A DEADLY FEUD

MAYFLOWER -- On a drizzly summer morning, five months after police shot her
husband to death in his bedroom, Tammy Wilson sits with her sister Meloney
Clark at their mother's kitchen table.

Up since sunrise, Tammy has filled an ashtray with crimson-stained Capris.
Meloney, still disheveled and in need of coffee, sits in a worn nightshirt
under her own wreath of smoke.

After decades of feuding, the women are trying to rebuild their
relationship, learning to talk like sisters again. Awkward pauses are
frequent in this cozy kitchen, and their conversation always returns to the
police raid that left 60-year-old Carl Ray Wilson dead.

They can't get past wondering how things got so out of control.

How this mess cost both of them their husbands.

How their family's small-town spat became a case for the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms, the local drug task force and a regional SWAT team --
and why each agency still denies responsibility for initiating the raid.

How a raid sparked by a family feud has become the latest nationwide cause
for critics of the government's actions at the Branch Davidian compound in
Waco, Texas, and the deadly standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

It's all so upsetting, Tammy says. "I just think it's sad that police can
step inside a family dispute and take it to the point that they took this."

Everything fell apart Jan. 12, when more than two dozen law enforcement
officers surrounded the Wilsons' isolated home in rural Faulkner County
before sunrise.

A search warrant says authorities were there to seize a .30-30 Winchester
rifle. They also were investigating allegations that Carl was trafficking
drugs.

Within moments of entering the house, a gunbattle broke out between Carl
and the SWAT team. When the bullets stopped flying, Carl was dead and two
officers were injured. Investigators found eight guns and a small amount of
drugs.

Despite a legal challenge by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which reshaped
a suppression rule of local federal courts and ultimately could revise
similar rules of courts in 10 federal districts in seven states,
information about the raid remains shrouded in court-imposed secrecy.

Investigators remain tight-lipped, insisting the Carl Wilson case is closed.

"As far as we're concerned, it's over," says Bill Buford, the agent in
charge of the ATF in Arkansas.

But for Carl's widow, it isn't over at all.

Wild and feuding

Three high school portraits of the Oaks sisters -- Tammy, Meloney and Candy
- -- hang side by side in their mother's bedroom. Each girl wears the bright,
Pollyanna smile of someone who is certain that life holds only wonderful
surprises.

The sisters share the same high cheekbones and olive skin. All are
high-spirited and possess a bawdy sense of humor.

But the three women clash frequently. Their arguments usually stem from
run-ins with the law.

Candy, 43, still believes Meloney set her up in a scheme that got her
convicted of forgery and theft. And she vacillates between laughter and
anger when she describes the night Tammy allowed her to roll a joint in
front of an undercover officer.

Meloney, 41, was convicted in 1998 for possessing drugs and drug
paraphernalia and placed on probation. She says her family abandoned her
when she needed them most.

Tammy, 42, boasts of being the only sister never convicted of a crime. Even
so, she and Carl always seemed to be the center of the family maelstrom.
The fights began almost as soon as Tammy met Carl.

In her late teens, Tammy Oaks shared with her sisters a weakness for wild
times and even wilder men.

So when she wandered into North Little Rock's Mad Dog Saloon one sweltering
June evening in 1978, it didn't take her long to notice a lanky,
hell-raising outlaw named Carl Ray Wilson.

They flirted that night in redneck fashion, beginning with Carl's opening
line: "You've got a cute butt."

She was 19, a year out of high school.

He was 37, a decade out of prison.

They knew immediately they were soul mates.

"We met on a Friday, he called on a Monday, and we moved in together on a
Tuesday," Tammy recalls.

Six years later, she married Carl, despite her family's objections. Carl
had been convicted four times during the 1960s of burglary and car theft.
In 1974, he shot and injured a co-worker during an argument. It was ruled
self-defense.

Carl avoided prison after meeting Tammy, but he would continue having
occasional brushes with trouble.

In 1982, Carl shot and killed his best friend, Sonny Evans. Authorities
ruled the death an accident.

That same year, he testified in Little Rock murderer Mary Lee Orsini's
trial, telling jurors he had unknowingly supplied the explosives used in an
attempt to kill Alice McArthur, whom Orsini later had shot to death by hit men.

Carl's testimony was key in the Orsini trial, which captivated much of
Arkansas.

Six years later, in a drunken rage, Carl shot a third person -- his wife.

Tammy nearly died but refused to leave Carl or cooperate with authorities.
This unwavering loyalty upset her family, especially her dying father.

"Dad and everybody told me, 'He's just making a fool out of you,' " Tammy
recalls.

She contends Carl changed after the shooting, even though in 1993 he was
questioned in the death of businessman Johnny Burnett.

As Tammy recovered from her near-fatal wounds, Carl quit drinking and began
going to church. He decided it was time to shed his rebel image, she says.
And he and Tammy hoped to help her troubled family convert as well.

Candy scoffs at these claims.

Carl and Tammy were hypocrites and unbearably judgmental, she says.

If it weren't for Carl and Tammy's interference, Candy believes she
wouldn't have lost custody of her son. Candy says they reported her to the
Department of Human Services, telling social workers she was a horrible mother.

She brooded over this for years but didn't completely sever her
relationship with her sister.

Meanwhile, Meloney had almost completely withdrawn from the family. They
didn't like her husband, and he didn't like them.

'The doorkeeper'

Meloney married John Clark in 1996, making him a reluctant member of the
Oaks family. John didn't care for his new in-laws, particularly Carl.

The feeling was mutual. The Oaks clan referred to John as "the doorkeeper,"
accusing him of shutting them out of Meloney's life.

They criticized John for being a veteran on disability. He wasn't really
sick or injured, they said. Why didn't he get a job? His disability
certainly didn't prevent him from playing his saxophone in various bands,
they said. Carl especially enjoyed poking fun at John behind his back.

Sensing the disapproval on both sides, Meloney began avoiding her family.
She was devoted to her husband; he was "the one."

"The first day I danced with him, he said he was going to marry me," she
recalls.

The same year that John and Meloney married, her father, Leo Oaks Sr.,
died. His will sparked a long-running court fight that would divide the
sisters for years.

Meloney's 1998 drug conviction strained the relationships further. Why,
Tammy asked, couldn't Meloney get her life together?

By now, even Meloney realized she was floundering. She was tired of trying
to make peace between her husband and her family. And she didn't feel
pretty anymore; a life of partying had taken its toll. Even John seemed to
find her unappealing, Meloney says.

Fault lines sliced through the marriage.

As the relationship deteriorated, John grew increasingly irritated with the
Oaks family, their endless tiffs and alleged criminal ties, the sisters
say. He wanted out. And his own arrest on drug charges was just over the
horizon.

Life at the ranch

"I've been hit!" yelled Deputy Jason Young as a round hit his
bullet-resistant vest slightly injuring him and sending him spinning.

A second officer hit his head on a table as he dove to the floor.

Carl, hit five times, died on his blood-drenched bed.

Investigators found what they were after, his Winchester rifle, as well as
seven other guns, drug paraphernalia, a plastic bag containing a small
amount of white powder, a pill bottle of marijuana seeds, burned marijuana
cigarettes, a large Ziploc bag containing smaller bags of marijuana and a
metal can with a bag of marijuana.

As investigators continued searching the Wilson home, the phone rang at
Little Rock attorney Tom Travis' law firm.

Nikki answered. A breathless John was on the line, and he had news:

"Carl Wilson is dead, and two officers are down!"

Pointing fingers

The federal government says the reasons behind the raid at Carl Wilson's
home are nobody's business.

"My view is that there really isn't anything for us to say about that,"
says U.S. Attorney Michael Johnson. "We don't talk about investigations,
even if they're closed. That's a long-standing policy, and I see no reason
to apply a different policy in this situation."

Until the Carl Wilson case, all federal search warrants and accompanying
paperwork were automatically sealed in the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Only when the Democrat-Gazette challenged the process did federal judges
agree to loosen the strictures.

But the new guidelines don't apply to this case, only future ones -- which
means the only answers explaining the reasons for the raid are those the
family can find for themselves.

Carl's five siblings realize their brother's lifestyle may have been partly
responsible for his fate. What bothers them is that they still don't know
why authorities suddenly became interested in Carl's rifle.

Some family members speculate that authorities were really after drugs.

Buford says he was contacted by the Conway Regional Drug Task Force two
months before the raid. Narcotics officers were investigating Carl and had
learned he had a gun, Buford says. Because of his prison record, Carl
wasn't supposed to own or use weapons.

"That was the investigation, period -- a felon in possession of firearm,"
Buford says.

Buford won't say what else the drug task force was looking into.

"For me to expand on anything else would not be of any help to you. It
wouldn't be of any help to us," Buford says. "Our assistance was requested
and we followed through with it. This was not a man who needed to possess
firearms."

But Lt. Bill Milburn, spokesman for the drug task force, is perplexed by
Buford's recollection of events.

"I wasn't aware the task force started it."

Johnson says he can't comment on who initiated the investigation.

He also won't say whether the amount of drugs found at Carl's home was
significant enough to indicate dealing or trafficking.

Asked what kind of charges could have been pursued if Carl had lived, the
prosecutor says only, "I don't think it would be appropriate to comment on
that."

Carl's gun closet

Carl's illegal ownership of guns didn't bother anyone until this year.

That he owned weapons was certainly no secret. After all, he shot three
people while living in Faulkner County.

For the past 18 years, Carl and Tammy had lived on land belonging to
deceased attorney and philanthropist Herschel Friday. In exchange for
living there rent-free, Carl looked after the Friday family's land and cattle.

Carl was known among hunters and poachers as someone not to be messed with.
He was often seen roaming Friday's land with guns.

His family says he often gave venison to friends, including a Conway
municipal judge. The meat came from deer Carl shot.

At any time -- particularly when Carl shot Tammy and police took his guns
- -- local authorities could have charged Carl with being a felon in
possession of a firearm, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years.

They didn't.

Steve Wallace, Faulkner County's chief deputy, says a judge ordered the
guns be given back to Tammy after she was shot. Family members, he says,
are allowed to have guns as long as they are kept away from the felon.

But the guns in the Wilson home were kept in Carl's closet.

As for the other shootings, Wallace can't say why Carl was never charged
with having guns. Many older case files were destroyed years ago when the
basement where they were kept flooded, he says.

Buford says he doesn't know why Carl's guns only recently became an issue.
"His name never came up to our office as being in possession of firearms
until this incident."

Recycled gossip?

In the past year, John dropped by the Wilson home only once.

That's why everyone agrees any information he gave police about Carl and
drugs had to be secondhand.

But the origin of the information doesn't matter for investigators who need
a search warrant.

While hearsay isn't admissible in trials, it can be used as a basis for
getting permission to search a house -- as long as the information can be
corroborated, says a federal district judge who requested anonymity.

However, many judges would be reluctant to allow a search if the hearsay
was offered by a "virgin informant" -- someone who has never worked with
police, the judge adds.

No one will say whether John had given authorities information in other
cases. Investigators won't even acknowledge whether he or anyone else was
an informant in this case.

Detectives usually recruit potential drug-crime informants from the ranks
of people arrested on possession charges, the arrangement being a reduction
in the charge in exchange for information about dealers higher up the chain.

"In order to get a bigger fish, sometimes you have to let a small fish go,"
Lt. Milburn says.

Documents sketchy

It would be two months and a court battle later before anyone, including
Carl's family, would get a hint as to what was in the federal government's
probable-cause affidavit -- the document that explains what was being
investigated and where authorities' information came from.

The Democrat-Gazette filed a motion in federal court Feb. 15 asking that
the document be unsealed. The newspaper also challenged Amended General
Order No. 22, which mandated that all documents related to
search-and-seizure warrants be automatically sealed in the Eastern District
of Arkansas.

By March, a heavily edited version of the affidavit was released. And last
month, federal judges agreed to end the practice of automatically sealing
warrant information.

In the seven pages from the affidavit that were made public, ATF agent
Stuart Sullivan outlined Carl's criminal past. Sullivan also used 1996
bankruptcy records to substantiate an informant's claims that Carl owned
three weapons, the .30-30 Winchester rifle, a .223-caliber Ruger rifle and
a .44-caliber Magnum revolver.

The Magnum is what Carl used to shoot at police during the raid.

Defense attorney John Wesley Hall Jr., who intervened in the newspaper's
federal fight, is critical of the document.

"Affidavits are like sex -- even if they're bad they're still good," he says.

"If [Carl] had been arrested on this and not killed -- just based on what
I've seen -- I think we could have a hell of a shot saying the cops didn't
have enough information even though a judge did sign off on it."

The red flag, he says, is that the information about the guns is 5 years
old. How, he asks, did the officers know whether Carl still had these weapons?

Because so much was deleted from the Wilson affidavit, it's impossible to
determine whether some of the corroborating details were more recent.

"They deleted so much you can't even see their probable cause," Hall says.
"Who knows? There could be dynamite in those missing paragraphs."

Much of the blame rests not with police, but with the judges who grant
searches, Hall says, adding that too many probable-cause affidavits sail
through the courts with few questions asked. "They read them, but not with
a critical eye.

"The process is virtually unaccountable right now ... because judges don't
do anything to oversee the process," he says. "It's a sham."

But the federal judge who asked not to be named says judges have specific
and strict expectations when they are asked to approve search warrants.
This isn't something they take lightly.

Reasons for searching someone's home must be clearly outlined in a
probable-cause affidavit, he says. That way, if a defense attorney wants to
later question whether a search was legitimate, he can ask another judge to
review the document.

But in the Wilson case, there will be no such questions. Carl is dead.
There will be no trial, no opportunity for anyone to analyze the
probable-cause affidavit.

U.S. Magistrate J. Thomas Ray, who signed off on the Wilson search warrant,
didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

But in a March hearing regarding this case, Ray said judicial power didn't
kill Carl -- a shootout with police did.

What happened after the warrant was granted "is something that is outside
... the power of this court."

A new poster child

Faulkner County Prosecuting Attorney H.G. Foster decided in April that the
local SWAT team serving the search warrant did nothing wrong.

An internal investigation also cleared officers.

In June, members of the team were given commendations for their actions in
the Wilson raid. Buford also received official praise from the ATF's
national office for his efforts to help officers traumatized by what happened.

But descriptions of the Wilson raid have been less than glowing on the Web
sites of extremist groups. They describe Carl as having been "summarily
executed." ATF agents are referred to as "jack-booted thugs."

The conspiracy theories don't stop there. Some groups have gone so far as
to link Carl's death to the Dixie Mafia; the end of Bill Clinton's
presidency; allegations of a drug trafficking route that included the Mena
airport; and a runway strip on Friday's land where Carl lived.

A star player in many theories is Buford, a career ATF agent who has long
been criticized by such groups for his role in the Branch Davidian raid in
Waco. When ATF agents stormed the compound in February 1993, Buford was
commanding a 12-man team. Three of his men were killed, and five others
were wounded. Buford was shot four times.

"If you dig deep enough, there are just too many unusual incidences in Mr.
Buford's career," says Wayne Hicks, Midwest news correspondent for the
Nevada-based Sierra Times.

On some Internet sites, the Wilson raid has been compared to the standoff
at Ruby Ridge, in which members of the Randy Weaver family were killed. In
their eyes, Carl and Tammy Wilson have become the new Weaver family,
conspired against by a vengeful and inept federal government.

"Whenever we mention the names of those who died in government excess, I
want Vicki Weaver, David Koresh and Carl Wilson's names in the same
breath," Hicks says.

"I guess we need a poster child."

So many regrets

The scent of rich coffee fills the kitchen as rain begins to spatter
against the windows.

Together, Tammy and Meloney study the family photographs stuck on the
refrigerator behind them.

"I used to be so pretty," Meloney says wistfully.

Tammy is silent.

The pictures make them uncomfortable. In them, each girl wears the bright
smile of someone who thirsts for life's surprises.

But half a lifetime away in the kitchen, Tammy and Meloney are women on the
downside of 40, trying to find peace at their mother's table.

It's been nearly a year since Candy and Nikki were welcome at this table.
No one is speaking to them. They live together in a one-bedroom apartment,
rehashing and defending their roles in the family tragedy.

Candy doesn't understand all the fuss over Carl's death. She thinks he died
smiling.

"For over 20 years, he told me this was the way he'd go out -- with all the
cops, all their guns and him with his [gun]," she says. "He always said
he'd take two with him. And he almost got two."

She throws herself back against the couch in a huff. Better to be alone
than to deal with her impossible family, she says.

Thirty miles away, at the Oaks family home, Meloney and Tammy make
absent-minded small talk. They discuss their grandmother's health, make fun
of their mother's homespun advice and gossip about friends in town. Meloney
gets up often, pacing between her chair and an ashtray on the counter.
Tammy is calm, until the conversation turns back to the subject neither
woman is able to avoid.

Carl.

Sometimes, Meloney admits, she can't help but believe some of Nikki's
allegations.

And given what has happened, she says, how can Tammy not?

"I don't know," Tammy sobs. "I just want to know the truth."

This article was published on Sunday, August 26, 2001