The Cokeville Bombing: A Community Shaken
On 16th May 1986, the small rural town of Cokeville, Wyoming, experienced an event that would forever haunt its residents. On that quiet Friday afternoon, David and Doris Young entered the local elementary school armed with a homemade bomb and an arsenal of firearms, taking over 150 people hostage and eventually detonating the bomb inside a crowded first-grade classroom. What transpired that day remains one of the most harrowing incidents of violence in a school setting, made all the more horrifying by the scale of what could have been.
At the time, Cokeville was home to approximately 500 people, nestled between the towns of Star Valley and Kemmerer on the Wyoming-Idaho border. It was a peaceful and trusting community, a place where people knew each other and prided themselves on their shared values and safety. The idea of a tragedy such as this unfolding in their quiet town seemed unimaginable. “Trust is big here… youngsters grow up knowing they can turn to many other members of the community with confidence,” wrote Hartt and Judene Wixom in Trial by Terror: The Child-hostage Crisis in Cokeville, Wyoming. Their first chapter, titled “A Town of Trust,” encapsulated the very essence of this close-knit town.
However, the trust of this peaceful community was shattered on that fateful day when David Young, a former Cokeville town marshal, and his wife Doris returned to execute a plot that David had been planning for years. In 1979, David had been hired as the only police officer in Cokeville, but he was fired after a six-month probationary period due to misconduct. Following his dismissal, David and Doris relocated to Tucson, Arizona, where David became increasingly reclusive and began immersing himself in his personal philosophical writings.
David Young was not simply a disgruntled former employee seeking revenge. His writings and journals reveal a man deeply troubled by existential questions, fixating on grand ideas of society, the afterlife, and human existence. During his time in Tucson, he conceived what he called “the Biggie,” a twisted plan to create a utopian society which he referred to as his “Brave New World.” In this new society, he would rule over intelligent children, who he believed would be taken to this world through the catastrophic explosion he intended to cause at the Cokeville Elementary School. David became increasingly fixated on Cokeville’s schoolchildren, whose high achievement scores made them ideal candidates for his new society.
His plan involved kidnapping the entire student body of the elementary school, holding them hostage for a ransom of $2 million per child, and then transporting them to his so-called Brave New World after the detonation of the bomb. Young believed the money and children would somehow be transported to his imagined utopia, where he would reign supreme.
David and Doris, however, were not acting alone in their plans. They had sought out the help of two longtime friends, Gerald Deppe and Doyle Mendenhall, who had invested money with David in the scheme. However, neither Deppe nor Mendenhall had a full understanding of what “the Biggie” truly entailed. Just before the hostage crisis unfolded, both men realised the extent of David’s plan and refused to participate. Fearing they might report him to the authorities, David handcuffed them inside his van and carried on with the operation alongside Doris and his youngest daughter from his first marriage, Princess. Princess, however, also abandoned her father’s plot shortly after entering the school, driving the van—with Deppe and Mendenhall still inside—to the town hall and reporting the incident to local authorities.
At approximately 1:00 pm, David and Doris Young entered the Cokeville Elementary School with their arsenal. David pushed a shopping cart rigged with a homemade gasoline bomb into the school, while Doris wielded rifles and handguns. Once inside, David went to the school office and handed out copies of his manifesto, Zero Equals Infinity, announcing, “This is a revolution!” Confused and alarmed, teachers and staff watched as Doris began to corral students and staff from their classrooms, luring them into a single first-grade classroom by telling them there was a surprise assembly or emergency.
Altogether, 154 people, including 136 children, six faculty members, nine teachers, and three adults, including a job applicant and a UPS driver, were squeezed into the small classroom, which had a capacity of only about 30 students. The room quickly filled with the noxious fumes of gasoline from the bomb, and many of the younger children began to cry and complain of headaches. Teachers, in an effort to maintain calm, opened the windows to alleviate the strong smell of gasoline—a seemingly small action that would later help save lives by providing vents for the impending explosion.
The improvised bomb David constructed was a terrifying device. It consisted of a gallon jug of gasoline housed in the top basket of a two-tiered shopping cart, wired with a blasting cap. Below the jug were two tuna cans filled with a mixture of aluminium powder and flour, intended to aerosolise and intensify the explosion. The cart also contained chain links, boxes of ammunition, and gunpowder, which were meant to serve as shrapnel. The bomb was powered by a 9-volt lantern battery and triggered by a dead man’s switch—a clothespin with a small wooden block separating two metal connectors. This piece of wood was tied to Doris Young’s wrist.
David grew increasingly anxious as time passed. At one point, the teachers convinced him to create an eight-foot square of masking tape in the centre of the room, marking his personal space and the area in which the bomb sat. The children were instructed to avoid this “magic square” as much as possible. Meanwhile, David demanded $2 million per child, totalling over $300 million, along with an audience with President Ronald Reagan. Throughout the ordeal, he grew more irritable, while the teachers tried to keep the children calm by singing songs, playing games, and watching videos.
One witness, second-grade teacher Carol Peterson, recalled, “We could tell that he was becoming very nervous. As I sat there and watched him, I could feel he was becoming agitated. He had just big rings of perspiration. I was frightened and felt that we needed to do something to try to calm down or to be careful because he was so agitated.”
After two and a half hours of tense standoff, David handed the bomb’s dead man’s switch to Doris, then retreated to a small bathroom adjoining the first-grade classroom. The fumes from the leaking gasoline were overwhelming, and Doris, suffering from a severe headache, instinctively raised her hand to her forehead. This small action triggered the switch, causing the bomb to explode.
The explosion filled the room with black smoke and fire. Doris was severely injured, and the blast sent shrapnel flying, but the force of the explosion was not as powerful as David had intended. The ceiling tiles above the classroom, coupled with the open windows, helped dissipate much of the blast, saving countless lives. Teachers immediately began pushing children through the windows and out of the doors in a frantic attempt to escape the flames.
In the chaos that followed, David emerged from the bathroom and saw his wife in agony. He shot and killed her before attempting to stop John Miller, a music teacher, from escaping. Miller was shot in the back but survived. David then returned to the bathroom and took his own life with a .45-calibre pistol.
Amazingly, despite the explosion and ensuing chaos, every single hostage survived. Many suffered from burns and smoke inhalation, with 79 children being taken to nearby hospitals in Idaho and Utah for treatment. No children were fatally injured. The two perpetrators, David and Doris Young, were the only fatalities of the day.
The aftermath of the Cokeville bombing brought intense national media attention, with reporters from around the country arriving within hours of the explosion. Survivors, teachers, and parents recounted their experiences, and the community of Cokeville began the long process of healing from the trauma of the event. In the days and weeks following the bombing, most accounts focused on the shock and horror of the day.
Although Cokeville’s residents survived, the town’s sense of safety was forever altered. The attack forced the town to reckon with an act of unthinkable violence, perpetrated by a former resident. Yet, amid the tragedy, the community’s resilience shone through. Teachers and staff who acted heroically under unimaginable pressure, along with the support of parents and local authorities, prevented a devastating catastrophe from becoming even worse.
The town of Cokeville will always remember 16th May 1986, a day that started as ordinary but ended with a community forever changed. The event remains a chilling reminder of how even the most unlikely places can become the scene of unimaginable violence—but it also stands as a testament to survival, courage, and the bonds of a close-knit community pulling together in the face of terror.
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