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 about divorce. he said we were the cause of all of his troubles. but that was at the same time that he was giving me a birthday card and saying you re the best thing that ever happened to me in my whole life.
we re dedicated to being a company you can count on, because you ve always been customers we believe in. your energy plus ours. together, there s no limit to what we can achieve. i still love joe. i don t think that joe was a bad person. reporter: it took some time for cheryl stack to get to this point. for two years, she has struggled. but has found comfort in her music and her faith. i have been more sad than mad.
did he ever talk about how he was angry with the government, angry with the irs? when we were dating, he did talk about the irs. he didn t seem so angry. he just didn 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 violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.
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, 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.
reporter: then came their final night together. after he had dinner, we sat down in the family room and he was just talking. he just wanted to leave. and he said he was just going to we didn t know what he was talking about. i said mom, he s not even taking a toothbrush with him. where is he going? this is kind of scaring me. reporter: did you think he might do something that wasn t right? i kind of had like a feeling that something was going to happen, like something bad. i told my mom i wanted to leave. she said okay. so we left. reporter: cheryl took her daughter to this nearby ramada inn. she never heard from joe again. the next morning this is what cheryl drove up to.