Casper, WY -- An independent movie released in June 2015 tells the story of one Wyoming town's darkest day. On May 16th, 1986, a disturbed man and his wife entered Cokeville Elementary School with a homemade bomb. David Young and his wife Doris took 136 children and 18 adults hostage. With ramblings of a brave new world. But what happened as all those children huddled in a classroom and the bomb went off, witnesses say, was nothing short of a miracle.
[the people in the school] constituted probably a fourth of the town maybe or a fifth of it," explained Ron Hartley, a Lincoln County Sheriffs Investigator at the time. The film centers on his family in the aftermath of the ordeal: four of their children were in that school.
My heart just stopped, I got out of the car and ran through the crowd, there were children coming out with tear-streaked faces, Hartley said.
Hartley was in charge of looking into Youngs background and sorting through all the physical evidence to bring a case. While many were rejoicing that it wasn't worse, he was delving more into Young's twisted mind. "He totally intended on just killing these kids and taking them into the next world with him and his wife, and being their supreme leader," Hartley said.
But it was a child who helped him better understand just how incredible it was that every hostage came out alive. "Our six-year-old son kind of tied up some loose ends and it was just amazing. We kept saying oh man it should've or it should've done this," Hartley said.
Every single hostage escaped with their life that day, although nearly eighty were hospitalized for burns from the explosion. But the bomb didn't go off as it should have, and that, combined with other stories that surfaced, is why the film is called the Cokeville Miracle.
Rons wife, Claudia Hartley, describes running to the scene and looking for her children. "The words that kept coming to my mind again and again and i actually kept saying thank you lord, thank you," she said.
Details of what should have happened were painful to comb through. "The more I got into it, the more devastating it was to me and to Claudia," Ron explained.
But the stories the children were telling were stories of courage, and some of them talked about something -- or someone -- that exceeded the physical evidence.
[our six-year-old son] said that his grandmother had come to him just before the bomb went off, and had told him to move very quietly to the window because the bomb was going to go off," Claudia recalls.
Sandra Wharton, who now lives in Casper, had three siblings in the school at the time. As a little girl she remembers the panic in everyones faces. Looking back, shes grateful her brother and sisters are here to tell their stories. "My brother Jay... a teacher saved his life basically. He was burning on his back and Cliff Sparks ran and patted him down. I know he's expressed such gratitude for her," Wharton said.
For many, the school has become a sort of sacred ground. One where they remember the Cokeville Miracle. Absolutely, there's no doubt about it," Ron said.
"They actually opened up the classroom after it had happened and let the townspeople or whoever wanted to walk through there, and I remember the reverence I felt, even as a five year old," Wharton said. The film brings back memories of the Wyoming town's darkest day, but many say it's also been a healing process.
"Do I think it's a miracle? I know it's a miracle. I absolutely know The movie has helped me address those fears and has helped me remember the miracle instead of the terror," Claudia said.
The Hartleys wanted to point out the film takes some liberties with personal details. For example, it only portrays them as having two children, and in real life Ron Hartley didn't reach the scene of the bombing or even know about it until after the bomb had gone off, as he was driving back into town. "The Cokeville Miracle" is now playing at Studio City East in Casper, and at a few other theatres in Wyoming including Cheyenne, Gillette and Riverton.
Newsfile courtesy of KSL, film clips courtesy Excel Entertainment.
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