WLM Spring / Early Summer 2016 | Page 34

WLM | people COMMEMORATING A Miracle By June Johnston “B ye, kids, love you. Have a good day at school,” Claudia Hartley, wife of Ron Hartley, Lead Investigator for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department, said to her children as they went out the door. Words similar to this were being repeated to over 150 children in the predominately Mormon community that morning. No one in their wildest imagination would believe what was about to happen on this bright, sunny day of May 16, 1986, in Cokeville, Wyoming, population 507. On that day, David Young, a former Marshal of Cokeville who was fired for misconduct, headed to the school with his wife, Doris, Young’s daughter, Princess, and two friends who believed in Young’s abilities to get rich quick. After his termination, Young moved to Arizona, but returned to the town prepared for what Young called ‘The Biggie.’ As they neared their destination, Young explained his plan. His friends flatly refused to be a part of it, angering Young and causing him to chain the two men to the inside of the van. Young, Doris and Princess entered the school to begin a two and a half hour reign of terror for the trusting children and adults in Cokeville Elementary. Shortly after lunch, David Young and Doris entered the school with a makeshift gas bomb housed inside a cart. With a ‘Dead-Man’s Switch’ around his wrist (hooked to a string that ran to a clothespin), Young was prepared to detonate the bomb at any moment. The three also 32 brought in an arsenal of handguns, rifles, chains and ammo, as well as a supply of Young’s philosophical pamphlet, Zero Equals Infinity. Shortly after arriving on the scene, Princess refused to participate, and Young allowed her to leave. She fled to nearby city officials and reported what was beginning to unfold inside the school. Taking the school secretary as the first hostage, Young instructed Doris to gather everyone into a classroom, which she accomplished by telling the teachers and children varying stories of an assembly or an emergency. Over 150 people (including one job applicant and a UPS employee) were crowded into the space with Young (attached to his bomb), Doris and their arsenal of weapons. From Young’s materials and statements gathered from hostages, the stories explain that Young demanded a ransom of several million dollars, intending to detonate the b