The Strange Death of Terry Yeakey by Wendy S. Painting

Unanswered Questions Haunt Family of Oklahoma City Bombing First Responder.
By: Wendy S. Painting, October 2, 2009

On May 11, 1996, the New York Times ran a story with the headline “A Policeman Who Rescued 4 in Bombing Kills Himself.” Sergeant Terrance Yeakey, Oklahoma City Police Department, was 30 years old and was about to receive the police department’s Medal of Valor for his heroic rescue efforts the day of the Oklahoma City bombing, which occurred on April 19, 1995.

Yeakey was the first to arrive on the scene that terrible day and saved the lives of countless people from the rubble of the building and the horrific effects of the explosion. The article says Yeakey committed suicide, claiming that he was living in emotional pain because he could not do more to help the people injured in the bombing, and that he was suffering from intense survivor guilt which he was unable to manage. But others in Oklahoma City, including the family of Terrance Yeakey, claim that his death was not a suicide at all, but a brutal murder, and indicate that local law enforcement were complicit in covering up this murder.

On September 26, 2009 the Yeakey family spoke out for the first time on video for an interview with journalists from Radio Free Oklahoma and an American Studies PhD student from the University of Buffalo who is writing her dissertation on the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. What these researchers found was that the facts surrounding Yeakey’s death are quite disturbing, and that the treatment of the Yeakey family in the aftermath of the death was beyond appalling.

[Terry Yeakey and family. 1995]

It is important to note how, exactly, Yeakey is supposed to have killed himself. He was said to have slit his wrists and neck, causing him to nearly bleed to death in his car, and then miraculously climbed over a barbed wire fence. He then was purported to have walked over a miles distance, through a nearby field, eventually shooting himself in the side of the head at an unusual angle. Startlingly, no weapon was found at the scene of the body, no investigation was conducted, no fingerprints taken, and no interviews with family members or friends were had to try and determine why Yeakey would have been suicidal, or if he had, in fact, been suicidal at all. Instead, the conclusion that Yeakey’s death was a suicide was reached immediately, without an autopsy. Yeakey had witnessed things during his response to the bombing which did not agree with the ‘official version’ of events touted by the national media and law enforcement at that time. Yeakey was in the process of collecting evidence which supported and documented the inconsistencies he witnessed the morning of the bombing at the scene itself.

Far from being suicidal, Yeakey was in the process of achieving some major life goals. He had just been offered a job with the FBI in Dallas and was planning on taking the job and moving there with his sister and brother in law. Yeakey, a military veteran who had served in Saudi Arabia, was also a seven year veteran of the OKC Police Department and had just been promoted to Sergeant in the OKCPD. Just prior to his death he had been awarded the Key to the Oklahoma City for his heroism during the bombing. Additionally, Yeakey and had reconciled with ex-wife. Despite all of this, Yeakey was living under constant scrutiny for his refusal to go along with official versions of events, and because of his refusal to change his story about what he saw the day of the bombing, causing him to suffer great persecution from his brothers in law enforcement.

Although he was looking forward to his new job with the FBI, Yeakey is described by his family as a man who was also living in great fear at this time, and who was preoccupied with the harassment he was being subjected to on a daily basis. When Yeakey showed up to his oldest sister’s home one evening he was physically ill. When she attempted to take him to the emergency room, Yeakey would not allow this because, he told her, “they can find me there.” Yeakey never told her who “they” were in an attempt to protect her. Yeakey left his sister’s house that evening, and was found dead the next day in a remote field in El Reno, Oklahoma.

Immediately after his family was notified of Terrance Yeakey’s death they insisted that they did not believe Yeakey had killed himself. Their conclusion was based on the manner of death, Yeakey’s personality, his recent statements about the future, and the lack of investigation and autopsy. At first they tried to get answers. Why wasn’t there a proper investigation? Where was the weapon he shot himself with? Why wasn’t an autopsy allowed? As they asked questions in the following days, they would sometimes be approached by others in the police department, who told them in no uncertain terms, but off the record, that Yeakey had been murdered. As a result of their inquiries they were harassed and followed by Oklahoma City police and others. Unmarked cars sat in front of their homes for hours and this stalking was caught on video by the family. Shortly after his death, Yeakey’s ex-wife had her home broken into and a balloon was left in her house. Written on the balloon in black marker were the words, “we know where you are.” This harassment and surveillance had a chilling effect on the surviving Yeakey family and on their inquiries into Terrance’s death, which were in effect shut down... until now, fourteen years after the fact.

[The Yeakey Family, 2009]

Yeakey’s 92 year old grandmother, Mary Kuykendalla, says that it is important that she knows who killed her grandson and implores anyone who can help her, “From my heart I want something to happen to show he had no right to be killed. His life was taken away for nothing.”

His oldest sister, Vikki Yeakey, speaking out again after all of these years, states that she knew as soon as she was told by the OKCPD that Yeakey had committed suicide that it untrue, “I screamed out 'He didn't take his life. Someone murdered him.” Yet detectives told her that she was crazy and that she watched too much television. “I had just seen him the night before. He was mentally fine...I wanted answers that night.” But, she says, they rushed her through the paperwork all the while telling her she was “crazy.” She asks, “Who was he running from? Who was he trying to protect?...I am doing this interview to reach out to the world, to anyone that can help.”

Another sister, Leshawn Hargrove says, “He was an awesome older brother. He was always all about his work. He was serious about being a cop.” When she received news of his death she says she dropped the phone and “began to sob.” She felt nauseous. She needed to get to her family. Later OKCPD would approach her and say “sorry for your loss,” but soon after, she says, the family was told that they needed to “keep our mouths shut,” and were continuously told that the death was a suicide. She feels that her brother’s death deserves answers and an investigation that were never provided, “I want justice for his life. He needs to have his story told. I wish I had him back.”

When Yeakey’s mother, received a call notifying her of the death she was told by the OKCPD not to drive anywhere and that a car would come to pick her up. This was around 10 PM, but by 1 AM the promised transportation had not arrived. In fact, they never showed up for Yeakey’s grieving mother, “No one ever came.” Yeakey’s mother says that for the last fourteen years she has been “going over and over something I don't believe to be true. I believe it to be murder. I don't know who did it. [That’s] why we need answers...you need to put your child to rest and without knowing what happened [we can’t]…I vowed I will never give up. I need answers. If there's ANYONE who could help I would appreciate it.”

The family says that the death of Yeakey is a taboo subject in Oklahoma City.There is a saying “if you don't want the Terry Yeakey done to you...keep your mouth shut.”

Yeakey is not the only suspicious death which has occurred do to the attempt to find answers about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and it is not the only one to be called a suicide, the strange and grisly death of Kenneth Trentadue being another. The suspicious death of Kenneth Trentadue at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center in August 1995 would be ruled a suicide despite the opinion of the Medical Examiner. After examining the body of this brother, it became clear to attorney Jesse Trentadue that his brother had been tortured and murdered. Jesse had received chilling information from Timothy McVeigh (convicted and executed for his role in the 1995 bombing) that his brother’s murder was related to the bombing and its subsequent (mis)investigation Subsequently, Jesse began a quest to determine why exactly his brother had died, leading him to file many Freedom of Information Act Requests about the bombing and related matters. After filing a wrongful death lawsuit the Trentadue family was rewarded $1.1 million for emotional distress caused by the authorities mishandling of the death. On September 28, 2009, attorney Jesse Trentadue made national news when portions of surveillance tapes of the bombing were begrudgingly released by the FBI under the orders a federal judge.

Like Jesse Trentadue and those who lost family members in the Oklahoma City bombing, the surviving family of Terrance Yeakey also seek answers which they feel will help them achieve closure, justice and peace of mind.

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good stuff Wendy...

excellent reporting as usual. sad n creepy story. I hope someday the Yeakey family gets the answers they deserve.

Wendy,

Do you have a link to source this back to?

I, too, hope that the Yeakey family gets answers

...as well as all Americans and the rest of the world.

It's all connected.

Links

Terry Nichols contends a high-ranking FBI director, Larry Potts, directed Timothy McVeigh in the plot to blow up a government building and might have changed the original target of the attack, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Utah on February 9, 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Nichols

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/okaxle.php

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/TRUCK/truck.htm
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTRIALS/mcveigh/rydery.jpg

This photo is purported to be of an area near Camp Gruber-Braggs, Oklahoma in early April of 1995.
Pilot/Photographer of OKC "Ryder Truck" killed in air crash!!
It has come to the attention of the Oklahoma City Bombing research community that Sargeant Robert Luis Harding of Oklahoma National Guard and a facility manager at Camp Gruber, had actually been killed in the crash of his small
home-built aircraft just a few hundred yards from a covert operations site on May 15, 1995 after he had earlier allegedly took the controversial aerial photo of the site which included a mysterious Ryder Truck.

BRAGGS -- A Pryor man was killed Monday afternoon when a small experimental aircraft he was flying hit a power line and crashed at Camp Gruber.
Oklahoma National Guard Staff Sgt. Robert Louis Harding, 45, was pronounced dead at 5 p.m. Monday at St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, where he had been transported following the 12:30 p.m. crash.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/794088/posts

In November 1994, Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef both walked on the grounds of the same college campus in the Philippines.
Whether their paths crossed is a question that dogs researchers.
But their respective itineraries are separated sometimes by a matter of yards, feet or even inches, within a span of days, hours and sometimes minutes.
http://intelwire.egoplex.com/nichols022004.html

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
OF THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING
http://www.freewebs.com/jeffhead/liberty/priorknw.txt

WTC, OKC, 9-11 terror connections
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JZS/is_7_19/ai_n25065576

McVeigh Video Destroys OKC Bombing Official Story
Shows McVeigh was in military receiving instruction in "explosives and demolition" over a year after official story says he was discharged, whistleblower harassed for years while unknowingly in possession of bombshell tape
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/181206_mcveigh_sited.html

Oklahoma City Bombing: Expert Analysis
http://autarchic.tripod.com/files/okcbombing.html

Blast Effects Study Does Not Support Single ANFO Bomb at OKC
http://www.911blogger.com/node/15154

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher links WTC 1993 bombing to OKC bombing and 9/11 in 15th anniversary speech - February 26, 2008
http://www.911blogger.com/node/14154

Key to the Truth in Oklahoma
http://www.911blogger.com/node/15075

Terry Yeakey knew too much

why i don't believe in conspiracy theories

someone would have talked...

whew...back to the super great reporting on dave letterman's sex life...

- america

My personal theory on OKC:

It is, of course, my own speculation and may well be completely wrong, somewhat correct, or possibly totally correct. But after seeing the anomalies with OKC, and scratching my head as to what the motive could possibly have been if in fact there was a deeper conspiracy, I've come up with one that I think at least half way makes sense.

So, Daddy Bush went into Iraq in 1991, but didn't "finish the job" so to speak. A number of influential neo-conservatives like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, etc. were unhappy with this, and wanted Saddam gone, and the US completely controlling the natural resources of the region. Unfortunately for them, Clinton bumps Bush out of office after 4 years. So the members of what will later be known as the Project For a New American Century are left twiddling their thumbs thinking of what to do next.

(Incidentally, let us not forget that the lie which caused a zoom in US support for the first Gulf War was the fraudulent incubator babies claim.)

Then, in November 1994 (the midterm elections), the Republicans took control of congress, the "Gingrich Revolution."

Gingrich and other Republican leaders were heavily pressuring Clinton to finish the job against Saddam, but Clinton was dead against it. I read in a book at Borders (sorry I don't remember which one, it was awhile back) where Gingrich and another republican leader came into the Oval Office, circling around Clinton's desk, intimidating him; Clinton said, "If you want war in the Middle East, you'd better get yourself a new President!"

Shortly after, in April 1995, the OKC bombing occurs.

Now, let's consider the above context with regard to videos which can be accessed easily on youtube and have been posted in the other OKC entry (sorry, youtube is down right at the moment I'm typing this).

The first video shows, beyond a reasonable doubt imo, that there were THREE large explosive devices INSIDE the Murrah building. However, two of them, for whatever reason, failed to detonate, so the building, unlike the WTC, was only partially damaged but not leveled.

The second video shows, beyond a reasonable doubt imo, that there was a SECOND, MIDDLE EASTERN man in the truck with McVeigh, according to many eyewitnesses.

This was a failed false flag operation. And they planned for a back up story in the event of a failure. That back up story was what we got: that Tim McVeigh, a lone nut (along with Nichols), did it on the 2 year anniversary of Waco because they were pissed with the way the US govt handled Waco.

However, if all explosives had gone off, and the building had been completely leveled, the Middle Eastern "John Doe No. 2" would have been blamed, and we likely would never have heard of McVeigh. Instead of 168 dead, over 1,000 would have probably been killed (it's the 4-figure body count which really angers the country purple). The senior officials in the intelligence services in on the conspiracy would have presented the "hard evidence" to Clinton that this was one of Saddam's men who attacked us. At that point Clinton would have felt no choice but to go along with the plan. The "War on Terror / Arab nations" would have started in 1995 instead of 2001.

Pissed off that their plans were not succeeding, the neo-cons did everything they could to try to get rid of Clinton; hence the attempted removal from office over Lewinsky in 1998. If he had been removed from office, it wouldn't have indicated a change in presidential Party (I'm pretty sure the way it works, Gore would have been interim President), but perhaps they figured Gore would have been a much easier puppet to manipulate.

However, the impeachment attempt failed, and Clinton was exonorated.

More pissed than ever, the neo-cons were determined to take power in 2000, regardless of what the voters wanted. Hence the stolen 2000 election.

I can anticipate a few objections to this theory. One of them probably being: "Well, if this is the case, why didn't they go directly to Iraq right after 911, rather than Afghanistan, and waiting over a year until Iraq?" Well, for one thing, the plan for a large pipeline through Afghanistan hadn't been proposed by the Taliban until 1997, and OKC was 1995.

Also, as the neo-cons were sitting around tables sipping coffee between 1995 and 2001, they decided it had to be about more than just Iraq - it had to be about controlling the entire region.

Inconsistent Theory

Adam Syed,

If the Oklahoma City operation were to implicate Iraq, then having a Caucasian individual (Timothy McVeigh) renting the Ryder truck would surely constitute a failed false-flag operation meant to implicate Iraq only. That is, a failed false-flag operation just as the operation commences! The FBI may not be the swiftest law-enforcement agency on this planet, but believe me they aren't that stupid! You forget that McVeigh was the "front guy" from the beginning of the operation, therefore implicating Saddam was not the purpose of the Oklahoma City operation.

Also, if the authorities were looking for an excuse to get back into Iraq, they would have used the first WTC bombing in 1993, two years BEFORE the Oklahoma City bombing.

Your theory also fails to answer why after the "collapse" in 1991 of the Soviet Union all of a sudden American targets are being bombed? Why weren't the other bombings blamed on Saddam (African Embassy bombings and the U.S.S. Cole bombing)?

When I say that the USSR is still in existence, I am not speculating. The continued existence of the USSR is self-evident from what we've seen since its supposed "collapse" in December 1991, as affirmed and predicted by KGB officer Major Anatoliy Golitsyn.

Ever wonder why one never sees Golitsyn on television or doing the lecture circuit like other KGB/GRU defectors? That's because Golitsyn is the real deal and continues to have a price on his head. Of course, having a price on one's head wouldn't preclude the media from covering Golitsyn's remarkable prognostications on Soviet behavior since his defection in 1960. With such an outstanding ability to predict Soviet behavior, why do you think the media has never mentioned him even once? Golitsyn is a greater taboo in the media's eyes than 9/11 Truth, which the media has talked about!

Since we know that the first WTC bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing were false-flag operations, then what was it that even the Reagan administration saw coming down the road that would have compelled them to spend precious political capital by promoting unconstitutional "anti-terror" legislation?

Dean Jackson/Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC

My feeling is

it was more about the growing number of militias in the country at that time with the involvement of carol howe and andy the german etc. But why Tim decided to make the big sacrifice and not fight the death penalty leaves me wondering.

Zombieland

peacefulwarrior,

McVeigh ain't dead!

http://www.apfn.net/MESSAGEBOARD/07-04-05/discussion.cgi.61.html

And the FBI admitted they weren't concerned about the militia movement in the 1990s! Now why wouldn't the FBI be concerned by the militia movements in America in the 1990s when they were infiltrating pacifist groups at the time? Because the militia movement was being used by the FBI (if not a creation of the FBI):

The reluctance to deal with right-wing militants is also evident in government agencies like the FBI. During congressional hearings following the Oklahoma City bombing, FBI director Louis Freeh alleged that the FBI had not investigated or engaged in surveillance of the various militias because they had not been violent or broken the law. Freeh said, as reported in the May 3, 1995, Washington Post: "For two decades, the FBI has been at an extreme disadvantage with regard to domestic groups that advocate violence. We have no intelligence or background information on them until their violent talk becomes deadly action."

Yet for years the FBI has collected "intelligence" or background information on nonviolent groups which are either centrist or left of center. In 1994, the Center for Constitutional Rights requested data under the Freedom of Information Act on 15 organizations, including ACT UP, Clergy and Laity Concerned, and Jewish and pacifist organizations. The CCR received information from the FBI concerning six of these 15 groups. --

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_n6_v55/ai_17529286/pg_3/?...

Dean Jackson/Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC

Thanks

that makes more sense................what about Andy the German? Wasn't he deep cover collecting info in Elohim City?

I just read

Brad Meltzers "Book of fate" again.

In it, a conspiracy was underway, one agent from the Secret Service, one of the FBI, one from the CIA, conspiring to sell their knowledge back to the intels.

Meltzer makes the point that their conspiracy actor, a person called Nico, certifiable, religiously demented, was chosen by searching US elite military units for dishonorably fired persons with psycholocical problems.

There are some commons to McVeigh.

"no weapon was found at the scene of the body"

And this passes for a suicide. Only in America, I guess.

Beatrix Potter Had It Right All Along!

Vesa,

Peter Rabbit picked up the weapon!

Put a APB out on all rabbits carrying weapons!

Dean Jackson/Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC

And the New York Times...

... has no problem whatsoever saying it was a suicide, although not even the weapon was found at the scene?

How does that work?

The fact that suicide was concluded

actually supports the premise of a cover-up with the assistance of the police department. Refusing an autopsy also makes it very suspicious. If the police had left it as an unsolved murder then they could claim they had no role in the matter. It sounds like the fake suicide went badly and this poor guy went running away from his car and murderers only to be fatally shot. Poor judgment in going with the original suicide plan leaves this wide open for a reinvestigation including a cover up by the police department. I pray someone who can help this poor family and our troubled nation has the courage to step forward.

Bravo!

peacefulwarrior,

good observation!

Dean Jackson/Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC

(No subject)