“The F.B.I. said that Jerry was at the driver’s side of the van in the back, talking to the two officers peaceably, and that 16-year-old Joe comes out guns ablazing,” she said in a telephone interview on Sunday from her home in Clearwater, Fla. F.B.I. officials declined to confirm that report, and Ms. Wray questioned why no videotape of the shooting had been released.

Image Jerry Ralph Kane Jr. Credit... New Mexico state police

When the police caught up to the van 90 minutes later, the father and son began shooting as soon as Sheriff Dick Busby of Crittenden County and a deputy pulled up, said Mr. Busby, who was shot in the shoulder. “The driver jumped out with a high-powered rifle, and the other got out on the right side,” he said. “They both started at the same time.”

Mr. Kane was the son of a security guard. Right after graduating from high school, he made the first of three unsuccessful races for the City Commission in Springfield, according to The Springfield News-Sun. His campaign ended when he was arrested on charges that he had stolen beer from a railroad boxcar, The News-Sun reported.

He became a trucker, joining an industry that is dominant here, and married a nurse, Hope Drummond. In 1993, they had Joseph, and two years later, they had a daughter, Candy, who died as an infant, Ms. Wray said. Candy’s death, attributed to sudden infant death syndrome, became a defining moment for Mr. Kane, Ms. Wray said, when his lawyer told him he had to allow an autopsy even though he objected.

“He couldn’t comprehend how a corporation could have more rights than a father,” she said. “That’s where he started asking questions.”

In recent years, Mr. Kane repeatedly attracted the attention of the Springfield authorities.

In 2003, he tried to buy property at a sheriff’s sale in exchange for an I.O.U., Sheriff Kelly recalled. In 2004, he was charged with assault after he shot a passing teenager in the leg with a pellet or BB gun without provocation, according to a police affidavit that said he had a “mental history.”