Joe Stack’s Daughter Samantha Bell Agrees With Victim’s Son: Victim Vernon Hunter Was the ‘Hero’
The daughter of the man who carried out a suicide plane attack against the IRS in Texas said today she considered her father a hero for standing up to “the system,” although she later back away from that statement.
“His last actions, the suicide, the catastrophe that caused injuries and death, that was wrong,” Samantha Bell, Stack’s daughter from his first marriage, told “Good Morning America” in a morning television exclusive telephone interview that aired today. “But if nobody comes out and speaks up on behalf of injustice, then nothing will ever be accomplished. But I do not agree with his last action with what he did. But I do agree about the government.”
When “Good Morning America” asked if she considered her father a “hero,” Bell, 38, said, “Yes, because now maybe people will listen.” Bell later called “Good Morning America” to retract her statement and say unequivocally that her father was “not a hero.”
Rather, she said the only hero involved in the attack was its victim, Vietnam veteran Vernon Hunter, the only person besides Stack killed in the attack.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody,” Bell said. “We are mourning for Vernon Hunter.”
“His last actions, the suicide, the catastrophe that caused injuries and death, that was wrong,” Bell said in the aired interview. “But if nobody comes out and speaks up on behalf of injustice, then nothing will ever be accomplished. But I do not agree with his last action with what he did. But I do agree about the government.”
