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The Oklahoma City Bombing:
A Victim
With Kathy Graham Wilburn
Mother, Grandmother and Filmmaker
Friday, May 11, 2001; 1 p.m. EDT
"April 19, 1995: the day that every American became an Oklahoman, if only for a short time. It was a day I shall never forget. It was the day that my entire world was wiped out before my eyes," wrote Kathy Graham Wilburn after losing her two pre-school grandsons in the bombing of Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building. In the six years since that day she has been on a journey to find out as much as she can about Timothy McVeigh.
Wilburn will be online Friday, May 11, at 1 p.m. EDT, to talk about her search to find the story behind the tragedy. She also has been working on a documentary, "A Cry For Justice: The Untold Story Behind the Oklahoma City Bombing," which contends the attack was the work of a wider conspiracy. It is due for release after the execution.
A transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Arlington, Va.:
What are your thoughts regarding the execution delay?
Kathy Graham Wilburn: I am not upset about the delay, there are a lot of people who are and I understand their frustration but the important thing to me is the fact that this new information is coming to light. I have been researching for six years and the story we have been told about the Oklahoma City bombing just doesn't add up. There were other people involved. The government had some 50 eyewitnesses who saw McVeigh downtown on the morning of the bombing and yet not one of them was called at McVeigh's trial. Steven Jones obviously couldn't call them because they place his client at the scene of the crime, but why didn't the prosecution, wouldn't it have been important to establish the fact that McVeigh was at the crime scene. But they couldn't because McVeigh wasn't alone. McVeigh wasn't at the Dreamland Motel where he stayed the week prior to the bombing, he wasn't alone in Junction City.
I have followed McVeigh's trail two years prior to the bombing and he was no loner. I am bothered by the fact that the fingerprints taken from the dreamland motel and McVeigh's car when he was arrested were never run through the computers to find a match. We were told at his trial that it was not cost effective and that the FBI could not afford to run his fingerprints and yet the federal government spent $83 million dollars prosecuting this man. Early on we found out that the ATF had an informant involved. She warned the ATF that beginning in December of 1994 she made her first trip with two other individuals from Elohim City (a religious compound in North Eastern Oklahoma) to Oklahoma City in order to target buildings to blow up. She went with two people by the names of Andreas Strassmeir and Dennis Mahon. So the FBI has the information that Strassmeir is looking at buildings with the intent to blow them up and in the telephone records of Timothy McVeigh it was revealed that McVeigh had called Elohim City to talk to Strassmeir only two weeks before the Oklahoma City bombing. He called two minutes two minutes after calling the Rider Truck rental company. Knowing this I think it should have been important to the FBI to have interviewed Andreas Strassmeir and they never did. He was allowed to leave the country. I also know that the ATF had planned to raid Elohim City and shut it down, but the FBI stepped in and put a stop to their plan. One of the things that Michael Fortier stipulated in the negotiation with the prosecution was that if he did the plea bargain he protected protection from the Aryan Nations. If there were no other people involved in the bombing, why did Michael Fortier need protecting. I am bothered by the fact that the Morrow building was targeted by terrorist prior to April 19, 1995.
I don't pretend to have all the pieces to the Oklahoma City bombing but the pieces I do have indicate there were more people involved and we were not given the truth.
Washington, D.C.:
Some have tried to draw comparisons between Mr. McVeigh and certain political factions and ideologies, sometimes unjustifiably or undeservedly so.
As the relative of a victim of Mr. McVeigh's brutality, what is your opinion of those who try and use the actions of Mr. McVeigh as a tool to further their own political agendas, and attempt to slander/libel others by drawing comparisons to him strictly for political purposes?
Kathy Graham Wilburn:
I have gained information that I was never privy to before. I feel bad, because there are factions across the country that have all been lumped together and given a bad name, and some seem to be pretty good people with good causes. They would have never condoned murdering innocent women and children. While I have worked with MGA films on this documentary I have traveled the countryside researching these groups and there are people out there who think Timothy McVeigh is a great man. At the Aryan Nation compound in Haden Lake Idaho I was told by Pastor Richard Butler that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Timothy McVeigh is a great man and a martyr for the cause. He hated my that my nice Aryan grandsons had to die, but it was part of a war against the federal government. It is scary that we share this world with people with such views.
Fairfax, Va.:
Putting aside the merits of your contention that a wider conspiracy was at work in OKC, have you ever asked yourself if the desire to believe in a conspiracy was motivated to give the 168 more meaning to their deaths than if it had been the result of a single bomber? I say more meaning because we all can "understand" a conspiracy... we have a harder time coming to grips with one evil man's motivations.
Kathy Graham Wilburn: No. I would have never chosen this path. 2+2=4. My family was fact oriented. My husband was a CPA. The facts of this case do not substantiate the fact that there was one lone bomber. It just didn't happen.
Alexandria, Va.:
Do you agree with this statement about the aftermath of McVeigh's execution?
"He'll be dead, the TV networks will be richer, the families of the victims will have an empty, meaningless feeling, and we will all feel just that much smaller for having done to a killer exactly what he did against all of us."
Marc Fisher on the McVeigh Execution
Kathy Graham Wilburn: Watching McVeigh die doesn't bring me any satisfaction or any closure, but if any person deserved to die for a crime I believe Timothy McVeigh does. I have never been in favor of executing McVeigh because I believe with the death of McVeigh dies the truth.
Somewhere, USA:
What will happen to the proceeds from the documentary?
Kathy Graham Wilburn: I have never made a dime off the documentary. This has never been a money issue to me, but I hope the company making the film recover their expenses.
There has been a price to pay for me being so vocal. My daughter and I were the only two employees out of 162 that were died our workers compensation benefits after the bombing. We were downtown in the bombing and lost two children and yet got nothing. Yet there were people on annual leave who were not even in the state let alone downtown. There is a price to pay for speaking out.
I think the FBI is getting cold feet. They have decided that they better not let McVeigh die withholding evidence.
Lanham, Md.:
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this with you. I would like to see McVeigh's sentence commuted to life without parole, and here's why: because he wants to be executed. He calls it "state-assisted suicide." When one considers how many of these nuts who go on murderous shooting sprees end by killing themselves, there seems to be one inescapable conclusion - they believe death is preferable to facing the consequences of their actions. I think Timothy McVeigh should have the opportunity to face the consequences of his actions every day for the next thirty or forty years. Some restrictions would be in order: no book deals, no interviews except with psychiatrists doing case work, no visits or correspondence except with immediate family; in other words, no forum for his skewed message of hate - and most importantly, no so-called "martyrdom." Could you comment, please?
Kathy Graham Wilburn: Everyone has their own opinion and everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I can see where you are coming from. I think McVeigh deserves to die for what he did, but I am not in favor of killing him. Dead men don't talk. If McVeigh was to have a change of heart I would like for him to be able to tell us what happened.
Wheaton, Md.:
My friends and I disagree over whether McVeigh's execution should be publicized on TV and internet. I go for the closed captioned TV only. What is your opinion on public broadcast ?
Kathy Graham Wilburn: Well, my opinion is that when McVeigh first asked for a public execution, if they did it, they should give us a show. The purpose of public executions back in the time when they hung and beheaded people was to deter crime. It used to be a deterrent. People were scared that they would go the electric chair of the gas chamber. I am not sure that what we are doing now is a deterrent. Few people get to leave this world pain free. There is normally pain involved with death. McVeigh is simply going to go to sleep and slip off into eternity. I simply don't find that a deterrent to crime.
Arlington, Va.:
As much as I have not experienced the true agony the people in Oklahoma went through, my question has to be: "Is this just another conspiracy story, or is there irrefutable proof that a wide-spread conspiracy existed." This question of course comes prior to the book's publication and taking into consideration the hell the survivors and other family members of the deceased have lived through, and will continue to live through, in the years ahead. Thank you.
Kathy Graham Wilburn: The FBI has a problem. They have not one eyewitness that saw Timothy McVeigh alone. Not one. I already mentioned the 50 eyewitnesses that saw him with someone else downtown and I have got the ATF informant's file warning them that there was going to be a bombing.
I had no preconceived ideas. I have worked from facts, and the American people haven't been told the truth. I continue my journey because evil flourishes when good men do nothing. There are people who need to be held accountable for the bombing.
Hillsboro, Mo.:
I feel that because he has admitted to doing this crime, he should be punished no matter what evidence comes into the picture. The only way my opinion would change would be if new evidence came in inditing another person. Do you agree with my statement, Why? I think that he should live in prison for the rest of his life. Dying is the easy way out. Do you agree?
Kathy Graham Wilburn: There is no new information that would get McVeigh off the hook. I think that he certainly deserves to die for what he did. I personally do not care what they do to him, it will not change my life. If they execute him it will into make my grandchildren any less dead. I am not in this for vengeance.
Baltimore, Md.:
This new development is very surprising to the nation and since it has delayed Timothy's execution, what affect will each day of the possible 30 days have on you?
Kathy Graham Wilburn: It really has no effect in me. I was not looking forward to the execution. I am excited, however, over this new evidence that just came to light. That overshadows the execution. I just wasn't the new information made available to me.
Sterling, Va.:
If as you say the Federal Government is not telling us everything about this horrific crime, would you speculate or share with us speculation that you have heard from others as to why the Federal Government is withholding information?
Kathy Graham Wilburn: I believe the ATF had a sting operation in place the night before the bombing. The information they had was that the building was to be blown up in the we hours of the morning with no one in it. When no one came and blew up the building and no one was stepping down they called in the bomb squad to give the building a clean sweep. At first the bomb squad denied anyone being in there, but after several grueling months of investigating, we found many eye witnesses that had seen the bomb squad downtown and the sheriffs department had to admit the bomb disposal was downtown the morning of April 19th before the bomb went off. As the ATF sting operation was shutting down they called in the bomb squad to give the building a clean sweep. The ATF was the target of the explosion, the office was the most decimated and yet they last no personnel. They weren't cowards, they weren't hiding thinking it was a dangerous day and "let everyone else die" as some others reported they had merely worked all night and were on their way home. After the fiasco at Waco, they needed to do something to clean up their tarnished image. They wanted to come in like John Wayne on a big white horse and save everyone, but their operation go tout of hand, things were changed at the last minute and it cost 168 people their lives. They have worked hard to keep this information from the public. They do not want another Waco. They do not want another Ruby Ridge.
That is why they worked hard to hide the information about John Doe #2.
Kathy Graham Wilburn: Evil flourishes when good men do nothing. That is why I feel I must continue my journey in the search for the truth. I want to thank everyone who has supported me and the work I am doing.
washingtonpost.com:
That was our last question today. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
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