Benefits for the Families

Of the 'domestic criminal terror' attack.

Crash victim's church joins benefit for Stack family

Benefit for widow of Vernon Hunter also being planned.

The choirs of two Austin churches that each lost a member in last month's plane crash stood together Sunday night to perform "Amazing Grace." Members of Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church, which Vernon Hunter attended regularly, joined members of Berkeley United Methodist Church, attended by Andrew Joseph Stack III, the disgruntled taxpayer who flew his single-engine plane into a building housing Internal Revenue Service offices, killing Hunter, an IRS employee, and himself.

About a dozen music groups performed at a benefit, held at the Bachus Conservatory in North Austin, for widow Sheryl Stack and her daughter, Margaux, whose home was destroyed by arson before the crash. >>>>>

And History of the 'domestic criminal terrorist'

Suicide pilot Joe Stack had history of shutting doors on people

Man who crashed into IRS building cut himself off from family and friends.

For many years, Andy Stack, as he was known to his classmates at the Milton Hershey School, was among "the lost."

"We don't know where they are, and we don't have a forwarding address for them," said Mike Macchioni, the alumnus representative for the class of 1974 of the famed Pennsylvania orphanage.

And then, one day, maybe 10 years ago, Macchioni tracked Stack down in California.

"Among the lost, you don't know what to expect," he said. "Maybe not everyone had a positive experience. But he had people closer than sisters and brothers here."

Macchioni's conversation with Stack was brief. "He wasn't rude to me at all, but he was very matter-of-fact. He said something tantamount to, 'I have nothing against you personally; I just want nothing to do with the Milton Hershey School or anyone having to do with the Milton Hershey School.' That's different from a lot of us."

That seemed to be a pattern with Stack, who went from Pennsylvania to California to Austin, leaving behind businesses and family — he had an ex-wife in California and hadn't spoken to at least one brother for 15 years. He was, in short, the sort of man who makes sure to pull the door shut quietly behind him. >>>>>