Father apologizes for son's actions (OU bombing, includes timeline)

Father apologizes for son's actions

By Nolan Clay and Ty McMahan
The Oklahoman

The father of a University of Oklahoma student who died in a bombing has apologized for the actions of his son.

"I truly hang my head," the father, Joel Hinrichs Jr., said from Colorado Springs, Colo.

Joel "Joe" Henry Hinrichs III, an engineering student, died Oct. 1 when a bomb went off outside the football stadium during the second quarter of OU's night game against Kansas State.

The FBI and OU are treating the bombing as a suicide by a troubled loner, rather than a failed terrorist attack.

"I feel obligated to apologize to everyone whose inconvenience has increased, or had worse things happen to them, due to Joe III," the father told The Oklahoman.

He said he wanted to specifically apologize to the Muslim students who were shackled and questioned during the investigation, apartment residents who had to be evacuated, and "the hundreds of thousands of future OU sporting event attendees who will now endure even more rigorous, restrictive search and carry restrictions."

The dead student, 21, was remembered last week as depressed and so mesmerized with bombs that he bought artillery shells on eBay.

Hinrichs started at OU in the fall of 2002 after being a National Merit Scholar at Wasson High School in Colorado Springs.

He was so depressed his second semester at OU that he had trouble going to class and underwent counseling, his father said.

He dropped out in 2003-2004 and worked doing inventories at night, the father said. He returned but lost a scholarship because of his grades.

"Internally, he suffered from both depression and an utter lack of hope in his own future," said the father.

"He could tell that other people were relating around him and even trying to relate to him. He could not relate back. ... My guess is that ... was very close to the root of his problem."

Early warning signs?
The father said his son had been depressed at times in high school, too.

The younger Hinrichs built a bomb out of match heads in an empty tube at age 13 or 14, his father said.

"He was hiding around the corner. It made a loud noise and he brought the broken, open CO2 cartridge to me and had this look of awe in his eyes," he said.

The younger Hinrichs also regularly bought inert artillery shells over eBay, his father said.

"Like all little boys, he has an interest in things that go bang. ... He just took it a little farther than most. ... He showed them to me, 'Look at this, dad,'" he said.

He got in trouble at the end of the eighth grade in Illinois for bringing a 3-foot metal handle to school, The Oklahoman confirmed.

The younger Hinrichs spent six weeks on house arrest, wearing an ankle bracelet, and then spent ninth grade in an alternative school.

Still, there were few outward signs he was suicidal. His last e-mail to his father, Sept. 14, was about his father's offer of a Subaru to drive.

"Does the Subaru get good mileage? I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," the younger Hinrichs wrote.

OU President David Boren described the student as a loner with emotional difficulties and personal problems. Classmates said he was different and had been struggling again with his grades.

"He was really quiet, didn't really interact with any of the other students," said Garrett Jones, a Tulsa junior who had engineering classes with Hinrichs.

Jones, 21, said Hinrichs was different in his manner and clothing.

"He wore this little green vest all the time. It was really weird. ... You could look around in a classroom and be able to pick this guy out that he was a little unusual," Jones said.

Another classmate, junior Andrew House, told the OU student newspaper: "He seemed like he was a nice kid. He didn't seem troubled at all. Some people might have thought he was weird, because he knew a lot about ammunition and stuff like that."

Members of an OU organization of engineers, architects and scientists said Hinrichs was quiet, reserved and not very involved in the group.

"The guy liked guns and ammo and he said something about trying to buy some ammo. That's just what he liked," said Paul Lawson, executive director of the Triangle Fraternity, who visited the OU chapter last week.

At meetings, Hinrichs talked about his struggles and successes in class, a new job, trouble sleeping and a road trip to Las Vegas, according to minutes.

He also talked about "missing ammo," building a catapult and carving a club with a pocket knife, according to minutes.

He had his own Web site. It read: "This is Joe Hinrichs' website. He currently doesn't have anything to put on it, but it does exist and it is here."

Officials have said investigators do not believe the student was trying to get inside the stadium or had any help. His father said the FBI told him his son made the bomb out of hydrogen peroxide, a common disinfectant.

IMHO, the primary line of defense against terrorism is with the common man. If he isn't at liberty to defend himself, is local business and community, family and local government, he will simply become preoccupied with how to gain that freedom. Meanwhile, higher level government will tend to exasperate the problem by artificially constraining the local freedom of the innocent even further

Well said! (The whole thing, not just the part above). That is the danger. We are strong and powerful because we are free. When the government starts lying to protect itself, or individuals within it do so, we are less free, and thus less powerful and less able to defend ourselves.

Tactically, the terrorists work through the cracks. You can't have police and military everywhere, but the people *are* everywhere. They must be their own defense, starting with being the eyes and ears for the professional security types, but not ending there by any means.

I forgot about the following story that the medical examiner now thinks the guy may have been killed by anthrax -- another Norman connection story that was covered up:

Another witness bites the dust

© 1997 WorldNetDaily.com

"So, have you heard about the witness in the campaign-financing scandal who mysteriously turned up dead?"

I've been asked some variation of that question every day since Oct. 14 by at least a dozen people -- on the phone, in person, by e-mail. I've had nearly as many requests to report something on the case because of the dearth of news about it in establishment circles.

So here it is, folks. This is all I know. You're not likely to find anything else about it from news sources anywhere on the Internet. You certainly won't hear or read anything about it in the major media off-line. The story died a quick and equally mysterious death -- even in data bases that normally store Associated Press stories for two weeks.

The Oklahoma state Medical Examiner's Office is investigating the death of Ron Miller, 58, who tape-recorded business dealings with Norman and Gene Lum, two already-convicted Democratic Party fund-raisers, who, our sources say, know much more than they have been asked to tell by the Justice Department.

Miller died Sunday, Oct. 12, at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City after becoming ill at home. The chief investigator in the case has turned it over to the state because the death was not explainable. It is expected to take weeks before testing is complete.

A business partner said he was surprised by Miller's sudden death.

"He went from being healthy to dying in a week," said J. Dell Gordon, president of Mid-America Lamborghini. He said Miller had turned over boxes of material to a congressional oversight committee investigating campaign financing abuses.

Miller owned Gage Corp., an energy company that was sold to Dynamic Energy Resources Inc. in 1993 in a transaction that has been studied by federal and state investigators.

Nora Lum, the chief executive of the Tulsa-based Dynamic Energy, and her husband, Gene, were sentenced last month to 10 months confinement in their home and $30,000 fines after admitting using "straw donors" to conceal their $50,000 in illegal contributions. The money went to the re-election effort of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and an unsuccessful bid for Congress by W. Stuart Price of Oklahoma in 1994 and 1995.

Miller tape-recorded phone conversations he had in recent years involving business dealings with the Lums and their associates. More than 150 tapes have been turned over to the FBI.

Miller and Gordon were partners in Mid-America Lamborghini, which planned car dealerships throughout the Midwest and Southwest. Mid-America was formed after Gage was sold to Dynamic.

The state Corporation Commission studied an Oklahoma Gas contract that Dynamic received after it bought the assets of Gage and Creek Systems, a Gage subsidiary.

And that's all she wrote -- for now. Except it is worth noting that the Lums were close associates of the late Ron Brown. Untimely deaths seem to follow this couple around.

According to Nolanda Hill, girlfriend of the late Commerce secretary, the Lums passed $60,000 to Brown through his son, Michael, who had been hired by Dynamic Energy Resources specifically for that purpose.

Last November, another Commerce Department associate, Barbara Wise, was found dead inside her office -- bruised and semi-nude. The results of her autopsy have been withheld from the public.

Have you ever seen so many unnatural and unexplained deaths among such a small group of people in your life? Can you believe the lack of curiosity by the establishment press?

If there is any hope of finding out what happened to Miller it would require the FBI to stay out of the case. Remember, it was Janet Reno's Justice Department that slapped the Lums on the wrist rather than provide them the opportunity to tell what they know about corruption within the Commerce Department, the Democratic Party and the administration in general.

"If Janet Reno was serious about getting to the truth, she would have pressed a tougher case against the Lums and forced them to talk," said Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch. "The light sentence they received and the limited amount of cooperation they gave in return smacks of one more cover-up to protect bigger fish."

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