Right before he committed suicide, he said, “They are not telling the truth about what is going on down there.”

One year after the Oklahoma City bombings, the officer who saved eight lives was found dead under strange circumstances. On Wednesday, April 19, 1995, Sergeant Terrence Yeakey responded to calls that a bomb had gone off in the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.

At the time, I was en route to pick up passengers at a rehabilitation facility in Reno. Later, I called my dad to see if he was okay because he said his office was across from the Murrah Building, learning he was nowhere in the area.

Yakey was the first officer to respond that day and was able to save eight people before the second floor collapsed, injuring his back so severely after falling through the floors he was not able to continue. An hour and a half later, police arrested Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were anti-government extremists.

A year after the bombing, Oklahoma City officials selected Yakey and 90 other officers to receive the city’s Medal of Valor. However, three days before the ceremony, on Wednesday, May 8, 1996, he was found dead in a field near his hometown of El Reno, Okla.

Investigators found his car abandoned along the side of a dirt road, with a lot of blood inside, but his body was found about a mile into the field off of that road. While they did not find a gun at the scene, he had been shot in the head and covered in cuts.

According to one report, “While still inside his Ford Probe that he had parked on a lonely country road, Yakey slashed himself 11 times on both forearms, twice on his throat, then apparently seeking an even more private place to end his life, he crawled 8,000 feet through rough terrain and climbed a fence before putting a gun to his head, which took him to the hereafter.”

He did not leave a note, and there was no investigation or autopsy, but police still ruled that he had taken his own life. Not in the report are the facts that investigators said he showed signs of being bound at one point, had rope burns on his neck, ligature marks on his wrists, and that an FBI agent showed up and suspiciously found a gun in an already thoroughly searched area within five minutes of being there.

Terry had an ex-wife named Tania, who was the mother of his children, McKenna, 4, and Sheridan, 2, and claimed that when she picked him up from the hospital after the bombing, he started crying and said, “It is not what they are saying it is. They are not telling the truth about what is going on down there,” but would not elaborate any further.

She claimed that two or three days after the bombing, he asked her to take him back to the site so he could check for something under the daycare center, but turned away from the area. She claimed that his supervisor made him rewrite his report on the bombing and that he started showing up at her house at strange hours and acting very anxious and afraid.

She said he started gathering up all of their insurance paperwork for her to keep and that he wanted them to get remarried so that their daughters would be protected if something happened to him, and that he knew something was coming fast and was trying to protect his family, but he was not fast enough. After he passed, she went bankrupt and lost their house, and she said she knew for sure if he had planned to take his life, he would have made sure they were cared for first.

His daughters did not receive a cent of his pension. Tonya said that the police department was much more concerned with promoting a narrative that he took his own life because he felt guilty for not being able to save more people during the bombing and being estranged from his wife and children, which was simply not true.

The reality is that there was a high-level federal operation called PATCON, which infiltrated the “patriot movement” across the U.S. during the Clinton administration, with informants and provocateurs likely connected to the OKC bombing. His killing was to cover up federal assets, like informants, provocateurs, and infiltrators, who were involved in the bombing plot, shielding the federal government from potential blowback.

Thank goodness for my note-taking skills as I share a tale that seems straight out of a Spaghetti Western comedy as we go back to the 70s when the Comstock became an unlikely battleground for the Silver City Guard’s wild antics during the Bicentennial Wagon Train’s stopover.

Captain “Clicker” Slocum led the charge, and the results were legendary to hear him tell it. We worked together at AM 1270 KPLY in Sparks during the early months of 1986, so I heard him speak of the escapade more than once.

“So,” he’d begin…”When the news broke that the Bicentennial Wagon Train would make its first stop in Silver City en route to Valley Forge, local committee chairman Grahame Ross, who also ran the Golden Gate Bar and doubled as a Generalissimo in the Silver City Guard, vowed to make it a day to remember.”

The Silver City Guard, known for its snazzy uniforms and annual parade accolades in the “Armed Rabble” category, was called into action. With the sudden announcement, preparations were frantic. Two Winnebagos, a Mayflower moving van, and a pickup truck hauling Sani-Huts joined the wagon train, setting the stage for mayhem.

Clicker, Bo’s’n Muller, and Lance Corporal White studied contour maps and planned strategy late into the night while Ross raised the red alert. Wing Commander Beaupre lamented the loss of the Silver City Air Force, sold for scrap a week prior, so his squadron would serve as infantry.

As the day of reckoning arrived, troopers gathered at the Tahoe Beer House, now serving as a command post, while Clicker prepared for “desert warfare” at the bar. The Guard was ready, with Cannoneer Greg Melton wheeling in the heavy artillery on his motorcycle.

However, things turned when Scout Charlie Wade, tasked with tracking the wagon train, whispered over the phone, “Captain, I am drunk and surrounded by the enemy!”

A baffled Clicker replied, “Bad news, men, our scout is bombed.”

Undeterred, the Guard continued to prepare for action. Recruits kept reporting for duty, and as the last report came in, the wagon train was heading toward Silver City.

Clicker ordered, “Men, they’re coming. Let’s move out!”

Troopers readied for action, some practicing strangleholds, others saber thrusts, and a few performing the Ghost Dance.

The Guard’s dramatic march towards the wagon train turned into a comedy of errors, with Clicker, momentarily confused about his missing sword, discovering his children playing with it. His command car raced off without him, leaving him surrounded by townsfolk.

Despite the initial confusion, the Guard sprang into action with a thunderous cannon blast, catching the wagon train by surprise. The teamsters and outriders halted their wagons, and the Guard charged down the rocky slope, armed and exuberant.

As the mayhem unfolded, Clicker gestured the wagons to the side of the road, “Consider yourselves under the protection of the Silver City Guard.”

The Guard raised a triumphant cheer, and Darius Jahaver added a fitting soundtrack with his banjo. Finally, Clicker thanked his troops for their service and dismissed the Guard, leaving behind a baffled but safe wagon train.

Clicker passed in 1992 or 1993, and his ashes were ceremoniously blasted over the desert landscape by Cannoneer Melton (whom I’d get to know better as “Straight Arrow” later that year after going to work for KBUL 98.1 FM) and a while back, I found Clicker’s name on one of the many bronze plaques in Virginia City set by the E. Clampus Vitus in honor of historical events or places, but damned if I can recall to what that metal tablet was affixed.

1989, I think, is when I first met Silver City’s David Toll. Initial impressions were scarce, but as time wove its divine course, his tales proved a rare solace in a world bereft of narrative grace.

Toll, I discovered, was a man of genuine merit.

That year, just before the snows laid claim to the Comstock in a blanket of thick white, Toll told about Jack Robinson, who old timers said showed up one day in 1915 and stayed until he passed a decade later. The man was the antisocial kind but had shared enough over the years to say he had fought in the Civil War and escaped from Pancho Villa.

“He’s buried somewhere in Virgin Alley up behind the slaughter house,” Toll said, “But no one knows where.”

Not until perusing the Internet and reading about Ambrose Bierce and his writing style did the article “My Hunt For Ambrose Bierce,” by Leon Day, appear. In the second chapter of the Day essay, “The Tex O’Reilly Story,” the name Jack Robinson appears.

“He told his fellow officers that he was an American and that if they wanted to give him a name, they might call him Jack Robinson,” O’Reilly wrote in an article, first printed in Liberty Weekly, May 27, 1933, in a serialization of his autobiography, “Born to Raise Hell.”

O’Reilly’s account, written several years following the disappearance of Bierce, has the missing journalist dying at the hands of three Federal volunteers, who, with Bierce’s revolver, shot him to death.

“He squatted there in the dust of the road and began to laugh heartily,” O’Reilly writes, “The three men kept shooting him, hitting him, but they could not kill him, and he did not stop laughing. He sat there and laughed till finally, they shot him in the heart.”

Much akin to Bierce’s yarns and the enigma that shrouded his departure, this tale remains nestled in the folds of mystery. A relic of antiquity, concealed within some forsaken attic or shadowed cellar of the Comstock, must yet emerge to illum the path of truth.

Seeing a poster for the 1988 Super Bowl XXII in a room of Carol Ann in the movie Poltergeist is unusual, considering the film’s release in 1982. Furthermore, on the headboard, above the bed, is a Los Angeles Ram football helmet. Los Angeles translates to “The Angels,” while the ram represents the sacrifice.

Six years later, on the day of the 1988 Super Bowl XXII, actress Heather O’Rourke, who played Carol Anne in the movie, fell ill. The following morning, she collapsed, suffered cardiac arrest caused by septic shock due to intestinal stenosis, and died later that day at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, California.

San Diego is the same city that hosted Super Bowl XXII on Sunday, January 31, 1988.

The Las Cruces bowling alley massacre occurred in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on February 10, 1990. Seven people were shot, four fatally, by two unidentified robbers at the Las Cruces Bowling Alley.

I write about this because I just saw a rerun of Unsolved Mysteries, which featured the story.

The gunmen ordered the women and children to lie down while taking approximately $4,000 to $5,000 from the bowling alley’s safe. The gunmen shot the victims in an office, then set fire to a desk in the room and left the scene.

Police set up ten roadblocks surrounding Las Cruces within an hour and carefully screened anyone leaving the city. The U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Army, and U.S. Border Patrol searched the area with planes and helicopters but made no arrests.

Investigators believe the suspects were Latino or Hispanic with dark complexions. Both suspects were said to speak fluent English.

The case remains unsolved — which is why it was on Unsolved Mysteries.

His anger boils over in rage.
How can she do this at this stage?
She gets the house, the car,
He’s left wishing on his lonely star.

He works two, three, four jobs
To pay Peter, who robs Paul.
She works once, time, and again
Refusing to flex, refusing to bend.

Mow the lawn every weekend
Not a hand would she lend
Just to keep up appearances.
Manicured lawn, impeccable references.

So why does she ask these things?
Because happiness to her does bring.
And now, he is left out in the bitter cold
Feeling abandoned, unloved and so old.

He carries her picture in his wallet
Lest her face, he should forget
From time to time, he’ll pull it out
Recall what love was all about.

What was there, is suddenly gone
Like sunshine, dusk to dawn
And he doesn’t know what he did
What was wrong, how he slid.

Jus’ a former shadow of himself
Slowly decaying, losing his breath
He does not wish to live any longer
His heart’s true hope, is gone from there.

His soul is so darkened by despair
He no longer cares to have a care
She has broken his living, loving will
Leaving him nothing, death will fulfill.

Those around him have said again,
“Well, if you had not screwed around.”
He thinks, “Screwed around? But when?”
That they think this brings him down.

No wonder his wife thinks the same way!
If his coworkers have concluded this
The thoughts and their words lead to dismay
It’s goodbye to marriage with a sudden kiss.

Where the hell did he go wrong, he wonders.
Reflecting back on the total sum of his life
He can clearly see the mistakes, the blunders
That led to a goodbye from his loving wife.

“If God knew this,” he asks no one there,
“Why did he let me waste so much time?”
Of course, again, no answer from anywhere.
Appearances now appear to be his crime.

The last thing he wants to be angry
The woman, his wife, whom he loves
But with every twist, turn, and emotions betray
Realizing the destructive outcome.

Why will she not talk about her feeling?
It leaves him lost, alone in a dense fog,
Where do broken hearts begin healing?
The silence is distractive and destructive.

She has placed him in a holding pattern,
Like a prisoner, on death row’s final night,
Hanging in the wind, twisting and turning.
Death would be the welcomed companion.

Anger leads to fiery hate in human clay.
The last thing he wants is to feel angry,
But that is how he lives each lonely day,
And his soul screams to lash out at her.

Night-time comes, and I grow afraid.
Worry climbs into bed like a lover.
To get away, he would gladly trade
Every ounce of energy he has.

It pushes its way against the skin,
Making itself comfortable next to him,
Sleeping where once love had been,
Crowding for the comfort of the mattress.

Soon self-doubt climbs in on the top,
Followed by anger and resentment.
Two feelings he fights to make a stop.
They lay, tossed, and unslept in bed.

Unwilling to struggle come the morn,
Drifting uneasily into worthless sleep,
Waking with emotions spent, mind torn.
Night-time comes and I grow afraid.