Hour of the Time - Transcript of HOTT 03/28/05

MILTON WILLIAM COOPER

1943-2001

Rest in Peace our friend.

You were a true patriot.

Bills' Murder - Robert Houghton Interviews Doyel Shamley about the events surrounding November 5th and 6th, 2001

Updated : Thursday, December 8, 2005 10:29 AM

Part 2 - The Hour of the Time 03/28/05

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.

PART ONE OF THIS INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE HERE