01/19/2000
By Nolan Clay
Staff Writer
Actress Meg Ryan denied Tuesday she is making a movie about former undercover informant Carol Howe and the Oklahoma City bombing.
Victims were upset because of broadcast reports Ryan's Prufrock Pictures paid the Tulsa woman $500,000 for her life story.
But Ryan, star of "You've Got Mail" and "City of Angels," said her production company only considered buying Howe's story and "ultimately decided not to pursue the matter in any way."
Still unclear is whether another Hollywood company bought Howe's story instead. Her attorney, Clark Brewster of Tulsa, said Monday a production company is "very serious" about making a movie on Howe and paid her a large sum of money.
Howe, 28, insists she warned the federal government she'd overheard discussions about the bombing while undercover at Elohim City, a white separatist community in eastern Oklahoma. She said she went along on one of three scouting trips to Oklahoma City.
Howe's claims have kept alive theories that bomber Timothy McVeigh and co- conspirator Terry Nichols had help. Federal prosecutors confirm Howe was a paid informant but they said she never made any such warning and was mentally unstable.
The April 19, 1995, attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building left 168 dead.
Howe, who had a swastika tattooed on her arm, and a boyfriend were later accused of making a bomb threat on a racist hot line. She said she was still working as an informant. At her 1997 trial, she was found not guilty.
Her boyfriend, James Viefhaus Jr., was convicted at a separate trial.
Judy Kuhlman, Diana Baldwin
11/07/1997
NOTE: Staff writer Ed Godfrey contributed to
this report.
An ex-Ku Klux Klan member turned preacher said Thursday he felt obligated to respond to what he calls lies told by a former federal informant to the media and maybe the Oklahoma County grand jury.
Johnny Lee Clary said he believes Carol Howe, a former federal informant, lied about his involvement in a white separatist movement. He would not say what he believes Howe said.
But Howe's attorney, Clark Brewster, said he believes Clary is seeking fame and recognition for himself and not the truth.
"He's a disaffected person who wants to call attention to himself. He tried to attach himself to Carol Howe in the beginning, and when that didn't work, he starts saying she lied," Brewster said. "He's a person looking for a pen and pad and a camera."
Clary, 38, of Tulsa was the first witness to testify Thursday before the grand jury investigating the Oklahoma City bombing, and spent more than 3 1/2 hours with the jury.
Oklahoma City police Sgt. Mike McPherson was the second witness Thursday.
McPherson declined comment .
When the bombing occurred, McPherson was a detective with the auto theft division and an Oklahoma City bomb squad member.
After the bombing, he was given credit for retrieving the vehicle identification number from the rear axle of the bomb truck, the first clue linking the truck to convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Terry Nichols, 42, is on trial in Denver, accused of helping McVeigh build the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and caused 168 deaths. McVeigh, 29, was sentenced in June to die.
Howe testified earlier this week before the grand jury that was impaneled June 30. State Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City, and the late Glenn Wilburn, who lost two grandchildren in the bombing, spearheaded a petition drive to convene the jury.
Clary said he believes Howe is using her former status as a federal informant and her allegations of prior knowledge of the bombing to gain fame.
"I believe that there's an agenda here that she has. The things she has told the people are not the truth. Carol's going to milk this thing for everything she can," Clary said.
But Brewster said everything Howe has said has been truthful and consistent and her claims are documented.
When McPherson arrived to testify Thursday, he entered the jail through the employees' entrance, not the front door.
Key said Thursday he was angry because he believes law enforcement officers appearing before the grand jury are getting special treatment by not coming through the front door like the other witnesses.
McPherson was the second law enforcement officer in as many days not to be escorted through the front door security like at least 45 other witnesses since the grand jury convened.
"This is inappropriate and a double standard," Key said. "There are witnesses who have requested to come in the back to avoid the media. They were told everyone had to come through the front."
Patrick Morgan, first assistant district attorney in Oklahoma County, declined to respond to Key's allegations but said "nobody has been snuck in the back door."
Morgan said a city police officer and an Oklahoma County deputy sheriff who testified this week both came in the front door, but were not recognized by media.
Witnesses are ordered to appear at the county district attorney's witness center in the county office building at 320 Robert S. Kerr Ave.
From there, they are driven to the jail at 201 N Shartel by an investigator for the district attorney's office.
Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel said he had asked that all witnesses be brought through the front door for security reasons because metal detectors are in that area. But he said he does not have a problem with law enforcement officers using other entrances.
Staff writer Ed Godfrey contributed to this report
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Publishing Co. and its subsidiary, Connect Oklahoma Inc.
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Diana Baldwin
03/14/1998
Stories told by former federal informant Carol Howe were called "damnable lies" Friday by a Tulsa attorney representing Howe's supervisor when she worked undercover for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Attorney Richard O'Carroll said Howe's claims she warned the federal government about talk of blowing up federal buildings prior to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building explosion "is a figment of her imagination and just an opportunity for her to stay in the limelight."
O'Carroll, the personal attorney of ATF Agent Angela Graham, Howe's former supervisor, made the statements Friday after his client spent more than three hours testifying before the Oklahoma County grand jury investigating possible larger conspiracies in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Graham was hidden from reporters when she arrived and left the Oklahoma County jail where the grand jury has been meeting since June 30.
Howe, a former Tulsa debutante, worked as an ATF undercover informant from August 1994 through March 1995. She was deactivated because of mental instability, agency officials have said.
"It is documented that she had a psychotic break," O'Carroll said. "She fantasizes and she is a very troubled woman. It is unfortunate she has been given the forum to parade her psychosis."
When Howe went to work for the ATF, she was targeting Dennis Mahon, the Oklahoma White Aryan Resistance leader. Her work took her to Elohim City, a white separatist community in eastern Oklahoma.
The day after the April 19, 1995, Murrah Building bombing, Howe contacted Graham, saying she could identify the men pictured in the government's John Doe sketches of the suspected bombers.
In her FBI statement taken the next day, she identified the men as brothers, Pete and Tony Ward, men she had seen at Elohim City.
Howe also said Andreas Strassmeir, a German national who once stayed at Elohim City, and Mahon, who associated with people living there, made trips to Oklahoma City in November 1994, December 1994 and February 1995. She said she joined them on the December trip.
After her statement, Howe was signed up again as an informant to obtain additional information from Elohim City.
However, Howe said in a Feb 28, 1995, ATF report and in testimony at her July 1997 trial that she went to Oklahoma City with the Rev. Robert Millar, the leader of Elohim City, and others from the community. She did not mention a trip with Strassmeir or Mahon.
Graham has said she and Howe went to Oklahoma City on Feb. 8, 1995, to retrace Howe's trip. The Murrah Building was not one of three places Howe took Graham.
The government has said agents could not act on Howe's information because it was not specific enough.
Under oath at her trial, Howe admitted she was not specific and never wrote down information about the warnings.
Millar, Strassmeir and Mahon have denied any involvement in the bombing.
Convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh did make a phone call to Elohim City asking for Strassmeir two weeks before the bombing, records show.
Strassmeir, who has left the United States, has said he suspects McVeigh asked for him because they once met at a Tulsa gun show.
Howe's claims quickly became popular on radio talk shows and in conspiracy-oriented publications.
Howe was subpoenaed to testify in McVeigh's trial.
U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled her testimony was irrelevant and refused to let her testify.
McVeigh, 29, was sentenced in June to die.
Howe did testify in the trial of co-conspirator Terry Nichols.
Nichols, 42, was convicted of helping build the bomb. He is awaiting sentencing.
The grand jury has recessed until March 23.
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Publishing Co. and its subsidiary, Connect Oklahoma Inc.
Article may be downloaded for personal use or research but not for distribution.
Media Missing Boat on Carol Howe
The Rev. Johnny Lee Clary seems to be more astute than the media in assessing Carol Howe. She was let go as a government informant due to questions about her mental stability, as reported in your paper. Your reporters, however, repeatedly play up her being a former debutante with high intelligence from a prominent family instead of spiriting out the background information on this suspect individual. The media are missing the boat.
Tulsa World 11/10/97
Witness
Won't Return Without an Attorney
By Barbara Hoberock World Capitol Bureau
11/7/97
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Clad in a full-length black leather coat, the Rev. Johnny Lee Clary emerged somewhat shaken Thursday after testifying before the Oklahoma County grand jury probing the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
After his second day on the stand, he said he would not come back without his attorney.
"I saw the seriousness of this today," he said, adding that bringing a lawyer would be for precaution.
The former white supremacist-turned preacher said he spent from about 9 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. testifying about Carol Howe, whom he tried to befriend during her trial and subsequent acquittal on conspiracy charges.
Howe is a former federal informant who says she heard conversations about blowing up federal buildings while visiting a white separatist compound known as Elohim City. She first testified Oct. 8 and returned on Tuesday.
Clary once strongly supported Howe, a former Tulsa debutante, but now says she has lied to him about certain events and is trying to capitalize on the bombing.
Howe's attorney, Clark Brewster of Tulsa, who accompanied Howe to the grand jury on Tuesday, said he doesn't know the basis for Clary's remarks.
Brewster called Clary a "bizarre individual," adding that Howe is a "bright, consistent, articulate, young woman." Brewster said Clary has no way of knowing what Howe's testimony consisted of.
"I want to ask people to pray for Carol Howe," Clary said after his testimony. "There is another agenda she had. I think Carol is going to milk this thing for everything."
Clary, of Tulsa, first testified on Oct. 7. Clary said his testimony then focused on background on the white supremacist movement, but it dealt mostly with Howe on Thursday.
He originally said he believed white separatist Dennis Mahon was involved, a belief which has changed as well.
Now Clary said he would like to see Mahon go to jail for something he did do, not something he did not do.
Howe has said she heard Mahon and German national Andreas Strassmeir talk about blowing up federal buildings. Mahon has said the allegation was untrue and has not been charged in connection with the bombing of the Murrah Building, which left 168 dead.
Clary was also upset with the amount of attention the media has given to Howe.
Clary was one of two witnesses called Thursday. A second witness, described as involved in law enforcement, was taken through a rear door to avoid the media.
Pat Morgan, first assistant district attorney for Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy, declined to reveal the witness.
When asked why the witness was taken through the rear door, Morgan said the witness was a member of law enforcement and security concerns were not the same as with non- law enforcement witnesses.
But Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City, charged that prosecutors are giving some witnesses -- those currently or formerly employed by the government -- special treatment. Others have asked to be taken through the rear door and the request was denied, Key said.
The Oklahoma County grand jury was convened in June at the behest of Key and the late Glenn Wilburn, who lost two grandsons in the April 19, 1995, explosion.
Timothy McVeigh was convicted in June and sentenced to die. Terry Nichols is on trial in Denver on murder and bombing charges.
The Oklahoma County grand jury is trying to determine if only one bomb was involved, if the government had prior knowledge and if more than those accused were involved.
Howe
Seeks Name Change
By Barbara Byrne World Staff Writer
11/27/97
The Tulsa woman hopes for more privacy and security after her highly
publicized trial.
Carol Howe's name has become one of the most recognized in Tulsa in the past year. Now she wants to change it.
Howe, whose legal name is Christiane Nicole Wolf, got the ball rolling in Tulsa District Court on Wednesday to have her name changed to Amanda Bryn Collins. A hearing will be scheduled on her request.
Howe, once a white separatist, was thrust into the spotlight after serving as an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. She says she alerted authorities to a possible bombing scheme before the Oklahoma City bombing.
U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch refused to hear her testimony during Timothy McVeigh's trial earlier this year.
This summer, Howe was tried and acquitted in Tulsa federal court on bomb threat and conspiracy charges. The charges stem from an answering machine message emanating from the residence she shared with James Dodson Viefhaus Jr. The message warned of potential bombings in several American cities.
Viefhaus was found guilty by a federal jury in July of participating in a conspiracy and willfully making a bombing threat. He was sentenced to 38 months in prison.
Howe said she is not certain whether she will go through with the name change.
"It was just something I had thought of for privacy," Howe said Wednesday night.
She said that a name change might be a boost to her security.
She said she had received "lots of threats from right wing and militia types, especially people I reported on while I was working for the ATF."
Howe, who lives with her parents in Tulsa, said her actual legal name was another security precaution, but did not elaborate.
Howe's metamorphosis from a Tulsa debutante in 1989 to a white supremacist in Elohim City and then to an ATF informant fueled public interest in her information and life.
Her notoriety led to multiple requests by the national press for interviews, and she received book and movie offers.
After Howe, 26, was acquitted, she testified before an Oklahoma City grand jury that was investigating the possibility of a larger conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing. As a federal informant, Howe worked undercover among white separatists in the months before the bombing.
Howe has said in previous interviews with the Tulsa World that her days as a racist are over, and singled out her vulnerability as her reason for joining the racist individuals she later informed on.
She also said in an earlier interview that she has learned from her mistakes.
"You have to try to come out of bad experiences and learn from them," she said in October. "I've made mistakes, but that doesn't make me a bad person."
E-MAIL FROM ONE OF CAROL'S FELLOW HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH CAROL, AND HAD A FRIEND WHO WAS IN A SUPPORT GROUP WITH HER MOTHER, AUBYN, IN WHICH AUBYN TOLD ABOUT ALL KINDS OF HELL AND HIGH WATER THEY WERE GOING THROUGH WITH THEIR DAUGHTER. AT THIS TIME, AUBYN WAS THINKING THAT THE PROBLEMS WERE STEMMING FROM THE FACT THAT HER DAUGHTER WAS ADOPTED. THE KICKER IS THAT THIS GROUP WAS BASED ON ANONYMITY, AND SO NO ONE KNEW AT THAT TIME WHO THE AUBYN WAS, OR WHAT THE NAME WAS OF HER OUT OF CONTROL DAUGHTER. BUT ME AND MY FRIEND KNEW BECAUSE SHE AND I WOULD COMPARE NOTES ABOUT WHAT I EXPERIENCED WITH CAROL AT SCHOOL AND WHAT SHE WAS HEARING FROM AUBYN'S OWN LIPS. IT WAS JUST SURREAL TO SEE THE THINGS THAT WENT ON WITH CAROL AT METRO CHRISTIAN, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU KNEW THAT SHE WAS BRINGING SUCH EMBARRASSMENT TO HER PARENTS. YOU COULD TELL THAT SHE REALLY ENJOYED THAT. INTERESTING STORY YOU HAVE PUT TOGETHER HERE. I want to stress again, that what was the REAL standout aspect to knowing Carol in high school is that she was conducting her affairs as if she had the world by the tail and at that very same time, her Mom, Aubyn, is pouring her guts out about the chaos, turmoil, and fear that Carol was putting the family through! It was just surreal to see Carol act the way she did, and then to hear Aubyn say that things she said in the support group for family members of addicts and abusers. MORE TO COME..........