Yet, there is a mystery, terrible to comprehend, that rises from the fog of suspicion.
Summation of Generally Accepted Facts
At 09:02 a.m., 19 April 1995, a massive explosion ripped the north face off of the federal building in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The devastation was horrendous: 1/3 of the building simply collapsed; the bomb/bombs left a crater 30' x 8' deep. In the days following the explosion, the casulty count rose to 169 dead, including 19 children who attended an on site day care center which was located on the second floor of the federal building. The following federal agencies maintained office space in the Murrah headquarters: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF); the FBI; Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); Defense Investigative Service; US Army and US Marines recruiting offices; and the Social Security Administration.
Quickly, federal authorities stated that the explosive device was ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, the kind of homemade fertilizer bomb used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing conducted by Taliban operatives. Originally, the FBI believed the bomb weighed into the neighborhood of 2000 pounds, with the charge packed into an automobile; however, in accounting for the destructive force of the bomb, investigators upgraded those original estimates to an approximate 4800 pound explosive device and that delivered by truck. The fertilizer-fuel oil bomb was made up of commercial available products and was packed into 20 blue, plastic barrels. The FBI and ATF said the means of detonation was a hand-lit safety fuse. Eyewitnesses reported the presence of a yellow Ryder rental truck approaching the front entrance of the federal building, and stopping in a No Parking Zone. Those eyewitnesses described two males in blue jogging attire leaving the truck and getting into a car. This implies there may have been a third person driving that getaway car. A woman driving on Northwest 5th Street near the Murrah Federal Building stated that she almost ran down a man, later ID'd by the investigators as a bombing suspect, who was walking away from the federal building. Still another witness reported seeing two men speeding away from the crime scene in a yellow Mercury.
After combing through the debris, police reported the find of a truck axle which contained a vehicle identification number (VIN) that they traced to a Ryder truck rented from a location at Junction City, Kansas. This break was the first. Then, the second break developed near the small town of Perry, Oklahoma about 60 miles north of the Murrah bombing site. A police officer, Charles Hanger, pulled over a 1977, yellow, Mercury Marquis that had been speeding at more than 80 miles per hour. Officer Hanger observed that the Marquis had no license plates. Hanger left his patrol cruiser and walked up to the driver's side of the suspicious car. Nearly at once, Hanger noticed the bulge of a pistol under the driver's jacket. The driver was the sole occupant of this car. This driver was 26 year-old Timothy James McVeigh who informed the officer quite simply that he was packing a handgun. Officer Hanger pulled his service weapon, held it to McVeigh's head, and ordered the driver to turn over his firearm. McVeigh turned over a Glock pistol, loaded with .45 caliber, hollow-point (cop killer bullets) and a seathed hunting/survival knife. Then, Hanger arrested McVeigh. McVeigh, for his part in the traffic stop, cooperated fully with Officer Hanger.
McVeigh was booked into the Noble County, Oklahoma jail. He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, transporting a loaded firearm, and driving a vehicle without license plates. The former Army sergeant, honorably discharged, Gulf War veteran was now jailed for two days awaiting arraignment on the charges.
Friday, in the week of the Wednesday bombing, would find McVeigh charged with the Murrah Building bombing, the worse terrorist act, to that time, occurring in the United States. Links existed that place McVeigh in Oklahoma City at the time of the bombing. One link was his physical appearance which matched eyewitness descriptions of John Doe #1: a tall, white male, military type crew cut, early to mid-twenties. Next, McVeigh's former work associate called the FBI, giving information that tied McVeigh to the Murrah Building bombing. Allegedly, McVeigh planted a business card in the police cruiser (when detained by Officer Hanger). This business card advertised Paulsen's Military Supply in Wisconsin. On the card was written, "More 5 Lb. sticks of TNT by May 1." News sources stated that the FBI crime technicians had searched the glovebox of McVeigh's rental car a letter to a friend vowing vengence for the 1993 BATF/FBI raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
Furthermore, McVeigh had been carrying a phone debit card backed by The Spotlight, a conspiracy newsletter of an anti-Semitic Liberty outfit. At that time, the US Attorney's case against McVeigh relies mightily on the phone call record which links McVeigh to fertilizer suppliers and plastic barrel vendors that were allegedly used in producing the bomb that brought down the Murrah Federal Building.
That leads to the FBI sketches of John Doe #2, an alleged co-conspirator in the bombing. Sketch #2, depicts a dark-haired, dark-skinned man of probable Middle Eastern origin, partially concealing his features with a ball cap. Witnesses placed this man with McVeigh at the bombing site. Other witnesses placed the pair at the Ryder Truck outlet in Kansas. Early reports state that the second suspect arrested for the bombing, Terry Nichols, might have been this man. A problem arose. Nichols did not look like the sketch; however, McVeigh did know Nichols. They were Army buddies. McVeigh's statements to agents, deputies, and police implicated Nichol's and Nichol's brother, James. McVeigh had listed James Nichols as his next of kin on his arrest form.
Spin enters the picture at this point. A very hasty cover story went out: John Doe #2, whoever he had been, no longer existed. John Doe 2 was incinerated in the explosion. Terry Nichols promptly implicated McVeigh in the bombing. His statement to agents was that McVeigh called him from Oklahoma City the Sunday before the bombing. McVeigh wanted a ride. Nichols drove him from his home in Herrington, Kansas. McVeigh allegedly told Nichols during this drive, "Something big is going to happen." Nichols asked if McVeigh would rob a bank. McVeigh merely replied, "Something big is going to happen." He said no more during the drive.
The BATF actively pursued leads tying Nichols to McVeigh and the acquisition and production of bomb-making materials. BATF found blasting caps, 60 foot Primadet detonator cords, ammonium nitrate, nitrogen fertilizer, and 55 blue plastic gallon drums. The US Attorney's case tightened on learning that the Nichols had appeared at meetings of the Michigan Militia. The Michigan Militia was an Doomsday/Armageddon-ready corps of right-wing whack job patriots who convinced themselves that the United Nations was plotting to invade the United States. McVeigh had been seen in the company of Michigan Militia Leader Mark Koernke working as his bodyguard.
The case seemed airtight against McVeigh and Nichols. But some enigmas exist. Some confounding elements and unexplained events could have derailed the case against McVeigh and Nichols. One such enigma concerns persons with foreknowledge of the bombing. The Portland Oregonian, 20 April 1995, reported that Judge Wayne Alley, who chambers were across the street from the Murrah Building was told by federal government security some days prior to the bombing to take "special precautions" for his security. Judge Alley was a former US Army general and Judge Alley had the McVeigh and Nichols' dockets before venue was changed to Denver Federal District Court.
One instance does not rise to cabal levels. Yet, Judge Alley was not the only person to receive an early warning advice statement. Jim Keith wrote OKBOMB!. Keith's book is loaded with anomalies, warned individuals especially. Take the eyebrow raising case of David Hall, General Manager of KPOC-TV (Oklahoma) who claimed to hold videotaped interviews with eight federal employees who worked in the Murrah Building. These eight workers were told to expect a bombing on 19 April. Moreover, Hall reports that two days prior to the bombing, a secretary to a state senator received the same warning. Keith wrote that Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key said that he "knew of two witnesses who heard ATF employees say that they had been warned not to come to work on the day of the blast." Key urged US Congress and Oklahoma State to investigate the issue. This was not done.
This anomaly seems to have gone beyond scuttlebutt. Other residents of Oklahoma City claimed BATF warned its employees to stay away from the Murrah Building on 19 April. ATF maintains officially that five agents of the 15-man squad were in the Murrah Building at the time of the blast, all five agents were injured, other reports, one from an ATF agent and one other in The New York Times said that no agents were on site at 9:02 a.m.
Anomaly two concerns the exact number of blasts. The fact is the seismographs of the University of Oklahoma recorded not one, but two explosions after 9:00 a.m., 19 April 1995, within 10 seconds of one another. Omniplex Science Center, Oklahoma City, recorded this same dual explosion disturbance and the second event was stronger than the first one. The second movement of the seismograph needle had been dismissed as an echo of the first event. Enter Dr. Charles Mankin, Director of the University of Oklahoma Geological Survey. Dr. Mankin held a press conference following the bombing and told the journalists attending it that the seismograph readings indicated two separate explosions. Mankin said, "The news media, itself, even reported two bomb blasts initially." Now, this could be a problem in perspective; however, the twin blast theory seems far more plausible when lined up with other details. Such as eyewitness statements, especially those of the rescue workers from within minutes of responding to the diaster. The rescue workers reported that the Bomb Squad uncovered another bomb, unexploded, in the rubble.
David Hall of KPOC-TV reports that Fire Chief John Hanson told him that "They had found two undetonated bombs in the building as well as one rocket launcher." Of course, these accounts of multiple bombs recovered from the bombing site do not mesh with the official version--that one 4800 pound fertilizer bomb caused the extensive damage to the Murrah Federal Building.
Anomaly three concerns the nature of the bomb itself. Several demolitions experts commented that a homemad fertilizer bomb--in ideal conditions, which this bomb was not, packed in a truck parked outside the federal building could not, and would not, have produced enough explosive force to blow off a whole section of the Murrah Federal Building. Brigader General Benton Partin, US Air Force Ret., has extensive knowledge of military ordnance. Gen. Partin wrote: "When I first saw the picture of the truck bomb's asymmetrical damage to the Murrah building . . . my immediate reaction was that the pattern of the damage would be technically impossible without supplementary demolition charges at some of the reinforced concrete column bases, located inside the building, which is a standard demolition technique." Partin also said that "gross asymmetry in the federal building damage pattern is ipso facto evidence that there was an inside bomb effort and [an outside] truck bomb effort."
Anomaly four concerns a New York Daily News account that search and rescue operations were halted, "some rescue workers were ordered to stop searching for survivors while federal authorities removed documents . . . . Groups of 40 to 50 agents spent much of the night carrying dozens of boxes from the seventh and ninth floors, where the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms have offices." This delay in rescue operations occurred despite the fact that victims were still buried alive in the rubble. Taken with Gen. Partin's statement it could be that agents were removing unexploded ordinance with document retrival as a convenient cover story. State Rep. Charles Key found a sheriff's department video that referred to an Arsenal Room inside the Murrah Building. Weapons were being stored in the building at the time of the bombing. Key pointed out that that damage was worse in the area of the arsenal room. Eyewitnesses stated that the bomb squad removed ordnance from the arsenal that included undetonated explosives and a TOW anti-tank missile.
Anomaly five concerns the suspects, McVeigh, Nichols, and the elusive John Doe #2. KPOC-TV's David Hall states that the FBI had a suspect matching John Doe #2 under surveillance one month after the bombing. Early on, the FBI referred to a video showing McVeigh and John Doe #2 leaving the blast scene in a brown Ford pickup truck. After the blast, the police issued an APB for this pickup truck and two occupants. KFOR-TV, a competing station, tracked this pickup to a parking place outside "a northwest Oklahoma City business." The reporter, Jayna Davis', account for 7 June 1995 showed an obscurred picture (digitally blanked out) of an employee of the business. Davis reported that "police agree with us [that this employee] strongly resembles the FBI sketches of John Doe #2." His face could not be shown because he had not been arrested or charged. Davis stated that witnesses identified the man as being in Timothy McVeigh's company days before bombing and within a few miles of the Murrah Building. After Davis filed this report with KFOR-TV, the next day, KFOR reporters described the man as an Iraqi citizen who had served in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard during the Gulf War (McVeigh was a veteran of this war). That tie to a Middle Eastern accomplice muddies the US Attorney's case of a right wing whack job causing havoc.
Anomaly six concerns Timothy McVeigh's capture by Officer Hanger. KPOC-TV's David Hall says that on the Friday following the Wednesday bombing, he was listening to the police radio scanner in his office. Hall says, "I heard a patrol broadcast from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol that they had a car on Interstate 35 and that car, most likely, had been involved in the bombing." In response, Hall sent a video crew, which arrived at the scene to find a female witness claiming that she had seen a man arrested at 1:30 p.m. This witness said that Highway Patrol troopers removed this suspect and put him into a "military helicopter." Hall said several other witnesses to this arrest attested to the same event, helicopter and other details. The question arises to when McVeigh was arrested. Was it really Friday rather than Wednesday? And Highway Patrol troopers or Officer Hanger?
These anomalies remain intriquing; however, an inside-job theory lacks motive and legs. It could be that federal agents did a poor job of connecting the dots, much like the bungling surrounding the diaster of 11 September 2001.
The following makes for good background reading for the events and the case against Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols:
Keith, Jim. OKBOMB!: Conspiracy and Cover-up. Lilburn, GA: IllumiNet P, 1996.
Afterword
Obviously, this essay took time to develop and research. Much rumor and hearsay had to be cleared before the more credible information was disclosed. The information of this essay very clearly deals with events surrounding the Murrah Federal Building and the arrests of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. I am planning on a follow-up to detail the trial and its aftermath.
I welcome any comments and suggestions for lines of inquiry along those lines.
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