A FATAL RAID

MAYFLOWER -- Tammy Wilson's windup alarm clock jangled her from a deep
sleep at 6:30 a.m. As far as she could tell, her husband, Carl, was still
slumbering undisturbed in his own room. Tammy, 42, worked at a local
day-care center and was usually awake before daylight. Carl, on the other
hand, often sat up into the wee hours of the morning, watching television
or videos.

Since retiring, he had the luxury of sleeping in. After more than two
decades together, the Wilsons were still a passionate couple who frequently
shared the queen-size bed in Carl's room. But most nights, they slept
apart, especially if Tammy had to work the next morning. On Jan. 12, Tammy
woke up alone.

She turned on the bedside lamp, chasing the darkness from her small room.
"At that point, all hell broke loose," she recalls. "I heard a firecracker
sound and then I realized there was gunfire." Within a few panic-stricken
moments, Carl was dead and Tammy -- barefoot, handcuffed and still in her
nightgown -- was led to a police car outside. "Only by the grace of God, I
wasn't cuddled up with him that night," she says. "There's no doubt I would
have been dead too."

Carl Wilson, 60, was shot at least five times in an exchange of gunfire
with police. The shootout occurred when federal authorities raided the
four-time convicted felon's rural Faulkner County home in search of a
.30-.30 Winchester rifle. The gun, which Carl's family and friends say he
had owned for more than 30 years, was wanted by the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms. Before carrying out the raid in the chilly pre-dawn
hours of Jan. 12, the agency was granted a "no-knock" search warrant, which
allows law enforcement officers to enter a home without announcing
themselves. The search warrant was the culmination of a two-month
investigation conducted by the ATF. Bill Buford, the ATF agent-in-charge,
says he cannot yet say why Carl was being investigated. Nor can he comment
on the shootout until the Arkansas State Police finishes its inquiry. The
other agencies involved also cannot comment. The case has been sealed in
federal court, so many lingering questions remain unanswered. Tammy says
she won't let the matter drop until she knows what police thought her
husband was up to when they came looking for his rifle. "I know the law is
going to say a lot of bad things, and I'm trying to prepare myself for
them. If there was something so crazy -- right or wrong, good or bad -- I
want to know why. I can take it, but I've got to know why."

Accounts of the raid differ between police and family members who were in
the house. Police say Carl shot first.

The family says officers did. On the day of the shooting, Buford told the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that officers were slowed by the long muddy
driveway leading to the house and had trouble approaching Wilson's home.
Carl began firing as they neared the house, Buford said. "[Officers]
returned fire, and Mr. Wilson was killed." According to a statement issued
by the Arkansas State Police, which is investigating the shooting, the
gunbattle began after the SWAT team deployed a "distraction device," and
officers announced themselves. "Upon entry, officers were fired upon by
[the] suspect, defensive shots were returned," the statement says. Tammy
and a niece who was there that morning say the shooting didn't start until
the special weapons and tactics team entered through two unlocked back
doors, one to the porch and the other leading into the house, and set off a
distraction device. Singed flooring and a sooty residue on the refrigerator
indicate that the device, also known as a "flash-bang," went off in the
hall next to Carl's bedroom. Tammy says it's obvious Carl fired his .44
Magnum revolver -- at least four spent casings were found after the shootout.

He kept the gun in his bedroom, a few feet away from the foot of his bed in
the antique radio his television sat on. Carl wouldn't have hesitated to
shoot anyone he believed was breaking into his home, Tammy says,
particularly if he were startled from sleep. "Carl did love and protect his
family.

I have no doubt that he shot back."

No-knock raids have long been a point of contention and have been argued
repeatedly in U.S. courts. Under Arkansas law, this element of surprise is
allowed if officers believe that announcing their presence would endanger
themselves or the people inside. No-knocks also are permitted if there's a
possibility evidence might be destroyed in the time it takes for police to
gain entry. In planning the Wilson raid, authorities decided to ask for a
no-knock warrant because of Carl's criminal background and the suspicion
that he might be armed, says Lt. Bob Berry of the Conway Regional Drug Task
Force. But Tammy says if Carl had known he was wanted by authorities, he
would have surrendered voluntarily. "No one should have been shot at -- my
husband or the officers," Tammy says. "This was senseless.

Why did it take that kind of excessive force for one gun? "Yes, he has a
criminal history, but in that criminal history he's always been notorious
for cooperating with authorities. ... When Tommy Robinson [former Pulaski
County sheriff] came out here, Carl didn't greet them with a pistol.

He sat out on the porch and had a cup of coffee with them." He would have
done the same on Jan. 12, she contends. During the exchange of gunfire, two
members of the SWAT team were slightly injured. Carl died in his bedroom.

The blood from his wounds seeped through his covers, soaking the mattress
beneath. "It may be completely foolhardy for a cop to raid no-knock, but
for some reason they do it," says Little Rock defense attorney John Wesley
Hall Jr., who has represented several people involved in search-and-seizure
cases. But Berry says the execution of the search warrant was carried out
professionally and in the same manner other no-knock search warrants have
been served. His agency, along with a local SWAT team, assisted the ATF in
both the investigation and the raid. "I don't see anything that could have
possibly been done differently," Berry adds. "We put long hours into
planning this before carrying it out." No-knocks are most commonly used in
drug investigations, when there's a chance that evidence might be
destroyed. But, Hall says, "You can't flush a .30-.30 rifle down the
toilet, so that's not an issue.

If they're looking for a rifle, why don't they stake out the house and wait
for him to leave?" Berry says it's better to corner suspects at home.
Attempting to catch someone during his daily routine is just too dangerous.
"Anytime you try to do something like that, you run the risk of some
innocent person getting hurt or killed," he says. As for putting the family
members of a suspect in peril by raiding a home, he says, "that's the one
reason we do as much planning as we do." And in the Wilson case, he notes,
"The two other occupants were unhurt." But Hall says the extreme methods
used in surprise raids, though sometimes necessary, can be what gets
somebody shot. "When they sneak in like that at six o'clock in the morning,
they're just asking for trouble.

Then the only question is, 'Who's going to be shot? Is it going to be them
or is it going to be us?' " Berry says getting a no-knock warrant isn't
easy. A judge must first be convinced that the risk is worth it, especially
if a raid is going to be carried out before daylight. In the Wilson raid,
officers met at 2 a.m. to review their strategy, which had been mapped out
days before. Meanwhile, a surveillance team was watching the home so
officers would know who was where and whether any unexpected visitors had
shown up, Berry says. That Tammy and Carl usually slept in separate
bedrooms wasn't known, he says, adding, "We weren't sure on that."

As the gunfire broke out that morning, Tammy says she ran toward Carl's
bedroom, which was separated from hers by a spare room and bathroom.

On the way, she collided with Dottie McKenzie, Carl's 20-year-old niece who
had been staying with them since the Christmas holidays. Dottie was
sleeping in the spare bedroom. Tammy thrust the frightened Dottie behind
her just before she was ordered by masked SWAT team members to hit the
floor. "They hollered, 'Get down! Get down! Don't look at us!' " As Tammy
lay on floor, facing Carl's room, she strained to catch a glimpse of her
husband. Officers had their guns pointed at him, she says, and were
ordering him to get up. "I can't. I can't," Carl replied. From her position
on the floor, Tammy could see her husband, propped on a bloody elbow,
trying to raise himself off the bed. Then she and Dottie, still barefoot,
were hastily led through the house, dodging shards of glass from fallen
picture frames, which were scattered across the hall and kitchen floors. As
Dottie was escorted out the back door, she saw Carl kneeling at the foot of
his bed. His arms were stretched in front of him, and his boxers were
around his ankles, she says. After leaving the house, the women were put in
separate police cars. For Tammy, it was a surreal ending to a 23-year
relationship that no one, not even she, ever fully understood. Years ago,
after learning Carl was an ex-con, she repeatedly cautioned herself: "You
better buckle your britches, girl. You're in for the long haul." But once
someone "falls into my heart," Tammy says, she is loyal. "I honored that
man until the day he died. That was my husband and he might not be precious
to anyone else, but he was precious to me."

When they went to the Wilson home, officers were looking for the
Winchester, ammunition and any papers pertaining to the gun's purchase. As
a convicted felon, Carl wasn't supposed to have the gun. But no one can yet
say why it suddenly became imperative that the rifle be seized.

That Carl was an avid gun collector had never been any secret to anyone,
including local authorities, Tammy says. Tammy thinks maybe the ATF
believed the gun had once been used in a crime. Or, she says, it could have
been an excuse to get into the Wilsons' house, just to see what else might
be found there. Seized from the Wilson home were the Winchester, seven
other guns and ammunition, a bong, a pipe, scales, a plastic bag containing
a fourth of a gram of "white powder," a large Ziploc bag containing smaller
bags of marijuana, a pill bottle of marijuana seeds and burned marijuana
cigarettes, according to an inventory list prepared by ATF agents. Also
taken was a "paper note signed by Wilson," the list stated. Tammy says the
note was tacked to the closet door and was meant to discourage visiting
family members who might be tempted to poke around in Carl's closet, where
he kept his guns. It read: "If you open this door, the whole house will
blow up. Try me -- Wilson." The probable cause affidavit, which would
explain why the ATF was investigating Wilson, remains sealed in federal
court. "The main thing the ATF was looking for was the weapons," Berry
says, adding that he can't comment any further on another agency's
investigation. The task force became involved because there was a
possibility drugs might be involved, he says. On Jan. 23, the
Democrat-Gazette sent a letter to U.S. Magistrate J. Thomas Ray, requesting
that all documents pertaining to the case be made public. In his own letter
to the judge, dated Jan. 25, U.S Attorney Michael Johnson said it would be
all right for the court to unseal the inventory list of what was seized
from the Wilson home. However, he "strenuously" objected to unsealing the
probable cause affidavit. "No legitimate purpose is served in unsealing the
application for the search-and-seizure warrant and the accompanying
attachments," the prosecutor wrote. The judge responded by unsealing the
inventory list. But if the newspaper wanted the affidavit, he said, it
would need to file a motion with the court. He also said that the U.S.
attorney has thus far offered "no grounds to support his position" in
keeping the probable cause affidavit sealed. The Democrat-Gazette filed a
motion on Feb. 15, asking that all documents in the case be unsealed.

A ruling is pending. In its motion, the newspaper argues numerous reasons
the case should be unsealed. "First the subject of the search warrant is
dead, and no criminal investigation concerning him can be on-going," it
states. "A civilian was killed and two law enforcement officers were
injured during the execution of this search warrant.

The public is entitled to know the circumstances and manner in which state
and federal law enforcement officials carried out their public duties."

The Arkansas State Police was assigned to investigate the anatomy of the
raid. Four days after the gunbattle, the agency issued a statement: "The
Arkansas State Police investigation has revealed no evidence of wrongdoing
on the part of the Metro SWAT team or any other agency." This was a
preliminary finding based on what investigators were told immediately after
arriving at the scene, said state police Sgt. Don Birdsong. The two SWAT
team members injured in the raid -- Conway police officer Larry Hearn, who
hit his head while diving to avoid the gunfire, and Faulkner County
sheriff's Sgt. Jason Young, who was hit in the upper left arm by a piece of
shrapnel -- have both returned to work. It's unclear whether the state
police investigation is actually finished. Last week, detectives said the
results of their inquiry had been turned over to the prosecutor. But
Faulkner County Prosecuting Attorney H.G. Foster said on Thursday that
police are still waiting for information from the medical examiner, and the
case hasn't been given to him yet. When the inquiry is finished, Foster
will decide whether to close the case, press charges or ask the state
police to investigate further. Once the case is closed, the investigative
file becomes public, and authorities involved in the shootout say they'll
be allowed to talk. So at this time, the silence surrounding the events of
that January morning is impenetrable. "I know there are so many officers
who want to tell their part," Berry says. They believe their inability to
discuss the shootout makes everybody involved "look bad," he adds. "I've
been in the narcotics part [of law enforcement] for nine years and have
executed numerous search warrants," Berry says. "This is the first time
anything like this has happened." Asked what made this raid deadly, he
pauses. "I'd like to comment on it, but I can't until after the
investigation is over."

Carl was well-known to local authorities, even though all of his criminal
convictions occurred in the 1960s. Carl did time for burglary, robbery and
stealing a car. All told, he served 51/2 years in Oklahoma and Arkansas
prisons.

He was paroled from the Cummins Unit in 1968. Since then, the man dubbed a
"reformed outlaw" by one Pulaski County prosecutor had been linked to two
of Arkansas' biggest and most infamous murder cases and was accused on
three occasions of shooting people, including his wife and best friend. Of
the three shooting victims, only his friend died. Carl was never charged in
any of the incidents.

Tammy refused to press charges. The other shootings were ruled accidental
and self-defense. After all of Carl's brushes with notoriety -- whether it
was when he testified in murderess Mary Lee Orisini's trial, or when he
nearly became a suspect in the death of pool contractor Johnny Burnett --
it is baffling to his family that he died over a long-cherished hunting
rifle. Carl always had a "mysterious side," Tammy says. But she can't
imagine what he might have been involved in that would have put their home
and lives under surveillance. There were signs, Tammy says, that Carl had
started using drugs again after 12 years of sobriety.

But when she confronted him about a syringe she had found in a rarely used
drawer, Carl told her she was being paranoid.

The syringe, he said, was simply a remnant of his past. Tammy was still
troubled. "I told him, 'I'm not going back there,' " she says.

Trouble did seem to follow Carl, no matter where he went or whom he
befriended. Many of his problems with the law were of his own making.

A few were just plain bad luck. In October 1974, while he was working as a
construction foreman at a job in Saline County, Carl shot a co-worker in
the thigh.

The shooting was ruled self-defense. Eight years later, Carl emerged as a
pivotal witness in the investigation into the July 1982 slaying of Alice
McArthur. Alice, the wife of prominent Little Rock attorney Bill McArthur,
was murdered by two gunmen.

A few months before her death, someone tried to kill her by putting a bomb
under her car. The explosives used to make the device were later traced to
Carl Wilson. The man who bought them was Eugene "Yankee" Hall, a friend of
Carl's. Yankee and Larry McClendon would later be convicted of first-degree
murder in Alice McArthur's death.

The hitmen were hired by Mary Lee Orsini, who was convicted of capital
murder. Carl testified against Orsini in her 1982 trial. He told the jury
that Yankee and Orsini drove out to his home in Mayflower to pick up the
explosive that was later used to build the bomb planted in Alice McArthur's
car. At that time, Tammy was living there, but the couple weren't yet
married. While Orsini and Tammy rode three-wheelers, Carl and Yankee smoked
marijuana and took a walk to a hunting cabin on the property, Carl gave his
buddy a shampoo bottle filled with Tovex, a plastic explosive used in
construction. Carl said Yankee told him he wanted the explosive to blow up
some stumps. During the lengthy investigation and grand jury proceedings
involved in the McArthur case, Carl testified that he had few visitors to
his out-of-the-way home. "I just try to stay off up there by myself," Carl
testified. "Even got a sign down there where you come in across the cattle
guard: 'Leave Me Alone.' " When asked if he had any enemies, he replied:
"No. I don't do people wrong." Two days after testifying against Orsini,
Carl found himself the subject of another shooting investigation after he
killed his best friend, William E. "Sonny" Evans. Carl told detectives that
Evans was showing him a .22-caliber rifle in the bedroom of Evans' home and
had taken out the clip when the telephone rang. While Evans went to answer
it in the living room, Carl and Tammy examined the gun. The rifle had a
unique safety lock on the trigger, and Carl told detectives he was pulling
the lock back and forth when the gun fired.

Although the clip had been removed, there was a bullet in the chamber.
Authorities ruled the shooting accidental. Five years later, on March 18,
1988, Carl shot Tammy at their home. In the midst of a fight about visiting
Tammy's parents, a drunken Carl pointed a .22 rifle at his wife and fired.

He missed the first time. On his second try, he didn't. The bullet entered
Tammy's left side, hitting her liver and then ricocheting through her body.
As she lay bleeding on the floor of their home, Carl was running around
"like a wild man," she says. Finally, he leaned over his injured wife. "My
God, what do I do?" he asked. "Get me some help," Tammy begged. "As far as
I was concerned, he could go to hell in a handbasket," she says, recalling
the three months she spent in the hospital. "I hated him." From his jail
cell, Carl begged for a second chance.

Against the advice of many, including her father, Tammy took him back, but
with strict stipulations, she says. "You take another drink, you hit me,
you don't go to church -- then this is over," she told him. Police dropped
the case against Carl after Tammy refused to press charges. That same year,
Carl went to work for Johnny Burnett's pool and spa contracting business.
Four years later, on July 21, 1992, Burnett was found shot to death in his
Little Rock home, and Carl was again involved in a high-profile murder
case. While police charged Burnett's wife, Scharmel Burnett, in her
husband's murder, her defense attorneys pointed to Carl as a potential
suspect. One of the documents they used to back up their assertion was a
nine-page handwritten report by a Little Rock detective detailing a
conversation with a Faulkner County law enforcement source. "According to
the source, Carl Wilson was a shady character, and if he wasn't the
triggerman, he probably knew who was," detective Ronnie Smith wrote.
"Wilson is a drug user and probably involved in drug trafficking, according
to the source." Adding to the suspicion was Carl's soured relationship with
his former boss when Burnett fired him. The two men also were in a dispute
over a worker's compensation claim Carl made against Burnett's company.
Burnett was killed before the claim was resolved. Prosecutors questioned
Wilson about the Burnett murder but determined that he had an alibi.

Scharmel Burnett was tried twice but was never convicted. No one else has
ever been charged. Carl's name didn't appear in newspapers again until he
was killed. "I got the impression that he was an old outlaw who had
reformed," prosecutor Melody Piazza recalled on the day of the shootout.
"He had a new wife and ... seemed to have changed his life."

Once an alcoholic who sometimes lost himself in violent rages, Carl became
a new man after shooting his wife, longtime friends say. That was almost 13
years ago. "Carl was so proud that he never took another drink," says Stan
Joyner, Carl's boss at a construction company for several years. After
Tammy's shooting, Carl appeared to make good on his promise to reform, say
the dozen or so friends who have known the couple in both good times and
bad. Carl was eventually forced to retire after several light strokes and
heart surgery. He wandered around Mayflower and Conway during they day,
coffee thermos always in hand. In the evenings, he played dominoes and
watched television well into the early-morning hours.

His dresser is covered with stacks of videotapes. Still known for a sharp
wit and a rough-edged demeanor, Carl seemed to be slipping gratefully -- if
not always gracefully -- into his retirement. In their many years together,
Tammy says, this period was definitely the couple's most peaceful era. "If
this had happened 15 years ago, I wouldn't have questioned it," she says of
the raid. Standing in Carl's bedroom, which is still pockmarked with bullet
holes, Tammy wonders what her husband could have been up to that would have
piqued the interest of the ATF. "I'm willing to accept whatever it is. I
just need to know. I hope that with all my heart there are no surprises.

But good or bad, I'll take what they hand me." Tammy has a few theories of
her own. A family vendetta may have prompted some of Tammy's relatives to
go to the police with stories about Carl, she says. Tales of drugs, weapons
and the note tacked onto his closet door may have been enough to open an
investigation, she muses. She also thinks that perhaps some longtime law
enforcement authorities, frustrated by their inability to do no more than
link Carl to various crimes, might have been waiting for an opportunity --
no matter how small -- to strike. "Carl always had a past that haunted
him," Tammy says. "Society never pardoned him, but I know God did." She
describes a long-ago encounter with Buford, saying that during the McArthur
trial, the ATF agent approached Carl in a courthouse hallway, telling him,
"I'll get you." Buford says he cannot comment, adding that he would very
much like to. Tammy's life with Carl, as well as the nature of his death,
have made her suspicious of law enforcement. After the shooting, she and
Carl's friends scoured the house, collecting slugs, shell casings and
taking photos. All of these items have been turned over to Tammy's
attorney, she says. She also went to the funeral home before anything was
done to Carl's body and took pictures of all his wounds. "When I saw his
face wasn't distorted, God gave me the strength to take those pictures."

As she sat in the state trooper's car, waiting for word of her husband's
fate, Tammy occupied herself by counting vehicles. Twenty-six unmarked
cars. Four state police cars. Four hours passed. The officers milling about
were nice to her, she says. "None of them were mean or rude or ugly. The
SWAT team was what scared the hell out of me." Tammy finally dredged up the
nerve to ask a trooper about Carl. "Is he alive or dead?" "Well, ma'am, I
don't think it's fair to keep you in the dark," she says the trooper told
her. "He's dead." As Tammy's handcuffs were removed, another trooper asked
her, "Ma'am, is there anyone I can call to come comfort you?" Tammy asked
for her mother, but she wasn't home. Her grandfather, Daddy John, came
instead. When he arrived, they sat there for two more hours. Finally, a
white pickup with a camper shell arrived. "And that's what they took Carl
Ray Wilson out in," Tammy says. Still barefoot and clad in her white,
flower-sprigged nightgown, Tammy clutched her grandfather's hand and turned
away from her house. He drove her away in a white Cadillac, telling her
that everything was going to be OK. But everything isn't, Tammy says. It
won't be, she says, until she knows what happened and why.