McVeigh also managed to fit in two separate visits in October to Kingman, Arizona. He rented another storage locker and, with Michael Fortier watching, tested the explosive mixture that he had chosen for the Murrah Building bombing.
McVeigh tried to recruit Fortier to assist in the actual bombing, but Fortier balked, and asked, "What about all the people? McVeigh's close association with white supremacists and other government-haters at Elohim City continued throughout In addition to joining in bank robberies, there is evidence to suggest that people at the compound were involved in the bombing plot itself.
Howe informed her supervisor of these developments. Attorney's Office, the planned operation is called off. There is no way of knowing whether the raid, if conducted, might have prevented the tragedy in Oklahoma City--but that remains a real possibility. In March , when Terry Nichols told McVeigh that he wanted to back out of the bombing plan, McVeigh had to turn elsewhere for the assistance he would need in the final stages of the plot. There is speculation that his help came from Elohim City.
McVeigh wanted to be seen at the mastermind of the plot, and in his statements discounted the role of others in the conspiracy, leaving uncertainty as to exactly what roles others played. A polygraph test taken by McVeigh showed him to be truthful in regards to his own role in the bombing, but "evasive" concerning the roles played by other persons not charged in the bombing.
Fellow death row inmates David Hammer and Jeffrey Paul, in their book Secrets Worth Dying For , contend that McVeigh revealed to them that he and four members of the Aryan Republican Army, with Elohim City connections, met several times in March and April in the Arizona desert, where "they conducted 'dry runs' of the 'planting the bomb and getting away. The contents of that phone conversation are unknown, of course, but there has been considerable speculation in books and on Internet sites, that McVeigh sought to coordinate bombing plans with some compound residents.
Three days after his phone call, McVeigh arrived in Oklahoma, where he was seen at Lady Godiva's , a Tulsa strip club, in the presence of Elohim City militants Andreas Strassmeir and a third man, who some people suggest might have been Michael Brescia. A security camera in a dressing room at the strip club apparently recorded McVeigh telling a stripper, "On April 19, you'll remember me for the rest of your life. In the final days leading up to the bombing, Aryan Republican Army members and perhaps bomb expert "Poindexter" converged in east central Kansas where final preparations were being made.
This is a matter of dispute, as the trial record only hints at this possibility and McVeigh told authorities otherwise, but a growing body of evidence suggests several Elohim City activists played critical roles in April This history is supported by the chronology of events reported in Secrets Worth Dying For , based on McVeigh's alleged death row revelations. Any book written by convicted death row inmates raises credibility concerns, but the inmates' account corresponds fairly well with the timing of various sightings of " John Doe No.
The men most likely camped at Geary Lake, the same place where McVeigh said he received some cash from Terry Nichols on April 14, before he checked into room 25 at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City. A Junction pizza delivery man later told an FBI interviewer that he delivered a pizza to "Bob Kling" in room 25 that night--and that the man taking the pizza was not Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh parked the old Marquis, which was to be his getaway car, in a lot near the Murrah Building, and then rode back to the Dreamland Motel with Nichols and John Doe 2.
In a form he filled out at Elliot's, McVeigh said he planned to use the truck for a four-day trip to Omaha. McVeigh left the Dreamland Motel in the Ryder truck about the next morning. Stories of what happened next diverge considerably. Either alone one story or after picking up Brescia another story , McVeigh drove to his Herington storage locker where he or they met depending on which account you believe either bomb expert Poindexter or Terry Nichols.
McVeigh is said to have complained, "He and Mike [Fortier] were men who liked to talk tough, but in the end their bitches and kids ruled. In his authorized biography, McVeigh claimed that he and Nichols also loaded bags of fertilizer into the truck and then completed the assembly of the bomb later that morning at Geary Park. In this version of events, McVeigh set off alone later that afternoon, heading south down I for Oklahoma.
He parked the Ryder truck for the night near Ponca City, Oklahoma, sleeping in the cab. In his alleged prison revelations to inmates, on the other hand, McVeigh reportedly said that the fertilizer had previously been loaded into a second "decoy" truck, and that two trucks--not one--were driven to Oklahoma City that afternoon.
Assembly of the bomb was said to have been completed that night at a warehouse in the Oklahoma capital city with the help of Poindexter, McVeigh, and A. In this far more dramatic version of events, related in Secrets Worth Dying For , Poindexter was killed by a throat slashing administered by an A.
The explanation given to McVeigh for the killing: "Soldier, he was only hired help, not one of us. FBI interviews provide some support for each of the conflicting stories. The couple who own the Santa Fe Trail Diner in Herington, the site of McVeigh's storage locker, told federal interviewers that they saw McVeigh, Nichols, and a third man who resembled John Doe 2 having breakfast in their establishment around 8 a.
Witnesses also reported seeing a Ryder truck and another pickup truck at Geary Lake an hour or two later. Owners of a steakhouse in Perry, Oklahoma told agents they saw McVeigh and "a stocky companion" eat dinner in their restaurant around 7 in the evening. What to make of these various sightings? We might never know exactly who assisted McVeigh in the 24 hours leading up to the dreadful events of April 19, but the McVeigh-and-McVeigh-alone theory, and the McVeigh-and-just-Nichols theory, both seem to stretch credulity.
April 19, A surveillance camera captures an image the Ryder truck being driven by McVeigh, just minutes before the truck blows up in front of the Murrah Federal Building. For Timothy McVeigh, April 19 stood out as a date with multiple historical meanings. It was, probably foremost to the former visitor to Waco, the date in that the federal government launched its attack on the Branch Davidian compound in Texas, with the horrific loss of life that resulted.
McVeigh also knew April 19 to be the date in that the Battle of Lexington occurred, marking the beginning of the armed uprising by colonialists against British control.
In his getaway car, McVeigh included a bumper sticker that he expected--probably wanted--authorities to find. In the version of events related by McVeigh in his authorized biography, American Terrorist , he began driving south in his Ryder truck from Ponca City about 7 a. At , McVeigh pulled the truck into an Oklahoma City tire store to ask directions. According to the store employee who talked with McVeigh, a second man wearing a baseball cap sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle as McVeigh sought directions to a downtown address six blocks away.
A video camera at a. The Ryder truck drove up NW 5th street shortly before McVeigh lit two fuses. He parked the truck in the handicapped zone in front of the Alfred P. At a. The damage to the building was so extensive that many people believe there were in fact two blasts--the second coming from an ATF secure area where explosives being stored illegally were ignited by the truck bomb.
Both seismic evidence and witness testimony supports the "two blast theory. Two news stories that followed the bombing reported raised interesting questions concerning a wider conspiracy. In Arkansas, prison officials reported that in the days preceding April 19, Richard Snell repeatedly told them to expect a big bombing or explosion on the day of his execution. Execution came for Snell exactly twelve hours after the Oklahoma City bombing. Meanwhile, in Spokane, Washington, the local paper reported that Chevie Kehoe, a former Elohim City resident staying at a motel in the city, woke early on April 19 to demand that the motel owner turn the lobby television to CNN, telling him that "something is going to happen and it's going to wake people up.
The car carried no license plate, so the officer pulled the driver over. When McVeigh turned out to be carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, in addition to driving without a license or a vehicle registration, he was arrested, booked, and placed in the county jail in Perry, Oklahoma.
Later that day, amidst the gruesome rubble of downtown Oklahoma City, federal agents found the vehicle identification number for the Ryder truck. Within hours, investigators were in a car headed for Junction City, Kansas, to see who might have rented it.
The Investigation and Trial Preliminaries. Initial speculation that the bombing was the work of Arab extremists faded away. A computer check in Washington came up with information that surprised and delighted investigators: Timothy McVeigh was, at present, sitting in a Noble County, Oklahoma jail on unrelated misdemeanor charges.
Federal agents traveled to Perry, where they picked up McVeigh--who had been wondering all the while what was taking authorities so long--and transported him by helicopter to Tinker Air Force Base, near Oklahoma City. Before his arraignment that evening, McVeigh met briefly with two court-appointed attorneys. Once authorities had the name of a suspect, it wasn't difficult to identify McVeigh's army buddy, Terry Nichols, as an additional target of suspicion.
McVeigh had listed the Nichols farm in Michigan as his home address. Nichols turned himself into authorities in Herington, Kansas, and consented to a search of his home. Searchers found guns, stolen goods, anti-government books, ammonium nitrate, a receipt for the purchase of the ammonium nitrate, Primadet explosive, a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City, and a telephone card used by McVeigh to make calls in his hunt for bomb-making materials.
Ultimately, the federal government would bring charges against three men: McVeigh and Nichols for conspiracy to bomb a federal building and for the murder of federal agents, and Michael Fortier for not informing authorities about the bombing and lying to federal agents about his knowledge of the bombing.
Prosecutors never fully explained the decision not to bring charges against others suspected of playing significant roles in the bombing conspiracy, but apparently they simply believed they lacked the compelling evidence necessary to meet the Constitution's high "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of guilt.
Fortier agreed to assist government prosecutors in return for not facing conspiracy charges, a promise of leniency for his admitted crimes, and the promise that his wife would not be charged.
Grand jury indictments of McVeigh and Nichols came on August 11, , three days after Michael and Lori Fortier presented their testimony in the case. Fearing a fair trial was not possible in Oklahoma, U. District Judge Richard Matsch moved the trial to Denver. After receiving authorization from Attorney General Janet Reno to do so, prosecutors announced that they would seek the death penalty in both cases.
The Trial of Timothy McVeigh. Timothy McVeigh never got the trial he wanted. He tried to convince his attorneys to present a "necessity defense" that might allow him to present evidence of the "crimes" of the federal government that his bombing was meant to prevent. McVeigh believed that at least some jurors, were they to hear about the government's actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco, would find the bombing justified. Given the carnage he caused, McVeigh's hope of sympathetic jurors seems far from realistic.
More importantly to McVeigh, a political trial might provide him the opportunity to make his case against an overreaching federal government in the larger court of public opinion. McVeigh's lead lawyer was Stephen Jones, a Republican activist who had taken on other politically charged cases. Upon his appointment as lead counsel, Jones told reporters, "My role is as old as the Constitution. Whether I perform professionally will be determined by how I conduct myself, and whether my client is satisfied McVeigh also resented Jones's refusal to push his "necessity defense," a decision made by Jones after research convinced him that McVeigh had no chance of establishing--as he would be required to do to raise the defense--that the federal government put McVeigh in "imminent danger.
Rather than employ a necessity defense, Jones opted for a strategy of trying to poke what holes he could in the prosecution's case, thus raising a question of reasonable doubt. In addition, Jones believed that McVeigh was taking far more responsibility for the bombing than was justified and that McVeigh, although clearly guilty, was only a player in a large conspiracy.
It fit McVeigh's personality, Jones thought, for him to sacrifice himself for others who shared his anti-government cause. Jones spent considerable resources investigating McVeigh's possible ties to Arab terrorists and Andreas Strassmeir and his Elohim City associates. So much so, in fact, that McVeigh took to sarcastically calling his attorney "Sherlock Jones.
Could [this conspiracy] have been designed to protect and shelter everyone involved? Everyone, that is, except my client Jury selection in the McVeigh case began on March 31, , a month after the appearance of a national news story reporting that McVeigh told defense investigators that he bombed the Murrah Building at the time of day he did to "increase the body count.
McVeigh became convinced that any chance of landing a sympathetic juror, or receiving sympathetic treatment from the judge, evaporated with the story about his interview. Over the course of three weeks, a jury of seven men and five women was chosen.
Opening statements began on April 24, in front of a packed courtroom at the Byron C. Rogers Courthouse and a closed-circuit viewing audience in Oklahoma that included many victims and their families. Lead prosecutor Joseph Hartzler, a wheelchair-bound multiple sclerosis victim, led with a dramatic opening statement that reminded jurors of the tremendous losses suffered two years earlier:. And the only reason they died And the man who committed this act is sitting in this courtroom behind me.
After he did so, he fled the scene--and he even avoided damaging his eardrums because he had earplugs with him. Hartzler scornfully attacked McVeigh's attempts to portray himself as a modern-day patriot "like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. In his opening statement for the defense , Stephen Jones charged that the government conducted a hasty two-week investigation of the actual bombing and then spent the next two years zeroing in on his client.
Critical evidence was ignored, Jones charged, such as the eyewitness testimony of bombing victim Daina Bradley that the person she saw emerge from the Ryder truck by the federal building was black-haired, stocky, and had an olive complexion--"John Doe No.
Jones saved his greatest wrath for star prosecution witness Michael Fortier, who he labeled as story-changing, dope-dealing conniver. Jones concluded his statement by promising jurors that by the end of the trial he would show them that his client was innocent of all charges. The prosecution presented witnesses. Some witnesses told of their own heartwrenching losses they suffered that April day. Michelle Rausch , a former journalism student, told of interviewing McVeigh as he peddled anti-government bumper stickers outside of government barricades near Waco in FBI agents described how they traced evidence found in the bombing to McVeigh.
Charles Hanger of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol described his arrest of McVeigh on I, while other law enforcement authorities described evidence found in McVeigh's car. Tim Chambers, the Texas seller of the racing fuel nitromethane, described his dealings with the person he now knew to be McVeigh. McVeigh showed little emotion during the nearly month-long parade to the stand. The Fortiers, Michael and Lori, filled in some of the most critical gaps in the prosecution's case. Lori Fortier admitted to some of her own failings and misdeeds, including drug use, lying to authorities, trafficking in stolen guns, wrapping blasting caps in wrapping paper, and helping McVeigh forge a driver's license.
Nonetheless, she presented convincing evidence of McVeigh's key role in the bombing. For example, Lori Fortier described the day McVeigh laid about fifteen soup cans out on the floor of her trailer to illustrate the type of bombs he hoped to assemble in his truck.
In his long and rambling cross-examination, Stephen Jones forced Lori to concede that she could have saved lives with a simple phone call, but chose not to, and that she had been promised full immunity by the federal government in exchange for her incriminating testimony.
Michael Fortier proved to be the state's most important witness. Fortier could take jurors from the Timothy McVeigh he knew immediately after Waco, who at that time had unleashed a torrent of anti-government venom, to the one poised and ready to send a message to that same government in Oklahoma City.
Fortier told jurors how McVeigh, in his living room in October , had provided him with detailed plans to blow up the Murrah Building. By then, according to Fortier, McVeigh had already chosen the date for his attack to mark the second anniversary of the Waco assault.
One of the most memorable moments of the trial came when Joseph Hartzler asked Fortier, "Did you have any discussion [with Tim McVeigh] about the deaths that such a bomb would cause?
I said, 'What about all the people? Her obvious reluctance to offer testimony that hurt her brother made what she did say all the more damaging. Jennifer outlined for jurors her brother's evolution from a government critic to a militant poised to take violent action against what he saw as a lawless government.
She revealed that he told her of his experience with explosives, as well as the ominous words that ended one of his last letters to her: "Won't be back forever. The defense presented 25 witnesses over just a one-week period. The most effective witness for the defense might have been Dr. Frederic Whitehurst , who provided a damning critique of the FBI's sloppy investigation of the bombing site and its handling of other key evidence.
Unfortunately for McVeigh, while Whitehurst could show that FBI techniques made contamination of evidence possible , he could not point to any evidence such as trace evidence of explosives on the shirt McVeigh wore on April 19 that he knew to be contaminated.
The task of the defense team was all but impossible. They could not come up with a single alibi witness. They faced the reality that McVeigh had told dozens of people of his hatred of the government, and had told a friend that he planned to take violent action on April Rental agreements and a drawing of downtown Oklahoma City linked him to the blast. He carried earplugs in his car driving north from Oklahoma City forty minutes after the explosion. How could it all be explained away?
In his closing argument, Jones pointed the jury to what the prosecution didn't have, such as an eyewitness that placed him near the Murrah Building around a. The Fortiers' lacked credibility, Jones said, they were just out to save their own skins. For a sympathetic defendant charged in a less heinous crime, poking holes in a prosecution case can sometimes be enough.
Not in this case , however. After over twenty-three hours of deliberation, the jury returned its verdict : guilty on all eleven counts. McVeigh sat expressionless at the defense table as the verdict was read. The same jury listened to evidence in the penalty phase of the trial, with McVeigh's life hanging in the balance. He was only 16 months old.
He was a toddler; and as some of you know that have experience with toddlers, he had a keen eye for mischief. He would often pull on the cord of her curling iron in the morning, pull it off the counter top until it fell down, often till it fell down on him. That morning, she picked him up and wrestled with him on her bed before she got him dressed. She remembers this morning because that was the last morning of his life The bomb claimed innocent lives.
That a homegrown, war-decorated American terrorist named [ Continued ]. Michael Fortier: I asked him about that
0コメント