Posted on 05/08/2003 6:27:27 AM PDT by JohnBerger
Witness recalls renting truck to Murrah bomber
2003-05-08
By Nolan Clay The Oklahoman
Retired Kansas body shop owner Eldon Elliott turned red and trembled with emotion Wednesday as he testified about learning he’d rented the truck used in the Oklahoma City bombing. “I tried to forget it,” he admitted later in his testimony.
[...]
The truck used in the April 19, 1995, bombing was picked up two days before from Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, Kan.
[...]
Elliott recalled two meetings with (Timothy McVeigh). He said the customer (McVeigh) paid $280.32 in cash for the 20-foot truck on April 15, 1995. He said the customer picked up the truck on April 17, 1995.
He said the customer declined insurance, claiming to be a good driver with experience with large trucks at the nearby Army base.
He also said the customer was with another man the second time. He said the second man had an unusual ballcap.
“They was talking together when I came back in,” he said.
He said the other man was not Nichols.
Elliott was called as a defense witness at Nichols’ federal trial.
The former body shop owner’s insistence on a second man has kept alive theories that McVeigh had another, still unknown accomplice.
FBI agents and federal prosecutors contend Elliott is mistaken about the second man. State prosecutors have said only that Elliott’s belief is not relevant to Nichols’ preliminary hearing.
The FBI searched for weeks for a second man and released three sketches of the suspect that came to be called “John Doe No. 2.”
The drawings were based on the recollection of a body-shop mechanic. The FBI and federal prosecutors later concluded the mechanic had described instead an innocent Army private who was helping a friend move.
The Army private, Todd Bunting, had gone to the shop a day after McVeigh. Bunting wore a blue-and-white Carolina Panthers hat.
The mechanic eventually agreed he had been confused.
Before his execution, McVeigh confessed in interviews for a biography that he was the bomber, but he claimed John Doe No. 2 never existed.
His trial attorney, Stephen Jones of Enid, said McVeigh once said he’d spoken to a stranger in the body shop, but implied it was a delivery man or another customer.
In the testimony Wednesday, Elliott described how FBI agents tried to persuade him he’d gotten confused, too.
“They wanted me to change my mind that there was a second person there. And I wouldn’t change my mind,” he said.
Elliott said he wasn’t even at his shop the day the other men — Bunting and his friend — had rented a truck.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsok.com ...
--JMB
"Repeat after me: there was no other man with him."
They sure wanted (heck: still want) to keep John Doe No. 2 under wraps. The fascinating question is: why?
I mean, if they're convinced he was not a conspirator, why don't they just say so, instead trying these Baghdad Bob-like claims that he doesn't exist?
Two likely reasons, one benign but the other is more far-reaching:
The first - they felt they could convict McVeigh and Nichols with what they had and chasing some third person would only delay matters. They preferred to just wrap things up neatly.
Second - Clinton was trying hard not to face the terrorists factor and was, instead, trying to pursue all terrorists under his well-controlled Justice Department as criminal offenses rather than international terrorism. There were many reports of Arabs involved with McVeigh and that was a road Clinton did not want to go down.
You mean to tell me it took "weeks" for the FBI to get Bill Clinton's message that the OKC bombing was pulled off solely by "right-wing extremists?" I think we've already established that Clinton was calling the military Arabic interpreters back to DC within a few days. So what took the the FBI so long to get the message?
It must have really sucked to have the Clintons as your boss.
You sure you don't want to rephrase that? ;-)
Unfortunately, this is a highly subjective call. The short answer is: Yes, he's within the margin of error.
The problem with the sketch is that you can find very vocal camps who will insist the sketch looks like whoever their preferred suspect is, and nothing like anyone else.
Ultimately the sketch has to be treated as generally suggestive but not proof of any particular thing. Police sketches are useful tools for directing an investigation, but they're not rocket science and they won't stand up against a direct identification in court of law.
Interestingly, a San Antonio online newspaper showed Elliott a picture of Jose Padilla and asked if it was JD2. Elliott referred them to his lawyer and refused to answer.
Also, if you'll remember, a LOT of political capital had been expended on the Clintons behalf that this had to be a right wing extremist who perpetrated this masacre. If there had been Islamic ties it would have obliterated this theory.
What if we discover evidence in Iraq that this event was either planned or funded there? Will we get the investigation we want then?
No. Because then, they'd have to admit that the government lied, which then makes further statements by same less credible.
Lying kinda gets you in a bind, y'know?
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