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TULSA WORLD
September 11, 1997 Thursday
SECTION: CITY/STATE; Pg. A9
Second Man Seen, Witness Says; John Doe No. 2 With McVeigh Before Explosion, Grand Jury Told
Julie DelCour
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Rodney Johnson, the 18th witness to testify before the Oklahoma County grand jury, is certain he saw Timothy McVeigh and another man cross a street in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building moments before it exploded.
Johnson, 32, now a caterer near Dallas, said he called the FBI April 19, 1995, the night of the bombing, to report the information -- at least 24 hours before sketches of two suspects were released by the FBI.
On April 27, 1995, at McVeigh's detention hearing, FBI bombing case agent John Hersley testified about the sighting without mentioning Johnson's name.
Johnson said that he was interviewed by the FBI, and met with prosecutors in mid-July 1995 but was notified in January he would not be called as a witness at McVeigh's trial. Johnson said he kept his silence until April 24, the day of the trial's opening statements when he gave a television interview.
After McVeigh's conviction June 2, Johnson repeated his information to other reporters in Oklahoma City.
Johnson said that in a two-hour session with grand jurors he told them "what I saw. " He also showed them videotaped interviews he gave earlier this year.
"I saw two individuals, Timothy McVeigh and John Doe No. 2, cross Fifth Street before the blast. The other man was short, stocky, dark-skinned. He had slicked-back hair and jogging pants with a stripe," Johnson said.
Johnson's said he later saw FBI sketches of two suspects but was not asked to identify them. The descriptions for those sketches were given by witnesses in Kansas, where a Ryder truck used in the
bombing was rented.He said McVeigh strongly resembled the man he saw and the John Doe No. 1 sketch. He said he has never again seen the other man, who he identifies as John Doe No. 2, who he described as being
of Mexican or American Indian descent.
Johnson said he vaguely remembers seeing a yellow Ryder truck in his peripheral vision that day. But what he remembers better, he said, was that he came within 20 feet of the two men and had to brake to avoid hitting them. He said a woman riding in his truck knew he had to brake to avoid hitting the men but that she did not get a good look at the men. He said she may appear before the grand jury and has avoided media attention.
Johnson recalls that the two men "were in step, one behind the other. "
"They definitely were together. " And, he said, they were walking rapidly.
Johnson said that despite an in-depth interview with prosecutors, he was not called before a federal grand jury that indicted McVeigh and codefendant Terry Nichols on Aug. 8, 1995.
"The reason they didn't call me at trial was because of John Doe No. 2," Johnson said.
"It was a judgment call. In hindsight, they made the right decision.
Timothy McVeigh is guilty. But I know I also saw John Doe No. 2."
A few months before the trial, the FBI withdrew its sketch of John Doe No. 2, saying a witness had mistakenly identified Todd Bunting as being with McVeigh when the truck was rented. Bunting, prosecutors said, was in the rental agency another day and has no connection with the bombing. No prosecution witness called at trial testified about any John Doe No. 2 sightings and the prosecution did not call any witnesses placing McVeigh in downtown Oklahoma City that day.
Johnson said he does not believe "it is beneficial for the government to deny the existence of John Doe No. 2."
"It just fuels the conspiracy theories and (makes people) connect dots that maybe shouldn't be connected. I can't see how this hurts the case to deny the obvious," Johnson said.
Johnson attended part of the McVeigh trial and when he saw McVeigh in the courtroom he said he was even more certain that was the man, in Army fatigues and a white T-shirt, who made eye contact with him
the morning of the bombing.
"I thought they were going to stop but they never hesitated. It was 45 seconds to a minute later that the bomb exploded," he said.
Johnson was preceded in the jury room by an unidentified man and woman, who testified between about 9:05 a.m. and 10:15 a.m.Another unidentified woman testified for about an hour at the end of the day. None of the three would give their name.
State Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City, has said that Germaine Johnson, a U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department employee who survived the blast, is expected to testify. He also has said that Vance DeWoody, owner of Opal's Answering Service, and his employee, Pat Houser, were expected to testify that they received an anonymous phone call before the bombing warning of an impending explosion.
Johnson (no relation to Rodney Johnson) has said that after the bombing she made her way to an alley and saw McVeigh and a stocky man with dark hair. She allegedly has claimed that McVeigh asked her if "anyone was killed" and she replied she didn't know.
The grand jury was impaneled June 30, primarily to investigate alternative theories in the Oklahoma City bombing.
The jury reconvenes Thursday.
Facinating thread!