The so-called "Miracle of Cokeville" occurred on May 16, 1986 in Cokeville,
Wyoming. It was a hostage situation, involving 160 people or more, most of them
school-age children. In fact, there was an entire generation of Cokeville
children inside the school that day. The events that occurred there have
been attributed to several things, one of which is divine intervention. No
matter what the cause of the outcome of this crisis, you will see that there is no
denying that it was a very lucky day for a lot of people.
On May 16, 1986 at around 1:00
p.m., a man and his wife walked into the Cokeville school with five rifles,
five handguns and a homemade bomb, which was made with gasoline. They proceeded
to take every individual in the school hostage. They rounded up all of the
school employees and the children therein then placed them in a single
classroom. Once inside the classroom, the man placed his explosive device in
the center of the room and told the children that if they went near it, they
would be killed. The detonator on the bomb was attached to the man’s hand by a
string. All he had to do was pull the string and the bomb would explode. It was
powerful enough to destroy most of the school and kill every person inside of
it.
The two perpetrators of the
hostage situation were John and Doris Young. John was a former deputy of the
town, who had been fired in 1979. The couple had moved to Tucson, Arizona after
John lost his job. Seven years later, they returned to bring terror down
upon the town that had rejected them. They refused to allow the children of
Cokeville to leave the building until they were given 300 million dollars and John
was granted a phone call with President Ronald Reagan. They would get neither.
At about 3:45 p.m., David exited
the room so he could use the toilet. Before he left, he transferred the string
that was attached to the bomb to his wife’s hand. Minutes, or possibly seconds
later, one of the teachers complained of a headache and touched her head. For
some reason, Doris repeated the complaint and the gesture. She still had the
string attached to her hand. The bomb detonated and nearly killed Doris. When her
husband returned, he found his wife in agony and on fire. He shot and killer
her, returned to the bathroom, and then shot and killed himself. Amazingly,
they were the only two people to die that day. However, several of the hostages
were injured.
After the incident, experts
ascertained that only 1/5 of the bomb properly detonated. The results would
have been devastating, had the bomb’s full power been released. Many of the
residents of Cokeville called it a miracle. Some of the hostages even claimed
that angels had rescued them. Whether the outcome of the day was due to shoddy workmanship by John Young or a decent job by a deity’s
servants is unknown. Either way, the people of Cokeville were lucky that they
didn’t lose all of their school-age children that day. It is a very rare
occasion indeed when a potential tragedy turns into a possible miracle.
Sources
The Miracle of Cokeville,
retrieved 2/28/10,
slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/awesomemysteries/miracleofcokeville.htm
The Desert News, May 15, 1996,
Mitchell, Ruth Ann, 10 years later, Cokeville just says: Let us be
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