Executed White Supremacist Who Murdered an Entire Family | Daniel Lewis Lee: Final Meal & Last Words

The Crimes and Execution of White Supremacist Daniel Lewis Lee

The name Daniel Lewis Lee appears repeatedly in some of the most violent crime stories in the United States. Lee was not a confused man who simply took a wrong turn; he was a committed white supremacist whose brutality escalated over time. His involvement in murders, bombings, and acts of extreme cruelty ultimately paved a path that ended in a federal execution.

A Foundation of Violence

Daniel Lewis Lee grew up in a home severely marked by violence and abuse. For years, his stepfather physically assaulted him. Lee struggled with ADHD and began using inhalants and drugs at an early age. He was eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). His behavior became so dangerously erratic that his own mother repeatedly reported him to authorities, including an incident where he attacked his stepsister, who had cerebral palsy. Despite this, officials consistently sent him back to the very environment they were trying to shield him from.

In 1988, at just 15 years old, Lee had his first serious run-ins with the law in Oklahoma County. Within a few days, he was arrested twice for burglary and arson. Four months later, he was facing three second-degree burglary charges and accusations of threatening a witness. In early 1989, he was kicked out of a psychiatric hospital in Miami, Oklahoma, after repeatedly assaulting and harassing other patients.

That same year, he escaped custody twice. During these escapes, which forced authorities to move him across state lines, Lee began spending time with members of the Ku Klux Klan. He claimed to have found a father figure in a veteran KKK member named Bobby Norman. That relationship became his gateway into organized racist ideology and Nazi symbolism.

First Murder and Radicalization

In the summer of 1990, still only 17, Lee was involved in his first murder in Oklahoma City. During a party, Lee attacked 22-year-old Joseph “Joey” Wray III. He punched Wray in the face, kicked him while he was on the ground, and handcuffed him. With the help of his cousin, John David Patton, Lee dragged Wray to a storm drain. They forced the young man to undress and climb into the narrow tunnel. While Lee disposed of the clothes, Patton slit Wray’s throat and stabbed him multiple times.

Lee later testified against his cousin and took a plea deal for robbery. The murder charge against Lee was dropped, and he received a five-year suspended sentence, while Patton was sentenced to life without parole.

As a young adult, Lee fully immersed himself in white supremacist circles in the Pacific Northwest. He stood out for his aggressive attitude and his white power tattoos, including a swastika on his neck. He continued his violent streak, getting arrested in 1995 for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend after she tore up a photograph of Adolf Hitler.

Sometime before April 1996, Lee lost his left eye after being hit with a pool ball during a bar fight in Spokane, Washington—a brawl that reportedly started after he hurled a racist insult at a Native American man. Refusing to wear an eye patch, he adopted the nickname “Cyclops” within his neo-Nazi circles.

The Mueller Family Massacre

Around this time, Lee met Chevie Kehoe, a white supremacist obsessed with creating a whites-only homeland in the Pacific Northwest. Inspired by Christian Identity theology, Kehoe had formed a group called the Aryan Peoples Republic. Lee fit right in with the group, which committed robberies, kidnappings, murders, and arms trafficking to fund their cause.

In January 1996, Lee and Kehoe traveled to Arkansas. On January 11, they arrived at the home of 52-year-old William Frederick Mueller, a gun dealer living near Tilly, Arkansas, who was known to keep large amounts of cash and weapons. Dressed in clothing resembling a police tactical team, the two men ambushed the family when they returned home.

They subdued William, his 28-year-old wife Nancy Anne Mueller, and Nancy’s 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Powell. To force the parents to reveal where the valuables were hidden, they tortured the 8-year-old girl with a cattle prod. They ultimately stole $50,000 in cash, gold (worth over $100,000 today), and $30,000 in firearms and parts.

After securing the loot, Lee and Kehoe used a stun gun on their three victims and suffocated them by sealing plastic bags over their heads with duct tape. They drove the bodies over 40 miles to the Illinois River, taped rocks to them, and dumped them into the water. For his role in the slaughter of an entire family, Lee received a handgun and less than $4,000.

A few months later, on April 29, 1996, Lee placed a nail-filled pipe bomb built by Kehoe at the historic City Hall in Spokane, Washington. The 3:00 a.m. blast scattered shrapnel across two blocks but injured no one. Kehoe’s brother later admitted the attack was meant to cause chaos in American society to advance their racist agenda.

Arrest and Trial

On June 17, 1997, Kehoe was arrested in Utah after a shootout with police. Federal authorities tracked Lee to El Reno, Oklahoma, and a joint FBI and ATF operation arrested him on September 24, 1997. Even behind bars, Lee remained violent, attempting an escape and repeatedly assaulting other inmates.

The joint trial for Lee and Kehoe began in November 1998 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Because the Mueller family murders were carried out to further an organized criminal enterprise, they were prosecuted as federal crimes.

When Kehoe—the mastermind—received a sentence of life without parole, local prosecutors planned to pursue the same sentence for Lee. However, the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., ordered them to continue seeking the death penalty. Prosecutors highlighted Lee’s extensive history of violence, including the murder he committed as a teenager.

On May 4, 1999, a jury found Daniel Lewis Lee guilty of three counts of murder in aid of racketeering. Ten days later, pointing to his long history of unprovoked violence, the jury sentenced him to death.

Decades on Death Row and Execution

Lee spent 21 years on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, exhausting all his legal appeals by 2017. Because the federal government had an effective moratorium on executions at the time, he remained in legal limbo until Attorney General William Barr ordered federal executions to resume.

In a rare turn of events, the victims’ family fiercely opposed the execution. Earlene Branch Peterson—Nancy Mueller’s mother and 8-year-old Sarah’s grandmother—publicly pleaded for Lee’s life, stating: “I can’t see how executing Daniel Lee will honor my daughter. She wouldn’t want it, and I don’t want it either.”

Despite her pleas, the execution went forward on July 14, 2020. In the execution chamber at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Lee was strapped to a gurney, his tattooed arms secured with black straps. When asked if he had any last words, he lifted his head and said: “I didn’t do it. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I’m not a murderer. You’re killing an innocent man.”

He received two intravenous doses of pentobarbital. At 8:07 a.m., 47-year-old Daniel Lewis Lee was pronounced dead, bringing an end to one of the most controversial federal executions in modern history.