1. The June 9, 2001 Salon Magazine article “The Mystery of John Doe No. 2" begins with an event in a Junction City, Kansas Subway sandwich shop. It reports that three clerks, including Joann Van Buren, witnessed McVeigh, Nichols and a third man patronize the shop together. The Salon author states, “The third was a shorter, dark-haired and muscular man with an olive complexion: a perfect fit for the figure destined to be known as John Doe 2.” The FBI confiscated the in-store video for that day.
My question: did you interview any of these Subway clerks, what do you think of their stories, and has the FBI ever affirmed the video’s existence, perhaps by releasing it to the defense lawyers?
2. During the latest Nichols trial a document was produced often called the “Secret Service Memo”. It stated in part:
“A witness to the explosion named Grossman claimed to have seen a pale yellow Mercury car with a Ryder truck behind it pulling up to the Federal Building. Mr. Grossman further claimed to have seen a woman on the corner waving to the truck. ATSAIC McNally noted that this fact is significant due to the fact that the security video shows the Ryder truck pulling up to the Federal Building and then pausing (7-10 seconds) before resuming into a slot in front of the building. It is speculated that the woman was signalling the truck when a slot became available”
As I understand it this passage contradicts the government’s claim there was no videotape of the explosion site, and contradicts that only one driver was involved, ie, in this scenario at least one was driving the Ryder truck, another driving McVeigh’s Mercury get-away car.
My question: I would like your general thoughts about the importance of the memo, the government’s explanation why it should be disregarded, and why was it only produced at the time of Nichols’ second trial.
Placemark.
My question: did you interview any of these Subway clerks, what do you think of their stories, and has the FBI ever affirmed the video’s existence, perhaps by releasing it to the defense lawyers?
I did not know about the Subway clerks and I scoured that town for days.
I DO KNOW about videotape but did not include that topic in my book.
I have compiled a comprehensive dossier of court records and evidence which lays a firm foundation for the belief that the public has yet to see all the surveillance tapes in the government files which relate to the Oklahoma bombing.
In 2001, federal authorities reluctantly conceded in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by an Oklahoma journalist that the Department of Justice maintains custody of twenty-two surveillance videotapes.
They were recorded between April 15 and April 19, 1995.
The FBI confiscated those twenty-two tapes from security cameras near the doomed Murrah Building.
So who and what do those tapes show?
The Justice Department steadfastly maintains that only one surveillance videotape recorded by a camera positioned in the lobby of the nearby Regency Tower Apartment complex that captured the events of April 19.
The blurry, black and white photographic image of a large Ryder truck heading east on 5th Street on its deadly trek to the federal complex was unveiled during Timothy McVeigh’s federal trial.
Is the Regency Tower’s videotape the only recording which memorialized the morning of the bombing?
The judge who presided over the FOIA case in Oklahoma federal court says no.
After reviewing a confidential index of the surveillance videotapes in federal custody, U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley ruled on July 10, 2001 “the FBI’s list of responsive material from its Oklahoma City Field Office includes numerous other tapes dated April 19, 1995, from several sources.”
In short, Judge Alley plainly stated in the court record that the FBI has in its custody numerous tapes which were recorded on the day of the bombing – tapes the public has never seen.
The judge stopped short of stating what those tapes show. However, I have uncovered a trail of evidentiary clues which raises many unanswered questions.
Journal Record Building surveillance tape
Where is the videotape of the vehicle which resembled McVeigh’s Mercury Marquis parked directly north of the Murrah Building in the Journal Record parking lot moments before 9:02 am?
On April 27, 1995, Oklahoma City FBI agent Jon Hersley testified in open court to viewing photographs originating from a security camera positioned on the Journal Record Building.
What happened to that tape? Agent Hersley said under oath that the surveillance photographs showed McVeigh’s Mercury Marquis.
I have an FBI 302 which establishes that tape was taken into custody within hours of the blast, but my research indicates the defense teams never received a copy. Why?
The Journal Record building security camera was trained on the alleyway through which McVeigh reportedly fled in his Mercury Marquis shortly before the explosion.
Regency Towers Surveillance Tape
Why did the FBI not disclose the images viewed by a second lobby camera positioned in the entryway of Regency Tower complex?
According to ADT Security officials who installed the system and Regency employees who monitored the security cameras, the master recording from the building’s fourteen cameras would have captured images from an additional ground floor camera.
That camera was aimed in an eastward direction toward the intersection of 5th and Harvey Streets, where the Murrah Building once stood.
But where is the tape of what that camera memorialized the morning of April 19?
Curiously, government prosecutors limited its disclosure of photographs in court to the lobby camera pointed westward, away from the federal building. All we saw was a blurry image of a Ryder truck.
FBI documents establish that the Regency Tower security cameras were simultaneously recorded by a Vicon VCR 401 time lapse 4-head double density video recorder, Robot MV 16 multi-vision plus processor. So what does that technical gobblygook mean? Plenty.
The Regency Tower security recording system simultaneously memorialized the events captured by both lobby cameras, not just one.
But for some unknown reason, the image of the passing Ryder truck originating from only one camera was presented in the Denver courtroom.
So what did the second lobby camera show ----- the one that was pointed toward the Murrah Building?
We don’t know. But we can safely conclude the image was recorded on the Regency Tower recorder.
Murrah Building Videotape
There is one more tape which could have potentially captured Timothy McVeigh and John Doe 2 as they parked the explosives-laden Ryder truck.
This camera was positioned on the northeast side of the Murrah Building and had tape been rolling – it would have provided an instant replay of the crime and all those involved.
In the fall of 2000, I scoured through thousands of photographs taken by journalists, bystanders, first responders, and the bombing memorial archives searching for the earliest images of the bombed out building.
I found one photograph which clearly showed the camera stationed above the first floor of the Murrah Building on the northeast side. The lens was trained directly on the area where the bomb truck had been parked.
An Oklahoma City police officer who commanded the search and rescue canine unit stated in a sworn affidavit that he witnessed the FBI removing the surveillance cameras from the exterior of the Murrah Building.
Those cameras were stripped by one o’clock in the afternoon on April 19, just four hours after the blast.
So here’s the $64,000 question: Was there tape rolling on the day of the bombing and did the tape survive the blast?
I can provide only a partial answer. I know for a fact that the recording device for the Murrah Building video surveillance system was located in the basement of the federal courthouse.
The courthouse was located south of the Murrah Building and was shielded from the tremendous impact of the explosion.
So if there was videotape in the recorder, it would have remained intact.
I spoke to employees of the General Services Administration who led me to believe that federal budget cutbacks made the cost of videotapes prohibitive, so there was no tape in the deck the morning of April 19.
However, that excuse is flimsy at best. Prior to the bombing, the federal government invested in a new video security system for the Murrah building and had installed an extra camera on the ground floor GSA office due to a “known security risk to employees.”
So why could Uncle Sam not afford the nominal expenditure for a video library of tapes which would document events in and around the federal complex on a 24-hour cycle?
I never received a satisfactory answer to that question.
Surveillance Tapes Permanently Sealed
In late 2001, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch, who presided over the bombing trials, ruled in favor of the DOJ’s request to seal all twenty-two tapes recovered from businesses surrounding the Murrah Building.
To this day, the content of those recordings remains unknown.
The judge in the FOIA lawsuit implored Judge Matsch to lift the “shroud of secrecy” and release the tapes. But I guess now, that will never happen. But what about the FREEPER FACTOR???
My question: did you interview any of these Subway clerks, what do you think of their stories, and has the FBI ever affirmed the video’s existence, perhaps by releasing it to the defense lawyers?
I did not know about the Subway clerks and I scoured that town for days.
I DO KNOW about videotape but did not include that topic in my book.
I have compiled a comprehensive dossier of court records and evidence which lays a firm foundation for the belief that the public has yet to see all the surveillance tapes in the government files which relate to the Oklahoma bombing.
In 2001, federal authorities reluctantly conceded in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by an Oklahoma journalist that the Department of Justice maintains custody of twenty-two surveillance videotapes.
They were recorded between April 15 and April 19, 1995.
The FBI confiscated those twenty-two tapes from security cameras near the doomed Murrah Building.
So who and what do those tapes show?
The Justice Department steadfastly maintains that only one surveillance videotape recorded by a camera positioned in the lobby of the nearby Regency Tower Apartment complex that captured the events of April 19.
The blurry, black and white photographic image of a large Ryder truck heading east on 5th Street on its deadly trek to the federal complex was unveiled during Timothy McVeigh’s federal trial.
Is the Regency Tower’s videotape the only recording which memorialized the morning of the bombing?
The judge who presided over the FOIA case in Oklahoma federal court says no.
After reviewing a confidential index of the surveillance videotapes in federal custody, U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley ruled on July 10, 2001 “the FBI’s list of responsive material from its Oklahoma City Field Office includes numerous other tapes dated April 19, 1995, from several sources.”
In short, Judge Alley plainly stated in the court record that the FBI has in its custody numerous tapes which were recorded on the day of the bombing – tapes the public has never seen.
The judge stopped short of stating what those tapes show. However, I have uncovered a trail of evidentiary clues which raises many unanswered questions.
Journal Record Building surveillance tape
Where is the videotape of the vehicle which resembled McVeigh’s Mercury Marquis parked directly north of the Murrah Building in the Journal Record parking lot moments before 9:02 am?
On April 27, 1995, Oklahoma City FBI agent Jon Hersley testified in open court to viewing photographs originating from a security camera positioned on the Journal Record Building.
What happened to that tape? Agent Hersley said under oath that the surveillance photographs showed McVeigh’s Mercury Marquis.
I have an FBI 302 which establishes that tape was taken into custody within hours of the blast, but my research indicates the defense teams never received a copy. Why?
The Journal Record building security camera was trained on the alleyway through which McVeigh reportedly fled in his Mercury Marquis shortly before the explosion.
Regency Towers Surveillance Tape
Why did the FBI not disclose the images viewed by a second lobby camera positioned in the entryway of Regency Tower complex?
According to ADT Security officials who installed the system and Regency employees who monitored the security cameras, the master recording from the building’s fourteen cameras would have captured images from an additional ground floor camera.
That camera was aimed in an eastward direction toward the intersection of 5th and Harvey Streets, where the Murrah Building once stood.
But where is the tape of what that camera memorialized the morning of April 19?
Curiously, government prosecutors limited its disclosure of photographs in court to the lobby camera pointed westward, away from the federal building. All we saw was a blurry image of a Ryder truck.
FBI documents establish that the Regency Tower security cameras were simultaneously recorded by a Vicon VCR 401 time lapse 4-head double density video recorder, Robot MV 16 multi-vision plus processor. So what does that technical gobblygook mean? Plenty.
The Regency Tower security recording system simultaneously memorialized the events captured by both lobby cameras, not just one.
But for some unknown reason, the image of the passing Ryder truck originating from only one camera was presented in the Denver courtroom.
So what did the second lobby camera show ----- the one that was pointed toward the Murrah Building?
We don’t know. But we can safely conclude the image was recorded on the Regency Tower recorder.
Murrah Building Videotape
There is one more tape which could have potentially captured Timothy McVeigh and John Doe 2 as they parked the explosives-laden Ryder truck.
This camera was positioned on the northeast side of the Murrah Building and had tape been rolling – it would have provided an instant replay of the crime and all those involved.
In the fall of 2000, I scoured through thousands of photographs taken by journalists, bystanders, first responders, and the bombing memorial archives searching for the earliest images of the bombed out building.
I found one photograph which clearly showed the camera stationed above the first floor of the Murrah Building on the northeast side. The lens was trained directly on the area where the bomb truck had been parked.
An Oklahoma City police officer who commanded the search and rescue canine unit stated in a sworn affidavit that he witnessed the FBI removing the surveillance cameras from the exterior of the Murrah Building.
Those cameras were stripped by one o’clock in the afternoon on April 19, just four hours after the blast.
So here’s the $64,000 question: Was there tape rolling on the day of the bombing and did the tape survive the blast?
I can provide only a partial answer. I know for a fact that the recording device for the Murrah Building video surveillance system was located in the basement of the federal courthouse.
The courthouse was located south of the Murrah Building and was shielded from the tremendous impact of the explosion.
So if there was videotape in the recorder, it would have remained intact.
I spoke to employees of the General Services Administration who led me to believe that federal budget cutbacks made the cost of videotapes prohibitive, so there was no tape in the deck the morning of April 19.
However, that excuse is flimsy at best. Prior to the bombing, the federal government invested in a new video security system for the Murrah building and had installed an extra camera on the ground floor GSA office due to a “known security risk to employees.”
So why could Uncle Sam not afford the nominal expenditure for a video library of tapes which would document events in and around the federal complex on a 24-hour cycle?
I never received a satisfactory answer to that question.
Surveillance Tapes Permanently Sealed
In late 2001, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch, who presided over the bombing trials, ruled in favor of the DOJ’s request to seal all twenty-two tapes recovered from businesses surrounding the Murrah Building.
To this day, the content of those recordings remains unknown.
The judge in the FOIA lawsuit implored Judge Matsch to lift the “shroud of secrecy” and release the tapes. But I guess now, that will never happen. But what about the FREEPER FACTOR???