hostages
Friday, May 16, 1986, found the Cokeville, Wyoming law enforcement officers all out of town. It wasn’t normal for every officer to be out of town, but Cokeville was a small town of just 535 people, and normally a quiet place, where nothing ever happened. It was a peaceful place where everyone knew each other. It was a great place to raise a family. Everyone went to church together, worked together, and played together…on a normal day, but this day was not going to be a normal day. This was a miraculous day.
That day, around 1:00pm, David Young, a disgruntled and mentally unstable former Cokeville marshal; his wife, Doris; and his youngest daughter, Princess, known as Penny; entered the town’s only elementary school with an arsenal of weapons and a gasoline bomb in a grocery cart. David Young had initially planned to involve longtime friends Gerald Deppe and Doyle Mendenhall. They had invested money with him in a get-rich-quick scheme that he had called “The Biggie.” This, however, was too much for the men, who eventually refused to participate in the event. Both men were handcuffed in a van outside the school.
No one saw this coming. Why would they? Nothing like that had ever happened in Cokeville before. There was still an air of innocence in the town…until that day. The trio entered the school, and Doug Young began threatening the people. It was at this point that Penny also refused to participate and after her dad said she was “no daughter of his” she left to tell the police. Unfortunately, other than the office personnel at the police station, there was no one who could really help, but help was on the way, nevertheless.
As the events unfolded, the Youngs took the school hostage. They had a bomb, and it was leaking gas. The children were getting sick, and teachers felt led to open the windows. Children later said that they saw people dressed in white told them to go near the windows. One teacher felt led to make a box with tape on the floor so that the bomber was in there by himself. No one was allowed in but Doug, the bomber and his wife, Doris. When the bomber went to the restroom, he put the string that would set off the bomb on his wife’s wrist. She forgot not to move her arm up, and she accidently set off the bomb. She was killed. A bomb expert who examined the bomb said that there had been gunpowder under the bomb, and had it not become wet with gasoline, it would have been as if the air was on fire. He also said that several of the wires were cut, and there was no explanation as to how that had happened, but it meant that the bomb didn’t have its full force. The students said they saw beings of light all around the bomb when it went off. Doug came out of the restroom and saw that he had failed. He went back in and fatally shot himself, after shooting one teacher in the back, somehow missing his spine by about an inch. Other 
than that teacher, no one was injured. The bomb did go off, but most of its power was miraculously thwarted. Afterwards, everyone who was there, told the same stories of people dressed in white, and beings of light. No one wavered about what they saw. No one changed their minds. You can believe what you want, but as for me…I believe God sent His angels and gave them charge over the teachers and children at Cokeville Elementary School that day. And the angels bore them up and kept them safe. Glory be to God!!
When my husband, Bob Schulenberg and I went to San Francisco for the first time, we wanted to make sure we saw all the sights of the area. I was especially interested in Alcatraz Prison, partly because of it’s unique location, but also because of its history. While visiting the prison, we had the opportunity to visit with an author, who had actually been an inmate at the prison. Jim Quillen recounted the years he spent at the prison, the corruption, abuse, and the Battle of Alcatraz, which took place from May 2, 1946 to May 4, 1946. The battle began with an unsuccessful escape attempt, and ended with the deaths of two guard, William A. Miller and Harold Stites, as well as three of the inmates. Eleven guards and one inmate were injured, and two convicts were later executed for their actions.
While most of the inmates and guards were in outside workshops, inmate Bernard Coy, a bank robber serving a 25 year sentence at Alcatraz, was in the main cellhouse sweeping the floor around C Block. Kitchen orderly Marvin Hubbard called on guard William Miller to let him in. He had just finished cleaning the kitchen. As Miller was frisking Hubbard for any stolen articles, Coy attacked him from behind and the two men overpowered the officer. They then released Joseph Cretzer and Clarence Carnes from their cells. They went to the gun gallery and obtained a rifle. As they attempted to make it down to the dock, hoping to catch the incoming boat, they quickly realized that was not going to work. Then, they decided to go back to prison and take some hostages.
At 10:00pm, unarmed guards went into the cellhouse. They were covered by armed guards in the two gun galleries overhead. They found the hostages, but one guard was wounded by a gunshot fired from the roof of one of the cell blocks. Then they locked the open door to D Block, and when the last officer reached safety, the 
guards opened fire with a massive barrage from machine guns, mortars, and grenades on the prisoners within D Block. The prison authorities thought one of the armed convicts was holed up there, but they were wrong. They eventually figured out that the rebellious prisoners were confined to the main cellhouse and ceased their attack until further tactics were worked out. Jim Quillen told us that the men tried hiding behind their mattresses, or anything else they could think of, but it was really no protection at all. The battle lasted until May 6th. Alcatraz was the home to many of the most notorious prisoners, and many said it was filled with corruption and abuse from the guards. After a checkered past, it became a tourist attraction, and continues as such today.
