Gordon Kahl

A 1991 movie which was based on these events was titled In the Line of Duty: Manhunt in the Dakotas (aka Midnight Murders, and in the Netherlands it was titled In the Line of Duty: The Twilight Murders), starring actor Rod Steiger as Kahl and Michael Gross as the head FBI agent. The events also inspired the making of the documentary film Death & Taxes, which was released in 1993.

Edwin C. Udey, Arthur H. Russell, Leonard Ginter, and Norma Ginter were all indicted for harboring and concealing a fugitive, and they were also indicted for conspiracy to do the same. They were convicted of all of the charges. The convictions were upheld on appeal. Leonard was convicted and sentenced to a federal prison, while Norma's sentence was suspended. Leonard was released in February 1987.

On February 13, 1983, the U.S. Marshals attempted to arrest Kahl for violating his parole as he was leaving a Posse Comitatus meeting in Medina, North Dakota. In the car with Kahl were his wife Joan, his son Yorie Von, and three others who had been at the meeting. According to Scott Faul's testimony, both Gordon Kahl and Yorie Von Kahl were armed with Ruger Mini-14 rifles. The conflict began when federal marshals created a road block a few miles north of Medina. When the Kahl party met the marshals at the roadblock, a short but intense firefight erupted. The gun battle left US Marshals Kenneth Muir and Robert Cheshire dead, and US Marshal Jim Hopson, Medina Police Department Officer Steve Schnabel, and Stutsman County Deputy Bradley Kapp injured. Yorie Von Kahl was also wounded during the firefight. The Kahl party fired over a dozen rounds during the gunfight, while the marshals and officers fired eight. Three lawmen fired their weapons during the confrontation, and only one, US Marshal Carl Wigglesworth, escaped the gunfight unharmed by hiding in a ditch.

Kahl was being hidden at the property of Arthur H. Russell just outside of Mountain Home, Arkansas. Those who were harboring Kahl were afraid that the US Marshals were getting close to finding out where Kahl was staying, and decided to move him to the residence of Leonard Ginter and his wife Norma Ginter. It was at this time a tip was received by authorities from the youngest daughter of Arthur Russell informing them of the move. Kahl hid in their earth-bermed passive solar home in Smithville, Arkansas. Another shootout ensued on June 3, 1983, in which Kahl and Lawrence County Sheriff Harold Gene Matthews died. After FBI agents, U.S. Marshals, Arkansas State Police and local police arrived at the Ginter home, Sheriff Matthews entered the home along with Deputy U.S. Marshal James Hall and Arkansas State Police investigator Ed Fitzpatrick. Matthews entered the kitchen and Kahl emerged from behind a refrigerator, and the two men fired almost simultaneously. Kahl fired at least one round, which severely wounded Matthews in the heart, and Matthews fired a single .41 Magnum round from his 4-inch Smith & Wesson Model 57 revolver, which hit Kahl in the head, killing him instantly. Hall and Fitzpatrick, hearing the gunfire, fired several shotgun blasts inside the house, accidentally striking Matthews in the torso with buckshot. Matthews managed to get to a police cruiser before he collapsed, and he gasped his last words, “I got him", After Matthews stumbled out of the house, a SWAT team, unaware that Kahl was dead, began firing thousands of rounds at the house, eventually setting it ablaze by pouring diesel fuel down the house's chimney. Kahl's burned remains were found the following day. Matthews, critically wounded by the bullet fired from Kahl's Mini-14, was taken to the hospital but died on an operating table.

In Downtown Owl: A Novel, a book by Chuck Klosterman which is set in North Dakota in 1983 and 1984, the saga of Gordon Kahl is a constant topic of discussion among the residents of the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota.

Following his parole from prison, Kahl became active in the township movement, an early version of the sovereign citizen movement belief which later became well known because of the Montana Freemen standoff. This movement sought to form parallel courts and governments purportedly based on English common law, and to withdraw recognition of the U.S. federal government. Township movement supporters as well as the Posse Comitatus attempted to organize among farmers in the American Midwest during the 1980s farm crisis.

On November 16, 1976, Kahl was charged with willful failure to file federal income tax returns for the years 1973 and 1974, under 26 U.S.C. § 7203. He was convicted on each count in respective April and June 1977, and was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of $2,000. Kahl served eight months in prison in 1977. One year of the sentence was suspended, as was the fine, and the court placed Kahl on probation for five years. Kahl appealed his conviction, but the conviction was affirmed in 1978 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, after Kahl's release from prison on probation.

In 1967, Kahl wrote a letter to the Internal Revenue Service stating that he would no longer pay taxes to the, in his words, "Synagogue of Satan under the 2nd plank of the Communist Manifesto". During the 1970s, Kahl organized the first Texas chapter of the Posse Comitatus. In 1976 he appeared on a Texas television program stating that the income tax was illegal and encouraging others not to pay their income taxes.

On January 6, 1945, Kahl married Joan Miriam Seil (January 1, 1927 – January 23, 2020), having two sons, four daughters, 11 grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren and 4 great-great-grandchildren. They made their home on a farm which was located southwest of Heaton and for a number of years they spent their winter months in Texas and California. Following Gordon’s death in 1983, Joan made her home in Fessenden, North Dakota where she lived until she moved to Carrington, North Dakota in 2015. Joan passed away on January 23, 2020, at the age of 93. One of their daughters, Lonnie Jo Kahl (June 7, 1958 – February 16, 2008), died on February 16, 2008, at the age of 49, of cancer. One of their sons, Frederick Von Kahl (October 11, 1960 – May 31, 2017), died on May 31, 2017, at the age of 56, from injuries which he sustained in a work related accident. Another daughter, Linda Kahl Holder, (October 9, 1947 – March 6, 1984), was found dead in her car on March 6, 1984, at the age of 36, after committing suicide with a single self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head.

Gordon Wendell Kahl (January 8, 1920 – June 3, 1983) was an American member of the far right Posse Comitatus movement who was involved in two fatal shootouts with law enforcement officers in the United States in 1983.

Gordon Kahl was born in Wells County, North Dakota, on January 8, 1920. Kahl had one sister, Loreen, who died in 1937 at the age of seven. Raised on a farm, Kahl was a highly decorated turret gunner during World War II. After the war, "he had a 400-acre (1.6 km) farm near Heaton, Wells County, North Dakota, [but] bounced around the Texas oilfields in later life as a mechanic and general worker."