Kriti Mehrotra
It was April 19, 1995, when the entire state of Oklahoma essentially came to a standstill as the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed early in the morning. As explored in Netflix’s ‘Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror,’ this was and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism, taking a total of 168 lives in the blink of an eye. Amongst them was 6-month-old Antonio Ansara Cooper Jr., who had been dropped off at the building’s daycare just a short while prior by his caring, loving mother, Renee Cooper Moore.
Renee Moore Was at Work When Her World Turned Upside Down
It was in late 1994 that Antonio Ansara Cooper Jr. was born to Renee Cooper and Antonio Cooper Sr. in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he was raised with nothing but love. However, to make ends meet, both his parents soon returned to work, only for them to decide to place him in the daycare of the Murrah building since it was a block away from his mother’s workplace. At the time, Renee was a bailiff at the county court, so she often took out the time to visit her son and play with him in between cases or on her breaks – it was routine for her.
Unfortunately, though, on the fateful April 19 morning, Renee was so busy that she couldn’t spend as much time with her baby boy as she wanted, unaware she would later come to regret it. That’s because, at 9:02 am, a 480-pound ammonium nitrate–fuel oil bomb exploded right in front of the Murrah building, taking a third of it out within seconds. The blast was so massive that she felt it in court, too – the ceiling tiles were raining down, and all the glasses were shattered. While she was getting herself to safety, the worried mother could only think of her 6-month-old son.
Renee was evacuated from the courthouse, only to be met with chaos outside before overhearing a policeman tell someone where the explosion happened, driving her to take off towards the scene. She was screaming, “No! No! No!” and then became even more frustrated when officials at the scene refused to let her through, only to later tell her all the kids were being transported to a local hospital. But alas, because of the chaos and the fact that the daycare was on the first floor, with the others collapsing on top of it, there was no information on the kids for days. A local church became the information point, and all Renee and Antonio could hope for was their son to be alive in the rubble.
Renee Moore Wasn’t Satisfied With the Verdict the Oklahoma Bomber Received
According to records, it took a few days for officials to sift through the debris and even reach the point of the daycare center, by which point all Renee could hope for was that they would find her son. She knew in her heart he wouldn’t be found alive, but she still wanted him to be found in one way or another so that she could at least give him the respect he deserved with a burial. Thankfully, the officials did find the young boy, but the grief, the loss, and the pain were still so unimaginable that Renee ended up spiraling in a way no one could have ever imagined.
In Renee’s own accounts, with the arrest of Timothy McVeigh for the bombing within a couple of days, her routine in the evening was to drive down to the jail where he was held, awaiting trial. Every single evening, she used to drive down there alone and sit outside with her car parked in the dark, thinking of ways she could get inside and just hurt him. She wanted him to experience just a sliver of the pain that she felt, but once she realized how unremorseful he still was, her opinion changed a little. Therefore, when he was found guilty of the bombing and sentenced to death, she wasn’t happy with the decision – she wanted him to live with what he did, just like she and many like her were. Yet, on June 11, 2001, 33-year-old Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection.
Renee Moore is Now Focusing on the Family She Has
Unfortunately, Renee and her husband, Antonio, separated shortly following the incident as they couldn’t come together in the aftermath of losing their child. She subsequently spent time working on herself and dedicating her life to the son she lost by keeping his memories alive. Eventually, she fell in love again and remarried. She realized that time heals all wounds when her second son was born around seven years later, on the same exact day as Antonio Jr., and he became the apple of her eye. Renee was admittedly a protective helicopter mom for a few years owing to what had happened in the past, but as her son, Carlos Moore, grew up, she did too and learned to set healthy boundaries.
It is because of this that Renee and Carlos still have a beautiful relationship. In fact, the latter is now 22 years old, but the two of them still have dinner together every Monday and call it “Date Night.” That’s when they talk about anything and everything from reminiscing about the past to sharing updates in their lives to getting advice on various personal and professional matters. Therefore, today, Renee’s priority is her remaining family, her son, her partner, and the life she has built with them, all the while keeping the memories of Antonio Jr. alive. As for her professional standing, from what we can tell, this Oklahoma City resident currently serves as a Procurement Officer at the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services.
Read More: Terry Nichols: Where is the Oklahoma City Bomber Now?
