Steven Colbern
Posted on 04/19/2002 3:07:46 PM PDT by OKCSubmariner
Copyright 2002 by Patrick B. Briley
A librarian from Kansas was driving south down interstate I-35 when she witnessed near Perry, OK the pullover of Timothy McVeigh in his yellow Mercury Marquee (in the north bound lane) by OK State Highway Patrol trooper Charles Hanger. The pullover occurred on the morning of April 19, 1995 less than two hours after the OKC bombing. Hanger has testified that McVeigh was not speeding but was pulled over because he had no plates on his car.
The librarian who witnessed the pullover is certain there was a second vehicle pulled over with the Mercury Marquee. And the librarian has said that the second vehicle pulled over may have been a pickup truck. The librarian has not been interviewed before by anyone but her description of the event is consistent with the known facts of location and time about the pullover.
The librarian observed Hanger’s lights flash on and then the Mercury and the second vehicle pull over. The impression given to the librarian was that Hanger had stopped both vehicles at the same time. The librarian made her observations over a long (but closing) distance and significant period of time from her lane on the opposite side of I-35 as she was traveling south.
A lot is learned from a review of testimony given by Charles Hanger found in transcripts from the McVeigh trial and in published accounts about Hanger’s testimony before the OK County Grand Jury. Some have written that Hanger was evasive, not fully forth coming and contradictory when giving answers about a second vehicle that was pulled over with McVeigh.
Hanger said he was distracted and did not know if a second vehicle pulled over. When asked about the video camera he first said he did not know if it was working properly, then he said he did not know if he had turned it on. He later admitted that he took the video home and reviewed the video. But when asked what was on the video he said he did not look at enough of it to know and had turned it over to the FBI. The FBI to this day has not been asked formally in court about what was on the video.
The FBI still maintains along with prosecutors that no John Does were known to have traveled with or helped McVeigh or Nichols. A pickup truck pulling over with McVeigh when stopped by Hanger would imply that a John Doe was traveling with and helping McVeigh especially since Hanger says there was no speeding involved.
The librarian’s account is especially important either if Hanger’s video camera did not capture the second vehicle or if Hanger or the FBI is lying about what is on the video.
The Houston Chronicle reported in May 1995 that a second vehicle, an old brown pickup truck, also pulled over in front of McVeigh at the same time. The Chronicle further reported that a video camera in Hanger’s patrol car had recorded the pickup and the plates on the vehicle. Other articles in the Dallas Morning News and the New York Times in May 1995 also referred to the pickup and stated that the plate and truck had been allegedly traced to a Steve Cobern. Cobern was a chemist who had experimented with bombs he blew up in the Arizona desert before the OKC bombing.
Steve Cobern lived in Oatman Arizona near Michael Fortier in Kingman, Arizona. McVeigh was introduced to Cobern by Roger Moore and his woman friend Mrs Anderson. Moore is the gun dealer that the FBI testified was robbed in Arkansas to finance the OKC bombing. Testimony about the robbery of Moore’s guns revealed that a very strong man resembling Cobern (he is known to have carried refrigerators around on his back) had blind folded, bound up and dragged Moore around in his house.
A note was found in the Arizona desert from McVeigh addressed to Steve Cobern. Neighbors of Cobern and Fortier interviewed by local Arizona newspapers reported that Cobern and Fortier left about two weeks before the OKC bombing and did not return until a few days to a week after the bombing.
Fortier’s next door neighbor and drug dealer, James Rosencrans also reportedly left Kingman about the same time and returned about the same time as Cobern and Fortier. Rosencrans fenced and sold at a Kingman pawn shop the guns stolen from Cobern’s friend, Roger Moore. Oddly enough Roesencrans testified twice before the Federal grand jury implicating McVeigh in the use of drugs. Rosencrans was considered reliable enough for the Federal Grand Jury even though he brandished a rifle in front of FBI agents sent to give Fortier a proffer agreement written by Clinton’s personal FBI legal advisor in the White House, Howard Shapiro. And the Federal Grand Jury was not told by the FBI or prosecutors about the four witnesses interviewed by the FBI at the Travelers Aid near the Murrah Building who have identified Rosencrans with a group of John Does driving McVeigh’s Mercury on April 18, 1995.
If the Houston Chronicle, New York Times and Dallas Morning News are correct then the librarian is not only correct but the second vehicle was likely a brown pickup truck.
Some witnesses reported seeing an old brown pickup truck at the EZ Mart in Newkirk (see Part 1) on April 18, 1995 when Nichols and a John Doe was there in Nichols blue pickup truck and with a Ryder truck. And witnesses have reported seeing an old brown pickup truck with McVeigh and a street person in OKC at a Total gas station the morning of the OKC bombing. There is a surveillance video (which the FBI confiscated) of the McVeigh visit to the Total gas station. The FBI took the street person in custody for questioning about the brown truck and his visit with McVeigh.
It is possible that the vehicle pulled over in front of McVeigh by Hanger and seen by the librarian could be the same vehicle seen in Newkirk and at the Total gas station by numerous witnesses.
The information is known to the FBI and prosecutors. Was the information adequately recorded in FBI interview reports? If so were the reports withheld from the courts, defense and public or even destroyed (as recently reported by the DOG Inspector General to the Senate Judiciary Committee two weeks ago) so there would not be a basis to think there was a John Doe traveling with McVeigh in a pickup truck pulled over when Charles Hanger stopped McVeigh on I-35?
Copyright 2002 by Patrick B. Briley
The car was a Mercury Marquis.
Makes the article seem suspect right off the bat.
Here it is:
"Third suspect identified in Oklahoma bombing"
By Dan Thomasson and Peter Copeland
Scripps Howard News Service
[Printed on page A1 of the May 12, 1995 _Houston Chronicle_]
A third man wanted in the Oklahoma City bombing has been identified
as Steven Colbern, a fugitive from a previous firearms charge.
Colbern, aged 35 or 36, is described as 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds
with green eyes, which roughly matches the description of John Doe II.
Law enforcement sources said Thrusday night that Colbern was identified
through his brown pickup. It was captured, by chance on video taken
from the state trooper's car that stopped Timothy McVeigh for speeding
only 80 minutes after the blast.
"That trooper had a hell of a day," a federal investigator said.
An automatic camera in the car of Trooper Charles Hanger was taping
the arrest of McVeigh. In the background was the image of the pickup,
which also pulled over while McVeigh was being questioned.
Sophisticated enhancement techniques were used to improve the
video until investigators could read the license plate number.
The truck, registered to Colbern, contained traces of ammonium nitrate,
believed to be the main explosive ingredient used in the bombing.
Colbern's age is uncertain. His address is unknown, but he shared a
mail drop with McVeigh in Kingman, Ariz., sources said. The truck
was found parked outside an abandoned mobile home in Kingman.
Colbern already was wanted on a federal firearms charge, officials said.
He was arrested last summer in San Bernadino, Calif., for carrying a gun
with a silencer. He was allowed to post bail but skipped.
[The rest of the article deals with McVeigh and Nichols, and makes no
further mention of Colbern.]
Ping. See my transcript of the Houston Chronicle article.
Please !
This is garbage.
I think of myself as a reasonably observant guy, with a not too bad memory. I'm pretty sure I've passed some police activity during the past week. But if anyone asked me to recall that activity several days, weeks, or months later, and describe the vehicles, especially of opposite direction traffic on an interstate, I'd ask them if they were nuts
The police claim that the stop of McVeigh was unremarkable (which I believe to be a lie, but I think it would have appeared unremarkable), but whatever the "librarian" saw had to have been a lot more remarkable than one or two vehicles stopped by a police car. Otherwise she would hardly have observed it, and certainly would not remember it after any passage of time.
ML/NJ
By Dan Thomasson and Peter Copeland
Scripps Howard News Service
[Printed on page A1 of the May 12, 1995 _Houston Chronicle_]
A third man wanted in the Oklahoma City bombing has been identified as Steven Colbern, a fugitive from a previous firearms charge.
Colbern, aged 35 or 36, is described as 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds with green eyes, which roughly matches the description of John Doe II.
Law enforcement sources said Thursday night that Colbern was identified through his brown pickup. It was captured, by chance on video taken from the state trooper's car that stopped Timothy McVeigh for speeding only 80 minutes after the blast.
"That trooper had a hell of a day," a federal investigator said.
An automatic camera in the car of Trooper Charles Hanger was taping the arrest of McVeigh. In the background was the image of the pickup, which also pulled over while McVeigh was being questioned.
Sophisticated enhancement techniques were used to improve the video until investigators could read the license plate number.
The truck, registered to Colbern, contained traces of ammonium nitrate, believed to be the main explosive ingredient used in the bombing.
Colbern's age is uncertain. His address is unknown, but he shared a mail drop with McVeigh in Kingman, Ariz., sources said. The truck was found parked outside an abandoned mobile home in Kingman.
Colbern already was wanted on a federal firearms charge, officials said. He was arrested last summer in San Bernadino, Calif., for carrying a gun with a silencer. He was allowed to post bail but skipped.
Published on Saturday, May 27, 1995
© 1995 The Arizona Republic
Byline: By Eun-Kyung Kim, The Associated Press
Steven Colbern, the fugitive gun enthusiast who got caught up in the Oklahoma City bombing dragnet, has been ordered to return to California to face a weapons charge.
The 35-year-old biochemist on Friday waived his right to an identity hearing in federal court in Phoenix.
Wearing beige prison garb, Colbern spoke up only to answer U.S. Magistrate Morton Sitver with an occasional ''yes, sir.''
Officials did not know when Colbern would be transferred to the Central District of the U.S. District Court in California.
Colbern has been held without bond in a federal facility in Phoenix since his arrest May 12 in the old mining town of Oatman, where he lived for about four months.
John Hannah, Colbern's attorney, said he does not believe his client is connected with the bombing.
After the hearing, Hannah chided reporters about recent speculation over a possible bargain between Colbern and federal authorities that would include Colbern's assistance in providing information about bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh during his stay in Kingman.
''That kind of speculation endangers his safety in the prison system,'' Hannah said. ''I wish you guys would stop that.''
Colbern has submitted to only one interview with authorities to ''clear himself with Oklahoma City,'' Hannah said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office has refused to comment on any possible link between Colbern's arrest and the Oklahoma City terrorist attack.
Once Colbern is transferred to California, he will face charges stemming from a warrant issued last year when he skipped a federal court hearing on a charge of possessing an unregistered weapon, a silencer.
When an officer attempted to arrest him, Colbern put up such a struggle that five other officers were needed to subdue him, according to court records.
In Colbern's car, officers found a chrome silencer, a Jennings .22-caliber pistol, a Sig Sauer P-226 9mm pistol, order lists for gun parts and a mechanism used to convert a semiautomatic rifle to full automatic, which would make the weapon illegal.
In a compartment covered by carpet in the rear of the car, officers found an SKS assault rifle, several boxes of ammunition and a videotape of a Browning M2 .50-caliber machine gun on the floor of a living room, according to court records.
Colbern also faces two charges lodged in Arizona after his Oatman arrest and scuffle with U.S. marshals: resisting arrest and being a fugitive in possession of a firearm.
''Arizona charges are still pending, so the answer is yeah, he may well (return),'' Hannah said.
We've also got the brown pickup truck coincidences and the Colbern/McVeigh/Fortier coincidences.
The chances of all these must be about the same as that of a plane flying into the highest building in Milan by accident.
And one of the most transparent, too.
Please explain.
I exchanged email with a fellow who said that he had been researching this point, and that he had phoned Copeland, one of the Scripps reporters who authored the newspaper article. He said that Copeland told him he wasn't free to divulge his sources, but that he [Copeland] still stood by the story.
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