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I'm proud of all my children. In 1986, 154 children and teachers survived the bombing of Cokeville Elementary School. For more information about our sponsors and the people behind WyoHistory.org, visit our About Us page: Hostage crisis at the elementary school in Cokeville, Wyo. Wyoming Town Still Healing a Year After School Bombing., Schoolhouse Blast Still Felt a Year Later., Survivor is My Name: Cokeville Elementary School Bombing1986 News Report Audio. Audio Recording. I was still trying to make sense of it all! As well as I can. She was a total torch! The children and adults escaped after the bomb exploded. According to survivor accounts, Doris enticed many into the first grade room by announcing that their presence was required for a school assembly. By Jamie Armstrong May 22, 2015 09:35 AM MDT. They learned to trust in their God, the kids were healed for the most part, and they value life more now. Now you are a bomb technician. And afteryou look in there and you could see little pockmarks all through on the walls, and after we finished with our investigationit took us three days to totally do the whole entire sceneyou could tell where those pockmarks were bullets from the heat had gone off. Everybody that was inside that room, they just started throwin' them out the windows, out the doors, just anyand she happened to be one they threw out the window. AP file. People who had guns! This sub is dedicated to faithful discourse on church topics. He still needed to tell it to his parents though, and that's basically what you see in the movie. The explosion engulfed her in flames and burned many nearby children. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. I saw an early screening of the film and absolutely loved it. The kids couldn't have done it. He knew it was a predominantly Mormon [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] community. Davids writings reveal that he hoped life would be better for him and Cokevilles children in this imaginary place. She was totally burned. Did this shake the faith of some people, or would you say it strengthened it in most? I did not have to imagine how God would move that day when I said my little prayer just hours before, I simply knew he would. As I come to the junctionI'm sorry, I don't know what the road is that goes over to Bear Lakebut as I was passing that intersection, they did inform me that the bomb had exploded. Everyone else survived, and many who did recalled the tragedy with memories of the presence of angels. He had just big rings of perspiration. Rich Haskell: No. That's my lucky miracle. But everything was black, like you had gone in there with a flamethrower and just torched everything inside there. Cokeville officially has only536 people in it and two LDS wards that meet in the same chapel. On May 16, 1986, when former town marshal David Gary Young and his wife Doris Young took 154 children and 13 teachers hostage at Cokeville Elementary school in Wyoming, and kept them at bay with a shopping-cart sized bomb attached to five hairpin-trigger blast caps, it should have ended in great tragedy - one of the worst in American history. I was later told that everybody had been taken to different hospitals, ambulance services from all over, from Utah, from Idaho, from Wyoming was transporting people all over the place and there was only two fatalities. Rich Haskell: I don't think that they were planningor David was planning on the ceiling tiles in the school. Rich Haskell: I'm Rich Haskell. ", Mark Junge: So it took you three days, three and a half days. I got a chance to talk to Jennie Sorensen Johnson, who was seven when David Young rolled a bomb into her first grade classroom. Although many were burned, some severely, only the perpetrators of this horrible incident died. Others miracles were reported and some of those are recorded in this compilation.." Mark Junge: You'd been tested, though. Many recalled praying silently, forming prayer circles and seeing angels during the crisis. His fever broke within minutes of getting it off his chest. Rich Haskell: Well, by none of the kids bein' hurt that was supposed to be hurt. Young was a former Cokeville town marshal who had been living in Arizona for several years. [7][5] The reason for the wire cuts are so far unexplained. The tuna fish cans, if you can imagine, here's two tuna fish cans sittin' here like this, and a gallon jug of gasoline sittin' above it. Mark Junge: Okay. During the Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis. That's what it was designed to do was to go out and be particles and that gasoline was gonna ignite it and blow it up. I know there's angels. Because they refused to participate, Princess, Deppe, and Mendenhall were never charged in relation to this crime. Returning to the scene, David shot his wife, a teacher, then himself. The detonation didn't do it, it was cut. http://www.cokevillemiracle.com/movie.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cokeville_Elementary_School_hostage_crisis. Accessed May 17, 2013, at, Wyoming Horror: A Fiery Schoolhouse Bomb., A 1986 Hostage Event at a Cokeville, Wyoming Elementary School., Jarvik, Elaine. She tied the string around her wrist. I believe a presence was entering the room at about that time. Now this is just for my own information and it doesn't have anything to do with this case, but whenever I read about a bomb threat in the paper, I think to myself, "Oh, no! One hostage observed a birthday on that day and songs were sung in his honor. The man and woman who took an elementary school here hostage Friday, injuring 70 children when their homemade gasoline bomb exploded, had ties to the Posse Comitatus and other white supremacist. Twenty-five years ago on Monday, a man and his wife pushed a homemade gasoline bomb into Cokeville's sole elementary school and demanded $300 million in ransom. Hi MadreDeUnMono! With fear that David might become unhinged, the teachers decided to make an ~8-foot square of masking tape for his own personal space. A new movie is coming out on Friday called "The Cokeville Miracle" that depicts not just this terrible event, but the various miraculous stories that emerged afterward. Mark Junge: Okay. Jessica Clark, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of history and political science at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs, Wyo. Mark Junge: Why do you think that God chose Cokeville to save? Journal entries also indicate that he saw opportunity in the close-knit community; he wrote, "Threaten one and all are at your mercy." Located in Lincoln County and nestled between the towns of Star Valley and Kemmerer on the Wyoming-Idaho border, Cokeville, many residents believed, was a safe place to rear children. Number one, that's where he worked. Over the course of time he did various things to get our input from script readings early on, to being there on set, etc. It was within the first few weeks that the Hartley boy was explaining his witness. This wasn't a pipe bomb. So if the state didn't pay him, he figured the Mormon church would pay him because the Mormon church has money also. Students, teachers, staff and visitors frantically exited the building, with teachers helping many of the children escape through the windows. What is your assessment of these two people who did this? And he didn't even ask me if I wanted to do that. There was nobody killed but the perpetrators. Shortly after their wedding, David and Doris left Cokeville and headed to Tucson, Ariz. During their time in Tucson, according to Doris daughter Bernie Petersen, David became increasingly reclusive, focusing on his philosophical readings and writings. When they asked pointed questions like "what did the angels look like?" We didn't know if the blasting caps were in therejust exactly what was in there. She acknowledges these students for assisting her in researching her contributions to the WyoHistory.org web site. Rich Haskell: I don't know. Mark Junge: What's been your experiences since then? ", All told, 79 of the hostages suffered injuries, mostly second-degree burns, smoke inhalation, and other injuries from the exploding bomb. Throughout the standoff, David grew increasingly agitated and irritable. I'm not saying all of 'em were bombs, but why did God cut out Cokeville and say nobody's going to get hurt in this? Rich Haskell: There was also ayou look through the ceiling and there was a bigger hole up there. My name is Kamron Wixom, I was a 12 year old 6th grader in 1986 when a mad man took over my school (Cokeville Elementary) with a bomb and his guns. The top basket contained a gallon milk jug of gasoline, wired with a blasting cap. Reporters from all the regional news outlets were on the scene by the time of the explosion or shortly thereafter. On May 16, 1986, David and Doris Young entered Cokeville Elementary School with a gasoline bomb, a variety of rifles and handguns, David's philosophical writings and demands for $300 million You see the bag ladies pullin' them around behind them when they go to the store and they can put their groceries in or whatever else. Maybe writing that up 2 years ago when this came along was more healing for me than for him, but I gave it all to him! He was asking large amounts of money. Rich Haskell: Because of the response and because of the emails and everything that took place. The Cokeville Elementary School was the site of a horrific hostage situation on May 16, 1986 when David and Dorris Young took a homemade bomb inside the school. Mark Junge: But all of these holes were above the level of the children. Rich? And screaming, I can't imagine the screams that she was making. No need to troll. At least 74 people, most of them children, suffered second-degree burns when the bomb went off at about 4 P.M. at the Cokeville Elementary School. Rich Haskell: Absolutely. David Youngs journals and writings reveal that he was a troubled man who spent many years grappling with deep philosophical questionsabout mans existence, the afterlife and spirituality. In most cases I have deleted redundant ands, ers, uhs, buts, false starts, etc. Anything? David's youngest daughter from his first marriage, Princess, entered the elementary school with David and Doris, but refused to carry out the plan, leaving to report the incident at the town hall. I had the chance to watch the pre-screening of the film and it was very emotional. May 24, 1986 12 AM PT. How has that experience shaped your life? David and Doris Young took 167 hostages (150 children, 17 adults and one unlucky UPS driver) at the elementary school. Because in the bus, everything was solid in the school bus. So I went to Huntsville, Ala., to Redstone Arsenal. Where's he running? Mark Junge: Do you think he took up thatwanted to take that up because of you? It'sI'm still doing that kind of thing because whenever they hold General Conference in Salt Lake City I go to Salt Lake City to be part of the bomb team for the church while they have General Conference. They forget about what happened in Cokeville with a lot more people and the potential of what was there. In the West? Did you see anything? Who died in the Cokeville bombing? You know something about bombs. Certified Bomb Technician. And the bathroom was off to the side of it because it was the kindergarten class. No, this is something that people need to know about. So we took the tiles off and went up into the ceiling and crawled up into the upper space up there and found a .45 slug up embedded into the iron girders up in the wall, and thought, okay, where did that come from? It packed the brute force of twenty-five sticks of dynamite. WyoHistory.org welcomes the support of the following sponsors. She is a trained rural historian who specializes in oral history, childhood history and memory studies. It's a little basket that has different layers on it. Audio/Video Recording. This can, the aluminum powder, never went off. [6] With permission, the teachers brought in books, art supplies and a television to help keep the children occupied. Have you seen the Unsolved Mysteries episode that had a segment on this? (Laughs) But as I was passing through Kemmerer I stayed in radio contact. the children began describing things more specifically and that is when the mom was prompted to find the photograph of their grandmother. Mark Junge: You had some bullets in the ceiling that you had to investigate, too. The device was set up on afor lack of a better word, I call it a shopping cart. "If you can see the bomb, the bomb can see you," an officer shouted. That your life could change just at a blink of an eye. I certainly enjoy my grandkids a lot more. results in the deaths of perpetrators David and Doris Young; 154 hostages survive. Students, teachers, visitors, staff who survived the ordeal and bystanders began recounting their memories of this event as it was still unfolding. I can understand that. In 1986 , 154 children and teachers survived the bombing of Cokeville Elementary School. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. You could see that the roof tiles had been lifted out of their brackets. Recording and transcription by Wyoming State Archives. You know this is going to sound morbid, but I always thought if the Muslims, the radical Muslims were smart, they would take their jihad to local communities because that would scare the hell out of 'em like it did in Cokeville. How did you determine how everything looked when this went up in smoke itself. The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis occurred on Friday, May 16, 1986 in Cokeville, Wyoming, United States, when former town marshal David Young, 43, and his wife Doris Young, 47,[1] took 136 children and 18 adults hostage at Cokeville Elementary School. Go to school and learn how to do it." Unexplained Mysteries: Angel Files. Season 1, Episode 20. Both hostage takers died, while 79 hostages were wounded. I was literally blown out the door when the bomb went off , and i remember how time slowed down in those seconds. Details: At 1:20pm on Friday, May 16, 1986, forty-three-year-old David Young and his forty-seven-year-old wife, Doris, wheeled a shopping cart containing a homemade gasoline-filled bomb into Cokeville Elementary School in Cokeville, Wyoming, just after the lunch hour recess. (Laughs) Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but it was. I believe there was a hundred-and-sixty-plus people involved that was being held. There were plenty who opposed this from Cokeville, not a majority, maybe, but they were vocal and raw with feelings. And I'm sure that that made him very nervous. Mark Junge: Do you think you were cut out to do this job? who wins student body president riverdale. They had a circle of tape around the device itself and they said, "Do not come inside of this circle. Rich Haskell: Well, I got a lot of it while I was in the Marine Corps and in the Army National Guard. The miraculous events that followed have changed many people foreverespecially survivor Amy Bagaso Williams. Edit: Also, were you at that early screening? I've got a couple of questions. David, who dared not risk their reporting him to the authorities, responded by holding them at gunpoint. I absolutely have. Cokeville had so little crime that many folks didn't bother to lock their doors. David returned to the restroom and killed himself, ending the hostage crisis. Have there been any lingering psychological effects from going through something so traumatic while so young? No. The first chapter is titled A Town of Trust.. Rich Haskell: Well, I like to think I'm a better person because of it. On May the 16th , 1986, 1 was in Rock Springs at a basketball game. Box 37, Cokeville, Wyoming 83114. He shot and killed her. Then when I became a deputy, Sheriff Stark says, "You know, we're going to start finding a bunch of old explosives, dynamite and things. Lenita's father Rocky was a fifth grade teacher at Cokeville Elementary School at the time of the bombing, Lenita was a seventh grader. Mark Junge: What were they designed to do? Mark Junge: Well, yes. The gasoline bottle was leaking. Mark Junge: So it would have gone upward, but would it have killed the kids? I said, "What on earth happened there?"