Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
THE SUNDAY OKLAHOMAN
August 10, 1997, Sunday
NEWS; Pg. 1
Some Witnesses Leery Of Bombing Grand Jury
This story was written from reports by staff writers Judy Kuhlman, Diana Baldwin and Ed Godfrey.
(snip - lots of information about how the witnesses are afraid to testify.)[Debbie] Nakanashi was a postal clerk stationed at the post office on Fifth Street when the bombing occurred. Unlike other witnesses, she is anxious to testify before the grand jury.
She said two days before the bombing, McVeigh and another man entered the post office and asked where to go to fill out a federal job application. She pointed out the Murrah Building.
As they were leaving, McVeigh said something to his companion and laughed, Nakanashi said.
"Well, I know now he said, We almost blew up the wrong building' or something of that nature. Of course, I didn't hear any of that."
She said she was first interviewed by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and then frequently by the FBI in the months following the bombing.
"I met always with two men, always a different set of men, four, five, six times. I picked McVeigh out of a photo lineup, but I did admit I had seen him on television.
"Then they asked about John Doe No. 2, the guy I spoke with. I told them the guy they had a composite sketch of was not my guy at all."
Nakanashi said the FBI later released a sketch of suspect John Doe 2 based on her description.
"My John Doe No. 2 was the second sketch with the side view with the high cheek bones - that is my guy, the guy I saw."
She described John Doe 2 as being in charge of McVeigh that day."That is the man they need to catch and try for the murder of those people. I don't feel like McVeigh was the mastermind of this at all. This guy was the guy with authority. He was the one in command of that particular situation."
Nakanashi said the FBI dismissed her story.
"It got dropped and nothing more was said. ... I would love to go before the grand jury so I could tell this once and for all to a group of people who I feel like would at least be interested to listen to me."
FBI agents dismissed her account because of photos and other evidence proving McVeigh was in Kansas two days before the bombing. Also, agents have testified that the sketches of John Doe No. 2 were solely based on the recollection of a mechanic, who now thinks he described an innocent Army private renting a different Ryder truck.[Tom] Kessinger, the former mechanic at Elliott's Body Shop in Junction City where McVeigh rented the Ryder truck, testified at a pretrial hearing in Denver. Kessinger testified a second man was with McVeigh when the truck was picked up April 17, 1995.
Kessinger provided the descriptions that led the FBI to release three sketches of suspect John Doe 2. He has since admitted he made a mistake and was actually describing Army Priv. Todd Bunting, who was helping a friend rent a truck one day later, April 18, 1995.
(snip)
[Rodney] Johnson told reporters in June during the closed-circuit trial telecast at the Federal Aviation Administration center that he saw McVeigh with another man the day of the bombing.
"I kept my mouth shut for two years," Johnson said at the time. "He (John Doe 2) was dark-skinned, shorter, probably about 5-8 and maybe 160 pounds. He was wearing blue jogger pants with a stripe across the side. He had slicked-black hair."Johnson, who was driving a catering truck in Oklahoma City in 1995, said he had to brake to miss the two men who were running from the Murrah Building into the parking lot across the street.
"They were in a fast march, in step, one behind the other," he said.
"No Stone Unturned"
John Doe Who?On the day of the deadly attack, Attorney General Janet Reno announced, "The FBI and the law enforcement community will pursue every lead and use every possible resource to bring these people responsible to justice.… It is very important that we pursue each lead… it is going to be very important that we leave no stone unturned…"
In fact, numerous stones were left unturned.
While the Justice Department (DoJ) focused its efforts on McVeigh and Nichols, scant attention was focused on other suspects — John Doe 2, the mysterious entity who was seen with McVeigh, and had accompanied him the morning of the bombing. Witnesses also saw him with McVeigh in the Murrah Building, in stores, at restaurants, at a bar, and at the truck rental shop before the bombing. Still others claim to have seen him speeding away from the scene. All in all, there are almost two-dozen witnesses who reported seeing John Doe 2.
The FBI made a big show of tracking down this illusive, menacing-looking suspect. "The FBI has conducted over 9,000 witness interviews and has followed every possible lead in an intensive effort to identify and bring to justice anyone who was involved in this disaster," stated U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan in a letter to the victims' families.[770]
The search for John Doe 2 quickly became the biggest man-hunt in FBI history. What authorities weren't saying however, was that not only was there a John Doe 2, there were least four John Does! Yet the issue was quickly and quietly narrowed down to just one John Doe 2.
On April 23, four days after the bombing, The Washington Post quoted a senior law enforcement official who said "at least four" men were involved in the terrorist act last week and "there very well could be more."[771]
The FBI then requalified its position on May 15: "Wherever we look, it's Terry and Timmy, Terry and Timmy — and nobody else," quipped an unnamed FBI official in Time magazine.
Yet on June 11, another FBI official was quoted in the Post as saying, "I think when this is over we'll have at least six or eight guys indicted and in custody. It's just too big for two guys to pull off."[772]
Then on June 15, the FBI backtracked again. "Periodically you just get something in an investigation that goes nowhere. John Doe 2 goes nowhere. It doesn't show up in associations, it doesn't show up in phone calls. It doesn't show up among the Army buddies of McVeigh…"[773]
The previous day, the FBI put out a story that John Doe 2 may have actually been Todd Bunting, a soldier at Fort Riley, Kansas who had rented a truck at the same dealer McVeigh had. The FBI stated that Bunting wore clothing similar to that ascribed to John Doe 2, that he had a tattoo in the same place, and that he wore a hat similar to John Doe 2's.
Yet Elliott's employees dismissed Bunting as the person who was seen with McVeigh, and Bunting held a press conference stating that he had in fact rented a truck at Elliott's — 24 hours after McVeigh allegedly rented his.
The Bunting story was officially dropped.
Then, on January 28, 1996, the prosecution switched tracks again, officially resurrecting the Todd Bunting story. In a long brief, the government disclosed that Elliott's employee Tom Kessinger was the only one who could recall John Doe 2 well enough to describe him.
Now, after a November interview with a prosecutor and two FBI agents, Kessinger was "confident that he had Todd Bunting in mind when he provided the description for the John Doe 2 composite." Kessinger, the brief continued, is "now unsure" whether anyone accompanied McVeigh. But his two co-workers "continue to believe that two men came in to rent the truck."
In that brief, the prosecution speculated that the defense might use "Kessinger's admitted confusion" to challenge his identification of McVeigh.
It seemed it was less "Kessinger's admitted confusion" than a deliberate fabrication by prosecutors and the FBI to cover up the existence of John Doe 2. As Kessinger told bombing victim Glenn Wilburn, who conducted his own investigation, "I don't know how they came up with that one."
Kessinger later changed his story at the urging of federal prosecutors Patrick Ryan and Joseph Hartzler. During a pretrial conference, Jones challenged Kessinger:
"How can you be so wrong 60 hours after the event and so right a year and a half later?" Jones asked him. "Could you be changing your mind because the government wants you to?"
"No," Kessinger replied.[774]
Yet on March 25 and April 5, Hartzler had written Jones that "The existence and identity of this John Doe 2, whom we are confident is not Mr. Bunting, is the subject of a continuing investigation."
And in a May 1, 1996 letter written by Hartzler, the government prosecutor informed Jones that Kessinger and Beemer had been shown a picture of the cap Bunting wore when he picked up a truck on April 18. "They both stated that the cap was not the same one they saw on John Doe II," Hartzler wrote, "and they reaffirmed that this second individual accompanied 'Kling' when he rented the truck."[775]
Yet at a hearing on April 9, federal prosecutor Beth Wilkinson stated that the government "has no information showing anyone but Mr. Nichols and Mr. McVeigh were the masterminds of this bombing."[776]
"They keep telling us they're looking for John Doe No. 2, but then they turn around and give statements indicating that they don't believe there is a John Doe No. 2," said a woman whose husband was killed in the bombing.[777]
Other victims, like naive children, blindly placed their faith in the government's dubious assurances. Hartzler held one meeting with bombing victims in which he "discussed and disposed of some of the more bizarre theories."
"I just got a better feeling about what's going on," said Bud Welch, whose daughter, Julie, died in the attack. "The prosecution assured us that there was no evidence that was suppressed. We really didn't know that," added Welch.
"We know what's going on now and that they're there for us," Pamela Weber-Fore said of the prosecutors.[778]
Other victims weren't as easily fooled. "I don't think that there's any question about the fact that they're covering up who was involved in the bombing," said V.Z. Lawton, a HUD worker who was injured in the blast. "I've talked to five witnesses myself who saw McVeigh with John Doe number two in Oklahoma City that morning, within fifteen minutes of the blast... tells me that there is something wrong."[779]
As Nichols' attorney Michael Tigar said, "It's strange that the official version has focused on Nichols and McVeigh, and that the government is now busily engaged in denying all possibility that there could be anybody else."[780]
The families of the victims deserve to know who was involved in the bombing, and there appears to be an attempt to protect the identity of certain suspects, namely John Doe 2….
"I think they (the government) knows who John Doe 2 is, and they are protecting him," said Heidelberg in an interview in Jubilee Magazine. "This is because John Doe 2 is either a government agent or informant and they can't afford for that to get out."[785]
Eventually, the FBI dropped the John Doe 2 lead altogether. John Doe 2 had been a red herring, a false lead, the Justice Department claimed. John Doe 2 had never really existed.[786]
Dozens of credible witnesses think otherwise.
Catina Lawson, who was friends with McVeigh, remembered John Doe 2 from the Summer of '92, when she and her friends would hold parties and invite soldiers from nearby Fort Riley. McVeigh showed up with Andy Strassmeir, Mike Fortier, and Michael Brescia. In fact, Lawson's roommate, Lindsay Johnson, dated the handsome, well-built Brescia.
Two days after the bombing, Lawson called the FBI and told them that Brescia closely resembled the sketch of John Doe 2.
Yet in spite of overturning 21,000 stones, the FBI never even bothered to follow up on her story.
Robert Gohn, who lived across the road from McVeigh in Kingman, recalled seeing one of the mysterious John Does around the early Summer of '94. According to Gohn, one day a short, stocky man who looked "like a weight lifter" arrived at McVeigh's trailer with Terry Nichols.[787]
On April 7, Dr. Paul Heath was working in his office at the Murrah Building when "McVeigh" and two of his companions stopped by for a chat. Heath recalled one of the men as "American-Indian looking" and "handsome."[788]
As the Associated Press reported on April 27, 1995:
… [U.S. Attorney Randy] Rathburn said neighbors of Nichols'… reported that Nichols spent April 12-14 with McVeigh and several unidentified men. One of the men resembled sketches of John Doe 2.…[789]
[790]
On Saturday, April 15, Barbara Whittenberg served breakfast to three men at the Sante Fe Trail Diner in Herrington, Kansas. One of the men was dark-skinned and handsome. When he told her they were on their way to Oklahoma City, McVeigh shot him a hard look that said "keep quiet."[791]
Early the next day, around 1:00 a.m., Melba was working the deli counter at Albertson's Supermarket on South May in Oklahoma City, when "McVeigh" and John Doe 2 stopped by for sandwiches. [792]
"McVeigh," it seems, was still in town when Phyliss Kingsley and Linda Kuhlman saw three vehicles pull into the Hi-Way Grill, just south of Oklahoma City, around 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. McVeigh came in and ordered hamburgers and fries to go, and was accompanied by a short, stocky, handsome man, of either Mexican or American Indian descent. The man closely resembled the FBI sketch of John Doe 2.[793]
That same day, back at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Connie Hood was returning to her room around 12:45 a.m. when a man in room 23 quickly opened the door as if expecting a visitor, then quickly closed it when he saw Hood. The man, who startled her, was in his early 20s, about 5'8" tall, 180 lbs., with dark hair brushed straight back and an olive complexion. Hood recalls he closely resembled the sketch of John Doe 2, but with slightly fuller features. She described him as a "foreigner."[794]
The following day, Hood and her husband Donald returned to the Dreamland to visit their friend David King in room 22. A Ryder truck pulled up at the same time they did, the driver strongly resembling the man Hood saw the previous day.
Shane Boyd, a helicopter mechanic who was also staying at the Dreamland, later told reporters and investigators that he saw a bushy-haired man resembling the John Doe 2 sketch in the parking lot near room 25 — Timothy McVeigh's room.
One exit away from the Dreamland Motel sits the Great Western Inn. According to the manager, a Middle Eastern man stayed at the motel on the 17th. "He spoke broken English," said the manager. "[He] gave a foreign name and was driving a Ryder truck." The man closely resembled the FBI's sketch of John Doe 2.
"Sometime on Monday," recalled Connie Hood, "those two — McVeigh and the foreigner — loaded up together, in a Ryder truck, and pulled out of the Dreamland parking lot together… that was the last I saw of them."[795]
Later that day, janitors Katherine Woodly and Martin Johnson were working the 5-9 p.m. shift in the Murrah Building when they saw "McVeigh" and John Doe 2. McVeigh spoke to Martin about a job, and John Doe 2 nodded to Woodly.[796]
At 3:00 p.m. on Monday, or possibly Tuesday, Jerri-Lynn Backhous and Dorinda Hermes were working at the Easy-Mart in Newkirk, 100 miles north of Oklahoma City, when a convoy pulled in. One of the vehicles — a light blue pick-up with a camper top — was being driven by Terry Nichols. Backhous recalled Nichols' passenger as average height, dark-skinned, with black hair and a muscular build. "He looked just like the John Doe 2 sketch," she said.[797]
Debbie Nakanashi was working at the Post Office across the street from the Murrah Building around on Monday or Tuesday when "McVeigh" and John Doe 2 stopped in and asked where they might find federal job applications. Nakanashi helped provide the description for the well-known profile sketch of John Doe 2 in the baseball cap.
Guy Rubsamen, a security guard at the Murrah Building saw a large Ryder truck pull up to the curb in front of the building around 4:00 p.m. on Monday, the 17th. Rubsamen later concluded it was a dress rehearsal.
"There was either two or three men, but one jumped out the driver's side, and one or two out the passenger side," Rubsamen told the Rocky Mountain News. "The first thing that struck me was how quickly they jumped out. Those guys were in a hurry."[798]
The Ryder truck would make its appearance the following evening at the Cattle Baron's Steakhouse in Perry, Oklahoma. Jeff Meyers and another customer recalled seeing McVeigh and a companion, who stopped by for a few beers. The man was approximately six feet tall and weighed 260 pounds — a description not befitting the John Doe 2s described by other witnesses. [799]
Richard Sinnett, the assistant manager of the Save-A-Trip convenience store in Kingman, Kansas, sold fuel to McVeigh and three other men at approximately 1:30 a.m. on April 19. Sinnett saw three vehicles in all, including a Ryder truck, an older brown pick-up (possibly belonging to Steven Colbern?), and a light colored car.
Sinnett described John Doe 2 as muscular, 170 to 180 pounds, with short light brown hair and a light complexion. He recalled the Ryder truck was towing a trailer that contained a large, round tank filled with clear liquid. The store is about 175 miles north of Oklahoma City.[800]
Fred Skrdla, a cashier at a 24-hour truck stop near Billings, told the FBI he sold fuel to McVeigh between 1 and 3 a.m. on April 19. The station is about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City.
As the sun rose, McVeigh and a friend sat down for coffee at Jackie's Farmers Store in Mulhall, Oklahoma. Mulhall Postmaster Mary Hunnicutt stood right next to McVeigh as he ordered his coffee. She was "advised" not to discuss what she had seen, lest she be summoned before the Federal Grand Jury. She wasn't.[801]
Ten minutes before the blast, Leroy Brooks was sitting in his car at the Sooner Post Office across from the Murrah Building, when a Ryder truck pulled up across the street, trailed by a yellow Mercury. The drivers of both vehicles got out and walked to the back of the truck, where they spoke for a few seconds, and exchanged a small package. After Brooks came out of the Post Office, he saw that the Ryder truck, which contained a passenger, had moved in front of the Murrah Building. "McVeigh" was walking briskly across 5th Street towards the Journal Record building.
Danny Wilkerson sold "McVeigh" a pack of cigarettes (McVeigh doesn't smoke) and two soft drinks at a deli inside the Regency Towers apartments a block from the Murrah Building. Wilkerson recalled a passenger sitting in the cab of the Ryder truck, which had a cab overhang, and was shorter than the 24-foot model the FBI claimed McVeigh had rented.[802]
Federal authorities had still more witnesses to call on had they wanted to. Mike Moroz, who was at work at Johnny's Tire Store on 10th and Hudson, on April 19, looked up to see a Ryder truck pull in at 8:40 a.m. The occupants were looking for directions to the Murrah Building. Moroz caught a glimpse of the passenger — a stocky man with dark curly hair wearing a ball cap, and a tattoo on his upper left arm.
Several minutes earlier, David Snider was waiting for a delivery in Bricktown, about 25 blocks away, when a Ryder truck passed slowly by, as if looking for an address. However, this time the driver was a dark-skinned man with long, straight black hair, wearing a thin mustache and tear-drop sunglasses. The passenger was "McVeigh." Since Snider's account of the occupants differed remarkably from the previous accounts, could this have been the second Ryder truck described by witnesses? If so, did this mean there were two "McVeighs" and two John Doe 2s?[803]
At approximately the same time as Snider saw the Ryder truck, Tulsa banker Kyle Hunt came upon the truck at Main and Broadway, trailed by a yellow Mercury. Hunt said the Mercury driver was Timothy McVeigh. "He gave me that icy, go-to-hell look," said Hunt. "It kind of unnerved me."[804]
While Hunt didn't see the occupants of the truck, he did recall two passengers in the car. One of them, he said, had long hair, similar to the man Phyliss Kingsley saw on Sunday at the Hi-Way Grill. None of the men was Terry Nichols, who was in Herrington that morning.
Just outside the Murrah Building, Dennis "Rodney" Johnson was driving his catering truck, when he suddenly had to brake to avoid hitting two men who were running towards the parking lot across the street.[805]
The men, who were in "a fast lockstep" with each other, appeared to be Timothy McVeigh and John Doe 2. Johnson described McVeigh's companion as "Mexican or American-Indian." He was "dark-skinned… probably about 5-8 and maybe 160 pounds," Johnson said. "He was wearing blue jogger pants with a stripe across the side. He had slicked-black hair."[806]
Then there was Gary Lewis. A pressman for the Journal Record, Lewis stepped outside to smoke his pipe just minutes before the blast. As stood in the alley across from the Murrah Building, a yellow Mercury peeled away from its spot and bore down on him. The driver, whom he made brief eye-contact with, appeared to be Timothy McVeigh. And his passenger resembled the sketch of John Doe 2. The car had an Oklahoma tag (not an Arizona tag as authorities claimed) dangling by one bolt.
Even FBI Agent John Hersley had testified before the Federal Grand Jury that "…several witnesses spotted a yellow car carrying McVeigh and another man speeding away from the parking lot near the… [building] before the blast."[807]
Finally there was Daina Bradley. A young mother, Bradley was standing by the window of the Social Security office seconds before the blast, when she saw a man get out of the passenger side of the Ryder truck. Moments later, Bradley's world turned to blackness, smoke and dust as she was showered by falling concrete. Bradley, who lost her leg, her mother, and her two children in the bombing, still clearly recalls the man who got out of the truck. He looked like John Doe 2.
Of course, federal "investigators" would show as little interest in these and other discrepancies as they would in the numerous John Does. Some of these witnesses were never even contacted by the FBI, eventhough all of them had repeatedly tried to alert the Bureau. Only after federal prosecutors had coerced Daina Bradley into changing her story, did she testify at McVeigh's trial. None of the others were ever called.
"I know I wasn't called because I would have to testify that I did see John Doe 2. I know I saw John Doe 2," said Rodney Johnson.[808]
Then in March of 1997, after changing it's mind half a dozen times about the existence of John Doe 2, it was "leaked" to the press that the FBI was searching for a John Doe. His name was Robert Jaques.
This "new" John Doe 2 had appeared at the office of real estate broker William Maloney, of Cassville, Missouri, in November of '94, along with Terry Nichols and a man who looked like McVeigh. They were there to discuss purchasing a remote piece of land. Joe Lee Davidson, a salesman in Maloney's office, recalled the encounter with Jaques: "The day he was here, he seemed to be the one that was in control and in charge of what was going on," said Davidson. "Nichols never said a whole lot and McVeigh never did come in…."[809]
Maloney described Jaques as muscular, with a broad, dark face, similar to, but not quite identical as, the original FBI sketch of John Doe 2.
Is it possible the sudden announcement of Jaques was a diversion, to satisfy a public increasingly savvy about the existence of John Doe 2?
Nevertheless, a month after this new lead was announced, the government went ahead with the trial of McVeigh, making no attempt to introduce any additional suspects.
They also dropped the lead on Steven Colbern, in spite of the fact that his pick-up was seen stopped ahead of McVeigh 90 minutes after the bombing.[810]
The Middle-Eastern lead was also dropped. The FBI denied putting out the APB on the brown pick-up containing the three Middle Eastern males seen speeding away from the bombing. And while the FBI knew about Sam Khalid, they did nothing but ask him some questions.
An affidavit submitted by FBI Agent John Hersley stated: "A witness to the bombing saw two, possibly three persons in a brown Chevrolet pickup — fleeing the area of the crime — just prior to the blast." Although agents interviewed the witness who saw Hussain al-Hussaini driving the brown pick-up, she was never brought before a line-up, and never called to testify before the Federal Grand Jury. Hussaini's friend Abraham Ahmed was turned loose as well.[811]
This is false information. Kessinger was never called to the stand in the trial because he would not deviate from his original pre-trial testimony. When questioned about the feds Todd Bunting story, he responded, "Where did they get that?"