Posted on 11/13/2002 10:39:39 AM PST by honway
The Kansas City Star
October 28, 1995
Section: NATIONAL/WORLD
Edition: METROPOLITAN
Page: A4
Camera saw figure in bomb truck
Oklahoma City video is unclear, but it may show John Doe No. 2.
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY - Videotape from a surveillance camera captured a glimpse of a shadowy figure in the passenger seat of a bomb-laden Ryder truck minutes before it blew apart the federal building, a federal law enforcement source says.
The footage is not clear enough to identify anyone, but it adds to the body of evidence that a third figure - perhaps the long-sought John Doe No. 2 - took part in the attack with two other persons, the source said.
``There's a shape in there, but they can't see a face,'' the source said of footage, which was taken by a camera on a nearby apartment building. The camera picked up the shadowy passenger about three minutes before the bomb went off April 19 at the Murrah Federal Building.
The government says Timothy McVeigh drove to Oklahoma City in the truck, parked it in front of the federal building and made his getaway in a yellow Mercury Marquis. But prosecutors have given no indication that Terry Nichols, also charged in the case, was in Oklahoma City the day of the bombing.
Although a federal grand jury indicted only McVeigh and Nichols on murder and conspiracy charges, agents scoured the country for a third conspirator, known only as John Doe No. 2, who was portrayed in sketches distributed shortly after the blast.
Authorities later said that an innocent Army private resembled the sketches. But the drawings were never withdrawn. Moreover, the indictment accuses McVeigh and Nichols of acting with ``others unknown,'' and agents were still hunting for other conspirators.
A call Friday to Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Mullins, a spokesman for the prosecution team, was not returned immediately.
Prosecutors repeatedly refused to discuss surveillance tape or other evidence in the case.
McVeigh's lawyer, Stephen Jones, said he had not seen the tape and could not comment.
A senior federal official in Washington said recently that agents currently searching did not expect to turn up another key player in the plot.
The law enforcement source, however, said many investigators remained convinced that John Doe No. 2 was still at large.
McVeigh and Nichols go on trial May 17.
As citizens, do we have a right to expect an explanation from our elected represenatives as to why our law enforcement officials are not interested in prosecuting the man in the Ryder truck with McVeigh?
Considering the reporter that wrote the article was in Oklahoma City and has impeccable credentials, I am surprised it is not in the archives for the Daily Oklahoman or Tusa World. I will be even more surprised if it never made it in the print version of the newspapers.
So far, I know the article appeared in the Baton Rouge Advocate and the Chicago Tribune.
There were numerous surveillance tapes that were confiscated by the FBI that substaniated the eyewitness testimony stating that there was another man with McVeigh in OKC on the morning of April 19th. These tapes have been intentionally withheld from the public by the FBI. They were not shown to the Federal Grand Jury or at the trial. In fact, the prosecution did not present at trial a single eyewitness that placed McVeigh in OKC on the morning of the bombing, even though there were many witnesses that saw McVeigh that morning. Some picked him out of a line up.
The problem was that each eyewitness that saw McVeigh saw him with another man, John Doe 2, and so the prosecution did not present the eyewitnesses at trial or the videotapes showing McVeigh at the Murrah Building with John Doe 2.
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