Theft of guns fed fear

TILLY -- About two months before he and his family vanished, gun dealer and patriot movement member William Mueller told a key Arkansas militia spokesman that he feared for his life.
Mueller family friends in Searcy County said Sunday they believe the Muellers were abducted from their Tilly home in January and murdered.
Arkansas State Police spokesman Wayne Jordan said the bound and badly decomposed bodies of Mueller, 53; his wife, Nancy, 28; and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah, were pulled Saturday from a bayou in Pope County.
But Pope County Sheriff Jay Winters said he would not release the names of the victims until the State Crime Laboratory provided a positive identification.
State Crime Laboratory officials were to transport the bodies to Little Rock today, Pope County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Phillips said Sunday.
George Eaton, publisher of the Patriot Report, said Sunday Mueller's concerns about his family's safety stemmed from the 1995 burglary of the two-story stone and wood home where he lived with his wife and her daughter until they vanished Jan. 5.
Eaton said Mueller may have known who took $50,000 in gold and silver bullion, coins, guns and gun parts in early 1995. He feared they would return and kill him.
That robbery occurred about two months after Royal gun collector Roger Moore was gagged and bound with duct tape in a daylight robbery linked to the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
Investigators have not indicated any links between the slayings of the Muellers, the earlier burglary, and the robbery at Moore's home Nov. 5, 1994. Both thefts occurred within months of the bombing. Eaton says the timing troubles him.
"I didn't think there was any involvement with the Oklahoma City bombing or that other robbery," Eaton said. "But it's a big coincidence that there were two big robberies like that in Arkansas."
Eaton said Mueller confessed his fears that he might be robbed or murdered when the two last met at a militia-oriented church service in November or December 1995.
He said Mueller invited him to a religious meeting at his home in Tilly in January, but Eaton couldn't make it. Relatives said the Muellers were last seen in Tilly on Jan. 5 and were believed en route to a Springdale gun show they never attended.
Their white Jeep Cherokee and a trailer in which they carried guns and precious metals was found abandoned on a road 17 miles north of Dover in February. It was about 27 miles from where their bodies were recovered Saturday.
Missing, said Eaton, would have been an odd assortment of gold and silver, guns, gun parts and survivalist gear --much like the material stolen from the Mueller home in early 1995. Mueller, suspicious of banks and fearful of another burglary, converted his cash into precious metals and took his savings on road trips.
When the Jeep and empty trailer were found, Missouri investigators inspected the scene. Police are speculating that Mueller may have been acquainted with a suspect wanted by Missouri authorities, Timothy Coombs. Coombs is accused of shooting a Missouri police officer in the officer's home in 1994.
Searcy County Sheriff Kent Griggs said Mueller and Coombs were both members of an anti-government group.
"Nobody took this man from here without a struggle," said David Mason, who was standing outside the house that he rented to his friend, William Mueller. He added that more than one person must have been involved since there was no sign of a struggle.
Mason said he found the lock to the house door forced open shortly after the Mueller family disappeared in January.
The Muellers lived in Tilly, some 38 miles northeast of Russellville. William Mueller, an electrician, had worked at one time for Wal-Mart in Russellville.
Sylvia Mason, wife of David Mason, said she only became worried after not hearing from the Muellers for about two weeks. That was because the family would come and go from the converted schoolhouse, she said.
"I became really worried after discovering the building had been broken into and their animals weren't fed," she said. The pets include a dog that is part chow, and a cat.
The Masons said they know of no one who wanted to hurt the Muellers and can think of no other reason than robbery as the motive for the killings.
But David Mason said he had no idea why someone who intended to rob and kill the Muellers would abduct them, kill them and dump the bodies miles away, instead of committing the entire crime at the isolated house.
The house, which David Mason first built as a Christian school some 14 to 15 years ago, sits along Arkansas 16 and there are no immediate neighbors. The Masons said that often the closest houses are unoccupied.
Sylvia Mason described the Muellers "as a good Christian family." "We are very saddened," David Mason said. "They were nice people."
But he said that he felt the Muellers were the victims of foul play since January and added: "I'm very glad that they have been found." He said that finding the bodies is the second step toward solving the mystery that he wants solved.
He said the Muellers had moved into their rental house about two years ago. He said he had not known the Muellers before that and doesn't believe the Muellers were a member of a fringe political group or a cult.
Larry Darter, a former Pope County sheriff, said Mueller once was his neighbor.
"They were good neighbors," Darter said. "We watched out for each other's place."
Darter said that he believes William Mueller moved to Arkansas from New York more than 10 years ago. He said Mueller had been a constable in Pope County.
He said also that William Mueller sold some tapes that were anti-government. But that didn't stop them from being friends, he said.
"We just didn't believe the same thing," Darter said.
Sylvia Mason said she found evidence of a second break-in following their disappearance.
"The bottom of the front door was kicked in. The door at the top of the stairs was kicked in. They even left their glasses by the bedside," she said. "Everything in the building told us they were taken against their will."
In the Royal robbery, Moore reported that a masked robber wearing military camouflage stole $59,000 in guns, coins, precious metals and pre-Columbian jade and a key to a Hot Springs safety deposit box from his residence near Hot Springs.
Federal agents seized Chinese assault rifles, the bank key, and other items stolen from the property of Terry Lynn Nichols in Michigan last year.
Nichols, 41, of Decker, Mich., and Timothy James McVeigh, a 28-year-old itinerant who sometimes stayed in Kingman, Ariz., were indicted last August on charges of murder, conspiracy, and use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing.
Some of Moore's guns were sold to a Kingman pawnshop by local resident Michael Fortier, who told federal agents he did so at McVeigh's direction.
McVeigh and Nichols are expected to stand trial in Denver on the bombing charges late this year. Fortier, 28, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and transporting stolen firearms. He awaits sentencing.
Eaton said Mueller never tied his fears to Oklahoma City and never mentioned knowing McVeigh.
"We talked about how sad it was," Eaton said. "It seriously hurt his business, and it hurt my newsletter a lot."
He said Mueller had met an acquaintance of McVeigh's, Andy Strassmeir, during a brief, strained encounter at a gun show in Fort Smith sometime before the bombing.
Strassmeir, a former German army lieutenant, worked security at Elohim City, a Christian identity community near Muldrow, Okla. Officials say McVeigh called the community asking for "Andy" a few days before the bombing.
Eaton said he introduced the men, who argued for 10 minutes on whether Strassmeir had given Mueller a $10 or $20 bill to purchase some merchandise. He said they parted on good terms.
"He (Mueller) was just a real good American. They were just nice people. I don't think he would ever have had anything to do with anything illegal," Eaton said.
If anything, said Eaton, Mueller was naive and so trusting he had no security at his house.
The first burglary, which occurred while they were away at a gun show, drained their savings, Eaton said. Mueller was scheduled to go to New York and pick up a $50,000 inheritance check from his father's death before he disappeared. Eaton said he never got the check.
Eaton published a patriot movement newsletter in northern Idaho and helped negotiate the standoff between federal troops and white separatist Randy Weaver and his family at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992. Weaver's son and wife were killed during the confron tation.
Eaton met the Muellers three years ago at a Fort Smith gun show and became friends. Mueller began peddling Eaton's newsletter and a series of audio and video tapes detailing the Ruby Ridge killings, the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, and other extremist clashes.
He said the Muellers avoided the big city gun shows and concentrated on the more frequent, smaller shows in towns like Springdale, Tulsa and Fort Smith.
The shows involved 150 or so dealers, Eaton said. Moore, who also traveled the shows and knew McVeigh, said Sunday it was not uncommon for the dealers to use fake names. He's not sure whether he or his girlfriend, Karen, ever met the Muellers or whether their robberies were related.
"It wasn't unusual for everyone to have a different name," Moore said. "You'd meet someone later and they'd say, "Oh, by the way, that wasn't my real name.' "

This article was published on Monday, July 1, 1996