Julie Welch will never see her future

April 27, 1995

From CNN Correspondent Judy Woodruff

(CNN) -- This is not a story about a baby. This is picture of a little girl who became a young woman, and whose life was abruptly cut short at the age of 23, just as she was about to begin to realize her potential.

Julie Welch was a daughter of Oklahoma City and a young woman of the world. Born and raised here by two parents who divorced when she was very young, she stayed close to both of them, even while off at college. Julie developed a strong compassion for those less fortunate than she.

Her father, Bud Welch recalls, "She used to go to Little Flowers Church. It's in a poor neighborhood in Oklahoma City and there's little Hispanic kids there, some that can't speak much English, and a girl like Julie can talk to them and give them a ray of hope. We've lost that now."

Bud Welch talks proudly of his daughter. He talks of how, after her graduation from Milwaukee's Marquette University, with a degree in Spanish, and after frequent travel overseas, she came home to Oklahoma City to work as an interpreter for the Social Security Administration.

She had met a young lieutenant at Tinker Air Force Base, and they were expected to be engaged soon. On the morning of April 19th, Julie was in her first-floor office, having first stopped off for early mass at a Catholic Church. Her father was at his home. "I was in bed, was just getting ready to get up and the explosion shook the house terribly and we're approximately seven miles from it, and I turned the television on and within 10 or 15 minutes, I could see the cameras and the building, and I knew if she survived that it would be a miracle...."

It seemed an eternity before word finally came on Saturday that Julie's body had been found. As soon as the news spread, dozens of her suddenly past friends from Marquette, most now scattered across the country, made their way to Oklahoma City for her funeral.

Cathy Conley felt compelled to get there. "I just had to be there. I called Joe and Melissa right away. We have to say goodbye. We have to tell her family we really loved her."

Joe Hoover says, "Julie really had a vision of the way things should be... She'd pull me aside and say, 'That's not the way things should be. " She felt things so deeply."

Melissa Wittman recalls, while choking back tears, "She just felt everything ... she had a lot to give... (chokes)..."

As if the grief weren't enough, Julie's friends and family are shocked and angry at reports that the bombing might be retaliation for the federal government's attack in Waco.

Conley says, "I'm horrified.... we have courts.. peaceful means to address issues... If they don't respect our government and our Constitution, then they should be treated as real threat."

Listen to those who Julie Welch left behind and you can hear their fury, frustration, and disbelief lend poignance to the most simple statements. "Two wrongs don't make a right and these people can't be the self-appointed executioners. We can't do that. That's not the way our system works," Julie's father says.

And even to the most simple questions... "To avenge Waco they had to kill Julie Welch? Is that right?"

Meanwhile at the church called Little Flowers, where she did so much so that people with so little could flourish, parishioners have marked a spot that will always be hers.

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Julie Welch will never see her future

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