The Truth About the Biggest Act of Domestic Terrorism in American History

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But all the political killings are just some random crazy person. It's weird, isn't it? What are the chances? But when you question the official story, the people in charge don't even respond. They react like people have got something to hide. They just attack you. That's what liars do. Journalists doing their job, which is seeking real answers, are a massive threat to their power. So noticing is the crime. And that's certainly the case with the subject of our new series, The OK. See Bomb Files. This is the story of what actually happened, to the extent we know, at the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people. Now, you'll recall that the feds told us the bomber was a guy called Tim McVeigh, and he was a veteran white supremacist lone wolf. But over the past 31 years, a lot of evidence has accumulated to suggest, well, really to show, that's a full-blown lie. There were many more people involved in that crime. We're talking to a person today who lost her two young grandsons in that bombing, and she has spent the last 30 years investigating the attack herself. She's smart, she's methodical, she's not crazy, and she has a lot to say. She's here today to tell us why she believes that the FBI's story about Tim McVeigh acting alone is a lie, and who else may have been involved, and how the government knows more than it has admitted. Here's Kathy Sanders. Kathy, thank you so much for doing this. Well, it's my pleasure. Thank you. I think most Americans under, let's say, 40, have only a dim understanding, if any knowledge at all, about what happened in Oklahoma City. Can you tell the outline of the story for us? I'll be happy to. People don't know about Oklahoma City because it's not even in the history books, not even in Oklahoma. What happened to me was, on April 19, 1995, I woke up one morning and I went to the bedroom next to mine because my grandchildren lived in my home. My daughter was a young divorced mother, and Chase and Colton lived in our home, and everything in our life evolved around these little boys. And I went in to wake them up, and they weren't in there. And I thought, how strange. So I walked down the hall to the end of the hallway, and sometime during the night, Tucker, those two little boys, two and three years old, had toddled down the hall and gotten in bed with their mother, where they spent their last night of their lives. I turned on the light in the bedroom like I did every morning. At our house, we always started with a song. It's like, good morning to you, good morning to you. We're all in our places with sunshiny faces. What a nice way to start a new Wednesday. And the little boys begin to giggle, and we get them ready for school, for daycare. In our home, it was a group effort. Edie's working on the boys. I'm working on the boys, brushing their teeth. And we get them all dressed and take them into the kitchen where we feed them breakfast. And Edie and I load them in the car because she and I not only live together, we work together downtown and we took the boys and dropped them off at the daycare. I remember the little crumbs on Colton's face when we left them. We went on to our office to go to work. Edie had been sick on Monday and Tuesday before the bombing on Wednesday, and she had kept the boys at home with her. She was going to stay home on Wednesday as well. But on Tuesday night, she got a call from a co-worker that said, Edie, you've got to come to work tomorrow because we're having the office birthday parties for the people whose birthdays were in April, and it was Edie and another girl's. And so Edie agreed she would come in, but she might go home afterwards if she still felt bad. So she went into the office. I'm two floors above her, and she's walking across the floor to blow out the candles on her birthday cake when the bomb goes off. It's this huge explosion, unlike anything I'd ever heard before. I knew something had happened, and it was bad. So she and I, I ran the two floors down to her office, and I opened the door, and everybody's looking out the windows. They're trying to figure out what happened. Someone is on the phone, and they hang up the phone, and they said they just blew up the bank. And I said, Edie, let's go see. So we run down three flights of stairs and out the front door of our office, which was three blocks from the Murrah, and there wasn't a car or one moving in the street. It was like we'd entered the twilight zone. We look up the street. The bank's intact. There's big sheets of plate glass falling down around us. I had no idea what had happened, and Edie turned. I turned to go back in the building where it was safe, and I'm walking behind her, and then I look up the street, and I see the smoke rising from the Murrah building, and I said, Edie, the babies. So we take off running, and we get to the south side of the street, and she had tennis shoes on because she was planning on going home, and the parking lot was a long way from our building. I didn't. I couldn't keep up with her. I said, Edie, wait, wait, wait up. We stop at the south side of the building, and we're surveying the damage, and the windows were all blown out of the windows, and there were blinds just dangling in the air like ruptured blood vessels. It was just a mess. I'd never seen anything like it, and then we hear boom, boom, boom, and we see this black billowing smoke, and I didn't know what that was, but we turned. And we ran to the north side of the building, and when we did, it was the cars in the parking lot blowing up, and I turned back to look behind me, and we saw the daycare. The Murrah building was nothing left but just a pancake pile of rubble, and my daughter falls to her knees, and she begins to cry, my babies, my babies. And Tucker, that was the first time in my daughter's life she had a problem that her mother wasn't going to be able to fix. We're running through the rubble trying to find the babies, and a second bomb threat came, and people were running all away from the building. They were stampeding, trying to get away. Another bomb, another bomb. Well, we're trying to get in. And a law enforcement official grabbed us and said, you can't go in. He physically made us leave the area. We were told to go to the children's hospital, that that's where they were going to take the children when they were removed from the building. So at the hospital, I lost all track of time, but my son was an off-duty police officer, and he had seen his mother and sister on TV, and he came downtown, and he said, Mama, don't worry. I'm going to find the boys. And he left, and he came back, and I knew when he walked through the door, something was wrong. And I jumped up, and I said, Danny, Danny, what is it? What is it, son? He goes, Mama, did Colton have on little green shorts and a white shirt? And I said, yes, son. Yeah, that's Colton. Colton. And I see the tears on his face, and I said, son, is the baby gone? Is the baby gone? And he puts his big old arms around me and goes, yeah, Mama, I'm sorry. Colton's gone. And he held me for a few minutes, and then he sat me in a chair, and he goes, Mama, where's Edie? Well, by this time, I couldn't stand watching her grieve the loss of the children. I was grieving the loss of the children. I was grieving for her. It was just, horrible. And I said, son, she's around the corner in the chaplain's office. and in a few minutes i heard a blood-curdling scream and i knew my son had found my daughter and later that day he found my oldest son grandson had also been toe-tagged nothing like this had ever happened in my life i mean this was so foreign to me i remember tucker telling a interviewer when asked about this probably just in the weeks after the bombing i told him you know it won't be very long when i tell someone i lost my grandchildren in the bombing they'll say which one and haven't we come a long way we've had so many bombings so many school shootings the whole world has changed and i wouldn't believe this story about the bombing if it hadn't happened to me you i would have been one of those people i i live in la la land i like to be happy i would have never believed anything like this could have happened a few weeks after the bombing we had a dinner at our home i reached out to the 19 families that lost their kids we're sitting in the den we're talking about our children people were saying well my my little girl lost her arm and i remember one mother saying the only thing i ever seen about my baby again was his toes i got to touch kiss his little toes and another grandmother her baby was grandson was beheaded and then one mother speaks up and she said well when i dropped my son off there i saw the bomb squad downtown we didn't believe her the next day when she dropped her son off that morning of course before the bombing she saw a bomb squad she saw the bomb squad downtown there at the murrah building when she was taking her son in before the bombing before the bomb went off so electrolytes that's a term people are using everywhere suddenly and for good reason staying hydrated is key to health you need electrolyte salts to do that but what salts do you use well we think the answer is redmond salt most electrolyte brands hide where their sodium comes from because the answers are a little 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next day he went down to the fire station the chief said no we didn't have our bomb squad down uh down there we didn't there wasn't any prior knowledge because people had said they'd seen the bomb squad truck with the bomb disposal unit on the back and so we left not knowing what to think and then the next day we sent an article in a paper where a woman gave an interview and said the people in her office had been watching the bomb squad truck in the alleyway and there were reports of bomb sniffing dogs through the bushes in the alleyway i never directly talked to that person but as my husband was leaving the the fire station the um the fire dispatcher there said uh i'm not gonna lie for anyone he goes we got a memorandum in this office last week to be on high alert for terrorist activity and after that we found out that the federal courthouse had also gotten that same high alert no one had ever mentioned that to us we didn't know it was a bad day to go to the murrah building and drop your kids off but the dispatcher at the fire station told your husband that i'm not gonna i'm not gonna cover this up i'm not gonna lie yeah that's what he said he said you know we got an alert to be on to be on alert for terrorist activity in downtown oklahoma city and the federal courthouse also got that same alert i mean that raises all kinds of questions um which i hope we get to in this conversation and the documentary series but i mean if they had an alert that this was coming that raises the question how would they know if it was just two random white supremacists who did this and there was not a larger conspiracy then how how would the government have had warning of this so well i know how they had their warning uh as i begin to investigate this was just the first baby step this story is so big and it goes so far and stop me if i'm telling too much but i know how they found out i learned about an atf informant who was living at elohim city i have her documents of her reports she turned into her handler she warned her handler that beginning in december of 1994 the informant along with two other individuals had taken trips to oklahoma city and tulsa to target buildings they planned to blow up they took three trips the handler was brand new to the job and her reports almost were just written just exactly as the informant turned them in so someone somewhere had some information there and elohim city is a big part of it tucker because not only was that informant warning the atf of a possible bombing timothy mcveigh called there two minutes after calling the rider truck rental company i believe it was two weeks before the bombing now he asked to speak to a fella by the name of andres strassmeyer and if i was an fbi agent i would be interested in knowing what's going on at elohim city and who's this strassmeyer is the fbi never talked to strassmeyer they never interviewed him but they interviewed mcveigh's i don't know she was just like his fourth grade school teacher they interviewed tens of thousands people in connection with mcveigh but they didn't think it was important to talk to strassmeyer also who was strassmeyer he was living at elohim city and he was taking these trips to oklahoma and to tulsa planning a bombing he was playing they were planning on bombing something and the fbi never interviewed him now he was a german national he was a german nationals they a year after the bombing after he was allowed to leave and return to germany they called and did a telephone interview so i mean the only i don't know this of course i can't but the only logically the only reason i can think of that they wouldn't interview him would be that they he was working for them well that would seem logical to me i don't maybe it was a case if the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing i know that the atf informant carol howe was indeed an informant and i know what uh strassmeyer at elohim city according to the people there that i visited with was trying to incite them to do bad things why and why did he leave the country and why wasn't he ever interviewed i mean mcveigh calls him two minutes after calling the rider truck company there has to be some kind of connection but he just disappeared is he still alive yes has he ever been interviewed by the fbi that you know of in person not not to my knowledge no and and there's more about elohim city if you want to hear it let's just go back to your story so um and i do want to hear it but first i want to understand how it dawned on you in the middle of your grief having just lost your two grandsons that there was more going on here so you learn that a bomb disposal squad has been seen at the site of the bombing before the bombing your husband asks the fire chief he denies it but the dispatcher basically confirms it that's right um what happens next well next we've got the largest manhunt in american history going on for john doe number two and who's john doe number two the accomplice he's timothy mcveigh's accomplice that the fbi was looking for him they first they were looking for john doe one and john doe two they found john doe one from the the vin number off of the vehicle so they traced him back to junction city rider's truck that exploded that had the bomb in it the ammonium nitrate fuel oil bomb exploded of course but the axle from the truck had the vin number had the vin number on it and then the registration and the information they got from the rider truck company they located timothy mcveigh but according to the people where they rented the truck there were two men and so there was a john doe two and so there was this largest manhunt in american history for john doe two two million dollar reward and in just a couple of weeks the fbi said you know what it was all a mistake there is no john doe no number two and that eldon at the body shop was mistaken well you know i maybe i could have dropped it at that but we started investigating um early on when um early on when i thought something was wrong and i finally went down to i talked to stephen jones mcveigh's defense attorney and i said look if you want to point the finger at the other people that were involved i'll help you and so i worked with his investigators mcveigh's investigators so i was privy to doc documents that's how i found out about carol howe informant the atf informant the atf informant that's why i had access to her documents that's how i knew that there were way over 20 people that had seen timothy mcveigh downtown that morning in the presence of this john doe two i had their 302 witness statements i went and talked to them there was rodney johnson the the catering guy delivering delivery guy he sees mcveigh with a guy walking across the street there's uh jeff davis the the the delivery boy that delivered chinese food to mcveigh's room in junction city it wasn't mcveigh that he gave the food to and there was another man in the room there were a dana bradley she was on the first floor of the murrah building when the bomb with her mother her sister and her two children when the bomb went off it killed her mother and her two children she fell down to the basement you'll remember she was pinned in the rubble and they had to cut her leg off to get her out of the rubble she tells the fbi and i'll watch her testify at the court room that she and her sister were people watching they were just standing there in front of the windows of the social security waiting for their number to be called and they're just watching people go by and they're kind of making fun of someone i don't remember what it was but they were just people watching and killing time and they see the truck drive up they see mcveigh get out and they see someone get out of the passenger side and take off running and at the trial the fbi said well she doesn't know what she's talking about because she's been traumatized imagine crawling into bed and you feel like you're floating and 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hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save join for just 20 at bj's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save is us there's just dozens of people that uh that saw mcveigh downtown with other people and what's really mystifying if you were prosecuting timothy mcveigh wouldn't you call a witness that could place him at the crime scene you would the prosecution didn't because every witness they had that saw mcveigh downtown that morning at the crime scene saw him with another guy mike morose at johnny's tires mcveigh drives up there mike comes out to his car to greet him and mcveigh jumps out of the truck like he's keeping mike away from the truck and he's asking for directions to the corner of fifth and harvey and then he jumps back in his truck and he sits there a few more minutes mike watches him as he and the other guy drive off danny wilkinson it uh worked at the regency tower just one block and across the street from the murrah building the truck pulls up mcveigh comes inside according to danny wilkinson he buys two cokes and a package of marlboro reds mcveigh didn't smoke so he obviously had someone with him The list just goes on and on. But John Doe, too, was totally dismissed. He never happened. And when we were talking about the bomb squad being downtown, I had access to the payroll records from the ATF. There were ATF agents brought in the night before the bombing. They will admit that they were working on a sting operation, but they won't admit that it was at the Murrah building. My theory is perhaps, and this is just a theory based on the evidence I've gathered, but perhaps they knew the building was going to be blown up, and the information they had was the building would be blown up in the wee hours. At the end of the night, when no one came to blow up the building, they called the bomb squad to give a clean sweep, and then they let everybody enter. I mean, I don't know. I can't explain a lot of things. I don't know everything, but I think I know a lot more than some people inside the government wish I knew. Well, that's obvious from the way they responded to you. So you got a visit from the ATF to your home, correct? We did. We did. After, on May the 23rd, 1995, they imploded the Murrah building. And there was a lot of dissension about that. There were some that didn't want it imploded and some that said it needed to be. But by this time, see, that's been a month after the bombing, and we're really hitting hard and heavy now because we're thinking things are not right. We're making accusations and bringing things to light about the John Doe II and the story. And when we go down there and we see that building, we're going to let reporters know that we think there's a problem. So I remember a CNN reporter came over to my daughter and said, Edie, what do you think about the bomb or the building being imploded? And she goes, I want to know where the hell was the ATF? Why weren't they in that building? And she just went off on them. And so the next day. And so the next day, Pat Ryan, the head of ATF, a couple of ATF agents, including one Luke Franey, they came because they wanted to calm us down that everything was okay. And they told us the ATF wasn't there because they were at a golf tournament that was happening that morning. Luke Franey, his hands bandaged up, and he tells us his harrowing story. He tells us his harrowing story about how he had to karate chop his way out of the building because he was stranded on the ninth floor, and that's how he hurt his hand. Later, I found the sheriff's video of Luke shaking hands with the sheriff. So I don't know how bad his hand was hurt. I don't know. It just kept your mind wondering. But the thing that caused me the greatest concern about Luke Franey was, the AP reporter had a picture of him on the ninth floor. He's holding a little silver lockbox, and 168 dead people behind him, or underneath him. He's standing there with this silver lockbox, shaking it, and there's 168 dead people below him and all these hundreds of walking wounded. And I'm thinking, man, whatever's in that box has got to be really important. Went to Franey. We asked, what did you have in that box? Oh, I'm sorry. I can't talk about it. I can't tell you. Well, then Hal Francis, a former FBI agent that was working on a story that is an acquaintance of mine, I told him about this. He took Luke Franey out for lunch, and he asked about that lockbox. And Luke Franey told him, oh, it was $150 worth of money. It was $150 worth of kids' savings bonds. Why couldn't he tell me that? And would you really be, 168 dead people below you and all that walking wounded, and you're trying to save the lockbox with your children's savings bonds? That just didn't add up. See, I'm a simple person. Two plus two equals four. The facts of this case do not lead up to there was one bomber, that came into Oklahoma City and blew the building up. Terry Nichols was in Harrington, Kansas the morning of the bombing. You know, Gary. Terry Nichols is the convicted accomplice of Timothy McVeigh, who was executed. Terry Nichols remains in prison. That's right. And there was a third one, Michael Fortier. But Fortier cut a plea deal with the government. And he was every bit as good as. guilty as Terry Nichols. But he only had to spend 10 years in prison. And he was caught lying under oath three different occasions. And he got a plea deal for his wife. She never spent a night in prison. And she testified at McVeigh's trial, how she sat at the kitchen table and watched McVeigh show her with Campbell's soup cans how he was going to put the barrels in the back of the truck to blow up the building. Fortier spent 10 years in prison. And when he got out, he is now in the witness protection program. Who are they protecting him from? Things just don't add up. So Fortier has never given an interview that you're aware of? No, no. Have you ever spoken to him? No, I took his wife out for dinner, though. I went to Kingman, Arizona, and we went to the dam bar. And I said, you know, I'd like for you to tell me about this. I said, you know, I'd like for you to tell me about your part in the bombing. You know, I know about you sitting with McVeigh and doing the barrels. And she begins to cry and said, I'm sorry, I can't tell you. My lawyer just told me I can't talk about it. And I said, well, okay, if you can't tell me how the bombing affected you, let me tell you how it affected me. And I pulled out pictures of Chase and Colton. And I told her how different our lives were and the tragedy that we've been through. And I said, you know, I really wish you would help me. And at the end of the night, though, she said, you know, would you write to Michael? He was in prison at that time. I said, well, I don't, what do you want me to say? And she goes, I don't know, but I think you'll know. I said, okay, I'll write to him. So I wrote to Michael Fortier, told him I'd had dinner with his wife. I found her to be a. a very nice person, a very broken person. And he wrote back, but I felt like he was deceiving me. At least Lori told me she couldn't talk. He said, I'm glad you saw her for the person she really is. And I've got his letter at home. It's been 30 years. I can't remember what it was. But it was like that he didn't have anything to do with it or he didn't know about it. And it's like that's so untrue based on the evidence. It's been recovered. And you have no idea where he is now? No, he's in the Witness Protection Program. He's probably got a new name and everything. I suppose we're probably supporting him, right? Oh, of course we are. Yep. Most people don't like thinking about life insurance. It's one of those topics you tend to kind of put off. 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So the ATF comes to your house to, quote, calm you down. Did it have that effect? Did it calm you down? No, no. We had two of the agents that were in the building. They told us that when the bomb went off, they were in an elevator and that they free fell from the top of the ninth floor to the first floor. And they were in an elevator. They were trapped in the elevator and they had to pry the doors open. Well, it just so happened my husband was CPA and he worked for that elevator company. We went and interviewed the men at the elevator company. They said as soon as the bomb went off, they were called to come down there and to help get people out and to check on the elevators. And they said there was no elevator that had been pried open. And they said, Kathy, if the. elevator had free fallen from the ninth floor to the first floor they would have been dead of course so i don't know i know i don't have the answers for this all i know is that doesn't seem to make sense to me so if you were interviewing michael fortier's wife and the elevator company that installed the elevators at the morrow building in oklahoma city i mean you were doing reporting on this oh tucker you have no idea i i've spent the last 32 years i've i've had uh i i've had i've had some of the bombers family come to my home uh yeah his family his sister came i had her to my home for dinner when i knew she was in oklahoma uh she most people don't realize that she also cut a deal with the government uh she she testified against her brother in her confession she says that she was laundering hundred dollar bills for her brother that he told her came from bank robberies well there's a group of bank robbers living at elaheim city the place that the atf informant warns her handler these people are not going to be able to get a job in oklahoma people are planning a bombing they're living at elaheim city and they're they're bank robbers and she's laundering money that tim says came from bank robbers anyway and and when the fbi came to jennifer's home the first time she was on her back patio with her charcoal grill burning the letters from her brother but yeah i've and jennifer i had her at my home um and i asked her uh you know can you tell me about your brother's politics and she said oh no i'm sorry i he never discussed that with me well i knew that wasn't true and i my daughter just lived two blocks from me by this time and she had a new baby and i thought well i'll take jennifer over to meet the baby her brother didn't kill it's what i thought in my heart but i i took her over to edie's but i didn't get anything significant from her but i've been to elaheim city i've had guns pointed at me uh edie and i did when we drove up to elaheim city they the armed guards came came out with guns i've been to the whose armed guards were they elaheim cities i i i told edie after i learned what i did i said edie we need to go to elaheim city i want to know what's going on out there i had been told that if you go there you have to uh if you want to talk to them you have to attend their church service they had church service every day at noon so we're driving up it's just about time for church i mean it is in boonies i've never seen anything like it where is it it's at the moldrow oklahoma arkansas border and uh you have to know and i had learned from the the defense team where it was and you have to know where you're going to get there because it is in the middle of nowhere and we're driving up there and there's a sign that says elaheim city which by the way is hebrew for city of god there's these big domed buildings unlike anything i had ever seen before and uh i grab the uh camcorder which at that time was as big as a bazooka and i put it on my shoulder and i start filming because i'm thinking no one's ever going to believe i've been here and then edie says put the camera down mom put the camera down and i throw the camera into the floor and there are two men coming with guns to our car pointed right at us i rolled the window down and they said can we help you and i said yeah i'm here for church so our armed escorts took us into the church and when we got inside the church building which is another one of the round domed buildings with stuff oozing from the top uh it was set up like a horseshoe type the parishioners were around the the perimeter of the building and the iron cross band was playing and these guys had guns on their shoulders and side arms on their waist and it'd be the iron cross band was playing and they were singing some kind of glory and guns to god and then uh when they quit playing reverend no reverend millar uh looks at us and he says well i see we have guests and he said would you stand and introduce yourselves so we stood up and i said well this is my daughter edie we lost her grand uh her children in the oklahoma city bombing and i said we're atf's worst nightmare and they stood up and gave us a standing ovation and so we were welcomed into the fold afterwards they gave me a tour of the compound they showed me andre strassmeyer's house dennis mayhon which is the man that also accompanied carol howe and andreas strassmeyer it was the three of them that made those three trips so i found out where carol was staying i really wanted to see where richard wayne snell was buried but they wouldn't show me that it was richard wayne snell richard wayne snell was a part of the covenant the sword and arm of the lord and 10 years earlier the fbi had um raided their compound on the same day as the oklahoma city bombing on april 19th and snell got in a lot of trouble he killed an arkansas pawnbroker shot an arkansas state trooper and out some of it was out of revenge for what had happened at his compound on april 19 1985 snell then was executed in arkansas and arkansas officials chose to execute him on april 19th 1995 the day of the oklahoma city bombing but here's what gets peculiar on the day of his execution according to the prison death watch logs snell asked for the tv to be turned on in his cell and he smiled and chuckled as he watched the oklahoma city bombing his spiritual advisor was robert millar the head of oklahoma city i mean city his spiritual advisor was robert millar the head spiritual advisor of elohim city and he was taken back and buried at elohim city i mean all the roads keep going back to elohim city elohim city and coincidentally at snell's sedition trial it came out a trial that he had planned to blow up the murrah building some 10 years earlier out of revenge for the raid on the covenant the sword and arm of the lord i mean this story just is so big it's so big but all the roads keep going back to elohim city and coincidentally at snell's sedition all roads come back to the same direction if you're under 40 you might not know much about what the fbi describes as the deadliest act of domestic terror in our history bombing of the federal building in oklahoma city in 1995 they felt this all the official stories are simple and they're all the same timothy mcveigh acting alone bombed a federal building and in so doing killed 168 people including almost 20 children what an emotional experience the government quickly declared the case solved but in the end it was all over the place and the state of oklahoma was taken over by the city's police but three decades later many questions remain did timothy mcveigh really act alone there is a strong likelihood that other persons are involved why were so many obvious warnings ignored it's pure chaos and who was he with a man called john doe number two who was john doe two and where was he we spoke with survivors investigators law enforcement even timothy mcveigh's defense attorney the story that he was telling me i did not feel was the truth watch the okc bomb file in the okc bomb file in oklahoma state of oklahoma it's streaming exclusively on tucker carlson.com this episode is brought to you by txu energy for the first time ever texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings it's called free nights and cool summer you get free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information rep number one zero zero zero four tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj BJ's Gas. She gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at BJs.com slash Mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. What do you think Timothy McVeigh's role in all of this was? Do you believe he was the bomber? Yes, I believe he was the bomber. I think he was happy to be the bomber. I think he was happy to have the credit for it. He was the one person that I reached out to a number of times and he would never respond. One time I knew a law journalist that was going in to see him and I sent a picture of Chase and Colton on there to him and I said, I'd really like to talk with you. And the reporter said he just shook his head and said, well, I don't know what to think of this. You think he was happy to take credit for it? You don't believe he acted alone? No, there is no way he acted alone. At Gary Lake where they built the bomb, the prosecution and the defense agreed that the bomb was built at Gary Lake. Well, there were several eyewitnesses at Gary Lake that watched men coming and going from the truck. The activity went on all day. Sergeant Sargent had just retired, his first day of retirement, and he went to the lake to go fishing to celebrate. He watched those men there all day. You know, there were people with him. There were people in the Dreamland Motel room. The Chinese delivery person, Jeff Davis, that's not who he left. He didn't leave the truck. The Chinese food with Tim McVeigh. It was some other people. The maid, Hilda Sostra, she took towels to the room, and the man that answered the door wasn't McVeigh, and she was complaining to Leah McGowan, the owner of the hotel, about that there were other men in that room. David King, he was a guest at the hotel. He saw the men coming and going from McVeigh's room, and Leah McGowan that rented in the truck, she would walk the perimeter, and she heard men talking in there. It's like, who were these men? Because McVeigh drove the Ryder truck with the bomb in it from the front doors of the Dreamland to the front door of the Murrah building. Whoever was there with him were important, and the FBI never bothered. They never bothered to find them. I wonder why. Well, I wonder why, too. I mean, the most obvious explanation is that the people with McVeigh were FBI informants, and the FBI knew all of this was happening, and that they were monitoring it, but for whatever reason didn't stop it, and they're hiding that fact. I mean, I think that's the conclusion most people would draw. It's very logical. I've taken all the information that I have gathered, over the last 32 years. I've written three books about the bombing. I mean, my life, the bombing really changed my life. The first one was when I started asking questions. The second one's when I learned to forgive, which is the greatest story. And this third one that I just wrote, Shadows of Conspiracy, I call it a historical novel because I've created the story based on the facts that I have. But I've had to include the dialogue that I believe the men would have been having to create this thing, and it is a page-turner, barn-burner kind of book. It's a really good read. If you want to know, my story in that book is much closer to the truth than what the American people have been given. So if you could just summarize what you think likely happened, what is the truth of Oklahoma City after 32 years of looking into it, what do you think? Well, I don't have the whole truth. Of course. I have the, you know, I think they knew. Carol Howe had warned them. The government knew. The government knew. I think they tried to stop it. I think they were there the night before. And I think that's why they called the bomb squad in. And, you know, if they were trying to stop it and just flubbed it up, I could appreciate that. You know, we worked hard. We tried to stop it. We're really sorry that we tried. It's been hanging like this. I don't know what to think. To me, there's something not right. There's something sinister about it. Clearly. What kind of contact have you had with the FBI since that day, since April of 95? Well, oh, I've talked to different ones. I've talked to different ones. I've had Danny Coulson. I write about him in my book. He was the agent that was brought in after the bombing. And they brought in the team of the FBI's elite to cover the story of the bombing, or to investigate the bombing, I should say. And I found out 10 years, 10 years after the bombing, that Danny had retired. And I thought, well, maybe he'll tell me. Now that he's retired, he'll tell me about what, you know, what really happened. I called him on the phone. And he lives in Dallas. He agreed to meet me. I took all, I have three ring binders. I had a trunk full. I loaded my car with those three ring binders. I went to Motel 6. I put the, all those binders, I put them in the car. I was out on that bed. And then a tap came at the door. And I knew it was Danny, because we had a specific time. I answered the door. And at that time, he looks like Simon Cowell. He's got on that black tight T-shirt and blue jeans and had hair. He doesn't anymore. But he comes in and I said, I just have some questions, you know. And I start pulling out binders. Why didn't you talk to me? Why didn't you talk to Carol Howe? Why didn't anybody pay attention to the information that she's given him? And he's looking at, then I'm pulling out Jennifer McVeigh's confession that she was laundering the $100 bills for her brother. I said, look at this. The Midwest bank robbers. That's the name the FBI gave them. They're living there at Elohim City. Why didn't they do anything? And Andres Strossmeyer. McVeigh calls him two minutes after calling the Ryder Truck Company. Why didn't you, why wouldn't he ever interviewed? And I could, Danny's countenance was changing. And he said, man, he goes, that explains it. I said, explains what? And he said, Kathy, after the bombing, the FBI brought in their finest. To investigate. And he said, I was called off and put on leave with pay. I've been on leave with pay the last 10 years. I don't know anything about these things. He said, you probably have more information in one place than any other organization because I've had information from everybody. And he said, he was very, very nice. He said, you need to get a federal grand jury is the only way you're ever going to get this solved. Well, before I could get to Nichols to tell him to do that, he doesn't trust anyone. Terry Nichols. Terry Nichols. They came and I approached him about a grand jury and he wouldn't agree to it. But Danny, I'll never forget that day because at the end of our meeting that day, he said, aren't you afraid? I said, I don't know. Who should I be afraid of? And he said, I don't know. And I said, I don't know. And he said, well, the people that you could get convicted and possibly put to death. I said, no, I don't have that much sense. I'm just doing what I believe is the right thing to do. Edmund Burke said, evil flourishes when good men do nothing. Something needs to be done. Will something be done? I don't know. I've been trying for 32 years. I hope we come to the truth. You said that you forgave Timothy McVeigh? I did. How and why? Okay. I never set out planning to forgive anybody. Really, I didn't. But I had such grief. There wasn't anything I could do about that grief. But there was something I could do about the anger. And I watched my husband die. And I believe his anger and the bitterness and hatred that he harbored in his heart killed him. And I said. How old was he? 47. Oh, gosh. And I remember he was mad. He was mad at God for not answering our prayer because we came home the day of the bombing. And one of the parents of a child that lived is by his side in the hospital. And he says, well, looky here. God answered our prayer. Our boy lived, which I would have said too if our boys would have lived. But I've learned don't do that. You can thank God that your boy lived. But God's not a cherry picker. He didn't go through that day and think, oh, I'll let this one and this one and this one perish. And I'm going to save these others. I mean, because it made us feel really bad. So Glenn was really mad at God. He was mad at Timothy McVeigh. I heard him say a dozen times the day he dies, he's going to spit on his grave and toast his death with a bottle of vine champagne. Well, Glenn wound up dying before McVeigh. But he was really mad at the government because he didn't believe he had been given the truth. And watching him die scared me. I said, God, I don't know why this happened. But I know if I have a chance of making it, I'm going to have to depend on you. I can remember after the bombing, John Walsh of America's Most Wanted, he spoke to a group of survivors. And he looked at us and he said, you will grieve and you will grieve deeply, but you will survive. Up to that point, I didn't know if I would survive. I'd even thought about killing myself because I didn't want to live in that situation. I didn't want to live in that kind of pain. But I couldn't do that to my husband and to my daughter. So I said, Lord, you're going to have to help me. I can't live like this. You're going to have to help me. I've since learned that forgiveness isn't an event. It's a process. I can remember when I read my Bible. I read the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And when I got to that part, I said, Lord, I don't know how to do that. I said, Lord, you're going to have to sit your Holy Spirit to intercede for me. I don't know how to do this. And Tucker, when I began to pray for Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, it began to change my life. I don't know what it did for Terry or Tim. I went to Terry Nichols' trial right after my husband died. And there was a break in the hallway. There was a little lady there with a brown coat on, long brown coat. She was over there by herself. Nobody was talking to her, but I could see they were talking about her. And I thought, oh my God, that's Terry Nichols' mother. And I go over and I begin to introduce myself and she begins to cry. And I put my arms around her and I said, I'm so sorry for your family. And we became great friends. During the court, I sit with my friend Joyce. I sit with Joyce. We ate lunch together. I know the other families didn't understand why I was sitting with the Nichols family, but she did become. I felt like she was a forgotten victim and she did become my friend. When the trial was over, the jury forewoman said, we can't give Terry Nichols death because we don't know how. He's guilty, but we don't know how guilty. Who were those other people with him at the Dreamland Motel? Who was with him out there building the bomb at Gary Lake? And so they got off. But Oklahoma had a backup plan. So after his federal trial, he didn't get the death penalty. They brought him to Oklahoma. And Oklahoma planned to have a state trial and hope to get him executed. Well, just a couple of days after I returned home, I went to my mailbox and there's a letter from Terry Nichols. And I'm looking at that and I'm thinking, I'm not looking for a pen pal. And if I was, it wouldn't be the Oklahoma City bomber. And then I thought, well, who's going to know more about the bombing? That's crazy. So I began to write to Terry. And he said, if you'll send me your phone number, I'll call you. So he began to call me. I learned a lot from him. He wasn't raised at a Christian home. He said they only went to church for weddings or for funerals. And he said, we went then for a free meal. And he just kind of laughed about it. But he said once he was arrested in his cell was a Gideon Bible and he read it cover to cover. And then someone gave him a AM radio and he listened to an old radio preacher that told him if he'd invite Jesus into his heart, that Jesus would cleanse him of his sins and forgive him for all unrighteousness. And he said, Kathy, I did that. You know, I know a lot about, you know, there are no atheists in the foxholes. And I know a lot about jailhouse religion. I'm nobody's judge. But I chose to believe him. Some people would say, oh, Kathy, he doesn't, he doesn't deserve mercy. And I said, well, yeah, you're right. He doesn't. If he deserved it, it wouldn't be mercy. Fair. So Terry's son hadn't seen him. He hadn't seen him. Seen him, Josh, in four years. He was 12 at the time of the bombing. He's 16 at that time. McVeigh had just been executed. And Josh was very disturbed. His mother called and said, you know, Josh is having a hard time. I'm going to bring him to Oklahoma to see his dad. I said, well, come stay with me. And she said, well, I'm not sure that Josh would be comfortable. I said, well, that's okay. Just come by and have dinner. He's not comfortable. I understand. So when they came to the door that night, I answered the door. And what was a short, fat kid's not tall, good looking kid. And I look up at him. I mean, what do you say? Me being the wise woman that I am, I said, well, I knew you were coming. So I begged a cake. And we began to laugh. We had dinner. Josh and I stayed up till the wee hours of the night. He told me how the kids at school had nicknamed him Bomber and how he'd randomly get beat up when he walked down the street and how that he dropped out of school. And I had not told anybody. I didn't tell my family. I didn't tell my neighbors. I told no one because I didn't want it to be a press release or press event that I've got the Bombers family at my home. And they wound up staying for four days. And the last day, Josh asked me, and I didn't take him anywhere. I just cooked for him, kept him at the house. And Terry's lawyer would come over and see him and stuff. And they'd go see Terry, but I didn't go out publicly with him. And on the last day, Josh said, Kathy, would you take me to the memorial? And it's like, oh, at that time, everyone knew who I was in Oklahoma City. I'm thinking, oh, no, I hope they don't recognize him. But how could I tell him no? After what he had been through. But I could tell you, Tucker, when I took him to the memorial, and I stood at chairs number 60 and 61 with my arm around the Bombers' son, that God had done a work in my life. And it amazes me, the transformation. John Walsh was right. I did survive. Here I am, 32 years later, I made the decision to forgive, and I think it changed the ending to my story. That's a wonderful story. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.