men could kill each other in a face to face shoot out when both were shot from behind...15/35... ...now both autopsys, Sheriff Matthews and GKs, that's a very serious discrepicency...that's never been addressed by any official investigation by a law enforcement group...15/48... ...keep in mind that out at the corner of the garage that Dero did testify in a court statement that the killing shot that killed sheriff matthews came at the corner of the garage way at the other side of the building...We believe that...16/03... ...there has been enough discrepancies in the whole story that it warrants a full investigation. What we think happened...16/12... ...basically is this, Matthews came in thru the door first. followed immediately by a US Marshal, Jim Hall. If GK had ever lived to testify according to the what happened up in ND, it would have been extrememly embarrassing for the US Marshals office. ...16/32...So we believe an official an unofficial "Kill on Sight" Policy was issued thru the US Marshals Service, Jim Hall knew about that...Sheriff Matthews...16/41... ....came in, GK didn't see him because it was dark. And Jim Hall came right around the corner here. GK was sitting right there in the chair where leonard and Norma testified he was sitting. Hall came right around the corner of the refrigerator here, saw him sitting there, pulled out his gun and executed GK on sight, right just like that...17/05... ...the trajectory is absolutely perfect, and matches the trajectory of the killing shot that killed GK...17/13... ... ...17/17...Now what we belive happened was, that when Jim Hall entered thru the kitchen door here, came into the kitchen area. GK was sitting in the chair right here. We belive that he basically pulled out his gun and executed GK right there...17/34.. ...now when that happened Matthews was somewhere over in this area. Matthews, keep in mind now, it was quite dark in here because they were watching TV, the sun was going down...17/45.... ...Matthews walked over to the person that had just been shot, laying on the floor, and he said something to the effect, my god, you have killed Bill WAde. Well, how do we know that that may have happened? Well,...18/00... ...Wade was sitting at home that evening and he got a phone call from a friend and he said, Bill, you've just been killed...18/10... ...and it came across the police scanner that Bill Wade had just been killed. Well, it turned out that GK and Bill Wade could have been twin brothers...18/20... ...they're both almost the same age, they're both balding, both wore dark rim glasses, both almost the same weight and in the , they did not know who was in the house. So in the dusk, Matthews looked at that. They never could find Bill Wade that afternoon and they thought Bill was out here, and they thought, so Jim Hall was just ending 30 years of service with the US Marshals. He had just been told by the local sheriff that he had killed the wrong man, he had to make an instant decision...18/52... ...or his whole carreer was going down in flames and he was going to spend the next few years in prison. So what we believe Jim Hall did, he pulled up, and he shot the sheriff point blank in the chest...19/04... ...but, Jim Hall wasn't aware that the sheriff had a vest. Well, the shock of being shot like that knocked the sheriff down. I mean knocked him completely down. Jim Hall thought he had killed the sheriff, he ran outside and reported they'd just killed each other. Fitz ran around to the kitchen window...19/23... . ...then and he fired his shotgun inside the window. Well in the time that it took for Hall to leave go out thru the utility room, in that time interval the sheriff was stunned...but he stood up...19/39... ...well, by that time fitz is at the window and he reached up and shot in the window here and the sheriff got shot agian...19/48... ...now how do we know that, well the autopsy report of Matthews, clearly stated in the ballistics part , that the sheriff was shot in the back with a shotgun and there were three pellets taken out of the clothing of the sheriff indicating he'd been shot in the back. So here we have the sheriff who was shot in the chest, first of all...20/10... ...by Hall, second he's shot by someone outside, he's going, what's going on? and he's stunned...as soon as Hall goes around the corner, they begin shooting all around the thing here. The sheriff ducks down, he doesn't know what's going on , he's in an absolute state of panic and shock...20/29... ...there's a lull in the firing, the sheriff then leaves this area here, goes out thru the door there. Gets over to the corner, they are still firing sporadically and enters the garage area. Finds out that in the garage area there is no safety there because there is bullets coming in thru the window. ...20/45... ...so he goes on back to the only safe place which is the root cellar on in back, and that's where he gets the mud on his clothes. The firing ceases, after a period of time. The sheriff comes out of the root cellar, out the garage door. Annouces he's coming out. These law enforcement officers over here can see him...21/03... ...but the ones up on the hill can't. As far as they're concerned the bad guy is still alive because of all the firing . so the sheriff comes across the corner there and he's shot accidentally by one of his own men...21/15... up on the hill with a 227 rifle. So that's what we believe happened. And we believe if we could ever have a grand jury investigation to where all these officers could be put under oath where they've got to tell the truth and if they don't, it's a felony five year potential prison sentence for purjury...21/35... ...we believe that basically that type of story will eventually come out...21/41...   END ED GRAN INTERVIEW (TAPE CONTINUES W/RAY WADE) 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

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This set of 6 DVD's comprises over 13 hours of uncut footage, including a 2+ hour prison interview with Yorie Kahl, and candid interviews with wife Joan Kahl. In this rich stockpile of research, you'll find many more threads than could reasonably be pursued in the final feature. A little-known fact regarding Death & Taxes is the surprising connection to Timothy McVeigh and the ATF / Oklahoma City Bombing. Here's a clip of Jackson sharing the story during a director's commentary on his film Postal Worker. The story of Gordon Kahl so captured the attention of mainstream America that it was turned into a highly-rated made-for-television movie titled In The Line of Duty - Manhunt In The Dakotas.

DEATH & TAXES is the story of Gordon Kahl, a North Dakota farmer who became America's "most-wanted" fugitive. How had a WWII war hero become the target of one of the largest manhunts in FBI history?

Was Kahl a racist, gun-toting fanatic? Or a victim of an IRS policy of harassing vocal tax protestors into silence to keep the rest of us intimidated? Did Bill Clinton conspire to cover-up the torture and execution of Gordon Kahl in Arkansas? Did federal agents mutilate and burn the body to cover-up the murder of the wrong man? DEATH & TAXES follows the trail of Gordon Kahl as his body is exhumed for a new autopsy. Building on newsreel clips covering two fiery shootouts and hundreds of interviews -- with IRS agents and federal prosecutors as well as Kahl's family and supporters -- D&T explores the myths and controversies surrounding a man who dared to challenge the federal income tax system. Some revile Kahl as a cop killer. Others revere him as an American patriot. Which was he?