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 ...
This is the $64 question. Something doesn't add up. I don't see any simple and plausible answer to this question.
-- JMB
The Friggin' Bullsh*t Imbeciles did the same thing with the retired military ordinance experts on Long Island who saw the missiles (two) take down TWA Flight 800.
You can trust the Government for one thing only... and that is to lie to you. National Security, you unnerstan.
Especially if you happened to be an intern.
This FBI sketch of John Doe 2 was released by the FBI on May 1,1995 and was based on eyewitnesses that saw John Doe 2 with McVeigh in OKC around the time of the bombing. Todd Bunting was not in OKC at the time the OKC eyewitnesses saw the man in the sketch with McVeigh.
That's why...
imo, HAH is the more likely candidate. fits w/ geography & tatoo, not to mention jayna davis' eye witness' testimony. whereas padilla was prolly in florida on 4/19/95.
honway, can you put up the comparison pix of JD2 to HAH for us?
rubbertamp: the artist sketch of JD2 was done from recollections of OKC witnesses, while andy was said to be seen w/ timmy mc in Kansas.
again, imo, I think andy may have been one of several John Does that participated in the event, but not the most widely known as JD2.
p.p.s. there is a composite comparison photo of andy to JD2 somewhere in the FR archives. I'll see if I can dig it up.
Padilla cannot be confirmed in Florida on 4/19/95. He has a driving record a mile long, with violations about monthly. There are no violations between January 1995 and May 1995 (they resume in June and July and September, etc.)
There are no dated sightings of Padilla in Florida for that period.
I've seen more than enough to convince me that there was a JD#2, and possibly a JD#3 as well. There was also some Fedgov involvement as well, but I'm unsure if it was limited to a 'sting' operation or not. It's the Fedgov involvement that explains all the real weirdness that you see surrounding the 'investigation' surrounding OKC.
Andeas Strassmeir
John Doe 2 sketch from witnesses at Elliot's Body Shop
Writ of Mandamus
A. Elliot's Body Shop.
The government's theory is that Timothy McVeigh rented a Ryder truck from Elliott's Body Shop using the name "Robert Kling." However, three employees of Elliott's Body Shop each informed the FBI that "Kling" was accompanied by another man. Eldon Elliott met Robert Kling on Saturday, April 15, 1995, at approximately 8:45 a.m. See D.E. 1081 Exhibit "D." On this day, Kling was by himself, gave Elliott $281 to rent the truck, and told Elliott that he would pick the truck up on Monday at about 4:00 p.m. When Kling came into Elliot's on Monday there was, according to Elliott, a second individual with him. Id. at 2. Elliott described the person with Kling as a white male, 5'7" to 5'8", and wearing a white cap with blue stripes that headed front to back. He described Kling as a white male, 5'10" to 5'11", 180 to 185 lbs., with a medium build. Id.
Vicki Beemer, then the bookkeeper and counter clerk at Elliott's, told the FBI on the day of the bombing that a contract to rent a truck was executed on Monday, April 17, 1995 with Robert Kling. Id. (Exhibit "A"). She verified that Kling had reserved the truck and prepaid the contract with cash. Beemer told the FBI that she recalled a second person accompanying Kling but that she had no specific recollection of that individual. She stated that while she processed the contract another employee named Tom Kessenger was sitting in the office watching. Id.
Kessenger initially told the FBI that two males came into Elliott's and initiated a conversation with Vicki Beemer concerning a rental truck. See D.E. 3240 at 7, 10 (Hearing on Motions to Suppress Eyewitness Identification--Volume I, February 18, 1997). Kessenger stated that Robert Kling was accompanied by the individual that later became known worldwide as John Doe 2. Id. at 10. He described this person as wearing a black t-shirt, jeans, and a ball cap colored Royal blue in the front and white in the back. Id. at 11. He also stated that John Doe 2 had a tattoo on his upper left arm. However, Kessinger has testified that a year and half after he first saw John Doe 2 at Elliott's Body Shop, the government convinced him that he had made a mistake and identified another person who rented a truck on April 18, 1995. Id. at 15-16. He described Kling as 5'10", weighing 175 to 185 lbs., green or brown eyes, and with a rough complexion or acne. Id. at 9; D.E. 1458 (Exhibit "F)."
Although Elliott and Kessenger may have been describing the same person they saw and knew as Robert Kling--it is clear that neither was describing Timothy McVeigh. At the time that McVeigh was booked into the Noble County Jail on April 21, 1995, he weighed 160 lbs., stood 6'2", his eyes were blue, and his complexion was clear. See D.E. 1457 at 6. In addition, the government and defense both have, and it has been referenced in open court proceedings, a video tape of the accused at McDonald's on I-70 in Junction City, a mile and a third away from Elliott's Body Shop. The accused is seen at McDonald's between 3:55 and 4:00 p.m. wearing clothes completely different from those ascribed to Robert Kling. The accused is supposed to have traveled the 1.3 miles on foot, in less than 20 minutes, and somehow or the other along the road, changed clothes.
_____________________________________________________
The FBI can tell Dan Rather to report any "theory" they dream up and then many accept it as truth. The good thing about our system is that in a court of law there are rules of evidence that permit juries to examine the facts instead of FBI"theories" such as the Bunting red herring. This is just a summary of what was presented in court. Please read the transcripts of the trials if you have any interest in the truth. If more Americans had been interested in the truth that was presented in the court trials of Nichols and McVeigh, 9-11 could have been prevented.
KANSAS
In interviews conducted on April 19 and 20, the staff at Elliot’s Body Shop told the FBI they saw Tim McVeigh accompanied by another man. They were not vague about it. They were categorical.
The debriefing began within seven hours of the bombing. Their memories were fresh, so fresh that they were able to provide the uncanny look-alike sketch of McVeigh, which led to his arrest. Eldon Elliot even tried to capitalize on this, selling T-shirts with the logo "We Remember Our Customers."[2] Contrary to press accounts, none of these witnesses has retracted the core claim that there were two men.
Eldon Elliot, owner. In pre-trial hearings on February 18, 1997, he continued to insist that "another person was standing there. I glanced at him." Elliot went out front with the two men to inspect the truck. He said the accomplice had a "white hat with blue lightning bolts on the side." He had told the FBI earlier that the man was "a white male, 5’7" to 5’8"."[3]
Tom Kessinger, mechanic.
He was taking a break in the rental office at about 4:15 PM, eating popcorn, when the two men came in. He watched them for about 10 minutes. John Doe Two was wearing "a black T-shirt, jeans, and a ball-cap colored royal blue in the front and white in the back." He was "about 5’ 10", clean-shaven, muscular, large arms, large chest, smooth complexion, thick neck, wide cin…tattoo on his upper left arm, 26 to 27, and white."[4]
A year and a half later, after seven debriefings by the FBI, he said that he had confused the face of John Doe Two with Private Bunting.[5] But this does not pass the smell test. When he was visited by Glenn Wilburn in the summer of 1996 he scoffed at the Bunting canard. "He was laughing about it and said ‘I don’t know where they came up with that one.’ "[6]
In any case, he refused to go through with the deception when questioned under oath. During the pre-trial hearings in Denver in February 1997 he repeated his claim that McVeigh was accomplished by another man. The Justice Department decided to drop him as a trial witness.
Vicki Beemer, bookkeeper.
She had a friendly chat with McVeigh as he was filling out the rental papers, noting that she had been married longer than he had been alive. She testified at McVeigh’s trial that she was "very certain" there was a second man. She told the FBI on April 19 that she "recalled a second person being along but has no recollection of that individual."[7] But in her appearance before the federal grand jury in Oklahoma she described him as a "stocky-built gentleman…darker complected and much larger" than McVeigh.[8]
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