INFORMANT TOLD FEDS ABOUT JOHN DOE SUSPECTS AT RELIGIOUS COMPOUND
Records confirm reports feds had insider in probe of white supremacist group

by RYAN ROSS

April 9, 1997 / DENVER -- Federal agents had an informant inside an Oklahoma religious compound telling them that residents talked about bombing federal buildings in the months before the Oklahoma City bombing, government records show, and were "supportive" of the bombing after it occurred.

In a May 22, 1995 report of an interview with a confidential informant, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent Angela Finley says the informant described several conversations she overheard at a religious compound that’s home to racial separatists that suggest links to the April 19, 1995 blast that killed 168.

The report doesn’t identify the informant by name, but another document dated April 21 discloses that Finley handled an informant whose first name is Carol.

That's most likely a reference to Carol Howe, a Tulsa resident who spent a lot of time at Elohim City in 1994 and 1995. The lawyer representing accused bomber Timothy McVeigh said in court papers filed two weeks ago that Howe was an informant for ATF agent Finley. He didn’t make public any of the documents that served as the basis for his statement, but the documents obtained by Digital City Denver seem to confirm Jones’ charges.

The documents are the strongest indication to date of some of the evidence McVeigh lawyer Stephen Jones is likely to cite during McVeigh’s trial. He'll use them to support his charge that the bombing was directed by people at Elohim City, and that because federal agents had an informant telling them what was going on there that they could have derailed the bombing conspiracy if they’d acted appropriately.

The documents show that within hours of the bombing agents had information about possible connections between the bombing and Elohim City.

The compound’s security chief, Andreas Strassmeir, "talked frequently about direct action against the U.S. government," according to the April 21 transcript of the interview with informant Howe.

And Dennis Mahon of Tulsa, a former leader of the Oklahoma Ku Klux Klan who Howe says introduced her to Elohim City, had talked with Howe about "targeting federal installations" including the federal building in Oklahoma City, "for destruction through bombings."

Howe also said she "heard frequent anti-federal government philosophy" from compound residents. Required reading for compound residents included the book "The Turner Diaries," with federal officials have said served as a blueprint for the Oklahoma City blast.

The compound’s patriarch, Rev. Robert Millar, has denied any involvement with the bombing, as have Strassmeir and Mahon.

But McVeigh has several connections to the compound (see "Federal Agents Knew of Bombing Figure"). And according to Jones, Howe told ATF agents that Strassmeir and Mahon cased federal buildings with her in Oklahoma City in late 1994 and early 1995.

The newly-obtained documents don’t support that charge, but the May 22, 1995 report is labeled by Finley as the seventh in a monthly-series of reports on the probe of what she called the "White Aryan Resistance."

The report says that Howe contacted Finley the day after the bombing to report that she had seen someone who resembles John Doe No. 2 at Elohim City, the religious compound headed by Millar. Howe identifies him as Tony Ward.

In the April 21 witness statement provided by Howe, she says Tony’s brother, Peter, resembles the sketch of John Doe No. 1. Peter is seen on video filmed at the compound by CBS news after the blast. Peter Ward, like McVeigh, is tall and lanky with an oval-shaped head. At the time he had a crew cut like McVeigh’s.

Federal agents concluded that McVeigh is John Doe No. 1. John Doe No. 2 hasn’t been publicly identified or arrested.

Howe said she was in Elohim City the first three days of May, about two weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing. She said one resident told her "there is a big secret out here."

Howe said she was prepared to return to the compound later that month to find out about the "big secret." She didn’t because she says she was told by someone at the compound that she had "better not" return.

Agent Finley wrote that two days later she was told by the agent in charge of the ATF office in Tulsa that Rev. Millar suspected Howe of being a federal informant.