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Hi dfu -

I've not read Jayna's book, but had seen excerpts of it online over the years. I have a very specific interest in the bombing, but have avoided focusing much on it over the decade.

I wish I knew *why* I have had so much apathy towards the subject--it doesn't make any sense to me. I lived in OKC for a number of years and consider it my 2nd home and yet, I have not set foot back in the City since the bombing. Haven't been to the site, haven't seen the memorial in person.

The morning it happened, I got a call from a family member within a minute or two that it was on TV. I watched in horror every minute of what transpired from there on out. Got on the phone to check with family in OKC and determined they were OK. Called friends and determined they were all right. Then I started having trouble getting through--all lines down.

Because of some ties I have, I called Channel 4, which I think was Jayna's station. I wanted to see what the OU alums here in Houston could do for the people in OKC. Got through to the newsroom and they asked me how I got ahold of them. Didn't know--I just dialed and got them! They said their phones were all down.

As it turned out, I couldn't hang the phone up--we had an open line by mistake. The newsperson asked me to stay on and I told her I had an extra line I could switch over to - so I clicked back and forth and relayed messages for Ch. 4 all morning and afternoon in to early evening. I was trying to get some oilmen here to send their private jets, with doctors and medical supplies that were needed, plus whatever else we heard about - Red Cross people, food, so forth.

Without cable, I had to surf the networks all day (it was odd when they would go back to the studio at Ch. 4 in OKC and I would see the person I was talking to on the phone, interspersed with horrific scenes at the site). I soaked up every bit of the tragedy.

Within a few days, I found that only a few of my friends or family up there knew anyone who had been hurt and none of us knew anyone who had been killed, except my best friend lived across the street from Bayley's grandmother.

I cried for days over the individual stories and the recovery efforts. I knew so many of the people who were interviewed -- doctors, attorneys, journalists. People I had worked with when I lived there. If I had still been there, I very easily could have been in the Journal-Record building that day and hurt like a friend of a friend was, or even in my former office which was only 5-6 blocks away.

This hit close to home, is what I'm trying to say. And yet, the minute they said it was possibly Middle Eastern terrorists who did it (very early on the first morning), I just tuned that part out. I know nothing about the Middle East; don't read or understand Arabic or Muslims or Islamic customs; don't really want to know anything about them.

I've met some sheiks, even a couple of Saudi princes, but they were "good guys" and were very modern and were here on *my territory,* and were business professionals or friends of friends, so I don't associate them with terrorists.

That doesn't explain, really, why I just went "cold" about the who and why of the bombing, but I did. I just didn't care about those things. It happened and we needed to grieve and heal and take care of the surviving Oklahomans. I tried to get some money appropriated from my OU club and they turned me down - even though we had OU students who lost their parents in Murrah.

It was the strangest reaction I've ever seen. Normally, we rush to the aid of any Okie anywhere. I was even called names at our board meeting by the other board members. I never understood that. They said they just didn't care. Well, I sent what I could, but I still had that empty feeling inside about the culprits and the "why" of it. It just didn't matter.

I followed only cursorily McVeigh's legal maneuverings. Couldn't stand the sight of the man, so paid little attention. I wasn't online yet, so didn't have info at my fingertips, but did read everything I could get my hands on about the victims and the aftermath in the City.

I watched specials and they were filled with friends of mine, or the offspring of friends of mine being interviewed. I did grieve for a year or more and talked about it every chance I got - but just from the standpoint of the victims, not the legal or political wranglings.

My best friend there was somewhat like me, although she felt the Middle Eastern thing that we first heard was the truth and she still believes that. However, like me, she has not set foot on the site since it happened. And she only lives less than 10 blocks away. I have no idea what a shrink would say about our attitudes, but it puzzles both of us. It's almost like we care *too* much or it's just *too big* to wrap our minds around it.

Now, as far as the things Jayna is putting forth in light of this new discovery -- first of all, I have to say, it's entirely possible the terrorists-in-training who asked about the OKC bombing and if it was Yousef's - don't you think they just had it mixed up with the first WTC attack? That's what it sounded like to me. Like they know as little about Oklahoma as I do about Baghdad.

That brings me to one little thing that propelled me into focusing now -- meaning in recent years, not just today. In 1997, I think it was, someone I had known in junior high school died in OKC, committing suicide, I was told. I asked around about him when I heard, although we didn't have any friends in common, but some attorneys I knew said it was true.

He "knew too much" about the bombing and couldn't bear it, is what I was told. This was Asst US attorney Ted Richardson. We had met in 9th grade, when I lived in a little town north of Tulsa and he lived in OKC, Putnam City. We were all Latin students, who had an annual convention in Norman. One day, he and some others skipped school and drove all the way from OKC to my little town and surprised us by popping in to the lunchroom at lunchtime.

From then on, we just ran into each other different places through the years, though we lived in different parts of the state or even different states, or at OU or football games--or downtown, or in the tunnel under the Murrah Building and the Annex (where I got divorced, BTW).

He was set to begin grand jury proceedings within a few days on, I think, insurance fraud charges, maybe (?) against Samir Khalil, the employer of Hussain Hashem Al-Hussaini. You had several threads here on Teddy's death. His name was Ted Richardson.

So, I'd like to continue with this and follow Jayna's progress. I did a little sleuthing on some of the ME people in relation to the Hinrichs bombing in Norman last fall and ran into some things that still puzzle me and they have a direct bearing on the items Jayna discusses - which gives me a little more perspective.

In fact, I wish I knew the motel where Khalil's visitors or others stayed (did McVeigh not ever stay in an OKC motel at all?) - the one mentioned as being 30 blocks north of the bomb site and having a gas station attached to it. I wondered if it was on 39th Expressway. It was said they left there with the Ryder truck an hour before the explosion - is that right?

When my then-husband and I moved to the City, we lived in one of those crummy little motels for about 3 weeks, waiting for the moving van. There were 3 old-timey ones in a row and when I looked up Khalil's properties, he didn't own any ofthem, but he owns nearly every house on the next 4-5 streets, for blocks and blocks.

The motels are owned by ME's but not names I recognize, lol, except the one that owns the motel where we stayed. They were the family of a business associate here in Houston! Their name is like Smith (Patel), but they own virtually every small town motel up and down the road between Dallas and OKC.

None of that came as a surprise to me in the light of day *today* but what did amaze me was that these documents talk about the OKC mosques and such - and the one I had sleuthed because of a Norman connection was exactly one block from "my" motel! Could this be the same one or nearby which is the one talked about in the docs?

That's why I'm still here and glued to the conversation, but have very little of any kind of "knowledge" to contribute - just wish I could. I'm almost brand new to the subject, because of previous inattention, but completely studied-up on it, from total immersion over the years - and hoping for some transfer by osmosis!

Thank you for everything y'all are doing.