Stack's daughter recants her statement

AUSTIN (KXAN) - As investigators continue to sift through the rubble at the Echelon building in Northwest Austin, Americans are trying to piece together the story of Joe Stack and what he hoped to accomplish with his suicide attack on Thursday.

According to his daughter, he was taking a stand against the government, but she no longer believes he was a "hero."

"His last actions, the suicide, the catastrophe that caused injuries and death, that was wrong," said Samantha Bell, Stack's daughter in an interview with Good Morning America. "But if nobody comes out and speaks up on behalf of injustice, then nothing will ever be accomplished. But I do not agree with his last action with what he did. But I do agree about the government."

During the interview with Good Morning America, Bell said her father was a hero because he made people pay attention to the country's problems. After stirring up a firestorm of controversy, however, she later recanted her statement. She said he could have found a better way to make his point about the country's "faulty" tax system.

Meanwhile, one person who immediately reacted to Bell's praises of her father was Ken Hunter, a man whose father was killed the day Stack flew his plane into the IRS building.

"How can you call your dad a hero when he took life for no reason?" said Hunter. "If you don't like the tax laws, contact Congress. That is what the United States is about...That's how you make changes in the United States. You don't make changes by becoming a terrorist."

While Stack was obviously angry at the governmnent, he was at least partially to blame for his IRS problem,s according to the Austin auditor who was named in Stack's suicide manifesto.

“Mr. Stack contacted my firm to help with his personal taxes in 2008," reads Bill Ross' statement. "He failed to provide me with all his income and other information resulting in an IRS audit. Unfortunately, Mr. Stack ignored the audit and my advice which only complicated his situation, at which time our firm disengaged our services with Mr. Stack whom we have not been in contact with since October 2009.”