The Republic of Texas sympathizer killed after the group's standoff ended was willing to die for leader Richard McLaren but was duped into believing the group would never surrender, the dead man's older brother said.
"It must have been the nightmare of his life when McLaren told him that he would give up," said Mike Matson' older brother, Ralph Matson."He left my brother hanging," Matson said. "My brother said, `I will never again spend a minute in jail. I will fight to the death with anyone who tries to arrest me."'
Mike Matson, 48, died Monday in a shootout with authorities. He had fled the faction's encampment outside Fort Davis after McLaren, the self-styled Republic ambassador, agreed to go into state custody Saturday.
Ralph Matson, 54, said his brother was not a member of the Republic of Texas but sympathized with the group and was committed to protecting McLaren on the condition that he not surrender.
"He duped my brother into thinking he was a freedom fighter," Matson said Thursday in a telephone interview from Alpine, near the site of the standoff.
Matson, a resident of Colorado Springs, Colo., said his brother's remains would be cremated and his ashes taken to Chicago, where they have five sisters.
Mike Matson's ex-wife recalled him as a man obsessed with the military who joined up with the group only because he needed a cause.
Matson was medically discharged from the Marines just before he would have gone to Vietnam, Carolyn Matson told The Associated Press on Friday.
"That was part of his frustration, I think. He wanted to be a part of that," she said.
The Matsons were married in the San Francisco area in 1991. Their marriage lasted seven months.
Richard Frank Keyes III, 21, who fled the group's encampment with Matson, remains a fugitive.