Chevie O'Brien Kehoe (born January 29, 1973) is an American convicted murderer. He is serving three consecutive life sentences for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of William Mueller and his family. His accomplice, Daniel Lewis Lee, was sentenced to death for the murders, and was executed on July 14, 2020.
Early life and education
Kehoe was born in Orange Park, Florida, United States. He was the oldest of eight sons born to Kirby and Gloria Kehoe, and was named after his father's favorite brand of automobile (Chevrolet). His father had served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. When Kehoe was an infant, his father moved the family to Madison County, North Carolina.
In 1985, Kirby moved the family again, this time to a property near Deep Lake in Stevens County, Washington. Kehoe entered Colville Junior High School as a ninth grader in 1987 where he was an honor student. Future serial killer Israel Keyes was a family friend. In 1988, his parents pulled him and his younger brother, Cheyne, out of public school, and from then on they were home-schooled.
Raised with increasingly extreme anti-government and white supremacist beliefs, Kehoe formed a plan to bring down the United States government with his self-styled "Aryan People's Republic" militia. Kehoe married Karena Gumm and the couple had three children. Kehoe took a second wife, Angie Murray in 1993, but the relationship only lasted for 54 days.
Crimes
In June 1995, Kehoe and an accomplice kidnapped and robbed Malcolm and Jill Friedman, a couple believed to be Jewish, who owned a store at which Kehoe was once employed.
Mueller family murders
In January 1996, Kehoe and another accomplice, Daniel Lewis Lee, left the state of Washington and traveled to Arkansas. On January 11, 1996, they arrived at the home of William Frederick Mueller, a gun dealer who lived near Tilly, Arkansas, and who was in possession of a large collection of weapons, ammunition, and cash. Kehoe and his father had previously, in February 1995, robbed Mueller once already, and Kehoe expected to find valuable property at the house. Dressed as FBI agents, the two men tried to enter the home of the Muellers, but they were not at home. When the Muellers returned, Lee and Kehoe overpowered and incapacitated Mueller and his wife, Nancy Ann Mueller (née Branch). They then questioned Nancy Mueller's 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Powell, about where they could find the cash, guns, and ammunition, forcing her to talk by shocking her with an electric cattle prod.
After finding $50,000 in cash, guns, and ammunition, they shot each of the three victims with a stun gun, causing them to pass out. They then placed plastic bags over their heads, and sealed the bags with duct tape, suffocating them to death. There is some evidence that Lee was unwilling to kill Sarah, so Kehoe killed her. They took the victims in Kehoe's vehicle to the Illinois Bayou, where they taped rocks to them and threw each body into the water, a fast-moving stream, despite its status as a bayou. The bodies were discovered in Lake Dardanelle near Russellville, Arkansas in late June 1996.
Kehoe and his family took the stolen property to a motel in Spokane, Washington, by way of the Christian Identity community of Elohim City, Oklahoma.
William Mueller had put some of the stolen firearms into a Federal Firearms License registry as insurance against potential theft. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) used the ID numbers in the registry to trace the stolen firearms to several other men who confirmed they had purchased them in Spokane from Chevie Kehoe and his father Kirby.