The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 26

My guess is the more time an officer has to think about the screw up the more he is going to question what happened... Can you imagine what would be coming down now if that had been our officers' who had let this happen? Because it was the feds that did this and not the locals, is the reason it's okay. You were right all along and I am truly sorry I doubted you and your motives about recording history. You should know that it is going to one-h.e.l.l-of-a-fight.

Everyone was behind you until you started asking questions as I did, as to how so many federal agents arrived at the scene at the same time.

Luke Franey (a ATF agent who claimed he was in the building) was not in the building at the time of the blast, I know this for a fact, I saw him! I also saw full riot gear worn with rifles in hand, why? Don't make the mistake as I did and ask the wrong people.

I worry about you and your young family because of some of the statements that have been made towards me, a police officer! Whatever you do don't confront McPhearson with the bomb squad about what I told you. His actions and defensiveness towards the bombing would make any normal person think he was defending himself as if he drove the d.a.m.n truck up to the building himself. I am not worried for myself, but for you and your group. I would not be afraid to say at this time that you and your family could be harmed if you get any closer to the truth. At this time I think for your well being it is best for you to distance yourself and others from those of us who have stirred up to many questions about the altering and falsifying of the federal investigation's reports.

I truly believe there are other officers like me out there who would not settle for anything but the truth, it is just a matter of finding them. The only true problem as I see it is, who do we turn to then?

It is vital that people like you, Edye Smith, and others keep asking questions and demanding answers for the actions of our Federal Government and law enforcement agencies that knew beforehand and partic.i.p.ated in the cover-up.

The sad truth of the matter is that they have so many police officers convinced that by covering up the truth about the operation gone wrong, that they are actually doing our citizens a favor. What I want to know is how many other operations have they had that blew up in their faces? Makes you stop and take another look at Waco.

I would consider it to be an insult to my profession as a police officer and to the citizens of Oklahoma for ANY of the City, State or Federal agents that stood by and let this happen to be recognized as any thing other than their part in partic.i.p.ation in letting this happen. For those who ran from the scene to change their attire to hide the fact that they were there, should be judged as cowards.

If our history books and records are ever truly corrected about that day it will show this and maybe even some lame excuse as to why it happened, but I truly don't believe it will from what I now know to be the truth.

Even if I tried to explain it to you the way it was explained to me, and the ridiculous reason for having out own police departments falsify reports to their fellow officers, to the citizens of the city and to our country, you would understand why I feel the way I do about all of this.

I believe that a lot of the problems the officers are having right now are because some of them know what really happened and can't deal with it, and others like myself made the mistake of trusting the one person we were supposed to be able to turn to (Chaplain Poe) only to be stabbed in the back.

I am sad to say that I believe my days as a police officer are numbered because of all of this....

Shortly after the bombing, Yeakey appeared at his ex-wife's. "About two weeks before his death, he'd come into my home at strange times," said Rivera, "two-thirty in the morning, four in the morning, unannounced - trying to give me life insurance policies.... He kept telling me we needed to get remarried immediately, or me and the girls would not be taken care of.

"I mean, why would a guy tell you to take a life insurance policy, knowing d.a.m.n well it wouldn't pay for a suicide? He obviously knew he was in danger."

Yet Officer Terrance Yeakey was not the type of person to easily show his feelings. He didn't want to tell his family anything that might get them hurt.

"He told me enough to let me know that it was not what they were making it out to be," said Rivera, "and that he was disgusted and didn't want any part of it, but he never went into detail.... It scared me."[941]

Within days of the bombing, according to a sympathetic government source who has spoken to Rivera, Yeakey began receiving death threats. He was at his ex-wife's apartment when the calls came. Afraid for his family, he got up and left.

"When he came to my apartment two weeks prior, trying to give me these insurance policies," said Rivera, "he sat on my living room couch and cried and told me how he had a fight with [his supervisors] Lt. Randall and Maj. Upchurch. He did not tell me what that entailed, but he was scared - he was crying so badly he was shaking.

"He wouldn't totally voice whatever it was," recalled Rivera. "It was like he'd be just about to tell me - he'd want to spill his guts - and then he stopped, and he just cried. And that's when he kept insisting that I take the insurance policy."

Although Yeakey was concerned for his family, the marriage was not without abuse. Rivera had filed a VPO (Victim's Protective Order) against him slightly over two years ago. In a fit of temper, Yeakey had once threatened to take his life and those of his wife and children.

"I think it was said in the haste of, well, he's going to kill all of us kind of thing - cop under pressure," said Rivera. But that was over a year and-a-half ago. Yeakey had spent considerable time with his wife and children since then, taking them on family outings and so forth.

Nevertheless, the Oklahoma City Police Department (OCPD) attempted to use the incident to claim that Yeakey was suicidal. It was on the day of his death, around 1:30 p.m., that they called Rivera, trying to get her to file a VPO Violation based on the two-year-old report. "They wanted me to come down and make some statements against him," Rivera said.

On the same afternoon, in-between messages on his answering machine from his sister, Vicki Jones and his supervisor Lt. Jo Ann Randall, Yeakey had a message from Tonia. "The message was like at 5:30 in the afternoon," recalled Rivera. "I sound like I'm whispering, and I'm apologizing for waking him up - at 5:30 in the afternoon - on Wednesday."

It seems the intent behind this cleverly-crafted deception was to convince the family and potential investigators that Rivera was an "evil person," who was sleeping with him the night before, but "went down and filed a VPO the next day."

"That tape was planted," said Rivera. "I never called his house."

It seemed the OCPD was playing an elaborate game to sow confusion and mistrust, and create the appearance that Rivera was responsible for her ex-husband's death.

"So it comes out in paper after paper how he's having problems with his ex-wife, how he's not allowed to see his children.... "They're trying to play up the story of the b.i.t.c.h-a.s.s wife whose trying to get him fired...."

Yet Rivera claimed she never filed a VPO violation. "The OCPD wanted to file one," said Rivera. "But I never signed it." Rivera claimed she had gone to the police station, but simply out of concern for her ex-husband, who had been acting strangely.

"n.o.body ever said, 'Mrs. Yeakey, Terry's missing. Do you know anyplace he might have gone to? They never told me that they weren't able to locate him, that they were concerned, you know - nothing. I never knew he was missing."

If Officer Yeakey's death was anything more than a suicide, the OCPD didn't go to any great lengths to find out. While his death occurred in El Reno, the OCPD took over the crime scene, squeezing the El Reno Police Department out of the picture. The OCPD's Media Relations officer, Cpt. Ted Carlton, explained, "It was our police officer who was killed. It's not uncommon [to take over the investigation] in the case of a smaller police agency."[942]

Although forensics are also standard procedure in the event of a violent or suspicious death, especially that of a police officer, Yeakey's car was never dusted for prints. "And the next day, they gave us the d.a.m.n car!" said Mrs. Jarrahi. "It was full of blood."

When Yeakey's Brother-in-Law, Glenn Jones, inspected the dead man's car, he discovered a b.l.o.o.d.y knife stashed underneath the glove compartment. Yet according to the responding officer, Yeakey had apparently used a razor blade. Where did the knife come from? Since no forensic investigation was conducted, this remains unclear.

No autopsy was ever conducted.

"There were common sense things that were wrong about the whole thing, that makes it so weird," added Mrs. Jarrahi. "It just doesn't seem right. Why would policemen and the authorities make such common mistakes that would leave questions? It's just really weird."

If Yeakey's death was a suicide, he left no note. Although he was upset over his divorce, according to the family, he was not suicidal. It is also unlikely that he abused drugs, as he was an instructor at DARE, a program designed to keep children off drugs.

Former Canadian County Sheriff Clint Boehler, who claims to have known Yeakey, doesn't concur with this a.n.a.lysis. Boehler said that Yeakey showed up at his house in El Reno on the afternoon of his death, his car stopped at an angle in the middle of the road. When Boehler and his girlfriend Kate Allen, a paramedic, ran outside, they found the police officer virtually pa.s.sed out.

"He couldn't tell us his name initially," said Allen. "He was ill, and he was very anxious. His heart rate was rapid; he was sweaty.... He told us he had been having concentration problems, he hadn't slept. He had all the appearances, my first guess would be, of someone who was having emotional problems. And my second guess would be, of some kind of substance abuse problem. But that's a pure guess."

Boehler added that Yeakey said he hadn't eaten, and was "throwing up, taking medication, and incoherent. "He was taking medications for his back," said Boehler. "He had four or five medications in the car."

Boehler and Allen didn't know that Yeakey had Sickle-Cell Anemia - a blood-sugar-related condition that caused seizures. It was these seizures, Rivera explained, that would occasionally cause her ex-husband to act "out-of-sorts," or even to slip into unconsciousness.

In spite of his medical condition, Rivera insisted that Terrance Yeakey was a health fanatic. The prescriptions were for his condition, she said, but he used only the minimum amounts.

According to Canadian County Sheriff Deputy Mike Ramsey (no relation to OCPD Officer Jim Ramsey), who drove Yeakey home, Yeakey was not suicidal. "He didn't give me any indications that he was out to do harm to himself," said Ramsey. "He seemed more disoriented, tired..."[943]

There are many things about Officer Yeakey's death that remain a mystery. While Boehler described a man on drugs, the Medical Examiner claims they didn't bother to conduct a drug test because it "costs too much."[944]

The ME's field investigator, Jeffrey Legg, also reported that Yeakey "had been drinking heavily" the day before, based on statements made by OCPD Homicide Detectives Dicus and Mullinex. Yet Terrance Yeakey didn't drink, and their own report concluded that there was no alcohol in the body at the time of death.[945]

Canadian County Sheriffs discovered the abandoned car, filled with blood, about two and-a-half miles from the old El Reno reformatory. The OCPD was notified, and Police Chief Sam Gonazles flew out by chopper. Using dogs, they followed a trail of blood, and found the body in a ditch, about a mile and-a-half from the car. (Legg reported the body was 1/2 mile south of the car, when in fact it was 1 1/2 miles north-east of the car.) Apparently Yeakey had tried to cut himself in the wrists, neck, and throat, then, after losing approximately two pints of blood, got out of his car (contentiously remembering to lock the doors), walked a mile and-a-half over rough terrain, crawled under a barbed-wire fence, waded through a culvert, then lay down in a ditch and shot himself in the head.[946]

As is this weren't strange enough, Yeakey's diet-related condition would have made him too weak to walk the mile and-a-half from his car to where his body was found - especially after losing two to three pints of blood.

Nevertheless, the OCPD ruled it a suicide on the spot. Their investigation remained sealed. This reporter was unable to obtain it, and not even the family was allowed to see it.

"There were so many things that were weird," said Mrs. Jarrahi. "My daughter kept going back to the Police Department. She said, 'Well what about this... we knew he had a camcorder, we knew he had a briefcase...'

"These are things we never got back. The kid always carried camera and film. [He] never went anywhere without his camera and briefcase. He had all his important papers in there.... We got the camera back. We never got the film back. We never got the briefcase. They said they never saw it...."

In regards to Yeakey's videos, Detective Mullinex, who "investigated" the case for the OCPD, told Vicki Jones, "I really don't think you'll want to see those; they contain p.o.r.nography." Jones didn't believe him and didn't care. "I want those tapes!" she demanded.

The Homicide detective finally told her she'd get them back after they had "examined the evidence."

"One minute the guy would say he had them," said Jones, "the next minute he'd say 'we don't have anything....'"

According to Jones, Mullinex then said, "Now, we all loved Terry. I hope you understand that, but I'm not going to let you see any pictures. And I don't know anything about a briefcase, but if there's anything back there, I'll give you a call, and you can come back and get them."

"And I just sat there and looked at him, and said to myself, 'You're doing a great performance, but it's not working....' Then he got really uptight and said, 'Well, some of us hated Terry.' [Then] he kind of grabbed his face and said 'oh s.h.i.+t.'"

For his part, Mullinex had "no comment either way." He then told me, "I don't remember what I said to the lady, but I certainly was not rude to her.... This comes as a big shock to me, because he was a police officer and a friend of mine. It was a hard thing and hurt me to have to work it."

Cpt. Carlton likewise feigned shock at Jones' rebuffs, and said he would have to know who the officer was who made those statements. He then asked me to have the family contact the OCPD directly (as though they hadn't already done so numerous times), and he would meet with them and discuss the case, but that Cpt. Danny c.o.c.kran, Chief of the Homicide Squad, would have to make the decision about whether or not to let the family see the files.

Yet Carlton's statements fly in the face of the experiences of not only Yeakey's mother and sister, but those of his ex-wife. In a letter to Police Chief Sam Gonzales dated September 4, 1996, Rivera writes: Needless to say, I have many questions regarding the investigation. What type of weapon was used to inflict the gunshot wound to his head? Who located the body? How could the cause of death be determined with such confidence with the mult.i.tude of injuries to his body and how did he walk the distance indicated in People magazine with the great loss of blood from razor cuts not only to both wrists, but both his forearms as well as two razor cuts to his neck? Not only did he walk this distance, but he struggled with bobwire fencing to reach his chosen destination to die then inflicted the gunshot wound to himself? I request that a copy of the investigative report of his death be made available to me.

Gonzales didn't respond.

Police officials eventually responded to Vicki Jones' complaints by telling her she needed to see a psychiatrist. "They said, 'We're just trying to protect you.'"

Exactly what were they trying to protect her from? When I called Mrs. Jarrahi, the telltale signs of a tapped phone were clearly present. If Terrance Yeakey's death was a simple suicide, why would law-enforcement agencies be tapping the family's phones?

The OCPD soon began conducting surveillance on the dead man's family.

"There was always an officer out there in front of our apartment," said Jones. Anywhere we went, we had an officer or someone in a marked car following us around. It started right after I started going to the Police Department quite a bit."

They also tailed Rivera. When she confronted the officers, they ignored her, hid their faces, or sped off. Cars were parked outside her childrens' school. When she spoke to school officials about the surveillance one afternoon, she went to work startled to find the conversation on her office answering machine! Rivera had spoken to the school princ.i.p.al in person. How did the conversation wind up on her answering machine?[947]

The hara.s.sment against Officer Yeakey's family wasn't limited to mere surveillance. After Rivera met with State Representative Charles Key, her car was broken into. Her house was broken into twice.

She finally moved to Enid when the heat became too hot. "I lived in an apartment on the third floor with a security alarm in it," said Rivera. "I'd come home and the alarm would be off. I'd notice things out of place. There'd be cabinets open that I'd have no reason to have opened."

About two weeks after Terry's death, Rivera went downstairs around 6:30 one morning to do some laundry, "and there was a man downstairs with huge headphones on, at 6:30 in the morning, right behind my apartment...."

The individual, who was wearing a jogging suit - wasn't jogging, and was not doing laundry. "He looked startled when I came around the corner," said Rivera. "I came back down at 8:30 and the guy was still there."

It appears that what Rivera was describing was an audio technician with a "Shotgun Mic," a portable surveillance tool designed to pick up conversations through windows and across fields. They are commonly used by private detectives and law-enforcement agencies.

One day Rivera came home to find her front door open and off its hinges. When the frightened single mother walked into her bedroom, she found a balloon tied to her door. It read: "Get well soon. This will keep you busy until you do."[948]

It seems the OCPD and the FBI thought that Officer Yeakey had pa.s.sed off some incriminating doc.u.ments concerning the bombing cover-up to his ex-wife, and were intent on obtaining the doc.u.ments.

The surveillance, break-ins, and thinly-veiled threats soon escalated into more serious incidents. Right before Yeakey's murder, the couple's Ford Explorer began getting mysterious flats. "And when I'd roll it into a shop," said Rivera, "they'd pull out like six or seven nails." This occurred between eight and ten times, she claims.

Rivera explained that once during a quarrel, Terry had removed some fuses from her car to keep her from leaving. The police knew about the incident, said Rivera, who thought the subsequent events were created by the OCPD to sow mistrust and provide a convenient trail of evidence to prove that Yeakey led a troubled family life. Yet while Yeakey admitted to removing the fuses, he repeatedly and adamantly denied that he had damaged the car - a car that was registered in his name and carried his cherished children to and from school.

On April 24, two weeks before he was found dead, the Explorer began acting strangely. When Rivera pulled it into the local Aamco Transmission Center, she found that it had been tampered with. "Somebody who knew what they were doing pulled hoses from your car," said Todd Taylor, the chief mechanic. "I'm sorry to tell this ma'am, but this is not just something you can pull randomly...." Taylor also said he though Rivera's brakes had been tampered with.[949]

About two weeks before this story went to press, the Ford's brakes went out suddenly while Rivera was traveling at 40 mph. "I went to brake," said Rivera, "and guess what? No brakes!" The large 4 X 4 slammed into the back of smaller car, damaging it badly. "The message is 'we can get to you if we want to,'" she concluded.

Officer [Jim] Ramsey also began making his presence felt. "All of the sudden, when we moved to Oklahoma City [from El Reno]," said Jones, "there was Ramsey. When we joined a new church, Ramsey was there. Ramsey was everywhere. You turn the corner, there was Ramsey.... Everything we did, he was like the helpful old guy. This went on for two months."

"He was keeping tabs on everyone," added Rivera. "He was showing up in a lot of places... just casually, in fact, places where he knew that people knew me just as well as they knew Terry, and weren't buying into the 'it's Tonia's fault' routine.

"[Ramsey] tried to claim it was his ex-wife and love for his children he couldn't see that made him commit suicide," she added. He would talk to her friends. "'How's she taking it? What does she think, blah, blah, blah.'"

Both Rivera and Jones feel the OCPD officer was sent to "baby-sit" them - to maintain an ever-present watchful eye. "[When he showed up]," Jones said, "I looked at him and said, that is not a friend of Terry's. He was never at the house. I never met him before."

Ramsey, who told People magazine that Yeakey was his "dear friend," also told the press that he was Terry's partner.

"That was a lie," declared Jones.

Rivera concurred. The ex-wife said that not only was Ramsey never Yeakey's partner, but that the two men didn't even get along. "Terry hated Jim Ramsey," said Rivera. "He put on a real good performance," she added. "He's hiding something, I believe.... It burns me up."[950]

For his performance, Ramsey was promoted to Detective, and made "Officer of the Year."

If Terrance Yeakey did have many friends in the Police Department, they were among the beat patrolmen, not the upper echelon. While Detective Mullinex said everybody "loved Terry," according to Rivera, the bra.s.s "hated his guts." "Him and [Maj.] Upchurch had a hate-hate relations.h.i.+p," she said.

For his part, Mullinex claims he was "totally unaware" of any problems Yeakey was having in regards to what he knew about the bombing. "It is my opinion as a fourteen-year homicide veteran that it was a suicide," said Mullinex.... If we thought it was anything [other than a suicide] we would have pursued it to the ends of the earth. We're not hiding anything."[951]

Really?

According to Rivera, three government sources, including a U.S. Attorney and a U.S. Marshal, hold a slightly different view. As relayed by Rivera, the events on the morning of Officer Yeakey's death transpired as follows: At 9:00 a.m., Officer Yeakey was seen exiting his Oklahoma City apartment with nine boxes of videos and files. He then drove to the police station where he had a fight with his supervisors.

He was told to "drop it" or he'd "wind up dead."

Yeakey was also due for a meeting with the heads of several federal agencies that morning. He apparently decided to skip the meetings, instead, driving straight to a storage locker he maintained in Kingfisher.

What he didn't realize was that the FBI had him under surveillance, and began pursuit. The six-year OCPD veteran and former Sheriff's Deputy easily eluded his pursuers. Once at his storage facility, he secured his files.

What were in the files? According to one of Rivera's sources, incriminating photos and videos of the bombed-out building. Perhaps more.

On the way back, the feds caught up with him just outside of El Reno. "He had nothing on him," at that point, said Rivera, "just copies of copies."

While it is not known exactly what transpired next, Rivera's confidential source "described in intimate detail," the state of the dead man's car. The seats had been completely unbolted, the floor-boards ripped up, and the side panels removed, all in an apparent effort to find the incriminating doc.u.ments.

There were also burn marks on the floor. Apparently, the killers had used Yeakey's car to destroy what little evidence they had discovered.[952]

At approximately 6:00 p.m. that evening, Canadian County Deputy Sheriff Mike Ramsey was cruising the area near the old El Reno reformatory when he noticed an abandoned vehicle in a field. "Immediately [the] hair stood up on the back of my neck," said the deputy. Ramsey came upon the empty car which he immediately recognized as Yeakey's. There was blood on both seats, and a razor blade lying on the dash. Yeakey was nowhere to be found.

The deputy immediately called for a homicide investigator, and taped off the scene. It wasn't until several hours later that police dogs finally located Yeakey's body in a ditch, a mile and-a-half away.[953]

While it was a macabre scene, the Oklahoma City Medical Examiner's report was even more gruesome. The report released from the Medical Examiner described numerous "superficial" lacerations on the wrists, arms, throat, and neck, and a single bullet wound to the right temple.

The report also showed another curious thing. The bullet had entered just above and in front of the right ear, and had exited towards the bottom of the left ear. Apparently, whoever held the gun held it at a downward angle. A person shooting themself would tend to hold the gun at an upward angle, or at the most, level. It would rather difficult for a large, muscle-bound man like Yeakey to hold a heavy service revolver or other large caliber weapon at a downward angle to his head. (See Appendix) While it is true that a slug can alter its trajectory once inside the skull, a pathologist in the San Francisco Medical Examiner's office told me that a 9mm or other large caliber weapon - the type commonly used by police officers - usually tends to travel in a straight line.

But perhaps the most revealing evidence was that the wound did not have a "Stellat," the tell-tale star shape caused by the dissipating gases from the gun's muzzle. At the close range of a suicide weapon, such markings would clearly be present, unless of course... the shooter used a silencer.[954]

While Dr. Larry Balding, Oklahoma City's Chief Medical Examiner, quickly ruled the death a "suicide," another Medical Examiner's report would, according to Rivera, surface like an eerie, prescient message from the grave. This other report, quickly redacted and hidden from public view, showed a face that was bruised and swollen; blood on the body and clothes that was not the dead man's blood type; and multiple deep lacerations filled with gra.s.s and dirt, as though the body had been dragged a distance.

Yet according to Rivera, Maj. Upchurch denied that Yeakey's throat was slashed at all. She was later told by a sympathetic police dispatcher that his throat was indeed slashed - deeply.

Dr. Larry Balding, who signed off on the Yeakey report, is adamant. "I can tell you unequivocally and without a doubt that there was no other ME report."