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IPFS News Link • Events: America

How an Oklahoma bombing victim's dad made friends with Timothy McVeigh's father

• The Guardian

On the morning of 19 April 1995, at 9.02am, Bud Welch was getting ready for his shift at the Texaco garage when his entire home shook. To the south, windows as far away as 25 miles cracked.

His brother phoned. He was in his car listening to the radio and could see plumes of smoke in downtown Oklahoma City, eight miles away. The local news suspected there had been an explosion at the courthouse. Welch turned on the TV as a traffic helicopter zoomed in to a familiar-looking building. "Frank, my God, it's not the courthouse. It's the Murrah building." His only daughter, Julie, worked there.

"You could see that on the north side of the building there was nothing there. It was just gone. I pretty much gave up all hope then," he recalls, sipping on his water in a London hotel lobby, almost 20 years on.

"She was killed on the Wednesday morning. Her body was found on the Saturday. I knew. If she'd been alive the first thing she would have done was call her dad," he says with a quiet smile. A further 167 people died alongside Julie Welch and hundreds more were injured.


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