Carol Howe

Howe was adopted at birth by a wealthy family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After graduating from Tulsa Metro Christian Academy as an honor student, she lived in several places in the early 1990s, either taking college classes or working a variety of "non-career" type jobs. Howe says she became involved with white supremacists in 1994 after allegedly being injured by a group of African-American men. According to Howe's lawyer, she then called Dial-A-Racist, a local hotline operated by Mahon. Her ex-husband disputed this account, saying she hurt herself jumping off part of the set for a Passion Play in Chandler Park. During her time as a white separatist, she obtained a swastika tattoo on her shoulder and an iron cross on her leg. ==Time at Elohim City==

In 1994, Mahon began taking 24-year-old Howe to the white-separatist enclave in Elohim City, Oklahoma. According to Robert Millar, the founder and spiritual leader of Elohim City, Howe stayed there approximately six weeks before the Oklahoma City bombing. Her relationship with Dennis Mahon had ended after he had apparently raped her, prompting Howe to flee to her grandfather's ranch in Texas. Carol Howe was then employed by the Bureau as a confidential informant. She was sent to Elohim City for the purpose of gathering intel related to their investigation. Before the Oklahoma City Bombing From August 1994 through March 1995, Howe served as an ATF informant going by the code number CI-183. She was paid $120 a week to monitor the Elohim City compound and wrote monthly reports to her ATF handler, Agent Angela "Angie" Finley-Graham. Howe says she informed her agency handlers, prior to April 19, 1995, that various Elohim City residents were planning an attack on Federal Buildings, which included the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Agency officials claim that Howe was deactivated because of mental instability. Finely-Graham states that Howe was reinstated in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, but did no informant work after June 1995. Post-OKC Bombing After the Oklahoma City bombing had occurred, Carol Howe was instructed by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms to return to Elohim City compound in order to obtain information regarding any possible connection between the residents of the community and the bombing. Starting on May 1, 1995, she stayed on the compound for a total of three days before returning to her ATF handler to report her findings. On May 18, 1995, Howe was apparently banned from entering Elohim City by Robert Millar due to speculation that she had been a government informant. ==Testimony==

Howe was present at the Terry Nichols trial, where she testified that she saw Timothy McVeigh in Elohim City in July 1994 with Andreas Carl Strassmeir and Peter Ward. She also identified John Does #1 and #2 as brothers Pete and Tony Ward, both residents of the compound. She said that in the days following the bombing, ATF agents showed her a videotape of McVeigh, and she told the agents she had seen McVeigh at a Ku Klux Klan rally. Judge Richard P. Matsch refused to allow Howe's testimony in Timothy McVeigh's trial in the Oklahoma City bombing case. ==National Socialist Alliance of Oklahoma==

Sometime after the bombing, Howe (using the name "Freya"), along with her then-fiancé, James Dodson Viefhaus Jr., formed a white supremacy organization in Tulsa, known as the National Socialist Alliance of Oklahoma, of which they were the only members. The group advocated the destruction of blacks, Jews, homosexuals and federal law enforcement agents. The alliance operated an Aryan Intelligence Network hotline on which Viefhaus had recorded a message sometime in December 1996 where he made a bomb threat. On December 13, 1996, a search warrant was executed at the house the two shared. During a raid by federal agents, various items were found, which, according to FBI bomb expert Robert Heckman, could have been assembled into a pipe bomb with lethal potential. In addition to bomb ingredients, federal agents found several guns, books on how to construct weapons, and lists of alleged targets. Also found in the house was a picture of the couple, holding weapons and wearing swastikas on their clothing. She also testified that the capped pipe, black powder and length of fuse recovered from the home she shared with Viefhaus had been gathered during her work as an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Viefhaus was convicted of transmitting a bomb threat by a telephone answering machine and conspiracy to transmit the threat and was sentenced to 38 months in prison for conspiracy, making a bomb threat and possessing the components of a destructive device. Howe was found not guilty in a separate trial. ==Later==

Howe has since changed her name and is the subject of a Columbia Pictures movie project. Carol Howe was portrayed by Australian actress Abbey Lee in the 2023 crime drama series Waco: The Aftermath. Howe was killed in a house fire in Sparta, Tennessee on January 6, 2025. Her death was confirmed by journalist Jon Ronson in his email newsletter in April 2025, also revealing that she was living under the name Sarah Collins. == References ==