9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995
Terrance Yeakey is standing beside a car he had pulled over a few blocks from the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma city, Oklahoma. An explosion rumbles through the city and smoke rises towards the sky. Yeakey hands the driver’s information back to her and rushes to his patrol car.
One of the first people to respond to the blast, Yeakey enters the demolished remains of the Murrah building and begins rescuing people from the rubble. The air was tainted by ammonia and dust filled the lungs of rescue workers who ignored their own wellbeing.
During the rescue efforts Yeakey noticed several things that were out of place. ATF agents were already on the scene and dressed in riot gear that usually takes 45 minutes to an hour to put on. While Yeakey was rescuing a man from the rubble he was injured, falling into an area that would later be called “the pit”. There were actually three pits inside the building, craters that led to the underground parking garage under the building. After the first day of the bombing the pits were concealed from the press and public and only a handful of people were able to see them. Yeakey injured his back in the fall but that didn’t stop him from looking around. After he was taken to the hospital Yeakey was paid a visit by Federal agents of either the ATF or the FBI and threatened to never speak about what he had seen in the pit. Yeakey called his Ex-wife, Tonya, to pick him up from the hospital. Once they were in the car he told her “It’s not what they say it is.” Yeakey never told his ex-wife what he had seen in the pit and later tried to go back to the scene with a camera to take pictures. A man standing guard stopped him and told Yeakey he was not allowed to be there. After a short argument Yeakey left unable to collect evidence of what he had seen.
Following the blast everyone that had arrived on the scene was required to fill out a report for that day. Yeakey’s report ended up being 8 pages in length. Yeakey’s report was rejected by his superiors and he was told to shorten it to 1 page and remove all the “bullshit.” Yeakey was furious about the request to lie about what he had seen. While Tonya said that he didn’t have a copy of the report a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, an OKC bombing group of civilians doing their own investigation, Ramona McDonald said there was a copy of the original report in their collection of evidence in her house. The report later disappeared when she was institutionalized and she returned home to find her collection missing. As a member of group, Yeakey shared information with other members such as seeing explosives on the columns in the parking garage basement of the building that had not detonated. Being a former member of the military and serving overseas in Iraq during Desert Shield and Desert Storm Yeakey was familiar with explosives. It was during those meetings that Yeakey ran into an old acquaintance Dr. Chumley. Chumley was also a first responder the day of the bombing and had seen other questionable activities that day. An ATF agent approached Chumley during the rescue efforts asking to be bandaged up. Performing a quick triage on the agent he realized the man was not injured and turned him away. The agent went to another medical professional on the scene demanding the same thing. Chumley confronted the agent telling him to not waste the time of the medical staff. Following the bombing Yeakey and Chumley started to work together to the point they rented a safe deposit box to keep their findings in.
On sept 26, 1995 Dr. Chumley, an experienced pilot died after his Cessna 210 took a nose dive into a corn field. An investigation found no reason for the crash and everything appeared to be in operational order.
Along with filling out a report on the aftermath of the bombing Yeakey was required to meet with Chaplain Po. While the meetings were considered confidential under doctor patient confidentiality and/ or religious rights, Po filled out reports on everyone that he had meetings with and gave their information and what was discussed to the superior officers of the OKCPD. Yeakey was told to drop his investigation or face disciplinary action. Yeakey continued because like everyone else who had been doing their own digging into the bombing nothing about the official story made sense.
During the months that followed, Yeakey noticed more things that didn’t make sense. President Bill Clinton was meeting with first responders of the day, but the department sent a woman who was never at the scene. Other police officers that were never there also received awards and honors.
The following year was tough on Yeakey. He became paranoid that he was being watched and followed. Tonya’s residence had been broken into repeatedly along with her car being tampered with including nails in the tires or break lines cut. Strange phone calls started to come in and it was obvious someone was trying to scare Yeakey away from his investigation.
Yeakey had shown up to his ex-wife’s home and handed her a VCR with a tape in it to make a copy of the recording later. He instructed her not to watch it and left.
On May 7, 1996 Yeakey was called to a meeting with the chief of police. The conversation became heated and other officers overheard the tail end of the conversation. The chief told Yeakey that if he did not drop his private investigation that he would be found dead. Later he arrived at his sister’s house distraught to the point she suggested he go to the hospital. “I can’t, they can find me there.” he told her. After sleeping on her couch he told her he had to leave and meet with some FBI agents that were interested in what he had found about the bombing. Yeakey had also met with Ramona and told her that he was leaving his service pistol at home incase they tried to use it on him. In a storage locker outside of OKC Yeakey gathered the evidence he had collected over the span of a year and drove to El Reno, the town where he had grown up.
El Reno is the home of a federal prison that housed Timothy McVeigh for a period of time and was the last place Kenneth Trentadue was seen alive. Prior to Yeakey’s trip to El Reno he had made a comment to his ex-wife about bad things happening to people in that area and he had a horrible feeling about going there. In conversations with his sister and Ramona he told them that the meeting could go bad but if the federal agents were serious about wanting to see the evidence he gathered about what had really happened at the Murrah building he had to take the chance in meeting them.
Nobody knows where exactly the meeting was to take place but we know where Yeakey ended up. The morning of May 8, 1996 the OKCPD arrived at Yeakey’s residence and took his patrol car back to the station. That same morning Tonya was called to the police station where the department tried to have her sign a violation of a personal protection order she had against Yeakey that had expired the year before. She didn’t sign it and had no idea that Yeakey had been reported missing by his sister earlier that morning.
Yeakey’s car had been discovered and reported to the Canadian county sheriff department. When a deputy arrived he found the inside of the car was covered in blood like a stuck pig had been left inside to bleed out. A knife was seen on the passenger side dashboard. The doors were locked and a box of files could be seen in the back seat. Later it would be discovered that blood had run down into the side of the doors and blood was also on the inside of the back windshield. More deputies were called out and Yeakey’s body was discovered by a tree in the middle of a field a mile and a half from the car. In order for Yeakey to reach that spot he had to climb over a barbwire fence, travel over a creek, and walk through rough terrain only to shoot himself in the head by the tree.
Upon finding the body the OKCPD was notified and the chief of police flew to the scene in a helicopter accompanied by the FBI. Flying the helicopter into the crime scene the police chief pulled a pistol from his pocket and dropped it next to the body. “there it is” he told the deputies that had been searching for the weapon for over an hour before their arrival. OKCPD took over the crime scene even though they had no jurisdiction and technically the FBI could have taken over since he was found on Federal land, but the FBI doesn’t investigate “suicides”. A coroner was brought to the scene and his death was declared a suicide.
The examination of the body detailed cuts to both wrists, the left and right side of his throat had been cut, cuts were found on the inside of his elbows, bruises to the face and body, bruises were also found on his wrists and ankles from what were likely handcuffs used on him and then there was the gunshot to the head. The bullet entered Yeakey’s head at a downward angle not normal for a suicide. The bullet exited his cheek on the opposite side. There were no powder burns on the skin which leads investigators of the crime to believe either a silencer was used or it was from a distance by someone else. The caliber of the bullet was noted as “small” and the definition of a small caliber is still a question. The caliber could have been measured by the size of the entry wound but that was never done. OKCPD said that Yeakey’s service pistol was used but with no pistol was found on site and only later “discovered”. The actual weapon is unknown. Dirt and grass was also discovered in the cuts to Yeakey’s body pointing to his body being dragged to the spot from the car and it is unknown if he was already dead when he was shot in the end.
When the car was returned to Yeakey’s family they discovered the knife used on him in the glove box and it had never been dusted for prints. In the minds of the family, it was like the OKCPD had never bothered to look for the weapons that had been used on him. The box of files that had been seen in the backseat of the car by the deputy was also missing along with other personal items.
Two days after Yeakey’s death he was awarded the Medal of Valor by the OKCPD which Yeakey didn’t want to accept. After seeing other officers receive awards for not being at the bomb scene he didn’t want to be associated with them. Before his death Yeakey had been accepted into the FBI and had one last interview to complete before he would move to Dallas to start his new job.
In the weeks that followed his death Tonya’s house would be broken into and the VCR that held the video tape Yeakey wanted a copy of disappeared. Phones were tapped and the family would notice cars watching their homes across the street. Because Yeakey’s death was declared a suicide his life insurance didn’t pay out. His pension would not go to his kids. Tonya ended up losing the house and the family had to move.
When the memorial for the OKC bombing was built a picture of Yeakey rushing into the scene was placed at the entrance, that same day it was removed. Following his death it became known not to question the seniority in the OKCPD because you might be “Yeakeyed”.
To the people who committed this crime, you tried hard to silence a person that knew you were trying to cover something up and in doing so you gave us something we are still talking about almost thirty years later. You may have killed a man but in return you gave more people a reason to search for the truth. You failed.
Sources: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/us/oklahoma-city-bombing-yeakey-death-cec-cnnphotos/
The Medusa Files by Craig Roberts
https://www.riflewarrior.com/who_killed_terry_yeakey.html
https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-140-requiem-for-the-suicided-terrance-yeakey/
https://www.rareddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/mr2v94/terrance_yeakey_was_the_first_police_officer_to/
https://newtotse.com/oldtotse/en/politics/terrorists_and_freedom_fighters/okcdeath.html
https://www.americanfreepress.net/html/federal_murder.html