Posted on 04/25/2025 8:50:29 PM PDT by Red Badger
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A controversial ATF informant who forewarned her handlers about the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing has reportedly turned up dead 30 years later.
The ex-ATF informant, Carol Howe—who warned her handlers in early 1995 that neo-Nazi extremists in Oklahoma were planning to attack federal buildings—had vanished in the late 90s after being acquitted from explosives charges. In the remaining years of her life, she was reportedly living in Sparta, Tennessee under the name “Sarah Collins.” She died in a house fire on Jan. 6, according to documentarian Jon Ronson.
Ronson, who produced a podcast in 2023 about Howe, said he was contacted by a listener earlier this year.
“Mr. Ronson…. I just listened to an interview you did about Carol Howe. I have been listening to anything I can about her because she died Monday in a house fire across the street from me. She was going by the name Sarah Collins, but it has been confirmed that she was Carol Howe. She was a complete recluse. About 4 1/2 years ago she went inside her house and never came out,” the listener told him.
Ronson went to Sparta to find out more about Howe, including whether she indeed knew about the OKC bombing before it happened.
Much of Ronson’s podcast paints Howe as a mentally unstable, unreliable source. According to Ronson, Howe became increasingly paranoid towards the end of her life, she lived like a hoarder, and was possibly using fentanyl and other drugs.
However, Ronson did report new information that corroborates Howe’s claims of seeing OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh before his attack. Howe’s cousin, Lucy, told Ronson that Carol mentioned McVeigh in the Christmas of 1994.
“I do have a story that proves [Carol] knew [McVeigh],” Lucy told Ronson.
“The Christmas before, we were altogether, and my grandmother had passed away. My grandmother’s maiden name is McVeigh, so I said that I wanted to name my kid ‘X McVeigh.’ Carol said, ‘I doubt you’ll want to use that name,’” Lucy said.
“I said, ‘What?’ And she said, ‘I don’t think you’re going to want to use the name McVeigh.'”
Ronson said he didn’t know what to make of Lucy’s story. Regardless of whether Howe knew McVeigh, the public record shows that she definitely warned the ATF about the OKC bombing.
Indeed, the truth about Howe came out after she was arrested in 1997 for allegedly making bomb threats and having an explosive device at her home. During her trial Howe’s allegations were corroborated by her former ATF handler, Angela Finley-Graham.
The ATF agent testified that Howe had indeed warned the federal government that people from Elohim City had plans to attack federal buildings in early 1995.
“Ms. Howe told you about Mr. Strassmeir’s threats to blow up federal buildings, didn’t she?” said Howe’s attorney, Clark Brewster, referring to German national Andreas Carl Strassmeir.
ATF agent Finley-Graham responded: “Yes.”
“And was this before the Oklahoma City bombing?” Brewster asked.
Again, agent Finley-Graham said, “Yes,” in response.
A jury exonerated Howe of all charges. The former informer went into hiding soon thereafter, and lived under an assumed name for the next 20-plus years.
Two years ago, Headline USA interviewed Strassmeir, the man Howe implicated in the bombing. Strassmeir had been living at Elohim City in the 90s, and is confirmed to have met McVeigh at a gun show in Tulsa before the attack. He says he didn’t know McVeigh, and that he had nothing to do with the bombing.
Strassmeir, who was never a suspect in the FBI’s investigation of the bombing, said he knew Howe was a federal informant from the moment she stepped inside Elohim City. He tried to warn Elohim City’s spiritual leader, Robert Millar, but said Millar’s religious beliefs dictated that all of Christ’s children were welcome at his property.
“I was 99% she was an informant when she was there. She was such a dishonest person, and I caught her lying all the time. I said, ‘We shouldn’t allow her to be here.’ And they had a little meeting with the elders,” he said.
“But Millar said, ‘We’re not doing anything illegal here, so what harm is it for her to be here?’ I said, ‘I hope you don’t regret this situation.’ And I guess I was right.”
Strassmeir further said he thought that Howe and the ATF were targeting him in particular, because he was staying in the U.S. illegally. This would have given law enforcement the excuse it needed to raid Elohim City, he said.
Strassmeir maintains to this day that Howe is a serial liar who fabricated her claims for attention. Strassmeir said he fed Howe disinformation on purpose so he could prove she was an informant when she spread his fabrications.
“She’s making stuff up to give her handlers something, so she could stay employed as a snitch,” he said. “So what’s the most likely thing she’ll tell them? She’ll talk about assassinating federal agents, blowing up buildings—I mean, that’s the oldest trick in the book.”
Headline USA reached out to Strassmeir upon the news of Howe’s death, and he responded with the following message: “Karma? … or is somebody covering his tracks? Howe played an essential part in the conspiracy to frame innocent people for the OK-City bombing.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified “Lucy” as Carol Howe’s sister. Lucy is her cousin.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
30 years later? Zero by way of conspiracy. This is happenstance.
My moment of awakening, to the fact that the government lies to us and covers stuff up happened in the Flight 800 crash over Long Island Sound. It was July 17, 1996, and I took a Mental Health day from work. I was tuned to MSNBC. Back in those days, MSNBC had not yet become an asylum for the politically insane, and actually had decent coverage about Clinton's many foibles, to eventually cover his scandals and subsequent impeachment.
Suddenly, Norah O'Donnell, who was working there at the time (and actually was a pretty decent journalist back then) cut into the programming with an announcement that Flight 800 had crashed, with no survivors. I moved right in front of the TV to watch.
Within 2 minutes, a video was posted that showed that the crash COULD NOT have been caused by a missile.
Wait, what???!?
No one had even mentioned the word 'missile'.... and the video was watermarked "CIA Video".
CRAZY.
Why would the CIA be producing this video within minutes of the crash? Why would it be distributing it so quickly? Why would it mention a missile, when NOBODY ELSE WAS?
These things set off my Whoa-This-Is-Weird-Radar.
Later, it was demonstrated that 670+ people saw a flame streaking up to meet the plane. You know, like a missile. One of those people was a National Guardsman, aloft in a plane, who just so happened to be a Missile-Plume expert.All of these witnesses were roundly scoffed by the government, and the official lie stood: It was a spontaneous center-fuel-tank explosion, and what everyone saw was the cabin section flying upwards.M
Despite the fact people were describing the plume flying up from the horizon-line, you know, the ground.
Yah right. Gotchya.
The motivation was obvious: If people thought a commercial airliner was struck by either a terrorist missile, or a friendly missile that went astray, airline traffic would collapse...and in 1997, Clinton did not need that distraction, not with his legal problems.
It was the first moment in my life that I realized that the government would lie to us, boldly and without shame, even when a half-a-thousand eyewitnesses contradicted them.
It was the first moment my vision became clear to just how venal and conniving the government could be.
There’s a lot of happenstances lately......................
Dittos.
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