Deep Dive
The Personal Tragedy and First Signs of a Cover-Up
On April 19, 1995, Kathy Wilburn's two young grandsons, Chase and Colton, were killed when a bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, devastating 168 people total. In the immediate aftermath, as her family searched for the children at the hospital, Wilburn's initial acceptance of the official narrative — that Timothy McVey and Terry Nichols acted alone — began to crumble. Within weeks, a mother of one of the daycare victims mentioned she'd seen bomb squad vehicles at the Murrah building before the explosion. When Wilburn's husband went to the fire station to verify, the fire chief denied it, but the dispatcher pulled him aside privately and said something had to give: 'I'm not going to lie for anyone. We got a memorandum in this office last week to be on high alert for terrorist activity.' This wasn't public knowledge. The federal courthouse had received the same alert. If the government knew a bombing was coming, how could McVey have acted as a random lone wolf?
The John Doe Two Mystery and Witness Testimony
The FBI initially launched the largest manhunt in American history for 'John Doe Number Two,' McVey's alleged accomplice, offering a $2 million reward after witnesses at the Ryder truck rental said two men rented the vehicle. Within weeks, the FBI abruptly closed that investigation, claiming it was a mistake. But Wilburn obtained access to McVey's defense attorney's files and discovered over 20 FBI witness statements placing McVey downtown that morning with another man. A delivery driver saw McVey with someone else at his motel room. Dana Bradley, who survived by being pinned in the rubble, testified at trial that she and her sister watched McVey exit the truck and saw a second man jump out and run off. Yet the prosecution never called any of these witnesses — every single one of them. Instead, the FBI claimed Bradley was traumatized and confused. At a tire shop, Michael Moroski watched McVey jump out of the truck like he was blocking someone else from view, ask for directions, then drive off with the other man still in the cab. McVey bought Cokes and Marlboros at a convenience store, though witnesses said he didn't smoke — suggesting he was buying for someone else.
Elohim City, Informants, and Government Knowledge
Wilburn's investigation pointed to Elohim City, a remote compound on the Oklahoma-Arkansas border, as a hub of activity. An ATF informant named Carol Howe living at the compound had warned her handler as early as December 1994 that three men — including Andreas Strawmeer, a German national — were making surveillance trips to Oklahoma City and Tulsa to target buildings for bombing. McVey called Strawmeer just two minutes after phoning the Ryder company two weeks before the bombing. Yet Strawmeer was never interviewed by the FBI in person. A year after the bombing, after he'd already left the country and returned to Germany, they conducted only a phone interview. Wilburn also discovered that Richard Wayne Snell, a member of a far-right militia group that had planned to bomb the Murrah building a decade earlier in revenge for a 1985 FBI raid, was executed by Arkansas on April 19, 1995 — the exact day of the bombing. Snell watched the Oklahoma City bombing on TV in his cell and smiled. His spiritual advisor was Robert Malar, the head of Elohim City, and he was buried at the compound. All roads, Wilburn says, lead back to Elohim City.
ATF Presence and the Locked Box Mystery
ATF payroll records showed agents were brought into the Murrah building the night before the bombing, though the agency initially denied it. They admitted to running a sting operation but refused to say where. Wilburn theorizes the feds may have had advance warning the building would be bombed, expected it to happen at night when empty, called in a bomb squad for a sweep when nothing happened, then allowed people to return. An even stranger detail: an AP photograph showed ATF agent Luke Fray on the ninth floor holding a small silver lockbox, surrounded by 168 dead below him. When Wilburn asked what was inside, Fray refused to say. A former FBI agent later reported that Fray told him it contained only $150 in his children's savings bonds — raising the question of why he would refuse to answer a grieving grandmother about something so innocuous in the midst of the nation's worst domestic terror attack.
Forgiveness and Unfinished Questions
After 32 years, Wilburn has written three books on the bombing and completed an investigative series. She forgave Timothy McVey and Terry Nichols, a decision she credits with saving her life after watching her husband die of anger and bitterness at age 47. She corresponded with Nichols in prison and even hosted his son Josh, who was bullied at school after the bombing. When asked what she thinks actually happened, Wilburn says she doesn't have the whole truth but believes the government knew of the plot through Carol Howe's warnings, tried to stop it, failed, and has been covering that up ever since. The jury foreman at Nichols' trial acknowledged reasonable doubt — who were the other men at the motel and bomb site? Michael Fortier, who knew the full plot, served only 10 years and lives in witness protection at taxpayer expense. The basic facts, Wilburn says, don't add up to one man and a plan.