Details of Bill’s Death

The best full detailed explanation of what actually happened that day was in an unreadable format on the old HOTT website. Here is the long winded dialog in a readable format. If the audio is located it will definitely be added here. You will also find the relevant documents that clarify and verify what is said in this conversation.

Transcript of Bill’s Murder

Rob: Well, why don’t we roll back right to the very beginning I guess. If you could give us some detail on how you and Bill ever ended up hooking up together in the first place like how did you come to know about Bill Cooper, was it through reading Behold A Pale Horse or UFO research or just basically give us an idea of where the two of you first started meeting and talking.

Doyel: Basically it was mainly through research into the Brotherhood of the Snake and the Figian cap of liberty of course it’s relevance to the French Revolution as it’s called and we started with mail correspondence and then went on to phone calls, conversations back and forth all the time and it became quite consistent. And then I decided to host him in a very relevant area of California where at the time the so called patriot movement was very strong so I hosted him for a two day seminar on symbolism because we had been comparing notes already so basically they, when I say they, him and Annie and the girls, Ally was just a little baby, came out to my region of California, the central valley, compared notes real quick the day before and I had all the equipment, the multimedia equipment set up and we held a two day 16 hour roughly, seminar on symbolism.

Rob: So, he would have been covering a lot of the stuff that he covered in Mystery Babylon and then continued after that.

Doyel: Yeah, of course, yeah. We did a full video presentation so people didn’t have to rely just pure on explanation because of, you know, it’s one thing to have read it, studied it and understand it or whatever after years of studying the stuff but when you can relay it with visual aids we had all that available held that conference, and at that point his regular conference was coming up again and he asked this time if I would be willing to come out and speak, which I did so and of course that’s all video taped.

Rob: Now that’s down in Eager there or just outside of Eagar, Pinetop or whatever.

Doyel: Yes, and that was at Jeff’s ranch, many people would be familiar with Jeff and then we started working together. Of course, then after that it was basically a daily phone call type situation or something. After that, and next year we did the conference again. We had pretty much compiled a lot of research and decided we needed to compile it as a big unit because I had stuff he had never seen and he had stuff that I had never seen, etc. and we had thousands of these things and we compared notes so we compiled it and at that point in ’98 is when I moved full time because I would just take my army leave and come out here for oh a week at a time and things like that and spend the time out here with him in person, and at that point in 1998 is when I moved here permanently after that last conference. And I moved in with him ofcourse and the family.

Rob: And then he was pretty much doing it, I remember hearing your voice a lot of the time in those years doing the show or exclusively on your own when Bill was taking a night off or whatever. But I guess it was at that point full time Hour of the Time related research with Bill.

Doyel: Yes.

Rob: You were pretty much part of the company.

Doyel: Yes, besides the girls having latched on to me pretty heavily because of their age and I’d been around all my cousins children, so dealing with children was no issue with me. Everything became just part, it was just a family. I lived with them, we split up who was mowing the lawn, who was cooking, who was shopping, whatever. Then that day came along when the federal marshal showed up while I was in Showlow running a mail errand for the operation over there in Showlow because you can only get so much here. You go to Showlow, it’s kind of the metropolitan area for us.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: Go over there and do bigger things and when I got back, is when he was waiting for me, and the marshal had showed up with their theoretical warrant which they never served, by the way, because upon being notified of their jurisdiction, they immediately walked out to pass the middle of the road, they knew that, they knew the deal, because half way over would have been over towards his property so they backed out and that’s when tension of course heightened at that point.

Rob: Now, what year…

Doyel: I mean all people started coming out of the woodwork, Fillerup with the FBI out ofPinetop-Lakeside those situations.

Rob: Now, that wasn’t the same warrant that we were talking about for the night of November 5?

Doyel: No.

Rob: You said that warrant was never served anyways but that was a different…

Doyel: Yeah. This one was a deal from the federal government and it was basically for IRS and bank fraud.

Rob: OK.

Doyel: But they served it with U.S. federal marshals and he was on the web site and I have the copies in fact on a CD of the website from that period where he was listed right on the front page in the top 10.

Rob: OK.

Doyel: And that was a whole different issue which they couldn’t prove crap on so that’s basically why they didn’t pursue it. Then Fillerup, now he was with the FBI out ofPinetop, now that is who Bill had contacted to give him all the evidence after the Oklahoma City bombing, asking him to pass on to the chain of command that this was an inside job and Fillerup was familiar with this of course so then he came over while we were just barbequing one day in the back yard but it overlooked the road and he came zooming up one day and we stopped him and he got out and tried this typical ploy “Oh, I just got this envelope I want to give you, it’s a personal note and this and that . No. See ya and go tell your bosses you guys really stepped on this time and it’s not gonna play down like Waco or nothing and at that point it was basically a full defensive mode as of that point as far as the property and the family because of the probing constantly by the federal agents.

Rob: Now, that eventually resulted in, I guess we could say, a stalemate where nothing progressed any further after, well a certain number of years had gone by, I guess.

Doyel: Yes, and leading up to that day in fact, except for the various probing and typical stuff they would do, taking pictures of me going shopping, I don’t know what the big deal was of me buying a head of lettuce that I could do things like that. Except for things like that they basically backed off and they realized that they had nothing to go on whatsoever. It was just to shut them up and in fact Fillerup was eventually replaced because he ‘didn’t bring Bill in’ and was moved off to their Siberia, wherever that might be.

Rob: So, as we move towards November 5 then, you weren’t living in the house with Bill at that point anymore, you had moved out on your own in Eagar?

Doyel: Yes, that’s correct, down the way, I don’t know, 3 blocks or so.

Rob: I’ve been to both houses, ladies and gentlemen. Without the use of binoculars, you can easily see Bill’s house from a lot of points in town but very easily from where Doyel is right now so.

Doyel: Yes.We did that partially because of the fact that it was very convenient to constantly keep an eye out because if anything looked goofy at my old place like one day just a stray dog, and a police officer was stopped here, instantly the phone was ringing and Bill could see the property.

Rob: And Bill had some contact with local police and Bill was actually quite friendly with the Eagar police department. Is that true?

Doyel: Yes. He had actually had both good and bad to say about the chief, Scott Garms at the time. Of course, most people only remember the bad, but actually he was probably 50:50 actually on the air and in person both and in fact, a lot of the law enforcement, I could safely say, actually about 90% listened to the show every night because when it was even skipping, we would get phone calls about music during the day. So it was something they would listen to all day and so there was a relationship or rapport I guess it would be better to say.

Rob: For those people who don’t know, Bill ran 101 FM in Eagar, it was a low power micro FM station that broadcast basically 24 hours a day. It would broadcast the Hour of the Time show live and some other programs when they were available, but mostly it was an oldies music station classic hits from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and up to modern day I guess, so that’s what Doyel is talking about when he say people and the police would be listening to the station all day because it was broadcast locally in the Springer/Eagar area.

So what happened, I guess, I don’t know what time did you get up in the morning on November 5. You obviously were doing your normal routine with Bill. How did the events of the day go?

Doyel: Well, I had gone to work like normal, that would be the fifth technically and gone to work, done all the normal stuff, got the mail, did the errands, did some shopping stuff and came up to have lunch like normal. He was actually quite jolly that day, everything was up, a big project he had been working on as far as finishing up Cua Viet was finished. I wish people could see the result that evening and as far as the air goes and so everything was basically normal. I mean that was all there was to it and then I went off on my way back to my regular job.

Rob: Now, people will remember the last show that Bill did was on the Cua Viet book and the website, I believe it was cuaviet.com at the time; now that website is no longer up, we do have a copy somewhere. When the book gets published, we’ll try and put that back up. But just so people are aware, Bill didn’t do a huge confrontational broadcast that night where he had challenged local law enforcement to, you know there’s rumours all over the net he had somehow aggravated the police that day on the radio program and that’s why they came later in the evening to finally shut him down for good, so to speak.

Doyel: That’s not true.

Rob: That’s not true. It was just the Cua Viet show, you can actually order that from us if you are interested in getting that just send in and ask for Bill’s final broadcast. So Bill did the show, it would have been what time locally when he would have finished the show up?

Doyel: That would have been 8:00, well ok 9:00 and p.m. of course and then that was just normal par for the course. By then I was home, eating dinner, cookingdinner whatever. I could hear it over the FM, I had that advantage and then that evening I did not listen. No, in fact most times I didn’t listen because I had already helped him put the show together so I knew the content already ahead of time.

Rob: Great

Doyel: So that wasn’t so much an issue. So quite often I didn’t listen to the show, I didn’t listen to it that evening and everything was just par for the course, went to bed, etc. The next morning, the house was waking up, people were getting ready for work, the boys were getting ready for school, etc, and I’m out in the living room headed outside and have my coffee if you will and I notice that the street is full of patrol cars, and we’re talking like dawn, so it’s very early and so I wasn’t sure what was up but I kinda poked my head out, looked around and it was odd how they were arranged. The street was definitely blockaded on each end and there were cars just right out front.

Rob: Now this is out front of your home.

Doyel: Yes, and having not heard anything I thought what the hell is going on. I mean that’s what was running through my head, so I asked inside I don’t know what’s going on and looking out the front window I noticed the Sgt. Fraser, now he’s with the Eagar police department; at the time sergeant, now he’s a lieutenant. He was walking up, he had just appeared to be chastising the new guys, pointing hands and they took off. He came up to the door, and was headed up, I should say, to the property, and so I came out because he was not dressed normal. He’s got the black wind breaker, tactical pants on, not what like you see here, ok. So something was wrong at this point, ok very wrong. Sgt. Fraser just simply said “Hey Doyel, I need to talk to you , if you want to sit down here or go inside or what.” And I said “well, whatever, so I said “let’s sit down here, I’m having a smoke.” So we sat right down there on the front porch and he was very blunt and professional, I feel, it’s the way I would have wanted it delivered, looking at it 20:20. He just said well I gotta let you know that Bill’s dead and what happened was was there had been an alleged complaint against him by Dr. Hamblin in town, Eagar, of a purported assault and basically locally it was just like well whatever and handed off to the county,ok. So the county had sat on it and then decided they had something for a search warrant, so according to Sgt. Fraser, they came to serve that warrant, but they did it with a tactical team and they also did it at 11:47 at night, I believe it was 11:47. Anyway, just shy of midnight, which is obviously out of the normal.You get a guy who isn’t guilty, there’s been nothing yet, nobody’s been served yet even, it’s just supposedly a Dr. in town.

Rob: And I want to reinforce here ladies and gentlemen that Bill did have a relatively friendly rapport with local law enforcement. Now law enforcement in general, of course, Bill did many programs on what he thought was wrong with law enforcement in America, in that they had become law enforcement officers as opposed to peace officers, but locally he had a reasonable rapport with these gentlemen and probably sending a marked patrol car up to Bill’s house at 10:00 in the morning and coming up and knocking on Bill’s door would have resulted in Bill opening the door and talking to these gentleman and obviously they did not want, however this raid was performed, they did not want to talk to Bill. There was a foregone conclusion in their minds, I believe, from everything we can, all of our research we’ve done since then, there was a foregone conclusion in law enforcement didn’t want Bill to walk away from this one. So like you say, Doyel, it is very odd that they decided to do this at 11:30 at night.

Doyel: Yeah, it was out of the norm because I can grab you another handful of people who got the same charges on them probably around town right now and they won’t be getting hit with the county’s tactical team at just shy of midnight just to serve a warrant before a trial or anything. And actually as far as our rapport with law enforcement, we had actually worked with them in cleaning up the area because of transients and what not, happened through the area using drugs and leaving drug paraphernalia around. We had worked with them to get that situation resolved. We had congressmen and their staff at the house while we were barbequing on the back porch, so you know these people were there and that evening according to, at the time, Sgt. Fraser, the sheriff had a tactical meeting at the fire department which was just down the hill and the sheriff conveniently was out of town. So, in charge of the helm was a lieutenant Tafoya, Andrew Tafoya, and he’s nothing but a little rat piece of junk and he had made the call with the sheriff out of town all of that we’re going to take this charge that has been setting around forever, and we’re going to go and serve a warrant, just shy of midnight, but with a tactical team. So, they posed as just a bunch of group of people out causing havoc, drinking beer, whatever, you know, down the way from his house, probably 250 yards.

Rob: Just to give you an idea, ladies and gentlemen, Bill lives on the top of a hill in Eagar and it’s a relatively undeveloped subdivision. Is there still only the one house up on the very top of the hill there, Doyel ?

Doyel: Ironically, just about, to my surprise even, I didn’t know either, driving from the backside, someone moved up a modular just about a month ago.

Rob: Ok. So, I would say there’s probably, I don’t know, 10 or 15 lots up there?

Doyel: Yes.

Rob: Something in that neighborhood and down at the end of the subdivision is kind of a nice view of the whole town and there would be times when teenagers would in fact, you know, on a Friday night or Saturday night, do things that teenagers do, and they would go up there with their six pack of beer and make it into a little bit of a lover’s lane or that kind ofthing, and Bill had in the past gone up and asked groups ofteenagers to get off the hill, basically shoo them off the mountain, I think is the terminology that you used in the past. And of course, they were all scared of getting caught by their parents or whatever, and they would pile into their vehicles and leave Bill’s little subdivision, so this is something that had happened in the past which is probably the reason that Bill didn’t give you a call before he headed out to investigate the ruckus that was going on at the end of the subdivision.

Doyel: I would have to assume so because it was quite normal if something seemed awry. It didn’t matter what hour it was, he would call me and I would be instantly up there even when some guests were there that were not what they had worked themselves up to be, they were scared to go outside and check out things in the dark because the boogey man, so even though there’s three other people, grown men there, he still would have to call me, and I’d go look around and know everything was good, that it was kids down there drinking beer and whatever. It was, you know, quite the normal thing and it was like blueberry hill.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: They had gone up there at this late hour, unmarked by the way, ununiformed and did this event.

Rob: The news reports that I heard said it was a, it was actually quite well phrased in saying that the ruse apparently worked that they had a truck load of drunken teenagers up at the end of Bill’s house, so it was I guess first off the truck that Bill would have seen up there, an unmarked, I’m assuming, half ton truck or something to that effect.

Doyel: Yeah. It was just a plain old Chevy step side, a newer model.

Rob: So they were ununiformed and unmarked in that vehicle, that vehicle was unmarked and the officers were ununiformed. Ok.

Doyel: Yeah, and the stereo was blaring and what not, and the hooting and hollering of course. So it was quite normal, ok, and for something like that, I mean.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: And, now again remember this was per Sgt. Fraser who was called immediately in the middle of the night to go up there and get a debriefing, per se, even thought he was never there, from the sheriff’s deputy about what went on and Bill went down there in his pickup, of course, he’s not gonna walk. Talking midnight, no street lights obviously, rocky road, not paved, drove down to the cul-de-sac told them to skedaddle and they still never identified themselves or anything along those lines. And he, in fact, according to Sgt. Fraser, upon his briefing from the same department, the Apache County Sheriff’s Department, Bill told them “I’m going back to the house to call the Eagar Police”.

Rob: Which is what a typical reaction would have been to say “Hey, if you kids aren’t willing to leave I’m going to go call the cops on you”. And then he wanted them off the property. Now, I just want to draw a definite line between the two police forces that we have involved here in this incident. The first being the local town police, which is the Eager Police Department and the second being the Apache County Sheriff’s Department. Now it’s the Apache County Sheriff’s Department that actually performed this raid in the town of Eagar. So how were, what does Sgt. Fraser have to say about how were they briefed about the fact that the Sheriff’s Department was going to come in and do a raid on Bill’s house in their jurisdiction, I guess.

Doyel: Well, they weren’t. They were completely told after the fact. In fact, the way it came down the chain of command was they performed this and then after the shooting was done, called the chief, which was Scott Garms and notified him that he had a citizen dead. And they did this and this in his town. So then, of course, he called his two right hand men, which was lieutenant and sergeant, and that would be Lieutenant Kirkham and Sgt. Fraser.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: So then, all three of them met immediately and were up there, I think by about 1:00. Because, you know I’m sure the sheriff delayed a little while, covered up whatever they wanted to cover up, then they had to make phone calls and people had to get away and get dressed, so there’s an hour leeway there. They got up there and that’s when, of course, the local pd, the police department, needed a briefing. You know, what just occurred in our township.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: And at that point is when they relayed this information and Sgt. Fraser feeling that he admitted in his own report that he had a pretty good rapport with us, thought he would be the most logical one to come to my doorstep.

Rob: Ok. So, just to catch back up to where we were, I apologize for taking you off track there for a second, but Bill had gone down and the last thing you had said was that he had offered or he had suggested that he was going to call Eagar Police Department if they weren’t willing to get off the mountain, and at this point he was still unaware that they were officers trying to serve an arrest warrant on him.

Doyel: Yeah, and in fact at that point based on just historical evidence in Arizona, being that he was going to involve law enforcement, the agency should have identified themselves which they still did not do and they admitted that to the police. Ok, so he had to turn around, which would be a three point turn around, because basically a lane and a half and was headed back to the house, like I say about 250 yards or so, and at that point a deputy came out of the little shrubs, the juniper trees, and they rushed his vehicle because he was just bebopping back very slow actually which wouldn’t be uncommon, either. You know by going back slowly and what not, that might be the last thing that a high school kid need to convince him that this guy is not messing around and go back and call he cops. And they came at his vehicle, basically three directions and the one that came at the driver’s door, now that was reported heavily in the press that Bill ran over him and this and that, that’s total bs. Bill had a step side pickup and according to the briefing team, the guy basically ran up and Bill had had his window down still because he was talking to this group of what he thought were kids, high school or college, whatever, and he jumped up on the step and tried to swing at Bill, and Bill knocked him off and they admitted that it was a punch that knocked him off, no running over him, no nothing like that.

Rob: Ok. Well, I mean that never surfaced at any future law suits either. There was never anything else from, no complaints from this particular gentleman, so to speak.

DoyleNo, it was just he made a dumb move as an officer and got punched.

Rob: If, you are interested, ladies and gentlemen, the Cooper Hill Band song, Crusher, there’s a video of that available on the hourofthetime.com website, and you’ll actually see video footage of Bill’s hill, and we drive from one end of the hill to the other during that video. So, if you’re not interested in the music, you can mute the music and just watch the video there and you can see the terrain that we’re talking about. And being November, I would have assumed that it was pretty much like it was, I guess, in April when that video was shot.

Doyel: Yeah, except for the fact of probably one of the worst monsoons ever.

Rob: Right. It was raining a lot at that time.

Doyel: And so it was incredibly dark outside.

Rob: Now, was it raining the night before as well?

Doyel: From what I recall, no. It started mid morning.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: When it goes off here because of monsoons, massive lightning shows

Rob: So, you remember being woken up at 2:00 in the morning, you said, I’m not sure if that got cut off on our tape. The monsoon hadn’t started yet, it probably had started at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning as you’re saying. Now, Bill pushes this guy off of his pickup truck, who’s trying to swing at him to stop him, I’m assuming at this point, are these officers in uniform?

Doyel: No, at this point they still have not identified themselves.

Rob: Ok. But I understand there were officers with tactical gear up closer to the house, so they would have been easily identifiable as police officers I would think at that point, or as members of some tactical team.

Doyel: Yeah, and the thing is though where this occurred was, let’s say from the cul-de-sac 50 yards, you still got 200 yards to cover, and being that there’s no street lights he wouldn’t have been able to see the front of his house which was the whole face and when he got to what’s the crook in the road, which you can see in that video that you mentioned, that’s when a car came zooming uphill, and that would be the access from town up this little hill and that one tried to cut him off and at that point I’m assuming he knew somethingwas wrong. Now, here is the real clincher. In the briefing they told Sgt. Fraser, who was decided the one to come talk to me that he, Bill, had put the vehicle, the truck in park and had stuck both his hands out the window, palm open fashion, basically showing I don’t have nothing in my hand.

Rob: I’m not a threat, basically. That’s the idea.

Doyel: Yeah. Well, then at that point, more people came out of the other trees, you know I don’t mean out of the air, this little brush, 6 to 8 feet tall.

Rob: Is my memory serving me correctly in that there were fourteen officers involved?

Doyel: Yeah. At this point…

Rob: So, there would have been five or six in the truck or three or four in the truck and then a few in the bushes, the patrol car, the house and then these other gentlemen that were coming up. Ok. Just trying to paint a picture here of what happened, so.

Doyel: Oh, of course. And at this point he obviously realized that something was wrong and he whipped his hands back in, threw it into gear, no he did not grab a gun even thought there were two available in the truck. I know for a fact, and he didn’t do that though, he put it in gear and floored it trying to avoid the car that was attempting to blockade his way home, down this little lane. He went over the ferns and the evidence was there after the fact because the whole exhaust system was torn out basically from the front header the front axle back and the marks were of course on the fern and dirt and that was avoiding that vehicle which was Apache County Sheriff. And again unmarked though. And then goes up to the front of his house which is just the front lawn, no fences, no nothing like this, he wasn’t walking out his gate and gunned down like some people like to portray and he whipped up to the front of his house at just a slight angle, but still basically parallel with the yard and got out and ran around what would be the back of the vehicle, the truck, to go to the front door. Now, when we say run, people need to keep in mind, we’re talking about a priorily wounded, one legged veteran.

Rob: Bill had an amputation, which leg was it, Doyel?

Doyel: Left.

Rob: His left leg, so just around the knee area, Bill had a, was it above the knee amputation?

Doyel: Yeah, it was pretty high, it would be mid thigh.

Rob: Ok. So mid thigh on the left leg. So Bill Cooper running would be no match for Carl Lewis.

Doyel: No, definitely not.

Rob: He’d be no match for an average man of his age basically because of the fact of the injury.

Doyel: And for his size and what not, he moved fairly slow with just the slightest limp you would think based on his age and size, until you found out that he had a prosthesis, so actually he moved around quite well for having a prosthesis, but running, no. I don’t know how many times us playing ball, flying kites and doing Easter egg hunts, or whatever, throwing rocks at the trees that one of the girls fell down and I’d beat him by fifty steps, you know, getting there to pick them up because he couldn’t run. I mean, it was just not in the equation and he would be crossing the front yard, which would be about 25 foot would be it, from his vehicle, not from his vehicle, but his vehicle was parked right at the edge of it because there’s no fence or gate or nothing like that. So to the edge of the grass is about 25 foot to the front walkway which is a little skinny sidewalk type walkway that…

Rob: Basically just patio type stones.

Doyel: Yeah, and the front door right there, and at that point, according to the Sgt. Fraser, at that point they finally identified themselves, the Apache County Sheriff, that is. But, by then, though, there was one coming around the south side of the house and hiding behind a vehicle which he’d already seen, andpointing a gun at him, also, and then one coming over a vehicle on the north side of the house over the hood of a vehicle that was in the driveway and was basically right at the edge of the yard. And at that point, they claimed that he pulled out his 38 Smith & Wesson, it was a stainless chief special and he just swung his right arm back and started pulling the trigger. At that point, because he opened fire, they opened fire and shot him to death right there on the door, basically on the doorstep, he was…the blood and everything was left there of course so I got to deal with all the mess. Therewas even hair still laying around and whatnot. It was probably 18 inches from the edge of the sidewalk, so you’re talking 3 more foot from the front door.

Rob: Now, were any of the shots that Bill fired, any ofthose slugs recovered, because Bill allegedly shot one of the sheriff’s deputies and apparently there was a law suit which we’ll talk about a little later. Were any of those bullets ballistically matched to Bill’s gun?

Doyel: No. If it was done, I haven’t found it.

Rob: Ok. So we haven’t seen that evidence, even the head shot to Officer Marinez, Deputy Marinez, there was…were there no ballistic tests done on that bullet?

Doyel: There’s none in the report.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: So, if they were done, they’re not published as part of the regular report, and that’s where the problem gets into, that we’ll get into later.

Rob: Now, at that point, I think most of the listening audience will understand that in any situation like that, when a gun goes off in the hands of somebody that they are trying to arrest for whatever reason, the officers are going to return fire. Now, I think the question here is, has actually been properly explained in the autopsy report that Craig Pradarelli did on that show he did with you, that interview, I think that most of that information can be obtained in the autopsy report if people are interested in exactly how Bill was shot, how close these officers were, what the prevailing theories are as to all of that type of information.

Doyel: Yeah, the autopsy report we did, which I just called Part 1 only because Craig is going to be back on with us again.

Rob: Right, he’s taking a look at some of the other police reports and…

Doyel: He clearly points out the angles, the distances, even the order based on pure anatomical evidence the order of fire, or I should say, the order of hits.

Rob: Right, like it seemed like the shot to the heart came after the shot to somewhere else in his body because the heart was still pumping at this point when he was, you know, there’s different evidence, I guess people will be more familiar with that kind of thing because of television programs like Law & Order, CSI and things like that.

Doyel: Yes, basically the order of shots shows that the shot to the head was prior to the shot to the heart, because the amount of hematoma that was coagulated in the neck and the cranium area, but because of the heart shot and the arteries that had perforated, the pumping ceased immediately.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: So, it had to be in that certain order and that throughout the report he goes step by step, you know we did that on the air step by step in the report as far as the order and the distances which are a key thing, and the angles.

Rob: Yeah, he talks about stippling, which is basically evidence of gunpowder blast from the muzzle of the gun and you have to be within a certain distance to have stippling on a gunshot wound, so you have to be within three feet to have a certain type of stippling, you have to be within one foot to have a different kind of stippling, and then beyond those distances there is less and less stippling until the point that they can’t be seen at all and he discusses each individual wound and whether stippling was present or not, and what conclusions we can draw from that evidence.

Doyel: Yeah.

Rob: All right, Doyel, well I think that this is an appropriate point to take a musical break, and we’ll play a song for Bill here, and maybe we can let you pick that tune, something that he really enjoyed.

Doyel: Well, I know the favourite song, but I don’t know if you’ll have it.

Rob: What one would that be?

Doyel: That would be the one he always sang with Ally.

Rob: Ok, yes indeed. We’ll put that one on. Coming up next we have that from one of his previous programs that he did, so. Ok, so stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen, coming up after this short musical pause we’ll be back and we’ll be finishing up with what happened later that night after Bill did fall to the ground, what happened the next day. We’ll come back to Doyel waking up in the morning coming out onto his front porch, and this is when he met the officer, and then the turmoil that happened for the next 24 hours, I guess, probably just until 9:00 p.m. that night, and then we’ll jump forward to the day of the funeral and there will be a mention of who performed that service, a few of the attendees, and where we’ve gone from then. Stay tuned.

Rob: Well, I hope that song brought a smile to your face, ladies and gentlemen. I know it certainly harkens be back to the days when I remember a couple of shows that Pooh played that number on. Certainly it harkens back to some of the happiest days of Bill’s life and I know we’re talking about some very sad details here tonight and I know that it’s not the easiest thing for Doyel to talk about and I appreciate you offering to do this, hopefully for one final time here and we’ll get everything out in this one episode. I’m sure that the listeners really appreciate that too.

Doyel: Yeah, it sounds good.

Rob: Alright. So, I guess where we left off Bill had been shot and he’s now lying in his, basically on his walkway up, going up towards his house and this would have been shortly after midnight on, I guess now, it would be November 6?

Doyel: Yeah, well they…the minutes there are confused because they basically, depending on what report you read, you get the show-up time and the finalized time at roughly the same time, about a quarter to twelve.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: Based on talking to all the neighbors down the way, one of them that was up, the only vehicle he saw going by, because he was up, was about 11:30, so, you know, it’s the time frame, yeah 11:30 total time to midnight. Of course, they would have positioned themselves at the end of the road, there little fictitious party going on, what not.

Rob: Now I understand that there was some contact made between the Apache County Sheriff’s Department and other emergency services in town, specifically I’m talking about ambulance service and things like that. Now is it true that they were told to operate that evening or at least around that time of night with no sirens, they were told to, they were supposed to be silent, they were told to go quiet?

Doyel: Yes. The paramedic just prior to going up there for the Apache County Sheriff, that is they were informed to go perform, what they call a service and they had told the paramedics department, which is volunteer for the most part, but of course there is one or two paid on shift, that are paid, to leave all the sirens off, the lights off, all that. And that’s probably the only reason that I didn’t hear anything going on, because if all that stuff would have been blaring I would have heard it. It was a decently weather night, so with the cloud cover and not much wind at the point when I went to bed, the bedroom window even was cracked slightly and being only about a mile away, I would have heard sirens. And the neighbors also reported at the drive by distance to get to his house that there was no lights or sirens whatsoever, and I followed that up with interviews face to face with paramedics and they had been briefed just prior to the Apache County going up there that not to run any sirens, lights, they did not want to alert the public what they were doing.

Rob: And at some point, obviously, there would had been an ambulance in need for, I mean if an officer got injured, now in this case Marinez did get injured, so obviously he was spirited off to a hospital at some point, right around that midnight mark when all this went down. Were you ever given any reason why they did not attempt to resuscitate Bill, even, I mean maybe the injuries were too severe obviously from the autopsy report we know they were too severe, and he couldn’t have been resuscitated, but why was there no attempt made, do you have any knowledge about that?

Doyel: Well, the decision was made based on one of the deputies that saw the two main shooters taking place, we’re talking Deputy Goldsmith who since died in a mysterious accident.

Rob: That’s the motorcycle accident?

Doyel: Yeah.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: And Marinez, that those were the two main people in the front yard, but there were other people getting close enough that you could see enough because we had a sixty watt bulb on the front porch so, I mean, it was enough to tell and essentially what the police were told was that he was basically dead before he hit the ground. Yet the autopsy report did not play that out.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: But, either way, if there was some time given to Marinez and with the loss of blood based on what I had to clean up, and I had to identify the body of course at the morgue and everything, it wouldn’t have…you wouldn’t have had to waste much time quite honestly, let’s say over on Marinez.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: Where Bill would have been dead either way because the wounds were massive and like you say the one to the cranium, perforated heart, these were major wounds and the bleeding was profuse, so at that point theoretically one of the deputies on site, and it was backed up by Lieutenant Andrew Tafoya, who was the one that night that was in charge because the sheriff was gone, that care was to be given to Marinez, not Bill. And then the paramedics got there and did there, you know, rush stat-type care on Marinas and then got him down to the local medivac, which we used to have, we don’t have anymore, and flown out into Showlow and then on to Phoenix, whatever.

Rob: Ok. So, but there was never any attempt made to even take a look at Bill, kind of thing?

Doyel: No, basically none whatsoever. They deemed it in their own minds that there was no need to look at it and it kind of follows up with the next step in the whole sequence because upon a person being deceased or hypothetically deceased, you had to call in the county coroner.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: Well, conveniently the county coroner is Dr. Scott Hamblin, who’s the one who the whole assault charges surrounded. So, they didn’t call him in because of conflict of interest so they had to call Navajo county’s corner and wake him up, and get him over here. Well, we’re talking the next county over.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: So, then in the middle of the night, he’s gotta get up, get dressed, get what he thinks he might need and drive. So, there’s another couple of hours leeway before he got there being dead on site, and then he was left there throughout the entire day through some record monsoons for that year out in the open. In the sense of the fact that he was left on site, I did query with the law enforcement officers when I get though the barricade and they told me that a gentleman up there said we’re not barbarians and took his poncho out of his truck and covered up Bill.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: Because he was just left out there in the open. And then it was left at that, and then about, this is going from memory at this point now, Jewkes Funeral Home, which is the only one we had at the time, they came up, I would say it would be about 4:30 in the afternoon and picked up the body because that’s who picks up the bodies and holds them to do autopsies, which in our case is Tucson is the forensics lab.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: So, five hours out.

Rob: Now, at what point during the evening, Bill had two dogs, Sugar Bear and Crusher, and I understand that during the raid Sugar Bear had run off, I guess wasn’t on a leash or something like that, or wasn’t on a chain at some point, but Crusher was still chained to one of the vehicles. Now, in the police reports it also shows that Crusher was shot, is that not correct? Now why would they have shot a dog that was chained up?

Doyel: Well, what they…what happened was was in the driveway Crusher was tied to the bumper of the, I think it was a ’76 Buick and he was barking and essentially going after, according to their report, they went to go try to just grab the dog by the collar, now this is real ironic because all of us knew Crusher and about Crusher, they knew better than to do that.

Rob: Well Bill always described Crusher as the best dog that he ever owned and it was able to learn hand signals and would obey, basically two people on the planet, and the first being Bill, the second being you.

Doyel: Yeah.

Rob: So, obviously the dog’s interest was in protecting Bill.

Doyel: They took a new animal control person and told him to go up and try to grab the dog, which is absurd because they knew that Crusher was a defensive dog and was going to watch the property and of course, his owner laying over there on the grass. Upon him almost getting bitten, then that was the excuse used to pop Crusher in the head.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: And then Sugar Bear was chained up actually to the front porch but it was the end of the porch where Marinez fell and Sugar Bear and the two chickens kept, well quite frankly playing in the blood, and the paramedics who were getting in their way, so they unlocked, left the chain there, just unhooked it from the leash and he ran off. Probably didn’t know what the heck was going on and he actually surfaced about two weeks later again and went to a dear friend of ours for a family pet.

Rob: Ok, well I’m just trying to cover all the angles of everything here because these are questions that people have asked what’s going on here, so, this point in the evening it would be early morning or whatever, and then when the officer came to your door, what time would that have been, Doyel? You said it was near dawn, kind of thing.

Doyel: Yeah, but because of the time of year, November, you’re talking let’s say 6:00.

Rob: Ok, and this is when…

Doyel: It was pretty dark.

Rob: Now, he obviously didn’t explain all these details to you on your front porch; he told you that Bill had been shot and was dead and…

Doyel: No, actually he explained all these to me.

Rob: Oh, he did.

Doyel: Yeah, we had a massively long meeting.

Rob: Ok. I wasn’t aware that that all happened at that point. At some point was it this gentleman that took you in to, I don’t know what you would call it…

Doyel: The command centre, ICC.

Rob: ICC, the command centre? Ok.

Doyel: Yeah, that’s what it’s called, Incident Command Centre and that’s what, it makes the tactical guys who can’t make it in boot camp so they come out here and work for peace, it makes them feel big; they have all these acronyms for the quasi-military thing.

Rob: Right

Doyel: And they had set up a centre at the edge of town at the rodeo grounds, that was the Incident Command Centre and there they had radio communications and the fed was there, and they had black helicopters, they had the land and everything.

Rob: Now, was this where the initial raid started from?

Doyel: No, it initially was organized after that tactical meeting at the firehouse, which would be, as the bird flies, 200 yards from Bill’s house.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: But the firehouse had always been there, it wasn’t like it was…and they had met there for years, so it’s not like that it’s any significant thing, the fact that it was there, whatnot, they met there at night for years.

Rob: So, we’ve basically finished with the events of the evening of Nov. 5 and we’re around about 7:00 o’clock in the morning following Doyel’s conversation with the Eagar Police. Ok, ladies and gentlemen, just at this point I’d like to interrupt the interview I was doing here and just make note of two, actually just two clarifications that we’d like to make. When we were talking about Officer Kirkham we had, Doyel had inadvertently said Lieutenant when actually his current rank, I believe, is Detective Kirkham So, we just wanted to make that correction and we wanted to clarify the date of the funeral; we had theorized or Doyel had thought it was possibly Nov. 15, that is actually correct. It was Thursday Nov. 15, 2001 at 9:00 a.m. So Doyel just wanted to make confirmation of those two details. So, we’ll continue with the interview. Thank-you.

Rob: It came on what exactly had happened up on the hill that day and Doyel’s just been taken to the ICC you said, Incident Command Centre or Incident Control Centre?

Doyel: Yes, Incident Command Centre.

Rob: Incident Command Centre, and this is where the not so friendlies were.

Doyel: Yeah, by now, ok, there’s probably an hour on the front porch with the Sgt. Fraser and then, like you say, about sevenish, eightish, now we’d be pushing a little after eight. I saw the immediate need to secure this and that.

Rob: Well basically the house and all of the, at that point in time, the broadcast studio was in Bill’s house at the top of the hill. All the master tapes were in Bill’s house at the top of the hill. Basically everything that Bill had done in his entire life was sitting at the top of the hill and I guess they had search warrants to, or they were trying to procure search warrants to try and confiscate all of this material.

Doyel: Yeah, they actually had a search warrant already done about, oh, I don’t know, about three pages long that was written in such a way that it would allow them to secure anything in that house because it said like any recordings that were a broadcast and any recordings of his thoughts that any device that could be used to record those thoughts. So that carried on legally in their mind to VCR’s, tape decks, computers, because he might write himself a note. So you can see the vastness immediately.

Rob: We could have lost the entire library basically.

Doyel: Yeah. So, by then, I realized the need for, well the neighbors obviously didn’t want to talk like normal that morning and I realized the need to be prepared for whatever. So I had me a jug of distilled water and figured we were going to go at it, and Officer Kirkham, who at the time was Lieutenant Kirkham, heshowed upin front of our property. Now, he came up to the door, and gave me his condolences and whatnot, now that was probably more professional courtesy than true feelings, but oh well, and he relayed to me that the Apache County Sheriff and other entities would like to know if I would be willing to come out to the Incident Command Centre, because they’re gonna take the house over.

Rob: Now, at the same time, ladies and gentlemen, you have to realize that the street in front of Doyel’s house is still blocked off, the cruisers are there; I don’t know what kind of choice you would have had anyways. You know, I don’t think they would have let you get in your truck and just drive off to the Circle K for a cup of coffee.

Doyel: No. No. And I just figured go because the simple fact too is that, at that point, I had to assert the something responsibility for the trusteeship, and that meant protecting the property for the beneficiaries which were Pooh and Allison so…

Rob: Those are Bill’s daughters, ladies and gentlemen.

Doyel: And so I said, “Well, yeah, we can go out there.” But I told them, I said “I don’t trust you guys as far as I can throw any of you, so you’d better stick to me like glue while we’re out there.” And he actually did so. He took me out to the Incident Command Centre and we got out, and we got out of the vehicle, and of course everybody in the world is looking around and ducking and this and that because they think, you know, military, even though they’re a bunch of cowards, and they approach Lieutenant Kirkham, ask him who I was and I’m only like four foot behind him, so I don’t know why the rude people just didn’t ask me. But he said “Well, this is Doyel”, and they go “Ok, well, we need to talk to him.” So I told Kirkham again. Lieutenant Kirkham, at the time Lieutenant, we need to go in here and fix this situation and get it done with now. And you’d better stick to me and he agreed to, and he did so. And we went into this briefing room that had a big oval business-like table. And they had various paperwork spread around; they offered me a seat, and whatnot and then they started drilling me with questions. So I said “Well, hold up here. You know, I just want to let you know right now here’s my full name, I have the document and I am trustee and I am fulfilling my judiciary responsibilities for the benefit of the beneficiaries and you need to know that right now.” And they all just kind of looked; most of them had probably never heard the word before and they said it was duly noted and then they pulled out the aerial photographs and the maps of the area and that was what gave you more of an idea that what they had tried to relay to the public was not the case, that it was just a simple…

Rob: Yeah, they said it was a one off, quick raid to go and serve some papers that had, you know, there’d been no previous planning. Yet the planning was done at the, that evening at the firehall where they went up the hill, or that’s what they claim.

Doyel: Yeah, and what they had pulled out was thermal and satellite images of the property and the house, plus hand drawn sketches of the interior. Now that interior sketches could have only been given by two or three people and we were able to quickly figure out who that was. And in fact they were greatly mistaken because that’s how I knew who did it because certain areas of the house like your personal living areas, the bedroom area, of course, they were never invited. So they had the living room, the more public areas correct, but in the private areas they were missing like whole closets and the whole bathroom was gone, because they had never seen it. So that’s how I knew who did that and that was Glen Jacob, Judith Glen Jacob, and Bill had exposed him previously already on the air as being an FBI informant; he admitted to it himself on the air that he was a paid informant.

Rob: Now he’s…I’m trying to remember the name of the paper that he publishes.

Doyel: Round Valley Paper.

Rob: Round Valley Paper, ok.

Doyel: So, they asked me about all these photographs and this and that and said well our plan is to, because you guys have it booby trapped, we’re going to blow the front of the wall off. And I’m like, hold up, we don’t have anything booby trapped; I don’t know what you’re talking about. And they said well we have good evidence to lead us to believe that the house is booby trapped and it’s not safe to go inside, so, we’re going to use a robot to go up to the door, and this is a commonly used tactic.

Rob: Right, if there’s a briefcase sitting somewhere in an airport for too long, or whatever, they send a robot up to sniff it out or blow it up or whatever the case may be.

Doyel: Yeah, and they have the equivalent of a shotgun and it’s only four inches long that blows stuff up if it doesn’t look right. So that was their idea, but it was going to be with, like an explosive charge. So, I said, “No, that’s not the way to do it. If he walked out of the house like you guys have told me, to go down the way the door’s unlocked and I am offering you right now a one time opportunity. You can, I told them point blank, you can search me, you can stick a gun in my back, I will walk in front of you, I will go through that entire house that way, open any cabinet door, any box, jump up and down on the ground, whatever you want me to do to prove to you it’s not booby trapped and there’s nothing in there.’ And they said, “Well, that’s not part of standard procedure.” So, I relayed back, I said, “Well, I’ve lived here forever, but since I’ve lived here I don’t think this whole night was part of standard procedure.” And they didn’t have an answer. And, so at that point they kind of sat there and hum hawed around and I said well if you…I really can’t tell you everything I told them because I said it not the nicest way and it’s not appropriate for the air but it’s…

Rob: Well, I think people will understand, Doyel, that, well basically since this one hour and ten minutes that we’ve been into here, if you can imagine, ladies and gentlemen, waking up and expecting to go to work in the morning and then in this amount of time finding out that your best friend has been shot dead in cold blood and now all of a sudden you’re surrounded by a bunch of these people who shot your friend, not necessarily these particular individuals, this organization that has shot your friend, these are not friendlies, these are people that have to be dealt with very carefully and I can imagine that there would have been some colorful language expressed to them in the heat of the moment, like this has all happened within a couple of hours and…

Doyel: Well, I told them…

Rob: I don’t think you need to ask for forgiveness for that, Doyel.

Doyel: No, I just told them how the county something in the real world. I corrected them on their slack job, manner of wearing their uniforms, what they call their uniforms, but which are military and that some of us actually had to earn ours and I corrected them on their styles and etiquette and their professionalism. I just did it in terms that are more military terms and with a lot of f’s in it and this and that. So, at that point, I realized that these guys were a bunch of boneheads obviously and I need to get out of there. So, I told Kirkham I said, “Well, I want a ride home”, and so he brought me home, and I kinda just camped out here and then of course, the onslaught of the people came by, the press trying to get through and down the street, interview and helicopters overhead from the news media. We’re talking ABC, NBC, CBS out of Phoenix…

Rob: Yes.

Doyel: The big ones, Channel 3, 5, and 10. They had helicopters, everything that they had secured that morning and flew up here. I just really didn’t have much use for any of them and I knew that whatever I said they were going to twist around, so, I just didn’t speak to any of them whatsoever, and camped out at my house, filmed what footage I could get from my angle.

Rob: I’m told there is actually a video tape that exists of most of the following day.

Doyel: Yeah, I have a bunch of the news clips and then of course the footage that I filmed that shows you the volume of agent cars going up and down, up and down the hill and barricades and everything. I filmed that plus at the same time I had the VCR going at that point.

Rob: So, the videotape that you have, Doyel, you’re saying has the, basically all the broadcasts on local news stations that we could get with information about Bill from that day, plus some footage locally from your font yard showing cars driving up and down Bill’s hill like we said before, it is a line of sight from your front door or so.

Doyel: Yeah, and I’ve been chastised for not getting all the news reports, but I would tell those people, “Well, where were you, I was kinda busy. I didn’t have time to sit there and flip through the channels and hit record, so I turned on the three major ones and hit ‘record’ and left it at that.” And I caught what they were showing about nine or ten in the morning, and it was just so absurd, it was incredible. Come about 11:00 that morning, I guess, 11:30, I had found out through information that, sources, that by Arizona law within ten days the reports have to be on file, but it’s supposed to be done as quick as possible. So, I went down and put in a request for the report, even though they didn’t have a report number yet, I just said all reports to deal with Bill Cooper and signed for them and paid. Then I found out that Sheriff Hounshell magically made it back from vacation and he just stunk of horse crap. I mean he’s shit that walks and breathes, that’s all he is. And that’s how he looks too. He showed back up miraculously for the news conference because he likes to grab the camera. And this was to be held about noon at that Incident Command Centre, and that was where the three big networks that were already up working in the area were all going to be there. So, I had an escort take me out there, not a police but a friend, so that there’d be witnesses and I tried to get in there, and they denied me access saying it was not open to civilians. So that lead to a, of course, altercation, and I took off. Obviously they wouldn’t let me in to the press conference and here is where they really started their lies, that they had this dangerous villain, this right-wing talk show host, etc. that had massive stockpiles of food and ammunition and bombs and stuff. They had to raid him for the safety of the public and this and that and…

Rob: Calling him a convicted felon at some points…

Doyel: Huh?

Rob: Calling him a convicted felon at some points, which is completely, utterly untrue.

Doyel: Yes. And so that took place, but of course I have to see it on TV and I’m back at home and they continued their drive bys and harassments, stuff around the house, I constantly, though mind you, like every half hour, probably a lot closer than that, probably every 5 minutes, so I imagine they were getting quite annoyed. You know, I’m sitting there chewing my nails in my front yard, I’m zooming up there to the barricade asking them what’s the progress, what’s the progress and the guys put on the front was one quasi experienced officer from Springerville, the other town, and then a totally new guy that couldn’t even, wasn’t even allowed to ride by himself out of the academy and they were at the barricade and we actually together actually got accosted by someone who claimed they were from Texas, and this and that, and I just took off and went back home and I just kept checking in constantly. Then later in the afternoon…

Rob: These are the same gentlemen that you brought coffee to at some point in the day.

Doyel: Uh-huh.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: Yeah, because the rain was horrendous and it was cold and they were stuck out there and I came up, you know, I had a cup myself but I had my thermos and I figured well hey you want a cup of coffee, I can afford it, and gave them a cup of coffee and they were mind boggled that I would do that. And that’s actually when they asked me if they were gonna die that day.

Rob: The news media was playing up the fact that there was expected to be a huge influx of people to come in with, you know fully armed militia to just go against the government for whatever reason they could and this was a good enough reason, so all cops fear for your lives, and they were whipped into this kind of frenzy and that’s at the point at which you calmed their nerves, I take it.

Doyel: Yeah, I think they were more comfortable at that point. I said naw, that’s not the case, I just want to get up there and probably around 3:00 in the afternoon I would guess, it’s in the report, Officer Crowe, he came to my home and he was kinda new, but on the force on his own and they figured that he could talk to me. He came down there and actually he’s been out hunting and found out about it after the fact as he’s just got back like 3 or 4 in the morning, so he was not here for any of it. They called him in and because it’s big elk season around here and he…

Rob: Is he Eagar or Apache?

Doyel: He’s Eagar.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: He came to the home, I let him in because I knew who he was and he was telling me “Well, here’s how we want to proceed.” And I said “Well, I don’t give a dang and you need to follow the rules,” And at that point I presented him with some simple examples from right here in the area that the search warrant taking basically everything out of the home was not really going to fly being that this guy up the street had done this, and this guy across town had done this, you know, etc. etc., I had about six different things and the same thing had not happened to them. So he ran out and talked to the leadership, and I guess they realized they were cornered. So they came back down and said, “Well, we’ll do what’s standard protocol.” I knew what that was already; that is a utility for a residency and there was a water bill on the stove and a…oh, and then his personal favorite 45 off his bed stand and because that was basically what the Dr. Hamlin had described was a large black square shaped pistol; that was all he described on the so called assault.

Rob: Basically just to give a few more details there, ladies and gentlemen, as you’re aware from listening to previous parts of this broadcast, Bill’s hill was frequented by partying teenagers and I guess this doctor had come up to the hill one day and Bill had gone to confront him and said that he wished he would leave the property basically, that kind of thing and this is where the alleged assault took place where Bill supposedly pointed a gun at him and that kind of thing, although from Bill’s recollection of the story, he never brandished the weapon. So, at any rate, this is where that came from.

Doyel: Uh-huh. So, I agreed to that at that point because I knew that was there, the pistol, and I knew the utility bills were always kept because I did the mail in a little stacking thing right next to the stove on the counter. So that was a pretty simple thing. So they got them and showed them to me and then they did a walk through the house with me, where I had to look at every room.

Rob: Now, when was the decision made that you would actually be the one to go in the house and not…they weren’t going to blow the front of the house off?

Doyel: Just sometime during the day; actually they never told me specifically they changed direction, but just nothing happened and I could see right from here if there’s gonna be any smoke, so that’s why I was constant watching. Nothing occurred and then out of the blue here they come down, like I say, about 3:00 in the afternoon or so, and wanted to do this warrant. Now, at this point, this is the first time I’d seen it and this is what included basically everything known to man in that house. So I said, “Uh-uh, that’s not gonna fly.” So they changed directions there again and then said we’ll do standard protocol and I agreed to that. They took me to the house, room by room, and stuff wasn’t kicked in, doors weren’t ripped off cabinets, you know,

Rob: Now, how many officers would have been with you for this walk through?

Doyel: Uh, just one.

Rob: Just one? Ok.

Doyel: There were two others outside, and they were actually far away, so it wasn’t like they were worried about some confrontation. They were watching that crook in the road, is what they were doing, that’s where they were parked where you had to come up, they had it blocked with their vehicles, is what it was, and we actually got out of the vehicles there, and they kind of looked me over and then we walked to the home, so we’re talking maybe 200 feet. We walked to the house, and I looked at everything and it wasn’t like a lot of the things I’d seen people like that do, ripping cabinet doors off and stuff, it was very cleanly executed, too cleanly. So then, they showed me what they had, and I could verify that that used to be there on the night stand and used to be there next to the stove that bill and the pistol, it was the water bill. So, I signed this sheet saying that’s what they took, it was like an evidence log where you enter what you took, the date, and why and then I signed it as being the trustee.

Rob: At this point, did you get any sort of feeling that they were perhaps frightened about taking everything?

Doyel: Yeah.

Rob: Which may have been the reason that they didn’t clean out all the tapes and computers and everything at that point in time. They were afraid of doing something like that and having a Waco type defense situation of Bill’s friends and listeners.

Doyel: I think at that point they realized that they got themselves in a corner because what had happened was the Apache County Sheriff packed up and took off and then they had the search warrant that was in their possession to allegedly pursue this arrest warrant that evening before. They just handed it to Eagar Police and said, “Here, deal with it.” And then the deputy took off, so, Eagar Police were stuck with it, who wasn’t even involved with it in the first place.

Rob: They weren’t really interested in exactly pursuing that. It seems like this point that it was like fait accompli like they’d, Apache County Sheriffs Department had finished the task that they had set out to do and at that point didn’t give a rat’s butt what happened.

Doyel: No, they were not worried about paper work at that point. They got done what they wanted to get done and then it was dump the paper work on the locals. So, they were just doing their thing and that’s actually very standard protocol, you know, utility bill, for residency sake and what not. Then, of course, the alleged described weapon that was supposedly used on Dr. Scott Hamlin. At that point, we went through the house, like I was describing. They said, “Ok, it’s yours.” They had me sign for it and at that point they were done, except for a lot of help, you know, after the fact, because of course there were looky loos like crazy. Supposed militia, supposed patriots, they were all goof balls and fakes, coming up to look at the blood. Some people asked even to get pictures of it, things like that and basically if I needed them all I did was get on the phoneand in a heartbeat they were there, and ran them off. They never arrested nobody, just ran them off because there were too many people poking around the place and managed to keep it secure and I wasn’t going to go back up there and sleep there. That leaves us to the…

Rob: Ok, Doyel, so at this point you’ve signed off on the evidence logs as to what they’ve taken out of the house and I guess it pretty much closed up, that would be November 6 at this point, probably what time of night are we talking at this point.

Doyel: I would say 8:00 or 9:00 o’clock,

Rob: 8:00 or 9:00 o’clock. Ok. Now, throughout the next few days were there still news people on site looking for interviews and that kind of stuff? When did people, were there people, you know Bill’s listeners and that kind of stuff, did they show up over the next few days?

Doyel: Actually there were still quite a bit of news crews and independent writers that worked, had permanent jobs, you know with different magazines show up. But most of them were absolute flakes; I can’t think of any other word, and the thing is, it’s a small town. The locals knew that it was a completely screwed up situation and these people would go around like local stock, which we don’t have many, let’s say the Circle K normally convenience store and Arbys, the only fast food that we had and ask, “Well, do you know Doyel and how can we find him?” They would just simply tell them, “Well, I don’t know.” But then, when they’d see me they’d let me know or they’d call me at home and say, “Hey this guy who looks like this was poking around.” And just let me know. The community was very supporting at this point, even a year later, even. I mean it was constant. They knew the heat that was put on, they knew the harassment that was continuing.

Rob: Now, they obviously knew that Bill was your good friend. At this point, now that you’ve had, let’s say 48 hours to reflect on things, Doyel, what was going through your mind, you know personally, what…

Doyel: Well, I had actually, you know at some point I had realized that the situation could go one way or another so I had to be professional and I was a good soldier and Eagle scout, what not, so I actually starting on the sixth about midmorning I called my dad, told him what happened just so he’d know, in case something happened, I wanted my dad to know that this was what really happened, and not what they say.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: Then, I guess it’s just a simple matter of professionalism. Ok, I had a judiciary responsibility to my best friend to safeguard the house and the property for his two beneficiaries which were Pooh and Allison, more properly Dorothy and Allison Cooper, the ones famous on the air.

Rob: Exactly.

Doyel: I had to do that and then it’s just a simple fact I had to bury a friend and that takes arrangements. You have to get a funeral plot, you have to…how you going to pay for it. You gotta go to a funeral home, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. You gotta notify people, you know good friends, Bob Swan, Allan Weiner, just simple facts of life. So, I’ve seen a lot of stuff that I’m glad most people haven’t seen. At some point, you’ve got to just buckle down and just be responsible and that was…I just had to clinch down and say, “Ok here’s what needs to be done.”

Rob: Well, at that point, basically everybody’s leaning on Doyel for the next step too, like Doyel, what’s going on here, and you know you were at the center of things. I know that you and I have discussed my friend Rob Doucet who was killed in a motorcycle accident; I was actually behind him on my motorcycle at the time the accident happened and you almost go into a very detached state at that point because everybody is relying on you, asking you the questions and you’re the one that has to be strong throughout the next, at least I would say, probably week to two weeks where perhaps you don’t even have a chance to mourn yourself because you’re too busy with the details of dealing with the incident, in this case Bill’s murder.

Doyel: Yea, except for the rigmarole and what not, I was at the house quite a bit obviously, and ironically that day was the start of my new job, teaching. And so, that of course being on the news and what not and they just hired a new teacher working with little kids, that brought on that whole area of hardship, because then they’re thinking, “Well, who did we just hire?”

Rob: Right.

Doyel: Based on what the news is saying, I mean. And that turned out to he wrong and they were very happy with hiring me.

Rob: So what day was the…

Doyel: I don’t think I actually did anything emotional until probably ten days or so later.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: Well no, that’s not even correct; four days or so later. Because I’m thinking the tenth so that’s why I was saying ten, but four days later. I was just simply up in the afternoon and I had my good female friend to go with me to the home and check this and that paperwork and figure out what we could do in this and that’s finally when I broke down and realized that there wasn’t going to be another lunch date.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: Well, you know.

Rob: Yea, I know exactly how that feels. And I’m sure that people who have lost somebody close will understand just exactly what, or at least partially what you’ve gone through. Now, the funeral, Doyel, was on what day, you’re saying it was the tenth?

Doyel: No, the tenth was when I did that; but the funeral was on …I’m ashamed to say I don’t honestly recall except for the fifteenth.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: And I’m hoping I’m not wrong but the sixteenth. I’ve kinda tried to forget about that, but it was the fifteenth or sixteenth of November. I tried to expedite it being the fact that there was no family here or nothing.

Rob: So the funeral was held in Eagar or Springerville?

Doyel: Yeah, Springerville.

Rob: Ok. Who conducted the funeral? Who was the minister at the funeral and was there any special connection to Bill with him?

Doyel: Yeah, what happened was I knew a very good Christian family that had been to the conferences and they knew me very well and their son was in a Texas whatever seminary and it’s not to be confused with a Mormon or Catholic seminary.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: Protestant. And I thought, “Well, you know, we watched this kid grow up, what better choice and I have to notify him anyway.”

Rob: He was a younger lad I remember the funeral was videotaped, it’s not something that we’re offering here at the Hour of the Time as something that’s available for purchase or anything, just out of respect for the family, it’s something we’ve made an arrangement with the family that’s just basically close friends, things like that could view this video. He was a younger fellow.

Doyel: Oh, I’d say about twenty.

Rob: Very soft spoken on the tape; you could see that he was extremely emotional at the time as well.

Doyel: Yeah, and he did a fine job; he had grown up around us and visiting clear across the country. A lot of contacts and in fact, his mother and father constantly retell all the tales, where at the conferences I was showing them how to make their military gear more tactical so more quiet.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: How they just ate it up, you know, being like only in high school, so I felt it was only appropriate because I was going to notify them anyway and I asked Andy to do it. We won’t do the last name.

Rob: That’s fine.

Doyel: Just Andy. So, of course, he volunteered right away. Now, a large group of people that were very familiar with us and more than helping throughout the whole situation from the conferences and stuff lived roughly in the same area. Now when I say that, I mean the next state or something and they all pooled their money and rather than them come, they felt it was more important that Andy be able to get here.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: And do the service.

Rob: Well, I can understand the fact that it was expensive to get down to Eagar. I remember I was actually on a business trip to Toronto, or I was supposed to be heading to a business trip in Toronto and when I heard the details of the date of the funeral and everything announced on WBCQ I had tried to rearrange my schedule to go down to Eagar and it was going to cost me, I believe it was either $3200 or $3600 Canadian for that last minute flight down to Eagar. So, I can understand because he wasn’t a relative of mine the airlines don’t give you the same benefit as if you’re going to the funeral of your father, or something like that, they give you some sort of compassion rate.

Doyel: Yeah.

Rob: And with the airlines, I can understand that a lot of people might have liked to have gone weren’t able to. It’s nice that they, I wasn’t aware that they had actually, some people had pooled their money to allow him to go down and basically do this to perform the service for us.

Doyel: A big group, like Carl and Denise, Andy’s family, and some other people, Paul and what not, that we had all made friends over the years and they felt it was better that he be here and do that. And when he got here, he was just nervous as get out. He got to the hotel and called me. And that’s when the other trouble started, was when people started showing up at the hotel the day before, because I had told people, “Well, it’s a very small town and because of the situation you can get directions but it might be best just to contact me, I’ll tell you how to get to my house once I know it’s you, that is, and tell you how to get there, you just follow me, I’ll drive you down once and you’ll know how to get there for the viewing, whatever. We had Bob and his wife stay, Swan.

Rob: Bob Swan spoke at the funeral as well.

Doyel: At our house, to help them out, because the drove all the way from Oregon. That is when I found out the other thing, the clerk from the Best Western Hotel, because we don’t have many, but we have nice ones because of the skiers, and…

Rob: Snowbirds you call them.

Doyel: Yeah, snowbirds, and the clerks called and said, “Hey, Doyel”. You know, this again the community looking out for me. They said, “These people are coming in every time someone checks in that’s not from the area and they’re asking what they’re here for and who they ask for and they want copies of their driver’s licenses and they’re wanting us to coerce them to give them that to check in.” And what it was is anybody visiting the funeral, because obviously out of state plates, or rental cars, or what ever and so that’s when they turned up the heat on that. At that point, the DPS , which is the Department of Public Safety, or the Highway Patrol if you will, found out that the large contingency of the National Alliance which is your aligned with the Aryan Brotherhood and everything, they have always had a pRoblem with us, so they decided, because they have a large contingency up here, that they were going to en masse cause a big armed ruckus at the funeral. So the law enforcement called me on down, talked to me about it, warned me and said, “What do you want us to do?” And I said, “Well, basically you blockade the hill and don’t allow anybody up there at all.” And they did so. They parked a bulldozer and safety cones and everything you can think of up there to blockade the road, until I gave the ok after the funeral services and the internment that it was ok for this person or that person, people that were there to go ahead and help afterwards.

Rob: But law enforcement was prepared for some sort of confrontation I understand that there were snipers outside of the church.

Doyel: Yeah. Outside the church, they found out where we were going to because most of the churches turned us down and then…

Rob: Which church was the ceremony done in, Doyel.

Doyel: Presbyterian.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: And it was more for not the churches sake that I needed a church, but it was more because I needed a building and in a small town, that’s about your only big building.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: So, in desperation after being turned down by everybody I called them and Pastor Jerry who is more than accommodating called and not only said we’re not going to charge you for our services because that’s clean up and things like that, but we welcome you here because it doesn’t matter what you think or I think, whatever, every man deserves a proper burial and they wouldn’t take any money; I tried to donate money to them, they wouldn’t do it.

Rob: Well, it’s good to see some kindness in…

Doyel: In Springerville, where the cemetery is at proper, and that’s only because the towns are built together, so even though it’s only a mile away it’s technically a different town. Springerville, the city of when I went down there making those arrangements and people gotta realize the vastness of this, this is me by myself doing all this stuff, I’m down at the city hall to get a funeral plot because obviously it’s gotta get dug and whatever, and they did the same thing. They said, “Man, we’ve heard and it’s screwed up and you shake our hand, then we know you’re going to pay us back and the funeral plot will be dug, ready when you want it and where you want it. Just let us know what you need, which is also abnormal. You normally pay upfront.

Rob: So where exactly is Bill’s body now, where is the gravesite?

Doyel: It’s in the Springerville cemetery.

Rob: Ok.

Doyel: And it overlooks the…it’s exactly as if you were sitting on the back porch of his home because you can see his back porch from the plot. It’s just down the hill; let’s say a quarter of a mile as the bird flies.

Rob: There are two big hills basically in Springerville/Eagar and one of them, the smaller of the two hills, I guess, is the hill that Bill’s house was built on and then how far away did you say Doyel?

Doyel: I would guess a quarter mile as the bird flies.

Rob: And there’s another hill with the cemetery on it and so Bill’s basically facing out his front porch looking, or his back porch actually looking off his veranda the same sunset he would have seen in the past.

Doyel: Well, what he liked the best and that was just a unique way the way I found the gravesite; it was definitely God’s hand working there because I had never been to that cemetery. I had no reason to be there ever in my entire time living here, and I walked straight to that plot. And I looked to my left and there was a house and the back porch and I looked forward and there was the view that we sat so many times enjoying while we barbequed and that’s what he liked the best and I said, “You know what, this is it.” And ironically it was open; it filled up on each side already but that spot was open. They did the same thing; in fact the funeral home also was very congenial. They’re normally pay up front and we’re talking seven grand for a very basic thing.

Rob: Yes, indeed.

Doyel: And he did the whole thing on a handshake, no money up front, no nothing. And we did pay him back but…

Rob: Well, I think ‘we’ means Doyel paid him back.

Doyel: So, yeah, some people were willing to work. And they did though at the funeral service also besides the fact of what they were doing at the hotel and that’s the Apache County Sheriffs again, you know, harassing the clerks to get information from any guests that were visiting for the funeral, I mean. Around the church, they had secured snipers and tactical teams and then with binoculars and scopes and snipers and even two helicopters had everything ready to attack the actual cemetery site. This isn’t ‘guestimation’ or fantasy, or nothing like that, they were there stationed, just out of view of normal life but with binoculars, they were there. But we weren’t the boogey man that they wanted us to be, so they didn’t get to get their thrill that day attack anybody.

Rob: Well I think perhaps the jacket that Tim wore to the funeral, the tyranny response team, I think that said it all. It was certainly a tyrannical take-down of Bill and I think that the only shot that needed to be fired was the political shot of having that tyranny response unit or whatever jacket said it all.

Doyel: Uh-huh.

Rob: Of course, there was never even anything close to an armed confrontation with Bill’s followers or anything like that. They were there for a funeral; they were there mourning their friend.

Doyel: Out of town protesters, the National Alliance people like that. So, after the internment, you know, because you move on from church and go to the actual site and then put them in their final place. We did all that, and then we went back to the church and we had food, which by the way also if you couldn’t afford it, people, friends cooked up and volunteered all the food from the area. Then following that we went up to the house and proceeded just to get the house in order, trying to get something figured out for a game plan; what do we do next now, you know with all the books and all that.

Rob: Well, basically everything in the house, what do we…I mean it’s Bill’s not there to pay the mortgage anymore so, obviously the house had to be sold and the contents had to be moved somewhere, which…

Doyel: Stored.

Rob: Temporarily were moved to, yes storage and then the Bill Cooper Memorial Library that you would open for I guess it was probably almost two years, the doors to that were open and that’s where the studios were in Eagar as well.

Doyel: And you know I know that the interview to any listener that either wants to knit pick or be a chair born ranger or whatever is going to open up all sorts of other questions and then they can say, “Why didn’t you say this, why didn’t you answer that?” Well, simply is the fact is that in this little interview tape we’re doing to try and consolidate the issue of the murder and funeral; if we answered every tangent that was brought up and I can give you the answers to them, we’d be talking about another twenty-five hours.

Rob: No kidding, yeah.

Doyel: So, you know just saying that right off the bat for the nay sayers and whatnot, no, everything was not answered. Do we have it? probably nine-nine per cent chance yes, I do know it, but…

Rob: I think at this point we should let people know that until the documentary on Bill’s life is released, and that’s of course the video documentary that we’re talking about being produced by the gentleman in New York, until that’s released I don’t think we’ll have any more comments on what’s going on. Now, granted if Craig is available to do an interview following his analysis of some of the police reports and things like that, that may come on the air between now and then but we’re going to try and approach this in smaller chunks now that we’ve done this, what we thought would be one hour and I’m looking at the clock here again and we’re probably 7 or 8 minutes away from the top of the second hour, so we’ve certainly covered more details than you and I had theorized earlier in the evening, Doyel, so.

Doyel: Well, it will be done once and for all and basically all I’ve got to say at this point it’s not an issue of hiding this or whatever the nay sayers want to do and accuse us of; it’s just a matter of , ok, there’s these 2 hours, there’s the autopsy recording, there’s all the vast number of shows that I’ve already done on this subject and that’s basically it. I just don’t have the time to type; we’ve got 7 this week alone, Rob. So, can you imagine typing, because you’re going to have to, this 2 hours into a transcript 7 times in one week.

Rob: Yeah, I know.

Doyel: You can’t do it. I mean you just can’t do it. So this is it. It’s going to be available. If you want to get it, it’s there. I’m not going to keep making all these custom emails and full explanations and time lines and all this anymore.

Rob: That’s part of the idea with these two broadcasts is that we will have something concrete on the website so that when people ask, “You know, hey, I’m new to Bill Cooper, I just finished reading his book last week, I showed up on the website and all of a sudden I discovered he’s dead, can you give me details on why he was killed and what happened and all this kind of stuff.” Well, this is the summery we’re doing tonight, ladies and gentlemen, or this afternoon.

Doyel: That’s it until the documentary.

Rob: That’s it until the documentary. Exactly.

Doyel: Well, I guess that would about sum it up and then at some point later on if…

Rob: There’s just one other thing I’d like to bring up, Doyel, and that was, I understand Bill’s ex-wife, I believe her name is Sally. Now in 2001 I guess they would have been divorced for approximately 20 years or something like that, a lot of the listeners from the Hour of the Time may recognize the name Jessica, she was on some of the chat groups and had come to visit Bill in Eagar after he’d moved to Eagar and they’d sort of caught up after a decade of so of not being in touch. I understand they contacted you, I guess they were contacted by the authorities and they got some information from the WilliamCooper.com website at the time, could you just give a bit, maybe a synopsis of what happened with Sally and Jessica?

Doyel: Well, yeah, basically they had found out from the federal Marshall what had happened, plus the website and Sally immediately started calling, 1:00 in the morning, 2:00 in the morning, things like that, calling the funeral home directly trying to cancel the arrangements because it didn’t fit her schedule–we’re talking a lady who hasn’t been around for 20 years.

Rob: Right.

Doyel: And she wants to change everybody’s natural plans to come here for her, and it culminated the day of the funeral with them showing up in a rental pickup and me really lost as to why and I said, “Why did you rent that little pickup because you’re griping about being cramped up. Why didn’t you get a car?”“Oh, we came to get what’s ours.” And she tried to assert that she was a trustee, which was completely bizarre. The lawyers threw it out in a heart beat as well as the ones that even she hired dumped it; didn’t even want the case because it was so dumb and stole the guest sign-in book at the funeral which I had saved for the daughters, Pooh and Allison.

Rob: Pooh and Allison, yeah.

Doyel: And took that and Pastor Jerry got that back for me and Jerry of the mortuary service. During the services, that came up missing and they secured that. They tried to take the flag during the interment at the gravesite from his casket. And after such ludicrous behavior, they came in to the food part afterwards and threw a tantrum and said, “You haven’t seen the last of us and we’re going to sue you, etc.” and they stormed out of there and these are coming from the people that have never been here, as far as her and…

Rob: Sally.

Doyel: Haven’t been married to Bill for 20 years and have not offered a single penny of help throughout the circumstance whether it be funeral, food or whatever. They were quite the nightmare. Of course, Jessica and her tried to pursue a law suit by threatening us with scare tactics and I told them to “go piss up a crooked stick” and then they went and got a lawyer and that didn’t work and they finally realized they had nothing to stand on; they were not trustees, never had been, were anything close to it.

Rob: Well, we’ve got about 30 seconds left here, Doyel, so perhaps I guess on a future program we can get into some of the lawsuits and things. I guess, just in general we need another hour to wrap up some of the things that happened after Bill’s murder, but at least we’ve gotten down everything that happened in those crucial two weeks and I’d like to thank-you again, Doyel, for doing this for us. You’ve been listening to the Hour of the Time for Monday, March 28, 2005.