WEBVTT - The Debutante at Elohim City: Dennis Mahon, Pt. 4 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:09.600 Cool Zone Media. On the morning of Saturday, February twenty first, 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:14.960 two thousand and four, Patricia Norfleet found a box. No 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.360 one can really say for certain how the box got there, 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.799 but there it was, sitting on a little wooden desk 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.840 in the library. As a part time library monitor at 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.440 the public Library in Scottsdale, Arizona's Civic Center, she was 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:31.400 making her regular rounds. It was her job to make 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.800 sure people weren't eating or talking on their phones, and 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.159 that's when she spot at the box. The librarian at 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.040 the circulation desk that morning recognized the name on the box. 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.640 It was addressed to a city employee, but he didn't 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.199 work in the library. Don Logan was the director of 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:53.360 the city's Office of Diversity and Dialogue. Librarians are busy people, 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.560 and they aren't responsible for your lost mail, so the 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.000 package was set aside. Maybe Don left it there and 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.480 he'd come back for it. The package sat behind the 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.880 circulation desk for a few days before another library employee 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.880 thought to pop it into the city's inner office mail system. Finally, 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.319 five days after the box appeared on a desk in 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.120 the library, it found its way into the hands of 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.639 the man whose name was on the box. Don Logan 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:21.720 had just returned from a quick lunch at his favorite 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.440 Mexican restaurant on February twenty six, two thousand and four. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:27.480 A colleague told him he had a package in the 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.520 mail room. Someone joked that it was probably a bomb, 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.080 and everyone had a good laugh, but he gave it 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.400 a good shake anyway. It was oddly light for its size, 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:42.840 and it was sealed with more tape than really seemed necessary. 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.280 His administrative assistant, Ranita, was on the phone, but she 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.880 didn't miss a beat. She passed her boss a pair 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.360 of scissors without even looking up from her work. As 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.200 he ran the blade of the scissors down the seam 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.880 on one side of the box, he thought for a 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.200 second about the laugh he'd just shared with his colleagues. 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.160 But what a silly idea. Why are you being so paranoid? 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.960 He asked himself. Who would send you a bomb? And 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:14.560 then he heard a loud and the room went dark. 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:19.680 It didn't take long for investigators to zero in on 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:23.200 a suspect, but it would be eight years before an 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.800 ATF informant took the stand to tell a jury about 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.280 the years she'd spent getting close to that bomber. Dennis 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.120 Mahon built that bomb, But this chapter of our bomber 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:40.960 story starts with a bomb he probably didn't make. I'm 0:02:40.960 --> 0:03:01.600 Molly Coner, and this is weird, little guys. At eight 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.680 fifty seven am on the morning of April nineteenth, nineteen 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.560 ninety five, a rented Yellow Rider truck parked outside the 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.919 Alpha Pi Mura Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. The 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:18.520 driver got out, locked the truck, and walked away. At 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:23.000 nine oh two, the bomb went off. The truck contained 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.520 nearly five thousand pounds of explosive material. Seismometers at a 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.280 nearby science museum registered what looked like an earthquake, measuring 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:35.360 three point zero on the Richter scale. In just seconds, 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:40.000 the northern portion of the building collapsed completely. One hundred 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.480 and sixty eight people were killed, nineteen of them were children. 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:50.360 One was just three months old. The building housed regional 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.600 offices for a number of federal government agencies, housing in 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:58.720 Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, Social Security Administration, the DEA at ATF, 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:03.440 and several military recruiting offices, but the truck had parked 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:08.120 directly under the building stake care center. The man responsible 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:12.880 was apprehended rather quickly and entirely by accident. Timothy McVeigh 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:14.560 was on his way out of town and a getaway 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.360 car he'd stashed nearby before the bombing when he was 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.320 pulled over by a state trooper. The car he was 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:25.120 driving didn't have a license plate. During the traffic stop, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.400 the trooper noticed a bulge in his jacket concealing a 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.320 loaded firearm. He didn't have a valid permit. For the 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.560 rest of his story, you probably already know. He was 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.000 convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.640 injection on June eleventh, two thousand and one. But this 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:47.479 isn't a story about Timothy McVeigh, not really, maybe another day. 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.360 This is still a story about Dennis Mayhon, and it's 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.600 a story that gets very murky for a year or 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:58.640 two in the mid nineties. When we last left Dennis Mayhon, 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.560 it was the summer of nineteen nine four. He had 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.120 just struck up a relationship with Carol Howe, a woman 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.200 twenty years his junior. She was the daughter of a 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.920 wealthy business man and had once been a debutante in Tulsa. 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.560 But now that she was sporting a giant swastika tattoo 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.200 on her arm. She was more at home on paramilitary 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.719 compounds than at ladies luncheons. In March of nineteen ninety four, 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.320 she and her husband were getting drunk in Tulsa's Chandler 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.599 Park when she broke bones in both of her feet 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:27.479 jumping off a piece of scenery set up for a 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:29.360 passion play that was put on every year by the 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.599 local Catholic church. For years, Carol would tell people she'd 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.440 been injured by a gang of black men. It was 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.200 a better origin story, and the crowd she was hoping 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.320 to impress was eager to believe a tale of a beautiful, 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:44.599 young white woman coming to harm at the hands of 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.880 vicious black men. And as she lay in bed convalescing, 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.000 she started calling in to the dial E racist hotline 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.320 run by Dennis Mayhon. Every day she listened to a 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.719 new recording of Dennis ranting and raving about whatever was 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.919 on his mind, scourge of immigration and Jewish influence on society, 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.640 violent crime committed by black people, and the need for 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.960 white men to stand up. Soon, she wasn't just listening 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.200 to Dennis's recordings. They met at a restaurant later that 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:19.640 spring and struck up a relationship. Everything that follows is 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:25.200 a riddle. I won't tell you what's true because I can't. 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.680 I can only tell you what was offered as truth 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.159 and by whom. Sometimes it's possible to speculate as to 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.760 why someone offered up a particular version of the truth. 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.359 Are they protecting themselves or someone else? Are they wielding 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.200 their words as a weapon hoping to incriminate an enemy? 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.920 Are they covering up another darker truth? Are they misremembering 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.800 or confused? Are they repeating a lie that they sincerely believe? 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.919 Or have they simply lost their minds? The two competing 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.280 truths I most often compare are those offered up in 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.240 a federal court record. There is a prosecutor's presentation of 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.840 evidence and a defense attorney's argument against it. In a 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.640 court of law, the judge and jury make their findings, 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.960 and at the end of a trial we have something 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:22.520 that is legally true, whether it's the whole truth or 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.440 even true at all in any other sense. We have 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.240 the judicial systems stamp of approval on one version of 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:33.840 the truth. And we kind of have that here because 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:38.200 I'll spoil the end now in the interests of full transparency, 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.400 as far as a court of law has weighed in 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:45.440 on the matter, Dennis Mayhon had nothing to do with 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.880 the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols alone 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.920 were responsible. The Department of Justice wrote in a letter 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.240 to Timothy mcvay's defense attorney that Dennis Mayhon was never 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.000 a subject of their investigation into the bombing. When speaking 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.960 to the press, Dennis himself has always denied any involvement, 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.920 although when faced with a grand jury, he reportedly invoked 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.880 his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. As I research 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.560 my weird little guys, I often find myself navigating the 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.920 stories of unreliable narrators. I do my best to take 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.560 in every version of a story and do my own 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.840 primary source research on the surrounding facts, and offer you 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:32.040 these competing versions of the truth with some commentary. My 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.199 goal on this show is not to give you something 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.960 that I can guarantee to be an objective truth, to 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.920 the extent that such a thing exists, but rather to 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.079 present you a thoroughly researched synthesis of those mismatched truths 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:50.199 for you to consider. But I'm not sure we can 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.960 even get that far this time, too many researchers have 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.000 gone mad trying to sift for truths in the rubble 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.160 of the Alpha Pi Mura building. But with that said, 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:07.079 let's rejoin Carol and Dennis in nineteen ninety four. There 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.080 are some things every one can agree on. Carol and 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.520 Dennis spent a lot of time together that summer, and 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.120 by June of nineteen ninety four, she began accompanying him 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.439 on trips out to Ellaheim City, a Christian identity compound 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.920 in Oklahoma near the Arkansas border. The four hundred acre 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.040 community was led by a Christian identity minister named Robert Miller, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:32.000 who settled there in nineteen seventy three. An article published 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.800 in The Oklahoma in nineteen ninety three puts the population 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.199 in Elleheim City around seventy five residents at the time. 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.679 The Peace quotes Miller extensively, and he paints the small 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:47.480 community as a quiet, peaceful group of religious separatists. He 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.240 downplays his connections to the Covenant, the Sword and the 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.280 Arm of the Lord, a Christian identity militia compound in 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.160 Missouri that was rated by federal authorities in nineteen eighty five. 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.720 Miller says there was quote not a long or profound 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:05.680 connection between the two groups. He fails to mention that 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:10.080 he had been CSA leader James Ellison's spiritual adviser, or 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.439 that when Ellison declared himself King James of the Ozarks 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.840 in nineteen eighty two, it had been Miller who anointed 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.119 Ellison's head with holy oils in a bizarre religious ceremony, 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:23.280 or that it was Miller who was called in to 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.240 negotiate Ellison's surrender and the ATF besieged his compound in 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.360 nineteen eighty five, or that Allison was one of several 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.880 residents of the CSA compound who would later settle in 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:39.839 Elaheim City, or that Ellison married Miller's granddaughter, or that 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.680 Miller had testified as a character witness for Richard Snell, 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.160 a CSA member sentenced to death for the murder of 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:49.280 a state trooper. So I'm not sure what he means 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.480 when he says he has no connection to the Covenant 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.120 the sword in the arm of the Lord, and I 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.360 think you need to take his description of a quiet 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:02.360 community of prayerful families with some skepticism. There were quite 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:04.679 a few residents of Eloaheim City in the nineteen eighties 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.240 and nineties whose stories would take us too far from 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.920 the one we're following today, So suffice it to say 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:16.480 for now that we'll be revisiting that place. But in 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:20.120 nineteen ninety four, Dennis Mayhon kept an old airstream trailer 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.240 on the property, and he would stay there from time 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.280 to time while maintaining his full time residence in Tulsa. 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.079 It wasn't long after Carol Howe got close to Dennis 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:34.280 Mayhon that their relationship soured. By most accounts, Dennis raped her. 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.040 She said that the experience left her terrified, and she 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.000 fled to her parents' house to lay low for a 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:44.679 few weeks, but Dennis wouldn't leave her alone. After repeated 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.280 threatening phone calls and more than one unwanted visit, she 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.439 realized he wasn't going to take no for an answer. 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.240 On August twenty third, she went to a courthouse in 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.440 Tulsa to get a restraining order against him. The petition 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.360 must have caught the eye of Angela Fine, an agent 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.920 with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, because by 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.080 the end of the week, Carol Howe was on the 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:11.920 ATF payroll as a federal informant. The hearing to determine 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.920 if Carol Howe's restraining order against Dennis Mahon would be granted, 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.480 was held on September sixth, nineteen ninety four, but Carol 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.680 wasn't there and the judge dismissed her petition. I can't 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.600 tell you exactly where Carol was instead of the courthouse 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:31.560 that day. It's possible that she was at Elheim City 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:36.040 that week. Where she was exactly on any given day 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.560 in particular wouldn't matter all too much if not for 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.719 the fact that these sources that place her there in 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.760 the first week of September put her on the compound's 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:50.520 gun range with Dennis and Timothy McVeigh, and that would 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:54.240 be an incredible revelation if we had a good source 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.960 for it. I don't want to harp on the problem 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.240 of the unreliable narrator, but I think this anecdote in 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.439 particular highlights the problem with this story. Because I read 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.360 an unhealthy number of books about the events leading up 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:16.160 to the Oklahoma City bombing. I read books written by professors, lawyers, criminals, journalists, 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:22.720 and conspiracy theorists. Some are well footnoted and others count 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:27.240 on you to just trust the author's account. A claim 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.439 that's repeated across multiple sources gives it the appearance of validity, 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.400 but sometimes, if you look closely at those footnotes, it 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.080 all leads back to the same bad source, and this 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.880 story is one of those. Criminology professor Mark Hamm credits 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:48.280 this anecdote to an unnamed source, and his claim is 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.080 repeated in a later book by prolific true crime author 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:55.080 Michael Newton, and the story also appears in a book 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:59.720 written by David Paul Hammer. Hammer is a convicted murderer 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.720 who befriended McVeigh when they were housed in neighboring cells 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.599 on death Row, and Hammer claims McVeigh told him this 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:11.240 story himself. The point I'm circling around here, I guess, 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.920 is that extensive research doesn't always mean you've found something valuable. 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.080 I found this claim in three separate books, and it's 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.040 a very intriguing anecdote, and it would be very satisfying 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:30.080 to believe, but I don't. Timothy McVay maintained until his 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:35.200 death that he'd never met Dennis Mahon. Dennis has told 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.240 a variety of stories, mostly he says they never met. 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.040 He told mcvay's defense attorney that they'd never met, and 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.880 court filings in mcvay's case show there was no evidence 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:49.960 that they had. He did tell journalist John Ronson that 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.000 they'd met once, a man he shared a cell with 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.400 in two thousand and nine claims Dennis told him that 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.800 he'd once sold Timothy mcveay some guns and a copy 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.880 of the Anarchist Cookbook. He told several grand juries nothing 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:21.840 at all. So I suppose we should stick with the 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.560 pieces of this timeline that I am more inclined to believe. 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.680 And from the end of August nineteen ninety four until 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:33.160 March of nineteen ninety five, Carol Howe met regularly with 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:38.000 her ATF handlers. She passed them information, they wrote reports, 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.840 and she spent most weekends at Elheim City with Dennis. 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.200 Something I think is important to remember here is that 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.320 the ATF hired Carol Howe as part of their investigation 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:55.080 into Dennis Mayhon and White Arian resistance. The copies of 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.160 Agent Finley's reports that I've been able to see for 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.720 myself show that quite clearly it's a standard piece of 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.760 government paperwork, and there's boxes to fill out at the top. 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:10.040 In the box labeled title of investigation. She's typed White 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:17.400 Aryan Resistance and under monitored investigation information she entered firearms violations. 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.600 So Agent Finley is looking into White Aryan Resistance and 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:28.440 the possibility that its members have illegal guns. This wasn't 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:32.640 an investigation into Elleheim City, and it wasn't an investigation 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:36.120 into Andrea Strasmeier, that mysterious German who is head of 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.120 security at the compound and sometimes stayed at Dennis's house. 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.080 The AHF agents who met with Carol Howe weren't investigating 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.840 Timothy McVeigh, and they certainly weren't investigating the Oklahoma City 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:52.920 bombing because that hadn't happened yet. But Dennis had been 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:58.760 bragging for years about making bombs. He claims to have 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.360 carried out a string of bombing in Florida, Michigan, and 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.639 Oklahoma during his underground years from nineteen eighty two to 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:09.760 nineteen eighty seven. He always stops short of specifics, but 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.119 he's told reporters and federal informants alike that he'd bombed 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.840 abortion clinics, Jewish community centers, and government office buildings during 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:21.080 those years. It's harder than you might think to find 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.800 historical record of an unsolved bombing in an unspecified place 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:29.480 at an unspecified time. But you know, I lost a 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.159 few days of my life trying to figure it out anyway. 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:37.280 Mainly I was looking for any evidence that a five 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.720 hundred pound ammonium nitrate bomb ever exploded under a truck 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:46.080 in Michigan, because that's something Carol Howe told her handlers 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.879 Dennis claimed to have done, and that's a big enough 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.960 bomb that it would have been in the news. I 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:58.000 tried pretty hard, and I couldn't find anything matching that description, 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.879 but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. There was what 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.240 seemed at first to be a pretty promising lead when 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.360 I found some news stories about a string of pipe 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.240 bombs left in public places throughout the Midwest in nineteen 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.960 eighty four, but the man responsible was caught when he 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:21.200 accidentally detonated one in his own car. His motivations were inscrutable, 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.359 and he was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia and confined to 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:30.960 a state mental hospital. So those bombs weren't Denisis. I 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.600 did find some stories from the mid eighties in Michigan 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.520 about a pipe bomb left at a Jewish community center 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.800 in West Bloomfield and a bomb in a Detroit abortion 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.760 clinic that didn't detonate, and both of those appear to 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:49.320 have gone unsolved, but who knows, we probably never will. 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.920 Andrew Gumbel and Roger C. Charles's twenty twelve book on 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.480 the Oklahoma City bombing is the only source I found 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:00.920 that highlights the fact that the the ATF had been 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.200 actively investigating Dennis Mayhon for a decade by the time 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.760 Carol Howe fell into their lap, and they must have 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.720 been keeping a pretty close eye on him, because within 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.159 a day of Carol Howe filing that petition for a 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:18.040 restraining order against him, there they were with an offer, 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:23.960 help us take him down. ATF Agent ANGELA. Finley's first 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:28.080 report summarizing information provided by Carol Howe is dated August thirtieth, 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.560 nineteen ninety four, just a few days after Carol signed 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:36.600 on as an informant. Finley wrote in that report, War 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:40.199 has approximately twenty to twenty five active, fifty non active, 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:44.719 and two hundred underground members. Locally, the primary training location 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.959 is called Eloheim City. Mayhan has made numerous statements regarding 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.320 the conversion of firearms into fully automatic weapons, the manufacturer 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.639 and use of silencers, and the manufacturer and use of 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:58.440 explosive devices. Mayhan and his organization are preparing for a 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.200 race war and war with the govern in the near future, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.720 and it is believed that they are rapidly stockpiling weapons. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.199 Over the next few months, Carol and Dennis spent more 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.520 and more time together at Eloheim City, with weekend trips 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:16.760 stretching into weeks long stays on the compound. They detonated 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.280 his home made grenades together in the woods, and she 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.720 pocketed the fragments, handing them over to the ATF as evidence. 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.880 In one report that fall, agent Finlay wrote that Carol 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.800 had reported Mayhan has talked with Carol about targeting federal 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.159 installations for destruction through bombings, such as the IRS Building, 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.399 the Tulsa Federal Building, and the Oklahoma City Federal Building. 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.480 Mayhan has also discussed a plan for destroying power lines 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.800 from Oklahoma City to Catoosa, Oklahoma, during the hottest time 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:46.959 of summer. Mayhon reasons this will create a panic and 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:51.960 without air conditioning, mass race riots would begin. I guess 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:56.399 accelerationist thinking really hasn't evolved much in thirty years, because 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.400 that's Dennis in nineteen ninety four thinking. He can start 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.760 the race war by turning out the lights, and today's 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:08.200 neo Nazis are still trying to do it. Carol also 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.760 told the agents that a man named Andy often spoke 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.960 with Dennis about the need for real violence. He was 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:21.800 talking about assassinations, mass shootings, and bombings. Carol said this 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.240 Andy guy was saying things like it's time to stop 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.639 talking and start blowing things up. When she met with 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.760 Agent Finley again in January of nineteen ninety five, after 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.840 spending most of December on the compound, Carol had more 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:40.959 information about Andy. He was Andrea Strossmeyer, Eloheim City's head 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.840 of security. Strassmeyer was a German national who was in 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.439 the United States illegally, which you might think would make 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.320 it difficult for him to purchase large quantities of firearms, 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.680 but he seemed to manage to find no one was 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.159 thinking anything at all about Timothy McVay in January of 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.639 nineteen ninety five, but Strasmeyer would later admit that he 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.040 had met McVeagh at a gun show in Tulsa in 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.639 nineteen ninety three. When Strasmeyer finally spoke to the FBI 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.240 in nineteen ninety six, he couldn't recall exactly what the 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:14.960 date had been, but he said it must have been 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.639 after February twenty eighth and before April nineteenth, because he 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:22.200 remembered that they'd discussed the ongoing siege at the Branch 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:27.320 Davidian Compound at Waco, Texas. It might refresh Strasmeyer's recollection 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:29.440 to know that the Wannamaker Gun and Knife show was 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:32.440 held on April third and fourth in nineteen ninety three, 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.080 which means McVeigh would have just come from Waco. He'd 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:40.200 been interviewed by a journalism student from Southern Methodist University 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:43.440 just outside a police checkpoint at the Branch Davidian Compound 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:49.480 on March thirtieth. And here again we have mismatched and 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:54.320 poorly remembered facts. Strasmeyer can't recall who he'd gone to 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:58.240 Tulsa with that weekend, and he told the FBI he 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:02.320 didn't remember giving McVay his busy card, But this is 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.040 one of those things I can tell you for sure 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:11.440 he did. Strasmeyer's Eloheim City business card was in mcvay's 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:15.159 possession when he was arrested. He'd called the number on 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.160 the card a few minutes before the bomb went off. 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:21.919 On the morning of April nineteenth at Elloheim City, a 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.440 woman answered the phone. She says the man was looking 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:28.560 for Andy, that he'd met him at a gun show 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.600 and wanted to come visit. The woman told him only 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:34.919 that Andy was out at the moment and he'd have 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:40.240 to call back. Whether Dennis Mayhun was present when Strasmeyer 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:43.640 met mcphay two years before the bombing is another one 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:46.919 of those things we'll never know. We do know that 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:49.320 Strasmeyer stayed at Dennis's house when he was in the 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:53.880 city buying guns, but there aren't any clear, credible claims 0:23:53.880 --> 0:23:56.680 that Dennis was standing there with Strasmeyer when he handed 0:23:56.720 --> 0:23:59.399 McVay that Eloheim City business card and told him he 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:03.679 could stop any time. It's very likely that Dennis was 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:06.760 somewhere at the gun show. We know he and his 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:09.920 brother were regulars at the Tulsa Gun Show as both 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:13.960 shoppers and vendors. But even in nineteen ninety three, the 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:16.760 Wannamaker Gun and Knife Show was billed as the world's 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:21.320 largest gun show right up in the Tulsa Sentinel that 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:25.800 year boasts over twenty seven hundred vendors spread out over 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:32.000 a seven acre show floor. David Paul Hammer, mcveig's friend 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:35.280 from death Row, claims in his book that McVeigh actually 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:38.080 went back to Dennis's house with Strasmeyer that night, and 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:41.520 that the three men talked about bombs, but that probably 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:45.560 didn't happen. But when Carol Howe was talking to Agent 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:48.800 Finley in January of nineteen ninety five, she didn't know 0:24:48.800 --> 0:24:52.560 anything about Timothy mcveay or that he'd already met Andrea Strossmeyer. 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:57.159 They only knew that this heavily armed German was talking 0:24:57.200 --> 0:25:03.120 about bombs. He was talking up blowing up federal buildings. 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:06.439 Carol also reported during that meeting that Robert Miller, the 0:25:06.520 --> 0:25:10.320 leader at the compound, had been giving increasingly violent sermons, 0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:14.400 urging his congregants to begin preparing for war against the government. 0:25:16.320 --> 0:25:19.720 And I read that report, but I have not read 0:25:19.760 --> 0:25:23.160 for myself the ATF report from the meeting. When Carol 0:25:23.200 --> 0:25:26.159 Howe told her handlers that she had accompanied Mahon and 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:30.840 Strasmeier on one of their visits to Oklahoma City, she 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:33.720 believed they were scouting targets for the bombings they were 0:25:33.760 --> 0:25:38.280 always talking about. Investigative journalist James Ridgway wrote in two 0:25:38.320 --> 0:25:41.119 thousand and one that Carol Howe's own handwritten notes about 0:25:41.119 --> 0:25:45.480 the information she collected for the ATF included what looks 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:50.240 to be an ominous misspelling. She had written down Morrow 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:57.680 building spelled Morrow. Perhaps she'd heard Murrah m u r 0:25:57.840 --> 0:26:04.160 r ah and misunders stood. Stephen Jones, the attorney appointed 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:07.440 to represent McVeigh, wrote in his book that Agent Finley's 0:26:07.480 --> 0:26:10.920 monthly report for December, which is when Carol reportedly told 0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:14.720