struggled. but has found comfort in her music and her faith. i have been more sad than mad. suicide is so painful on so many different levels. then you add the public factor, the public suicide. reporter: it was february 18, 2010. an angry and violent joe stack set his family s house on fire, then drove here to the georgetown municipal airport, boarded his single engine plane. ready for departure. reporter: and was cleared for takeoff. 39 delta, what s your direction of flight, sir? reporter: at 9:44 a.m., joe stack was headed for his final flight. joe stack knew exactly where he was going, the echelon building
plane and it was him? well, i don t think i did react. i think i was just just in complete and utter shock. he wrote in the manifesto that violence is not only the answer, but it is the only answer. i don t know who that is. i don t know that man. i learned a lot being up in the air with joe. one of the things i learned up there is that the sun is always shining on the other side of the clouds. it might be a really dark day. it might be a terrible, terrible day, but on the other side of those clouds, the sun is shining. reporter: coming up he never gave any idea that he was involved in murdering
violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. this is what s left of the home that joe stack burned down. is it hard to come back here? that s hard to answer. it s not as hard as it was initially. it was really hard right after it all happened. reporter: cheryl says in the months before he became more angry with the irs and audit. he started to blame her and daughter margo for all his problems, and he became increasingly strict with margo. cheryl talked and divorce. he said we were the cause of all of his troubles.
two years later, in a small ceremony in austin, they married. joining me was cheryl s 12-year-old daughter, margo. did he ever talk about how she was angry with the government, angry with the irs? when we were dating, he did talk about the irs. he just can t like them. reporter: but actually, joe s emotions ran much deeper. in the 80s while living in california, he was part of an anti-tax movement, even forming his own tax exempt home church. his run-ins with the irs continued for decades. joe and cheryl got audited in late 2008, and once again, joe was in another battle with the irs. a battle he wasn t going to lose. joe stack started to document what would soon become his suicide mission. he wrote desperate times call for desperate measures, and
takeoff. 39 delta, cleared for takeoff. what s your direction of flight, sir? reporter: at 9:44 a.m., joe stack was headed for his final flight. joe stack knew exactly where he was going, the echelon building in austin, which housed the irs. it was like a fireball. people let out a scream all around you. people were crying. reporter: stack slammed his plane between the first and second floors of the building. it exploded on impact. one man in the building was killed, vernon hunter, an irs employee. immediately, there were fears that this was an act of terrorism. but it wasn t. it was simply one man s grudge against the irs. and then came the manifesto. before stack would die by