He will probably die without a trial, and committed no offense. Steve has admitted to being the shooter, and the State knows this is true. The pathology reports now confirm (and the attorneys have agreed) that the second deputy was not back-shot. The back wound touted as a cowardly shoot in the beginning by the press turns out to be exactly what Steve has maintained from the beginning, a defensive kill. The only remaining questions are, “What happened to the second deputy’s gun?” (his holster was found empty by his comrades), and “Who really shot the second deputy?” Preliminary reports cannot connect the bullet with any of the Bixbys’ weapons. Of course, these media reports are exaggerated and biased.

The Abbeville Horror
A 'Patriot' shootout kills two officers, shatters the peace of an Old South town and raises questions about an extremist past — and present
By Bob Moser

Trouble in a Small Town
The shootout between the Bixbys and local authorities changed Abbeville forever — and gave insight into the area's extremist history. View photos documenting Abbeville and the gun battle that ripped the community apart.
 
Up the road from Abbeville, a coalition of extremists puts Anderson County government in the crosshairs.
Read More
 
 
ABBEVILLE, S.C. -- Abbeville looks like the perfect Disney model of a quaint Southern village.
You know it the moment your car wheels clamber over the old brick drive that rings the town's impossibly pretty Court Square.

You know it when you sit in the Pizza House, the only place on the square that serves on Sunday nights, and watch a black waitress lift a plump white baby from her high chair and dance around the dining room holding her gently aloft, like an egg, while her young parents laugh and beam.

You know it when you ask for the local paper and you're pointed to the Press and Banner office, just down Main Street, where you plop 50 cents in an "honor basket" and get a heartfelt "thank you!" from the nearest staff member.

You know it when you sit in Ada's coffee shop and listen to Amanda Dean, the proprietor, poke gentle fun at customers who plague her with their endless complaints about "taxes, and taxes, and taxes, and taxes."

Then you stroll a little ways down Main Street and run smack dab into a Confederate battle flag.

The stars and bars herald your arrival at America's only League of the South store, where proceeds benefit a major racist hate group that calls for a second Southern secession. So much for Disney.

Beneath its graceful surface, Abbeville is less like a Hollywood set than a creation of William Faulkner, the novelist who explored the rot underneath the Old South veneer and came up with the famous observation: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

The past draws people to this self-proclaimed "birthplace and deathbed of the Confederacy," most to visit and some to stay. Some of the transplants come, says longtime police Lt. Det. John Smith, because "you can retire and live pretty comfortable in this poor-ass town."

Some, like League of the South official Paul Griffin, who moved down from Michigan last year to man the League of the South store, come to revel in the undying spirit of secession.
 

Evil People
Then there are the indefinables — folks who move here not to revive the Confederacy, exactly, but to live among kindred spirits who despise the federal government every bit as strongly as their ancestors did in 1861.

Call them "Patriots," tax protesters or sovereign citizens — whatever you call them, they're a hearty species that has thrived like kudzu in the piney hills of western (or "upstate") South Carolina since long before the Civil War. Nowadays, there may be more antigovernment extremists in the vicinity of Abbeville than anywhere else in America, with the possible exceptions of the Idaho panhandle and the Ozarks.

An hour down the road in Edgefield, birthplace of both Strom Thurmond and his interracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, longtime neo-Confederate stalwart Walter Mims and League of the South Internet whiz Virgil Huston published the South's most incendiary tabloid, The Edgefield Journal, from 1998 to 2002.

The Journal made its mark by blending shrill "Southron" nationalism ("The Klan of the 21st century is spelled N-A-A-C-P," read one front-page headline) with New World Order paranoia ("Disarming U.S. Citizens: the coming UN-led push," read another).

An hour up the road in Anderson, public officials have been fending off "a bunch of darn common-law nuts" — and death threats — since the 1980s. The New South boomtown of Greenville, home to Bob Jones University (where interracial dating was banned until 2000), is a national rallying point for hard-line Christian Right politics, with one of the nation's staunchest anti-gay ordinances and a stubborn refusal to recognize the Martin Luther King holiday.

Sprinkled throughout the upstate is the most radical aggregation of Sons of Confederate Veterans camps in the United States. Ron Wilson, the national commander in chief who's fought to turn the 31,400-member SCV from a respectable "heritage" group into a neo-racist group (see Neo-Confederates), is currently campaigning for state Senate from his hometown of Easley, a Greenville suburb.

And just a short piece eastward, in tiny Laurens, another rebel flag on another downtown sidewalk marks the entrance to the "World Famous Redneck Shop and Klan Museum," public store and private meeting place for the Cleveland Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

It adds up to an uncommonly combustible mix — not that the upstanding, law-abiding majority want to believe it. Upstaters, like all good Southerners, are experts at looking away. They know how to avert their eyes from the League of the South store, how to gloss over the tall white Confederate memorial that has pride of place in Abbeville's Court Square, and — above all — how to ignore any signs of troubling weirdness in their fellow citizens.

Looking away gave folks in the upstate a Disneyesque sense of tranquility. But it all blew away on Dec. 8.

Trouble Comes to Town

The Bixbys were trouble with a capital T. Steven was the first of the clan to pop up in Abbeville in the mid-1990s, a beefy blowhard in his late twenties who quickly became notorious around local taverns for hollering about his constitutional rights and bellowing the motto of his home state, New Hampshire: "Live Free or Die!"

Because people in these parts don't like to ask pesky questions, nobody knew what could have possessed Steven Bixby to abandon his cherished home state. (A warrant for his arrest, folks later discovered.) And nobody knew why his elderly parents moved down to join him in 2000. (Threat of foreclosure on their New Hampshire house for failing to pay taxes, folks later discovered.)

The Bixbys had left behind a trail of hard feelings in the mountainous middle of New Hampshire. Rita and Arthur, Steven's parents, had terrorized neighbors and public officials since the 1970s with sham lawsuits, common-law tax protests, and the occasional armed threat. The husband of a state Supreme Court justice who was harassed and threatened by the Bixbys told the Union-Leader they were "a bunch of lunatics."

Stephen Savage, a local police chief who'd tip-toed up to their doorstep several times to serve court papers, told the Intelligence Report the family "made the hair on the back of my neck stand up." A man who spent $10,000 to fend off bogus Bixby lawsuits said Rita, the family's constitutional mastermind, "has been crazy since she was born."

But once they'd landed in Abbeville, folks weren't sure what to make of the Bixbys. "The more Steve would drink, the louder he would get," says Lt. Det. Smith, who befriended the younger Bixby after arresting him during a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. "People would say, 'Well, that's just Steve.' He would say the police was always wrong, especially in his case — but who doesn't say that?
Evil mother

"His mother was kind of like Steve — she didn't like the laws and wanted to see them changed," adds Smith. "But everybody bitches about the government. If you can't bitch about the government, you're not American."

Truck driver Noel Thompson was also a friend. Thompson, who lives "less than a half a football field" from the little white house Arthur and Rita Bixby purchased along busy Highway 72, helped Steven buy a mobile food cart to peddle chicken and chips at fairs and festivals. ("He never made no money at it," Thompson says.)

The Bixbys came over to Thompson's house on occasion, and Rita once tried to leave some of her antigovernment "Patriot" literature. (Back in New Hampshire, she liked to hand out copies of the anti-Semitic conspiracy tabloid, Spotlight.)

"My wife told her to keep it," says Thompson. "But we didn't think nothing much about it. Rita was always writing these letters, and they was always running back North, suing people. I just thought it was old people being grumpy.

"A lot of people, you think they're weird, but you wouldn't think they'd kill somebody."

Thompson's view of the Bixbys changed drastically last September, when Steven called and "threatened to kill my kids because they were walking through Arthur and Rita's yard on their way to the school bus. Called me all kinds of racist names and stuff."

The police report is a bit more specific: "the suspect called the victim a fucking nigger and threatened to kill him."

The harassment led to just one of Steven Bixby's several run-ins with local authorities. Even before his arrest for domestic violence, New Hampshire officials found out where the fugitive had fled. But under South Carolina law, suspects can't be extradited unless they face a sentence of one year or more; Steven Bixby had a variety of driving offenses that added up to only nine likely months of jail time.

New Hampshire officials said they were told South Carolina would charge Bixby as a fugitive from justice. But that never happened, and New Hampshire renewed its arrest warrant this past October.

While Steven Bixby was locked up in Abbeville, one officer says, "He kept hollering about his rights and all that." But nobody thought it was anything but talk. "I never saw any red flags," says Sheriff Charles Goodwin.

Shirley Surrett did. A neighbor of Steven's at Abbeville Arms apartments, Surrett says, "When I first met him, I thought, 'Well, he's just a Northerner and he needs lots of prayer.'" Her opinion changed when Steven threatened "a couple of times to come down here and knock my head off" after listening in on her cell-phone calls and hearing things he didn't like.

"I knew it would happen to somebody someday because he had that temper," Surrett says. "He was one of those people, if he said something, you could bank on it — he would do it." But when she complained to police, "They told me he wasn't a problem."

Surrett wasn't convinced. Whenever she passed by Steven's parents' home on the highway, she could sense trouble brewing. The state was expanding 72, and the project was creeping closer to the Bixbys' front yard. "They had a sign like you'd see for no hunting, no fishing or something," Surrett says.

"I thought, 'This is one time that sign ain't gonna work!'"

The sign was yellow and carried a stark warning: "Trespassing strictly forbidden" by "Govermen [sic] Agents + all others."




 
Up the road from Abbeville, a coalition of extremists puts Anderson County government in the crosshairs.
Read More

Gagnon
Live Free or Die!
On Saturday, Dec. 6, mild-mannered Arthur Bixby made a surprise visit to the office of Craig Gagnon, an affable chiropractor who chairs Abbeville's Republican Party. Gagnon had met the Bixbys when Steven came for treatment of a spinal injury suffered on the job.
"I guess they felt a friendship with me because I had family in New Hampshire," Gagnon says. "I thought they were all right — OK folks. Sometimes I'd talk with Steven and he'd get a little blustery, a little wild, but you never figured he'd do anything."

Arthur handed Gagnon a copy of a letter he and Rita had just fired off to several state officials, including the governor. On Thursday, Arthur explained, transportation workers had come to stake out their yard for the highway project. The state had told the Bixbys their home's previous owner had signed a right-of-way — but as always, when the government said something, the Bixbys were convinced it was a conspiratorial lie.

The local transportation department officer had hand-delivered the Bixbys a copy of the original agreement, Gagnon says, but "their position was that it had been doctored by the state. I told Arthur he should go to the courthouse to make sure."

The Bixbys' letter, dated Dec. 3, speculated about the conspiracy against them, ranted about "government ... taking away the rights of the people," accused the state of "fraud!" and contained a thinly veiled threat: "You will be on posted, private property and will be treated as such."

The Bixbys closed with an even stronger message:

"Patrick Henry, of Virginia, said, 'Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death. Death is not the worst of evils.'

"General John Stark of New Hampshire said: 'Live Free or Die!'

"We, the undersigned, echo those sentiments!"

It was hard to see why the Bixbys were so riled up. While the project would cut off a tiny corner of their front yard, the highway's new direction would give them extra yardage elsewhere — which they could purchase from the state for a token $1.

"They were going to lose some, and they were going to get some back," says state Department of Transportation spokesperson Pete Poore. Arthur Bixby had attended at least one public meeting held by department engineers and officials, who "brought maps and numbers and answered every question about the project," according to Poore.

But when transportation workers had tried staking out the yard, one of the Bixby men had stalked out of the house, yanked the stakes out of the ground and flung them into the middle of the road. "That's when we heard a lot of unkind remarks," says Poore. Unkind enough that workers called the Abbeville sheriff's department to report violent threats — while the Bixbys got busy warning the state that when they said no trespassing, they meant it.

Even after reading the letter, Gagnon wasn't especially worried. "I could see them hollering at the construction workers and telling them to get off the property," Gagnon says. "But I couldn't imagine this."

"This" commenced with another bolt-out-of-the-blue communication from the Bixbys. Around 9:30 that Monday morning, Gagnon's phone rang and a familiar voice said, "Craig, this is Rita. I just wanted to let you know that it's begun, and Steven has shot a deputy."

Thunderstruck, Gagnon managed to ask, "How long ago?"

"About 15 minutes," Rita said, her voice cool and matter-of-fact.

"How's the deputy?"

"I don't suppose he's doing too well right now, since Steven shot him with a 7mm."

'Man, They're So Crazy'
It had begun that morning around 9:15, when Deputy Sheriff Danny Wilson came knocking at the Bixbys' front door. Though officers reportedly had been warned over the weekend that there might be trouble at the little white house on the highway, Wilson had apparently decided to try and defuse the Bixbys before the highway workers showed up.

A former high-school football player known around town as "Danny Boy," Wilson knew the Bixbys, having recently arrested Steven for flashing a trigger finger at ex-friend Noel Thompson, whom he'd been ordered to avoid after threatening his life.

"I'd seen Danny Boy down at Burger King," Thompson says. "He said, 'I locked him up. Thought I ought to lock up the mother, too. Man, they're so crazy.'"

Crazy enough to shoot Wilson square in the chest with a 7mm magnum.
Silly Story

Investigators believe the cannon-like fire of the 7mm blasted Wilson through the door as he tried to reason with the folks inside. Arthur and Steven Bixby then dragged his bloody body inside, barricaded the door, and waited for more trespassers.

After Rita's frightening message, Craig Gagnon had jumped in a car with his business partner and sped down to the Bixbys' house. "When we got there, we saw the empty patrol car sitting in front, idling. I thought, 'Oh my goodness, nobody knows what's happened!'"
Gagnon to rescue

As Gagnon frantically dialed 911, he saw a familiar face walk around from behind the house. It was Constable Donnie Ouzts, better known in Abbeville as "Smiley." The 63-year-old Ouzts had recently recovered from heart bypass surgery and happily returned to his beat. As he approached the front door, Gagnon's partner yelled out, "Donnie, hey, they've got a gun!"

As Ouzts turned and started to edge away, Gagnon recalls, "I heard a loud shot coming out of there, bang! Glass came out and landed on the front porch. We figured it was a warning shot, so we ran up toward the little church [across the way]. By that time, a lot of law-enforcement people had come. We learned after a few minutes that Constable Ouzts was laying in the yard, dead.

"It was frightening, unbelievable. The rest of the day was like that, too. You kept thinking, 'Is this really happening?' "

It was. Before long, sleepy Abbeville was wide awake to the sounds of wailing sirens, flying rumors, chopping helicopter blades, and even the roar of an armored vehicle brought in by the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED). The longest, nastiest militia standoff anybody can remember in upstate South Carolina was underway, with Deputy Wilson still inside the house — maybe alive, maybe dead.

Beirut in Abbeville
When SLED Chief Robert Stewart helicoptered in from Columbia to take charge of the hundreds of officers now surrounding the Bixbys' house, he knew he had a "real dilemma" on his hands. The uncertainty about Deputy Wilson made it impossible to storm the house with force.
 

Ma Barker
Making matters even more intractable, Rita Bixby had announced in her morning phone calls that she was holed up in Steven's apartment — along with enough ammunition to mow down the residents of Abbeville Arms, if the cops dared to mess with her son or her husband.

"This thing had been planned all the way," Stewart says, and Arthur and Steven were not going to muck things up by negotiating with the enemy. Throughout the morning and afternoon, police enlisted Craig Gagnon to try and get them talking. He crouched in a squad car out front and talked through the P.A. as a psychiatrist from the state whispered helpful hints in his ear, to no avail.

"We tried all day," Stewart says. "But they wouldn't talk to us. The first thing we heard from them was a gunshot."

That was several nerve-racking hours later, after a state negotiator coaxed Rita Bixby out of Steven's apartment around sunset. As dusk settled in, officers used their armored vehicle to ram through the Bixbys' front porch and door. One of the state's robots was sent through the gash, loaded with surveillance cameras and tear gas, and fed back video of Deputy Wilson, hands cuffed behind his back, blood everywhere.

Then a propane tank, jostled either by the battering ram or the robot, caught fire. Ten officers, Chief Stewart among them, grabbed fire extinguishers and doused the blaze while a SWAT team darted inside the house and pulled out Wilson, who was now declared dead.

No shots had been fired during the rescue. "We figured the people inside must have been dead if they didn't take aim at us," Stewart says. "But apparently they just didn't want the house to burn up with them in it." Just as Stewart and his fellow firefighters retreated to the armored tank, the Bixbys broke the ceasefire with a massive explosion of gunfire.

What ensued was "probably more than I've ever experienced in 30 years" as an officer, Stewart says. "They'd shoot at us two times with that 7mm mag, which sounds like a cannon going off," Stewart says, "and we'd have to shoot back 100 times just to get 'em to stop."

Officers kept running out of ammunition and calling for resupply, which was another tricky proposition. "We'd have to lay down cover fire," Stewart says, "so the resupply people wouldn't get hit."

A mile and a quarter up the road, says bed and breakfast owner Karen Berney, "You could hear it loud and clear, starting and stopping, starting and stopping, sounding like Beirut."

Around 10 p.m., about three hours into the gun battle, officers heard a voice calling from the tear-gassed, bullet-filled house. It was Steven Bixby, miraculously unhurt and ready to surrender. After he'd been secured, a robot was sent inside to find Arthur. Spotted in a back bedroom, he "indicated through the robot that he was injured," Stewart says. Thirteen hours after Deputy Wilson knocked on the Bixbys' front door, it was finally over.

And now the shock could fully set in.
Once a Hotbed...
"The town was so quiet that night," says Karen Berney. "There was nobody on the roads, nobody out walking their dogs. When it happens in bigger cities, it's faces nobody's ever seen before. Here, it was people we'd all seen. You just can't forget that."
Nor can people like Berney ignore the unnerving questions raised by the Bixbys' murderous explosion over a paltry scrap of land. "Is this place a hotbed for this kind of activity?" she asks. "I know there's rednecks and rebels, but — I want to believe no."

It only takes a little digging into the upstate's past — and the past that isn't past — to come to a very different belief.

The first time shots in Abbeville rang out across the world, the ammunition was rhetorical. But the target was the same as the Bixbys': an interloping government. On Nov. 22, 1860, Abbeville staked its claim to be the Confederacy's birthplace when militia companies from across the state convened on a high spot in town, now known as Secession Hill.

It was the first mass meeting to call for secession — and to judge from the next day's account in the Press and Banner, it was a ringing call indeed. "[O]ne sentiment pervades the meeting," wrote the breathless correspondent, "and from the mountains to the sea the cry is echoed back: 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.'"
Bad southerners
In an ironic twist, the Confederacy's cradle became its resting place five years later. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, fleeing south from Richmond with a couple of thousand haggard troops in tow, called together the remains of his cabinet in Armisted Burt's big white mansion, now a historic site near Court Square.

According to one first-person account, Davis gamely "urged that a stand should be made." But his cabinet members and the generals in attendance all agreed "there was now no use." The Confederacy's official papers were ordered burned by "Jim the butler," Secretary of State Judah Benjamin promised to toss the official seal in the Savannah River on his way out of South Carolina, and the largest organized rebellion in U.S. history was, for all practical purposes, dead.

But the spirit of secession was anything but moribund. Like President Davis, folks in the upstate had never much cottoned to the notion of surrender. The white people came from tough stock, Scotch and Irish mostly, and had spent decades fighting gory turf wars with the Cherokee Indians who used to command the region.

Their first big stand had been the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790s, when Irish bootleggers refused to pay federal taxes on their moonshine. After the Civil War, upstate South Carolina became a stronghold for the Ku Klux Klan — so strong that, according to one Klansman in Abbeville, "nearly all" the town's Democrats were night riders in the wake of the war.

In 1876, many upstate rebels traded their white hoods for red shirts, becoming part of the "red shirt rebellion" that elected Democrat Wade Hampton governor, forcefully stripped white and black Republicans of their political power and precipitated a withdrawal of Union troops from South Carolina. The first Red Shirt rally was held in Anderson, the next county north of Abbeville.

Just this past year, the Red Shirt tradition was revived by the League of the South, which conducted "red-shirt pickets" outside both of South Carolina's Democratic presidential debates, holding signs that named each candidate and demanded: "Yankee Go Home."

'Our Little Birthmark'
By the time the Bixbys moved down from New Hampshire, the New South economic boom that began in the 1980s had only made some folks cling more fiercely to their twin strains of extremism — anti-federalist and white supremacist.

Upstate South Carolina remained a fine place for a family of extremists to blend into the woodwork. A fine place, too, to find fellow travelers whose distrust of the government was just as reflexive as theirs.

Soon after the Bixby standoff, the Intelligence Report has learned, the Abbeville sheriff's office had a surprise visitor: Anderson's Robert Clarkson, longtime rabble-rouser, rebel-flag supporter and organizer of tax-protest groups like the Carolina Patriots and the Patriot Network.

Clarkson claimed he wanted to offer "helpful information." Instead, officials say his visit only raised suspicions about the Bixbys' possible connections with other upstate "Patriots."

The Bixbys paid at least one known visit to the League of the South store, and there's plenty of merchandise that might have piqued their interest. Alongside the expected array of "Dixie Forever" t-shirts, shot glasses, pocket knives and pickled goods in Mason jars, the Bixbys would have been able to peruse Patriot publications like The Truth newspaper out of Toccoa, Ga., purchase a sepia-toned portrait of John Wilkes Booth, and delve into conspiratorial literature with titles like "The Empire Comes Back!" and "Our Guns/Our Rights/Our Future?"

Even the League's recruitment materials often read like militia propaganda. After recommending "self-defense through firearm ownership," one pamphlet warns, "Without the ability to force real and potential tyrants to honor our Constitution and Bill of Rights, we will fall into abject servitude, and our children and grandchildren will curse our memory as they toil under a godless, socialist regime. ... Join the League of the South and say, 'Not me, not my family, not my way of life. I choose to keep my rights and live free!'"

Lest this sound too incendiary, the pamphlet adds a disclaimer that seems darkly ironic after what Abbeville saw on Dec. 8. "Remember, it is only the tyrant who fears honest citizens with firearms. Responsible governments have nothing to fear from an armed populace."

The Bixbys' interest in the League — however serious or casual it might have been — has made some Abbevillians think twice about the storefront they're accustomed to looking away from. "The League of the South has always been our little birthmark," says Karen Berney. "It was here, but it didn't make us unhealthy. Now you wonder."

Nobody in Abbeville has more to wonder about than those closest to Deputy Wilson and Constable Ouzts. Deputy Wilson's fiancee, Verteema Chiles, spent Dec. 8 in an agonized wait-and-see mode with Wilson's sisters (two of whom also work in law-enforcement) and extended family. Wilson's National Guard unit was headed to Iraq in January, and he and Chiles were planning — Lord willing — to marry this summer.

"We kept getting bits and pieces from TV, from people in the community," she recalls. "Both officers are dead — no, just one. Danny's been rescued — no, he hasn't. It went on all day. We didn't know anything until late that night, when somebody called to tell us, 'They got Danny Boy, but he might be dead.' So we all bust out crying and consoling each other. And then the sheriff's office said it hadn't been confirmed, so we thought there was some hope left and drove over to the scene.

"And then to have this dude come out and say, 'It's been confirmed.'" She breaks off, momentarily overcome.
75 yr old torture deputy
Once they knew the deputy was dead, his folks hoped they'd also learn how he died. "They led us to believe he died instantly," says Chiles, "and I want to believe that. But we didn't get to see his body that night — not until that Friday morning, right before the public viewing. It just made you wonder if the rumor was true about him being tortured. I saw a picture that showed bruises on his head. And they put handcuffs on him after they dragged him inside.

"Why would you put handcuffs on a dead man? They told me, well, they thought he could have been faking it or something. But you wonder what happened in that house. My only hope and wish is that he didn't see it coming."

The broader mystery, for the officers' survivors and everyone else in Abbeville, is why anyone had to be killed that day. "I just can't believe Danny died over a piece of land, a strip of land," says Chiles. "I can't rationalize it. Why?"


'Was This An Aberration?'
Shortly after Abbeville's longest day, Steven Bixby left an arraignment hearing and treated local reporters to a vintage Patriot rant. "I love this country — I just can't stand the bastards in it," he bellowed.
Hoping to go down in antigovernment lore, he likened Dec. 8 in Abbeville to the legendary standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco — one more example of the governmental tyrant trampling on the rights of the common folk. Asked whether he's currently a militia member, Bixby replied, "Everybody is that agrees with the Second Amendment of the Constitution."

"We're not ruling out a connection" to militia or hate groups, says Sheriff Goodwin. "You've got a lot of folks around here that's antigovernment. You can see them every time you raise taxes!" But he notes that the nature of extremist organizing has changed drastically in recent years.

"Whereas you used to have militia groups where people were proud to say they were members, most people now try to keep their affiliations secret because the government has gotten more interested" — especially since Oklahoma City and 9/11.

"They came out of the closet, and now they've gone back in. They're not like those League of the South people, with that flag flying right out in the open."
closet extremeists

The Bixbys may turn out to exemplify the trend toward "closet extremists," agrees Anderson County Sheriff Gene Taylor. "You have a lot fewer Patriot groups now, but that's partly because people don't need to be in a particular group. You can find out whatever you want about taxes and guns and bombs and common law on the Internet."

Steven Bixby was an Internet whiz, says his former friend, Noel Thompson. "He'd stay up all night on the computer, not sleeping. Called himself Master Chaos. He could go in and disrupt things, boot people off, all that." The contents of Bixby's computer were seized after the standoff, along with a pile of literature that investigators will only characterize as "strongly antigovernment."

More details about the Bixbys' brand of extremism will emerge, no doubt, when the three of them go on trial — probably this summer, and likely facing death. Until then, while they wait to see justice done, Abbevillians drive by the bullet-pocked ruin that used to be the Bixbys' house, shaking their heads and puzzling over what it might all mean.

"Was this an aberration?" asks Craig Gagnon. "I don't foresee anything like it happening again. But then again, I certainly didn't foresee this."

For law enforcement, the message seems more clear-cut. SLED Chief Stewart sees the standoff in Abbeville as a bitter lesson — one that local officers, both in South Carolina and elsewhere, damn well better learn.

"There have been a number of events around the country in recent years that indicate when you start hearing this inflammatory language, like 'Give me liberty or give me death,' you better take it seriously. You can't just dismiss people and say they're wackos."

Though the Bixbys took their hatred of government to a shocking extreme, their paranoid beliefs were clearly no aberration in upstate South Carolina. If Arthur, Rita and Steven are allowed to choose their own epitaphs, in fact, it should surprise no one if they quote directly from the tall Confederate monument in the middle of Court Square: "THEY KNEW THEIR RIGHTS AND DARED MAINTAIN THEM."



S.C. town will relive 2003 shootout at trial

By DREW JUBERA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 02/04/07

Abbeville, S.C. — This quaint town near the Georgia line, billed as both cradle and grave of the Confederacy, is loaded with landmarks to anti-government rebellion.

There's Secession Hill on Secession Avenue, where the first mass meeting was held in 1860 to launch South Carolina's me-first break from the Union. There's the antebellum mansion where fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis admitted in 1865 that the war was over. And there's the Confederate boutique, just off the square, run by the modern-day secessionist League of the South.


 E)
Crosses for slain sheriff's deputy Danny Wilson and constable Donnie Ouzts, put up by their families, sit in the front yard of Arthur Bixby and his son, Steven, who allegedly gunned them down.

But on the edge of town looms a more current and ominous marker to government resistance. The modest house — its white siding striped with bullet holes, two crosses planted beneath a magnolia tree — stands off Highway 72 like a nightmare vision of this region's don't-tread-on-me spirit.

Two lawmen were killed there on Dec. 8, 2003, during a 14-hour shootout between 200 law enforcement agents and a family that refused to give up about 20 feet of land for a road-widening project.

Dubbed by some the Abbeville Horror and likened by one defiant family member to bloody showdowns in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, the tragedy rocked the town.

Now this community of 5,700, tucked in the rolling upstate hills, awaits this week's long-delayed trial of Steven Bixby, 39, whose charges include two counts of murder.

His father and mother also face charges and will be tried separately.

Parents

Arthur Bixby, 75, faces murder charges. He stood with Steven until a tank crashed through the front porch and a 1,500-round salvo led to their surrender.

Steven's mother, Rita Bixby, 74, allegedly used a gun to threaten residents at an apartment complex across town during the standoff. Her charges include accessory to murder before the fact.

Jury selection for Steven Bixby's trial begins Monday on the other side of the state, in Chesterfield. The trial, expected to last three weeks, then moves to Abbeville's century-old courthouse, where Sheriff Charles Goodwin said security will be "intensive." Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Defense lawyer Bill Nettles said his client maintains the slain law enforcement agents were trespassing and didn't leave the property when asked.

"He and his family have very deep-seated beliefs about the limited role government should be playing in our lives," Nettles said. "Those beliefs colored the way they viewed the events of Dec. 8, 2003. They feel like what they were doing was exercising their constitutionally protected rights."

Meanwhile, the house where the horror took place remains boarded up, its cramped interior largely unchanged since the smoke cleared.

A shattered mirror hangs opposite a Dale Earnhardt calendar. A pocked refrigerator stands beside a counter lined with cereal boxes. A living room bookshelf sags with do-it-yourself legal tomes. The TV set is cracked, but a nearby album collection looks intact.

Stacked on the floor beside the fireplace, in front of a smiling wooden snowman: boxes and boxes of ammo.

Some locals still avert their eyes when they pass the site.

A nondenominational church moved into the building next door two years ago. The location has made it tough to recruit new members.

"When I've gone into houses to talk about the church, people ask where it is, and the easiest thing to say is, 'It's next to that house,' " said church officer Iris Caron. "You're forced to be aware of it. When I first rolled up, I'd get the heebie-jeebies."

"They should tear that house down," said Joanne Wilson, sister of slain sheriff's deputy Danny Wilson. "You have to pass it every day in a small town like this. Who wants to see that standing?

"Now the trial's coming up," she said, "I don't know who else is like [the Bixbys]."

From New Hampshire

The Bixbys weren't from Abbeville, people here are quick to note. Steven Bixby arrived in the mid-'90s from New Hampshire. His parents followed several years later.

The Bixbys were notorious in New Hampshire for filing lawsuits involving property and tax disputes, according to various newspaper reports. Acting as her own counsel, Rita Bixby espoused far-ranging arguments that often zig-zagged from the Bible to natural law to the U.S. Constitution. The Bixbys were fond of the state motto: "Live Free or Die."

Yet according to friends, neighbors and law enforcement officials in Abbeville, the Bixbys didn't seem to pose a serious threat.

Steven Bixby appeared to subsist on odd jobs and settlements from work-related injuries. Dennis Wilson, maintenance manager at Steven's apartment complex, drank coffee with him.

"He was always talking junk. I didn't think anything of it," Wilson said. "He was a blowhard."

One local police officer befriended Steven after arresting him on domestic violence charges. He said Bixby didn't act like an outsider. "He come from New Hampshire, but he was kind of like an old redneck boy," said former Abbeville detective John Smith, who retired last July. "He liked to go out and raise a little hell. If he was out somewhere and someone wanted to fight, he didn't back down."

Arthur and Rita Bixby mostly kept a low profile. Arthur is often described as pleasant. Rita is depicted the same way, though some experienced another side of her.
anti semites
Craig Gagnon, a chiropractor whom Steven and Arthur Bixby visited for back problems, said when he was talking to Rita Bixby once she went off on a conspiratorial rant about Jews and the Middle East. Gagnon remembers thinking, "Wow."

He said his last conversation with her came the day of the shootout. She called his office at 9:41 a.m.

"She said, 'Craig, this is Rita. I just want to let you know, it's begun. Steven shot a deputy.' "

Early warning signs

Signs of trouble appeared before that morning, but nobody took them seriously.

The Bixbys warned highway workers assigned to widen the road in front of their house to stay off their property. The state said it had obtained an easement on the land in 1960. A sign used to deter trespassers from hunting and fishing on private property was planted in the yard and amended with black marker to include "Government Agents + all others."

Three days before the standoff, the Bixbys typed a letter outlining their grievance with the state Department of Transportation. Arthur showed it to Gagnon at his office the next day. The two single-spaced pages concluded, "Patrick Henry, of Virginia, said: 'Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death, Death is not the worst of evils. General John Stark, of New Hampshire, said: Live Free or Die!' "

Sheriff's deputy Danny Wilson, 37, showed up at the Bixbys' house about 9 a.m. on a Monday to talk about their threats to road workers. A call soon alerted the Abbeville Police Department that an officer was down.

Constable Donnie Ouzts, 63, showed up to find Wilson's car in the driveway, but no sign of the deputy. When neighbors yelled for Ouzts to take cover, he turned and was shot in the back.

All hell broke loose. A SWAT team, bomb squad, helicopter and agents from all over the area surrounded the property. Neither Steven nor Arthur Bixby responded from inside the house and no one knew if Wilson was alive. Rita Bixby was arrested later in the day at Steven's apartment complex, where she allegedly threatened to shoot bystanders if her husband or son were harmed.

At dusk, a robot equipped with cameras was sent to the front door, and authorities saw Wilson's lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. An armored vehicle then knocked out the front porch, igniting a fire, and a short time later, according to law enforcement officials, gunfire erupted from the house. Residents heard it more than a mile away. Smith, a Vietnam War veteran who found Ouzts dead in the Bixbys' front yard, compared it to a firefight in battle.

Steven Bixby surrendered about 10 p.m. His father was wounded and apprehended about an hour later. Authorities seized nine guns, including high-powered rifles.

Steven Bixby said later at a court hearing, "Ruby Ridge. Waco. This country's shown what it is. I love this country; I just can't stand the bastards in it. It was self-defense."

Wary of extremists

Many residents here worry the shootout painted the area as a hotbed for extremist crackpots.

SPLC

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, said on its Web site that "there may be more antigovernment extremists in the vicinity of Abbeville than anywhere else in America, with the possible exceptions of the Idaho panhandle and the Ozarks."

The center counts the League of the South as a hate group, but the league's state chairman released a statement after the shootout that condemned the Bixbys. Nettles, Steven Bixby's lawyer, said there is no evidence the family belonged to any militia or extremist organization.

"This state has been notorious for a leave-me-alone type attitude. People here are fiercely independent," said Rick Driver, conservative radio talk-show host in nearby Anderson. "It's out of the norm for people in this area. Sure they're independent-minded. But to a point."

W

Here’s a perfect example of what the State can do when a citizen defends himself, his family and his property from the systemites who would deny those rights, with no attempt to justify that denial.

By Donald Sullivan
aloe910@aol.com

Right or wrong, Steve Bixby believed then, and believes now, he was defending those things which are important in his life from the agencies of government who would deny them to him. Of course the authorities have painted him and his family as ne’er-do-wells and extremists, always condemning the messenger and not the message. Works every time. It’s a very old Jewish technique.

In Abbeville, South Carolina, Steven Bixby and his mother and father have been held in separate jails since Steve allegedly “murdered” two sheriff’s deputies, one of whom was breaking into his father’s house on Dec. 8, 2003, with no probable cause and no warrant after having been told to leave. Steve’s mother, being across town as I understand it, was brought to the scene by police to help them arrest her husband and son at the house which, coincidentally, was her own home. Refusing, she remained continuously in police custody during a ten-hour “standoff,” after which the police attempted to assassinate Steve and his dad, “gauntlet” style, with some twenty minutes of automatic weapons fire into the house in a residential neighborhood – up to 200 officers reloading several times in the process. I have seen this house, and I can assure you no one inside it without divine intervention survived that holocaust.

More recently, on August 2, 2005 at a change of venue hearing, Steve Bixby presented three handwritten motions to the court on camera, going around his court-appointed attorneys. The very powerful motions were: Error juris nocet, Motion to Quash Indictments; and Void ab initio. If docketed and heard by the court, and they very well may not be, these motions could end the case and free the Bixbys. Important to consider is that, mostly in such cases when we hear about these killings by gangs of police, they are swept under the rug as “Officer threatened. Good shoot.”

The judge, having previously issued a gag order in the case, offered the motions to the press saying he didn’t know whether or not they would be addressed since the accused was represented by State-appointed counsel and had waived his rights to speak in his own behalf. After this ill-advised and untrue statement, the judge and his law clerk were killed outright by an act of God in that same month. A new judge has now been appointed.

Citizens have rights. And when law enforcement threatens those rights, we must ask ourselves, “Do citizens have a right to defend themselves?” The courts say “yes,” as a theoretical and judicial matter; there is even a standing law in SC which places the burden on the State to disprove the self-defense argument before they can proceed. The SC attorney general has said, “Invade a home, invite a bullet.” Of course, I’m sure he wasn’t talking about law enforcement officers; they do look after their own. But, as a practical matter, we have no rights to defend ourselves against police lies once dead – especially with police as the only surviving witnesses. In the Bixby matter, those police meant undeniably to insure that there were no survivors.

In the past two years alone, we’ve had hundreds of “good shoots” of citizens by police which never had to happen, but they all turned out to be “good shoots” because an officer “felt threatened.” In some cases the officers were touted as heroes. We have had five in my local area in the past year. The Bixbys stand a good chance of freeing all of us from this oppressive mentality that many police officers exhibit.

I have been involved with trying to help get these citizens released for the past year or so. Catching the alert on “America’s Most Wanted” as those events were taking place, after finding out he survived and locating his whereabouts I wrote Mr. Bixby immediately. He never received the first letter. Learning the State was seeking the death penalty for all three accused, I wrote again. Steve and I have corresponded ever since. I send him news and material which might be helpful to himself and his parents, and share my own continuing experiences with our corrupt and failed justice system. I have made him aware from the beginning that I am helping in the hopes that winning his freedom can help the rest of us who are not that far behind. In fact, I would be where he is, except for a little luck and a bit more education and information than he had available during his time of crisis. I believe he did the right thing and was justified. He is more uplifting to me than I him, although he gets a bit emotional at times in his diatribes against our oppressive government. He is a very strong individual, but needs all the help he can get.

For more “biased reporting” on this, go to www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=391 [i.e. Mo Dees – Ed.] and http://www.adl.org/learn/safety/deadly_domains.asp?print=true [i.e. that subversive agency of a foreign government, the ADL].

We need media attention to this matter of importance for our domestic security from government agents run amuck. The above motions, if filed and allowed, may turn the tide and give us back some of our sovereignty.

I can provide more information to all who wish to get involved. I have contacted many attorneys for direct assistance, but they aren’t comfortable with their chances of winning and getting paid. Also, most of the media outlets I have approached won’t touch such an issue. This one the State may very well lose, and the media do not want the blame for failing their masters. Those ZOGites can’t stand a defeat here. If you know anyone who might help, I’m all ears.

Donald Sullivan
Lt. Col., USAFR (R)
P.O. Box 3061 Wilmington, NC 28406

ADDENDA: 910-617-2559 – I have spoken with the attorneys for Steve Bixby and his mother, Rita, in the past week. I am planning to take a trip to Abbeville within the next two weeks to review the case files on all three defendants and submit writs of habeas corpus for them, since their lawyers seem unable to do it. Rita’s lawyer is convinced she committed no crime. There is no evidence to support a crime. I specifically am going to look for the grand jury indictments. The Bixbys had been promised a trial starting in the fall of 2004, then in the spring, summer and fall of 2005. After the judge was killed, their trial was slipped to late winter, early spring, 2006. Now it sounds like summer, 2006. This is a waiting game, hoping witnesses and defendants get weary. The very best the State can hope for is a plea bargain and the Bixby’s are not interested. Arthur, the father, has dementia now and is hospitalized with pneumonia. He will probably die without a trial, and committed no offense. Steve has admitted to being the shooter, and the State knows this is true. The pathology reports now confirm (and the attorneys have agreed) that the second deputy was not back-shot. The back wound touted as a cowardly shoot in the beginning by the press turns out to be exactly what Steve has maintained from the beginning, a defensive kill. The only remaining questions are, “What happened to the second deputy’s gun?” (his holster was found empty by his comrades), and “Who really shot the second deputy?” Preliminary reports cannot connect the bullet with any of the Bixbys’ weapons. Of course, these media reports are exaggerated and biased.

Any help will be appreciated. The mainstream media are not interested. They would rather push bird flu and bury Jew money crimes.

Steve Bixby called collect last night. Only the second time we have spoken on the phone. He is in amazingly good spirits. Cheered me up. Called to tell me the family of the second shot deputy has filed a civil suit for “wrongful death” against him and his parents. His criminal trial is still not scheduled. Looks like maybe October 2006. The ballistics report shows none of his weapons killed the second deputy, Outz. Doesn’t matter; the criminal justice system has already convicted the Bixbys. It’s just a matter of the mock trial. If his brothers don’t protect him, he will die. Ironically, the State can’t play the race card because the first deputy was a large Nigra man; the second an older White man, the process server. Got a break on that one.

By the way, don’t know if I made it clear or not, but the second deputy, whom the reports all say was back-shot, was actually front-shot. The back wound turned out to be an exit wound. I have confirmed this with the attorneys. Self-defense.

UPDATE

“[Judge] Macaulay refused to hear a motion filed by a North Carolina man, Donald Sullivan, asking for Rita Bixby’s immediate release from jail.

“Macaulay lectured Sullivan, who stood in open court at the end of the Rita Bixby hearing and demanded to be heard. Sullivan, who is not a lawyer, insisted he was there ‘to protect Mrs. Bixby’s rights.’

“‘I assure you,’ Macaulay said, ‘the whole court system of the United States will do that. And some of us are better qualified than others.’

“Sullivan said after the hearing that he came to court in Abbeville expecting to get arrested for trying to act as Rita Bixby’s lawyer. Macaulay said from the bench that action is against the law in South Carolina. Sullivan filed a ‘next friend’ motion, something Peace said he had never heard of in his law experience.

“Hearing about the Bixbys on ‘America’s Most Wanted’ in 2003, Sullivan said he felt compelled to defend Rita Bixby from what he called an unlawful detention by authorities. He said she should not have been held this long on the charges against her.

“‘There is no reason Rita should be in jail,’ he said. ‘When I see rights violated and I know who they are and I do nothing, that’s misprision of duty. They’re going to kill these people. That’s what police do.’…

“A portion of Steven Bixby’s statement was read to the court. The statement said Steven and father Arthur Bixby were drinking coffee when someone came to the door and Arthur answered it. Steven Bixby said in the statement that ‘a black deputy’ was at the door and the deputy said the state highway department was going to take their land whether the Bixbys wanted them to or not.

“Then, Steven Bixby’s statement said, the deputy unclicked the holster to his sidearm…” – Abbeville Index-Journal April 7, 2006

UPDATE
By Donald Sullivan
Aloe910@aol.com

As I stated in the Letters section on Page 23 of The First Freedom’s April edition, Rita Bixby’s Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was scheduled on April 6th. More than coincidentally, her attorneys-of-record had moved for a dismissal of the death penalty, which was also scheduled to be heard on that same day, prior to my petition. I drove the seven hours to Abbeville from Wilmington on the morning of the 6th, as the hearings were scheduled to start at 2:00 PM. Jeffrey Bloom, the Attorney-of-Record, did an outstanding job in presenting his motion for dismissal of the death penalty, using the State’s star witness’ testimony and her investigative reports to damn the State’s case. There was absolutely no evidence Mrs. Bixby had committed any crime, conspiracy, accessory or misprision as anyone can see in local news articles from the Abbeville Index-Journal. The Judge took the motion under advisement until May 8th. Unless he bows to local political pressure, there is no way Rita Bixby can remain in jail.

I had a good visit with Steve Bixby Friday morning at the Anderson County Detention Center in Anderson, SC. I had to get the sheriff involved before the hirelings would let me see him, because the jailers were only bringing out M-Z, although I had called ahead on Monday to make sure I could see him on Thursday night. I would have made a scene, but it proved unnecessary. I played nice and was allowed to see him Friday morning. I told him all the news about the hearings. He was very pleased and excited. As far as the judge’s contention about the “more qualified” lawyers taking care of Rita’s rights, where have they been the past two and one-half years? The fact is, a totally innocent, 74-year-old grandmother is being held in jail with no trial and no due process. It would appear that the only reason the attorneys are filing motions now is because of certain recent filings and aggressive behavior by an outsider. You should see the ream of motions being filed now that the habeas corpus brief has been filed. I was wanting to say that very thing to the judge as he “lectured” me; but Rita’s lawyers had done a very fine job in their hearing, and I didn’t want to upset the families of the dead deputies. They had just heard that the “central figure” in the “slayings” was guilty of no crime and that the second deputy’s killer was unidentified, that the forensic evidence must be fully evaluated. That is double-speak for, “He was shot by friendly fire.” Further, the judge has Rita’s petition for writ of habeas corpus, which was not heard, with the filings of the attorneys on the death penalty issue. It dovetails perfectly with them. No harm done at all, as far as I can see, in the petition not being heard, except Mrs. Bixby was denied due process. More reversible error.

I played nice in the courtroom since the families of the deceased deputies were there. I was very docile and humble (I know; hard to believe). Plus, I didn’t want to get arrested for contempt just yet: I can help the Bixbys better outside of prison.

In my opinion, Rita will be released; Arthur has full blown dementia/Alzheimers and will also be released; Steven will be convicted locally, but exonerated on appeal [he has six automatic reversible errors, not the least of which is the fact that the U.S. Constitution, in Article III, Seciton 2, Clause 2, says that, anytime the State is a party, the U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction. The State of South Carolina apparently has no jurisdiction in State v. Bixby, unless there is a precedent (as in, amendment) which overwhelms the Constitution.]. Then the civil suits will start against the State by the Bixbys, if not sooner. The victims’ families have no one to sue but the victims because the victims committed citizen-assisted suicide. They were told by their supervisors not to go to the Bixbys but went anyway on their own (from State investigative report testimony). Plus, the second deputy appears to have been killed by friendly fire.

I will file a notice of objection, with a very long memorandum in support, on the judge’s decision not to hear Rita’s (my) petition for writ of habeas corpus on the grounds I lacked standing since I was not a licensed attorney. She certainly had standing, and it was her petition.

It’s good to be home, except now the illegal aliens are protesting downtown and all the media can say is, “This is a call to arms for the undocumented community.” Does the reporter have any idea what a “call to arms” really means? I doubt it. The dumbing-down of America is complete, and the sheeple are fast asleep. Save your own children.

“The state contends in its court filing that Rita made statements to state highway employees that she would protect her property to ‘her last breath’ and that she would ‘kill anyone who came on her land.’

“…the question before the court was whether death was a valid penalty under the Eighth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution for someone who neither took life, attempted to take life nor intended to take life. It is the last part, ‘nor intended to take life,’ that the state intends to focus on. It will argue Rita intended to take life because of comments she allegedly made to the highway employees.” – Abbeville Index-Journal, April 8, 2006

Bixby said he acted in self-defense because sheriff's Sgt. Daniel Wilson, 37, tried to force his way into his parents' home on state Highway 72 just west of downtown Authorities say Wilson did not have any arrest papers or warrants when he went to the home -- he just went to talk to the family.

It began about 9:15 a.m. Monday, when sheriff's Sgt. Danny Wilson, 37, stepped out of his cruiser at the Bixby home and told his dispatcher "10-6," a police code meaning he would be busy, Sheriff Charles Goodwin said. Wilson had no court papers or arrest warrants to serve, Goodwin said.
 
So, here the sheriff confirmed that the first officer who went to talk to the family had no warrants to serve. If the officer kicked down the door, once it was slammed in his face (as claimed), what rights of self defense do the homeowners have?

From the news accounts and neighbors, sounds like Deputy Wilson had a gun drawn on him and was taken hostage, forced to enter the house. He was then handcuffed, and then executed.
If someone wants to go off an a wild tangent speculating with the intent of putting the murdered Officers in the wrong, so be it. Plenty of info on 4 pages that don't point to that, but if you're not thirsty, you won't drink.
One could speculate that they murdered Deputy Wilson in cold blood just because he was black (racism) and they are "white rednecks".
So far we haven't heard that (and I see no reason to, just pointing out how pointless baseless specualtion is).

Cop started it

Bixby said he acted in self-defense because sheriff's Sgt. Daniel Wilson, 37, tried to force his way into his parents' home on state Highway 72 just west of downtown Abbeville.

I'm not pretending to know the facts, just opioninating on what is posted in the thread...

Castle doctrine, and all that. If we citizens do not hold the State to stringent guidelines, there will be no guidelines. I'm not trying to pin it on the officer or the state. Just seeing that once again, the citizen is getting the short end of the stick, and surmising what possibly could be the basis of the train of thought that led to the incident. People do not shoot cops that walk up to their door for no reason. You LEO's are doing the same thing in reverse by opinionating that the citizens were loonies and it couldn't have been the officers fault.

In custody

“Refusing, she remained continuously in police custody during a ten-hour ‘standoff,’ after which the police attempted to assassinate Steve and his dad, ‘gauntlet’ style, with some twenty minutes of automatic weapons fire into the house in a residential neighborhood – up to 200 officers reloading several times in the process. I have seen this house, and I can assure you no one inside it without divine intervention survived that holocaust.” – The First Freedom, February 2006

The First Freedom

 The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

The Abbeville Standoff was a 14-hour standoff that took place on December 8, 2003 in Abbeville, South Carolina, between alleged extremists and self-proclaimed "sovereign citizens" Arthur, wife Rita, and son Steven Bixby; and members of the Abbeville city police department, the Abbeville County sheriff's office, the South Carolina Highway Patrol, the South Carolina Department of Transportation, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. The standoff, which resulted from a dispute between the Bixbys and the state of South Carolina over a highway widening project, resulted in the deaths of two lawmen, Abbeville County Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Daniel "Danny Boy" Wilson, 37, and State Constable Donald "Donnie" Ouzts, 61, as well as the near total destruction of the Bixbys' West Abbeville residence. All three Bixbys were taken into police custody after surrendering late in the evening of December 8. By August 2006, the Bixbys remained in jail in South Carolina, awaiting trials for various offenses that could result in death sentences for Arthur and Steven Bixby, and up to 30 years in prison for Rita Bixby. In February 2007, the Associated Press reported that jury selection would soon begin in the trial of Steven Bixby.[1]

Contents [hide]
1 Events Leading to the Standoff
2 The Standoff
3 The Aftermath
4 Notes
5 External links



[edit] Events Leading to the Standoff
The elder Bixbys, both staunch believers in libertarian politics, emigrated to Abbeville from New Hampshire in the early 1990s. Their son Steven followed shortly thereafter. They moved into a small home situated at 4 Union Church Road, near the junction of South Carolina Highway 72, Union Church Road, and Horton Drive, in West Abbeville. The parcel of land surrounding the Bixby residence was subject to an 1960 easement granted by a previous owner, Haskell Johnson, to the state of South Carolina, allowing for the South Carolina Department of Transportation to expand its right-of-way on the portion of the property adjoining Highway 72, should it desire to widen this highway in the future. It is debated, however, whether Haskell's granting this easement to the state was properly recorded by the Abbeville County register of deeds.

All three Bixbys had a history of running afoul of the law in various ways in New Hampshire; this continued in Abbeville, as well. Both Arthur and Steven Bixby had spent time in jail; back in New Hampshire, Arthur had served a month in 1981 for contempt of court, while in 1998, before his divorce, Steven was booked in Abbeville for wifebeating. In addition, Steven's New Hampshire driver's license had been revoked for excessive traffic violations; when he failed to show for probation hearings stemming from these violations, a warrant was issued for his arrest. As South Carolina will not extradite an offender facing less than one year in prison, Steven Bixby escaped the nine months in prison that he would have faced for these probation violations, when he moved to Abbeville. Rita Bixby, on the other hand, seemed to favor abusing the law rather than breaking it outright. Indeed, Rita had a long history of filing seemingly frivolous lawsuits in New Hampshire courts; one such lawsuit attempted to gain title to land belonging to the Bixbys' neighbors. This suit was dismissed by the court, but an undeterred Rita Bixby attempted (unsuccessfully) to hold a sheriff's sale of the property in question. The Bixbys also frequently attempted to bypass traditional legal processes by filing bogus claims and suits in "common law courts", claiming that they were "sovereign citizens" and hence had the right to pursue legal action in whatever manner they desired.

In the early 2000s, the state of South Carolina began widening Highway 72 from the Georgia state line to just east of Abbeville. As a result of this project, the state determined in late 2003 that it would need to exercise its easement to secure a strip of the Bixbys' land approximately ten feet in length. Angered by what they believed to be an unconstitutional theft of their property, the Bixbys sent numerous written appeals to various state officials, arguing that the easement in question had been obtained illegally. Some of these appeals, laced with references to the New Hampshire state constitution, invocations of the New Hampshire state motto, and fierce statements underscoring the Bixbys' seeming willingness to die for what they believed in; did not arrive at state offices until after the standoff had concluded. In early December 2003, as officials with the South Carolina Department of Transportation began staking out the portion of the Bixbys' land to be taken for the highway project, the Bixbys posted signs on their property prohibiting trespassing by "goverment [sic] agents and all others". Arthur Bixby also attempted to sabotage survey work by removing stakes from the yard and throwing them into the middle of Highway 72. Some believe that it was during this time that the Bixbys began heavily fortifying their home in preparation for a standoff with police or the government. Such a standoff began in the late morning hours of December 8, 2003, when Danny Boy Wilson arrived to warn the Bixbys against disrupting the Highway 72 widening project.


[edit] The Standoff
Early on December 8, 2003, a highway worker contacted police after Arthur and Steven Bixby had made threatening statements, and again disrupted the laying out of survey stakes along Highway 72. Abbeville County Sheriff's Deputy Sgt. Daniel "Danny Boy" Wilson responded to this complaint, arriving at the Bixbys' home around 9:15am, only to be shot by Steven Bixby at point-blank range with a 7mm handgun. Wilson's body was then dragged inside the Bixby residence, where it would be held hostage for the next fourteen hours. After attempting to contact Wilson to no avail, authorities sent State Constable Donald "Donnie" Ouzts to investigate. Within minutes, Ouzts was fatally shot as well.

In the meantime, Rita Bixby, from the Abbeville Arms apartment rented by Steven, phoned the South Carolina Attorney General's office, leaving the following message with a secretary: ...this is Rita Bixby and I live at 4 Union Church Road...I've talked to you before, and they have; the state has decided they were going to come in and take our property. My husband and my son are there and there is a shootout going on because they're not going to take our land. No one has approached us and asked us if they could negotiate or anything. They just simply came onto our land and started taking it and there is a shootout there. Rita then effectively took the entire apartment complex and its surroundings hostage, threatening to randomly shoot bystanders if either her husband or her son were harmed by the police.

Throughout the late morning and into the afternoon, members of various law enforcement agencies as well as Abbeville residents who had befriended the Bixbys attempted to negotiate with the family, to no avail. A SWAT unit came from Columbia by helicopter, followed by a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division armored tank. At one point, nearly 200 law enforcement agents surrounded the Bixby residence. A constant barrage of gunfire, up to a thousand rounds of ammunition in five minutes, emanated from the small house, thwarting attempts by police to retrieve Wilson's body or capture the residence. So heavy was the gunfire, in fact, that the police had to be resupplied several times with ammunition. Media estimates have pegged the actual number of rounds fired in the tens of thousands. According to South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart, the level of gunfire from the Bixbys was worse than anything he had encountered in his 30-year career. Indeed, many Abbeville residents living over a mile from the site of the standoff reported hearing the continuous gunfire.

By late afternoon, SWAT officers were able to negotiate Rita Bixby's surrender, though she refused to assist in negotiations with Arthur and Steven. Upon searching Steven's apartment and Rita's vehicle, authorities discovered numerous high-powered firearms, as well as a large quantity of what has been described as anti-government literature.

Around 7:15pm, two hours after Rita's surrender, police breached the Bixbys' front door with a 10-foot steel battering ram attached to an armored tank, breaking a propane line and starting a fire, which several officers extinguished, in the process. A surveillance robot, armed with tear gas and 5X intensity pepper spray, was dispatched into the house, but was unable to enter due to the large quantity of debris blocking the front door. The robot was, however, able to return video of Danny Boy Wilson's handcuffed, lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. In an attempt to recover Wilson's body, a SWAT unit stormed the house; surprised by the earlier blaze, the Bixbys were caught off-guard for a moment, as they ceased firing long enough for the officers to drag the body from the house.

By 10pm, after hours of constant firing from both sides and the release of over twenty canisters of tear gas and pepper spray into the nearly destroyed Bixby home, Steven Bixby surrendered to police. About an hour later, a critically wounded Arthur Bixby also surrendered and was flown to a Greenville hospital, where he later recovered.

Upon entering the house for the first time, officers found a total of nine firearms, including Wilson's, as well as a large library of legal texts and articles related to militia uprisings. They also found several different wills made out by the Bixbys, and numerous suicide notes.


[edit] The Aftermath
On December 9, 2003, Steven and Rita Bixby were arraigned in Abbeville County on various charges related to the deaths of Wilson and Ouzts. Steven was charged with two counts of murder and one count of criminal conspiracy, while Rita was charged with accessory before the fact to murder, criminal conspiracy, and misprision of a felony. Arthur Bixby was later arraigned on charges similar to those against Steven. Under South Carolina law, both Arthur and Steven Bixby clearly face the death penalty on the murder counts. Prosecutors originally planned to seek the death penalty for all three Bixbys, but on August 23, 2006, Circuit Judge Alexander Macaulay ruled that the death penalty was not an option in Rita's case, a ruling that prosecutors will appeal to have overturned by the South Carolina Supreme Court.

Following their arrests, the Bixbys were largely defiant and unrepentant of their actions. Steven's parents expressed pride at their son's desire to defend his land at any cost, and categorized the deaths of Wilson and Ouzts as mere collateral damage. In court, Steven Bixby addressed a judge: Why did I do it? I didn't do it...[t]hey [the government] started it. And if we can't be any freer than that in this country, I'd just as soon die...When are the people going to wake up...and realize you may be next? Steven, who likened the standoff to the events at Waco and Ruby Ridge, also claimed that when Wilson first arrived, the deputy had actually attempted to kick down the Bixbys' front door.

All three Bixbys were initially held in the Abbeville County jail, awaiting trial. For a brief period in 2005, Steven Bixby was moved to the Anderson County jail; in early 2006, he was moved again to the Lexington County jail, where he remained as of late August 2006, due to a breach of confidentiality regarding his meetings with expert witnesses in the case. Trial dates in the case have been pushed back several times from their originally scheduled starts in mid-2004. The latest such scheduling change occurred on September 12, 2006, when the first Bixby trial, that of Steven, was moved from October 2, 2006 to a 2007 date to be determined. As of September 2006, it is unknown why this delay is necessary [1]. One reason for the first delays was the sudden death of Circuit Judge Marc Westbrook in a September 2005 traffic accident; another reason was the considerable debate of both the defense and prosecution over both the venue of the trial and the county from which a jury pool would be selected. In early 2006, Macaulay agreed with Steven Bixby's defense that it would be nearly impossible to seat a truly impartial jury of Abbeville County citizens; in July 2006, Macaulay ruled that potential jurors would come from Chesterfield County. Despite initial concerns over security at the 100-year-old Abbeville County Courthouse, Eighth Circuit Judicial Solicitor Jerry Peace ruled on August 29, 2006, that the trial shall be held in Abbeville County. On this same day, a motion was filed by Steven Bixby's defense to have Steven's stepbrother Dennis Smith evaluated for competency to testify in Steven's trial. Smith, who now resides in New Hampshire, resided with Arthur and Rita Bixby at the time of the standoff, and was present in Steven's Abbeville Arms apartment when Rita had been threatening to shoot bystanders.

In April 2006, Donald Sullivan of Wilmington, North Carolina, who had taken a personal interest in the Bixby case, filed a "next friend" motion in the Abbeville County court on Steven's behalf, seeking to have the charges against him dismissed. This motion, which was considered highly unorthodox by the court, was rejected. Sullivan, who believes that the Bixbys were merely three more victims of an overly aggressive and antagonistic government, maintains a Web site that seeks to exculpate the Bixbys from any wrongdoing, and in fact, seeks to present their case as one of self-defense.

The Bixby siege has been used across the country by various law enforcement agencies and hostage negotiation units as an example of what can go wrong when dealing with similar cases, particularly those involving angry landowners subject to eminent domain.

Ironically, the highway construction was completed, giving the disputed property additional yard space. The Bixbys are charged with killing the two police officers over what would have been their good fortune.


[edit] Notes

Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2003 - 11:49 pm


By April M. Silvaggio
STAFF WRITER
asilvagg@greenvillenews.com


 


ABBEVILLE — Abbeville County Sheriff's Deputy Danny Wilson walked into what authorities say was a plot to kill a law enforcement officer and stop the widening of a road when he stepped onto the front porch of a Union Church Road house.
Wilson, 37, a deputy for eight years, was shot in the chest at point-blank range with a high-powered rifle, setting off a 13-hour standoff that ended in a barrage of gunfire in the early hours Tuesday, said Ronnie Ashley, Abbeville County coroner.

Steve Bixby, 36, was charged Tuesday with two counts of murder and one count of criminal conspiracy in the death of Wilson and Donnie Ouzts, 63, a constable who was killed rushing to the deputy's aid.

Bixby, along with his mother, Rita Bixby, 71, who is charged with accessory before the fact of murder, criminal conspiracy and misprision of a felony, pleaded not guilty Tuesday afternoon during an arraignment at the Greenwood County Courthouse.

"We didn't do it. They started it," a shackled Steve Bixby said during a break in the hearing to about 20 people who gathered in the small courtroom.

Warrants have been signed against Steve Bixby's father, Arthur, 72, who was in critical condition at Greenville Memorial Hospital Tuesday evening with a gunshot wound to the chest. It was unclear who shot him. Those warrants, which charge him with two counts of murder and one count of criminal conspiracy, have not been served.

"This thing was planned all the way," State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart said. "It was to go in motion whenever law enforcement arrived to take over that piece of property."

Wilson had gone to a white frame residence on Union Church Road to talk to the family who lived there after state highway department workers on a road construction crew reported being harassed, Ashley said.

Threatening letters had been sent to the state Department of Transportation expressing outrage over plans to take a 15-foot strip of land needed for the widening of State 72, the coroner said.

Shortly after 9 a.m., Wilson pulled his patrol cruiser into the driveway and walked to the front door. Neighbors told investigators they heard a single gunshot less than a minute later.

"Calls were made in Abbeville to at least two people saying 'The first officer has been shot,' and 'It has begun,' " Stewart said. "Because of those calls, at least a couple of people rode by there and noticed the deputy's car sitting in the yard and nothing else around. Those people called 911."
Numerous cars sent
Emergency dispatchers sent backup officers, who responded with blue lights and sirens.

They called out to Wilson on the radio, but there was only silence, Stewart said.

An autopsy would later show that he was shot once in the chest at close range, Ashley said.

Ouzts, who worked as a constable for Abbeville County Chief Magistrate Tommy Ferguson, was among the first to arrive. He'd undergone heart bypass surgery several months before and the career lawman was glad to be back on the job, Ashley said.

Wilson's patrol car was running when Ouzts arrived. The deputy's hat was on the front porch, Ashley said.

Neighbors screamed for Ouzts to take cover as he approached the door, Ashley said. He turned around and was shot once in the back with a rifle. He died instantly about 25 yards from the front porch, Ashley said. A state trooper used his cruiser as a shield, and officers pulled the body from the yard.

Stewart said he was called by Abbeville County Sheriff Charles Goodwin about 10 a.m. Monday asking for assistance.

"He said there was an officer down in the yard of a house and they couldn't get to him to rescue him," the chief said. "When I get a call like that I don't ask a lot of questions. We mount up and ride."

SLED dispatched its SWAT Team, the Bomb Squad with high-tech robots, the Aviation Unit, the Technical Unit with its surveillance equipment and regional agents to conduct field interviews. They also took a psychiatrist to advise them during any potential negotiations.

"We sent the full package," Stewart said.

The first contingent of agents arrived on a Huey helicopter.

Stewart's helicopter touched down in this usually quiet city of 5,800 situated about 20 miles east of the Georgia line moments later.

Neighbors who've grown accustomed to the charm of the city where the courthouse sits in the town square alongside the historic Opera House were evacuated from their homes.

Stewart said he learned when he arrived a deputy was being held hostage inside the house.

"We were told there were two suspects inside that residence who were heavily armed, and that the mother and another son who is disabled were at an apartment a mile or so away," he said.

Stewart said there were threats made that people would be killed indiscriminately if the people inside the house were hurt.

"That presented a real dilemma for us because we actually had two situations going on that were related at the same time," he said. "That kept us from carrying out normal procedures from where the shootings had occurred, because innocent people might begin to be shot."

Stewart said attempts to negotiate with the suspects barricaded inside the home near the intersection of Union Church Road and State 72 proved fruitless. They never spoke to police.

Late in the afternoon, a SLED negotiator at the second scene talked one suspect and her son out of the apartment, the chief said. A search of the apartment turned up a suicide note and a will. Officers also found what Stewart described as antigovernment literature.

At that point, no one was sure if Wilson was still alive, Stewart said.

"Normally, we would start using gas at that point, but we didn't know what the officer's condition was at that time," the chief said. "So we continually rang the telephone, and often called on the loudspeaker. The response we got was gunfire."

A decision was made to break down the door, but knowing the heavy weaponry he was faced with, Stewart said he didn't want to send a team with shields to the door.

"A local company came in and installed a 10-foot steel pipe on the front of our armored vehicle," he said. "We used that to ram the front door."

It was dusk when a robot equipped with cameras, night vision equipment and tear gas was sent to the door.

Using the camera, authorities could see Wilson's body lying in a pool of blood about eight feet inside the front door. His hands were cuffed behind his back.

"The robot couldn't get through the debris and over what was left of the door to see if others were in the house, so we had to send the armored car back in there to knock the little front porch off the front of the house where we could see better," Stewart said.

As that was happening, a grill attached to a small propane tank caught fire.

About 10 officers — including Stewart — grabbed fire extinguishers and put the blaze out.

"This is where it gets pretty miraculous that things didn't go really bad, because it appeared at the time that the people inside were probably dead," the chief said. "The only thing we can figure that they didn't start shooting us in the yard is they didn't want the house to burn up with them in it."

While the fire was blazing, a SWAT entry team dashed through the front door and recovered Wilson's body.

Then, the robot was sent back inside.

Stewart said it caught sight of a foot in a bedroom.

"We were just getting back to the armored vehicle from putting out the fire when gunfire erupted from the house," Stewart said. "It was more gunfire than I've ever experienced in over 30 years. We returned fire, and I would tell you the SLED SWAT team probably fired hundreds of rounds."

Tear gas was fired into the house as the exchanges of gunfire continued, Stewart said. Officers nearly ran out of ammunition, and had to be resupplied under cover of protective gunfire several times.

About 10 p.m., officers heard one suspect say he was coming out. He surrendered to SLED's SWAT Team, Stewart said.

They sent in a second robot to find the other suspect because the first robot had been disabled. Its wires had been cut, and its camera ripped off.

The other suspect was seen in a back bedroom, and he appeared to be shot, Stewart said.

"He indicated through the robot that he was injured. But we could see weapons around, and we told him he would have to crawl to where we could see him through the window with no weapons around him."

Agents took him into custody in the front room of the residence, Stewart said.

Authorities seized nine guns, from high-powered rifles to handguns. One of those was Wilson's duty weapon, Stewart said.

Staff writer Anna Brutzman contributed to this report.

Staff writer April M. Silvaggio can be reached at 298-4801

 

Sergeant Wilson and Constable Donnie Ouzts, of the Abbeville County Magistrate's Office, were shot and killed after Sergeant Wilson went to the home of a two men upset that the state was taking a small piece of their land through imminent domain to widen Highway 72. When Sergeant Wilson arrived to discuss a complaint by highway crews that they had been harassed by the homeowners, he was taken hostage by the suspects. The suspect’s then called the sheriff’s office and told them that a deputy had been shot. Constable Ouzts and another Deputy went to the location to investigate. When the arrived, the suspects opened fire, striking Constable Ouzts. The other Deputy was able to retreat to a safe location and call of back-up.

A South Carolina State Trooper who arrived seconds after the call for help went out was able to use his patrol car as a shield to block any gunfire that might come from the house and pull Constable Ouzts to safety. He died from the gunshot wound while en route to the hospital.

The third suspect, who was at another location, was threating to open fire on civilians in the area if either of the other two suspects in the house were harmed. She was taken into custody a short time later.

When additional back-up arrived, a 12 hour stand-off ensued. The Sheriff's office used an armored vehicle with a battering ram to open the fortified front door of the house. The vehicle tore down the door and much of the front porch, but it also severed a gas line, causing a minor explosion. Deputies, worried that the suspects had set up a booby-trap that would kill everyone in the home and perhaps nearby officers did not allow the Fire Department to extinguish the fire, instead about a dozen Officers grabbed fire extinguishers and came out from behind their cover to put out the blaze.

After the fire was extinguished, Deputies sent in a robot to try to figure out what was going on inside. A camera on the robot captured a picture of Sergeant Wilson and evidence the suspects were still inside.

Suddenly, the suspects opened fire with high powered rifles. In the ensuing gun battle so many rounds were fired that the Sheriff's Department had to send for an additional supply of ammunition. When the gunfire stopped, one suspect surrendered, but the 2nd suspect held his ground. Unknown to Deputies, that suspect had been seriously wounded.

After waiting for two hours and not hearing anything from the remaining suspect, the Deputies sent in another robot and captured pictures of the remaining suspect wounded. Deputies were able to enter the house and take him into custody.

Sergeant Wilson’s body was found inside the house. He had been handcuffed by the suspects and shot. It was not known to the department until after the raid that Deputy Wilson had been killed by the suspects.

A later investigation revealed that the attack on the officers was planned by the three suspects: a man, his wife and son. The two men are charged with two counts of murder and one count of criminal conspiracy. The female, who was not present in the house at the time of the incident was arrested and charged with one count of accessory before the fact of murder and one count of criminal conspiracy.