Secondary Explosion Revealed in Murrah Blast 

Were High Explosives Removed from Floor Above Day Care Center? 

Thursday, May 4, 1995 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By Jeff Holladay and J.D. Cash 

Not one but apparently two powerful 
blasts blew up the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma 
City on April 19, the McCurtain Gazette 
has learned. 

Seismic records indicate a secondary 
blast â€” as powerful or even more potent 
than the initial blast from a bomb-filled 
rental truck â€” ripped the site just 10 to 1 1 
seconds later. 

The source of the second explosion is 
unknown, but there is speculation that 
explosive materials were stored in the 
building in contravention of federal safety 
requirements.. .that they plunged to a lower 
level after the initial explosion... and were 
then detonated by heat and pressure. 

And in fact, a box marked "High 
Explosives" was found shortly after the 
initial blast on the Murrah building's third 
floor and removed by a bomb squad for 
the Oklahoma City police, Oklahoma 
City's fire marshall confirmed. 

While there is the possibility that the 
second series of "spikes" on the seismic 
graphs could represent the actual collapse 
of the Murrah building, that likelihood is 
remote, says geophysicist Dr. Raymon T. 
Brown with the Oklahoma Geological 
Survey. 

"The highest likelihood is of two 
separate events about 10 to 11 seconds 
apart," he says. 

And those "events," he says, indicate 
two explosions from the exact same 
location â€” not one reading for the initial 

explosion and another indicating building 
collapse. 

Brown says two seismic readings were 
taken on the day of the April 19 bomb 
blast in Oklahoma City â€” one at the 
Omniplex Museum, about 4.3 miles from 
the Murrah Building, and at the OGS' 
survey station north of Norman, 16.25 
miles from the blast site. 

Both were made on seismographs using 
strip-chart recorders. Typically, seismic 
disturbances are shown as sharp up-and- 
down patterns on a normally flat line. 

"We have tried to stay away from any 
final interpretation," Brown had said earlier 
in the interview, attempting to avoid 
categorical certainty and noting that the 
FBI had talked wit OGS officials for hours 
after the bombing. 

But his later remarks made it clear that 
there was no doubt in his mind what 
happened. 

And while it is possible that the second 
seismic pattern could have been from the 
collapse of the building and a shock wave 
sent through the ground, Brown called that 
likelihood small. 

"The data we have here suggest an 
additional, low-frequency Rayleigh 
Wave...completely consistent with that of a 
quarry blast which we regularly record on 
our equipment. 

"In other words," Brown said, "the data 
suggest two distinct explosions at the 
federal building, occurring some 10 to 11 
seconds apart." 

And the "signature" pattern of the 
second strip-chart indicators make it clear 

Page 288 

that the readings came from the same site, 
he said. 

The ground wave shock of the building 
collapsing might explain the second 
seismic reading at the Omniplex, just a 
little more than 4 miles form the Murrah 
Building in Oklahoma City, Brown said. 

But the explanation doesn't work for the 
Oklahoma Geological Survey station near 
Norman, he added. 

And Brown says the second batch of 
spikes, just 10 to 11 seconds after the first, 
clearly indicated "an event of equal â€” 
possibly even greater magnitude â€” than the 
first explosion." 

That the first "event" on the 
seismographic, of course, was the well- 
known-by-now mixture of ammonium 
nitrate fertilizer and fuel in the Ryder 
rental truck. It is the blast which blew a 
massive crater in front of the Murrah 
Building, ripped through the building and 
sent brutal shock waves for blocks around. 

Source of Second Blast 

But what caused the secondary 
explosion, assuming the almost 
unquestioned reliability of interpretations 
from Ray Brown about the seismic 
readings? 

No federal officials are likely to admit 
to storing explosives in the federal building 
even if they did. It is in contravention of 
policy. 

Said Larry Scott, a spokesman for the 
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) of 
the Treasury Department, whose Oklahoma 
headquarters were on the 9th floor of the 
Murrah Building: 

"It is not our normal procedure to store 
explosives in any federal building. We 
have approved bunkers at unnamed 
locations for that." 

Scott, who was reached at the ATFs 
command post near the building in 
Oklahoma City, added: "We didn't do it." 

Yet, two separate events add credibility 
to initial eyewitness accounts of a second 
explosion at the Murrah Building. 

One, of course, is the seismic reading at 
the Omniplex in Oklahoma City and at the 
Oklahoma Geological Survey's station near 
Norman. 

The one at the Omniplex showed the 
second explosion more severe than the first 
â€” and about twice as long in duration. 

The other is discovery of a container, 
marked "High Explosives," on the third 
floor of the Murrah Building after the 
initial blasts. 

Dick Miller, Oklahoma City's fire 
marshal, confirmed that fire department 
rescuers found an "intact, 2-ft. by 2-ft. 
container marked 'High Explosives' on the 
third floor of the federal building shortly 
after the blast." 

It was this discovery that temporarily 
suspended all rescue efforts and caused 
those at the scene to flee. 

Miller told different stories to two 
different reporters. 

He told John D. Cash, Battiest free- 
lance writer, former Tulsa businessman and 
law school graduate in an earlier interview 
that the container was not a training 
device, as ATF officials had commented 
earlier, but "actual explosives" which the 
Oklahoma City police bomb squad 
recovered and later detonated. 

The Oklahoma City fire marshall told 
reporter Jeff Holladay several days later on 
Thursday, however, that he wasn't sure 
what was in the container. 

"It could have been an atomic bomb or 
it could have been firecrackers. I don't 

Page 289 

know. I'm .sure in their business, the ATF 
confiscated all kinds of materials." 

Miller added that the ATF can pretty 
well do what it wants to do with explosive 
devices, since it has supervisory capacity 
over all such materials in federal buildings 
or related to federal cases. 

State Fire Marshal Byron Hollander 
says that under state statutes he has 
authority over all explosive devices. But 
the law makes it clear that his jurisdiction 
is subservient to that of applicable federal 
law â€” and that the ATF is the agency in 
charge of anything related to explosives. 

It is against state and federal law to 
store, even temporarily, any sort of 
explosive devices in federal buildings, 
Hollander said. They are supposed to be 
confined to special explosives bunkers, he 
noted. 

Miller, the Oklahoma City fire marshal, 
was asked if he knew of any federal law- 
enforcement agencies storing military-type 
ordnance and told Cash, "Yes, the U.S. 
Marshal's office here has informed me that 
they. ..maintain a magazine (arsenal) in the 
Oklahoma City area.. ." 

The Oklahoma City fire marshal said he 
didn't know about other federal agencies. 

"By law* I can't require them to allow 
my people to inspect their premises," he 
said, noting that such jurisdiction was left 
to the ATF. 

A Possible Scenario... 

Steve Due of Eagletown, who is a 
science buff and operates one of the 
recording stations for the Oklahoma 
Geological Survey, has no hesitancy about 
speculating on possible scenarios stemming 
from the wave patterns on seismological 
readouts. 

First of all, Due said, he believes 
gravity rates rule out the second series of 
"spikes" on the seismological graph being 
the collapse of the building. 

Even for a nine-story building like the 
Murrah Building, 10 seconds is too long of 
a time span for the collapse according to 
gravity rates, he said. 

And since no other crater was found 
other than the one where the rental truck 
had been parked in front of the Murrah 
Building, there has to be some other 
explanation, Due believes. 

His candidate for an explanation is a 
chain-reaction detonation of explosive 
materials â€” after the explosives slid into 
the basement area and then ignited. 

Based on his experience with 
interpreting seismic graphic readings, "It 
looked to me like the second explosion 
was about the same amplitude as the first" 
â€” indicating the presence of explosive 
materials in the building that some federal 
agency simply doesn't want to own up to, 
Due said. 

***** 

Page 290 

Bomb Probe Beginning Today May Answer Questions 

Friday, May 5, 1995 - McCurtain Gazette 
By Jeff Holladay 

An explosives and demolition specialist 
with the Oklahoma Miner Training 
Institute in Wilburton said today he has no 
trouble believing damage to the Alfred P. 
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City 
on April 19 was caused by the blast from a 
Ryder rental truck loaded with Ammonium 
nitrate and fuel oil. 

But two McCurtain County demolitions 
specialists split on their assessment - one 
saying he believed the damage was 
possible from a single bomb, another 
speculating that there was a secondary 
explosion from C710 

or plastique explosives illegally kept in the 
building. 

Mickey Bradley, one of the state's 
leading authorities on mining demolition, 
said he had "no heartburn" with news 
accounts that the blast came from a single 
source. 

Nor did Larry Raymond, a blaster for 
Meridian stone's quarry just past the 
McCurtain County Higher Education 
Center. 

Raymond, who has been working with 
explosives for 26 years, said he never gave 
much thought to blowing up a building. 

Yet it seems possible to him that the 
potent mixture of between 1,000 and 2,000 
pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil 
could have wrought such damage, he said. 

Plastique Explosives? 

But an ex-Army sergeant and 
demolition specialist from McCurtain 
County, who asked that his name not be 
used, said he's been skeptical from the 

beginning that the explosives in the truck 
caused all the damage. 

Having viewed TV footage and seen 
illustrations of the bomb path, the former 
Army engineers demolition specialist has 
expressed skepticism almost from the 
beginning. 

His contention is that, even as powerful 
as the blast from the truck bomb was, it 
would have been partially deflected and 
could not have caused the upward 
explosions from the bottom part of the 
building. 

His own theory is that there was C-4 
explosives or plastique in the building, 
probably in the hands of the ATF. 

"You can throw it across the room at a 
wall and it won't explode... you can stomp 
on it and it won't explode," the ex-Army 
sergeant said. 

"You've got to have a special fuse to set 
it off; otherwise, it's not dangerous. You 
can shape it just like Play-doh. And just a 
little goes a long way. 

"So it's not all that unusual to have law 
enforcement agents carry it with them to 
blow open a door on a raid. 

"They probably wouldn't store any other 
kind of explosive material in that building," 
he added. 

"But they probably thought C-4 was 
perfectly safe since it takes a fuse to set it 
off." 

"Yet C-4 also explodes without a fuse 
under 3,500 pounds of pressure - and the 
one eventuality the federal agents 
apparently never considered was a bomb 
blast that might trigger the plastique," the 
ex-military demolitions specialist said. 

Page 291 

Time Element Debate 

Bradley, however, has trouble believing 
there was a secondary explosion in the 
Murrah building some 10 to 11 seconds 
after the initial blast - an interpretation 
given seismographic readings by a 
geophysicist with the Oklahoma Geological 
Survey. 

And while Dr. Ray Brown of the 
Oklahoma Geological Survey had trouble 
reconciling the second "event" on the 
seismograph machine with building 
collapse, Bradley said he didn't. 

"The ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mix 
creates more gas than any other type of 
explosive," Bradley said. 

"So I have no problem believing a 
tremendous shock wave lifted the floors of 
the building, causing them to collapse in 
pancake fashion." 

The time frame also was consistent for 
the collapsing floors, he said. 

But it wasn't for any secondary 
explosion. 

Bradley said he worked with a Tulsa 
demolition expert last summer in bringing 
down the old 17 story Cotton Exchange 
Building in Dallas. 

"It took 1 1 seconds for it to get to the 
ground," 
" he said. 

And Bradley said he's convinced that if 
there had been a secondary explosion set 
off by other explosives in the building, it 

wpuld not have taken it 10 to 11 seconds 
to occur. 

Reaction time in a secondary blast 
would have been within one second, he 
said. 

"The total chemical reaction from the 
heat and gases takes place in just milli- 
seconds, not seconds," he said. 

A typical mine explosion, for example, 
takes just 4/1000 to 7/1000 of a second to 
occur, he said. 

It is possible, though highly improbable, 
that there could have been a secondary 
explosion, Bradley concedes, but says he 
just can't imagine the circumstances. 

The ex-Army demolition sergeant's 
explanation is that it likely took that long 
for the building to begin settling down - 
and that when it did, the huge pressure set 
offtheC-4. 

You can put a match or a lighter to it, 
he said, and it won!t explode. 

But under 3,500 pounds of pressure per 
square inch, it'll go off without a fuse, he 
said. 

Bom^ Probe Begins Today 

Whatever the case, Bradley said, "As of 
today the bomb investigation begins in 
earnest with the completion of the search 
and rescue phase." 

He said the FBI's bomb-investigation 
unit will lead the investigation, and 
Bradley calls them among the "best bomb 
experts in the world." 

***** 

Page 292 

Relatives of OKC Bombing Victims Seek Probe of Cause 

Sunday, June 18, 1995 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

An investigation into the Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms bureau is being 
sought by parents, grandparents and * 
relatives of victims of the April 19 
bombing of the Murrah federal building in 
Oklahoma City. 

Petitions from the informal support 
group were presented last week to 
Oklahoma U.S. Senators Jim Inhofe and 
Don Nickles and Congressman Ernest 
Istook of Oklahoma City. 

Angry and unnerved by what many in 
the survivors' group are increasingly 
viewing as a "coverup," the petitioners are 
specifically asking the Oklahoma 
congressional delegation to find out what 
knowledge the ATF had Prior to and after 
the tragic event, the McCurtain Gazette has 
learned. 

'â€” Why were only four persons in the 
ATF offices of the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building at the time of the bomb 
explosion when more than a dozen worked 
there? 

â€” And why, just moments after the 
devastating blast, did a man see a cadre of 
ATF agents on the scene, wearing their ' 
clearly labeled ATF jackets, looking for 
clues? 

â€” Was it mere coincidence that 10 ATF 
agents were outside when the explosion 
went off? 

â€” Or had there been a tipojfthat a 
bombing was imminent? 

â€” And why was an exclusive 
copyrighted story in the McCurtain Gazette 
about there being two separate bomb 
blasts â€” not one â€” ignored at first but 

later the target of a federal agency 
attempting to discredit the idea ? 
. Those are among the litany of 
unanswered questions being asked by the 
group of parents and grandparents whose 
children were injured or killed in the April 
19 blast. The petition bears 28 signatures I 

*** 

The frustrations, emotions and growing 
suspicions of those families emerged 
publicly on the day of the May 23 
demolition of the Murrah building in an 
interview with a grieving young mother 
talking to a CNN television interviewer. 

"i.it is time to start getting answers to 
some questions we are being told not to 
even be asking," said Edye Smith, whose 
sons, Chase, 3, and Colten, 2 perished in 
the nursery of the Murrah building. 

The young mother echoed the feelings 
of many others in the loose-knit group of 
survivors when she boldly challenged the 
media, law enforcement officers and the 
political establishment to look into why 
"the ATF appeared to have the option of 
not coming to work April 19th â€” and the 
rest of us weren't given that option." 

"It looks like they knew something was 
going to happen that day!" she added. 

That burning skepticism is still present 
in many members, despite the efforts of 
the ATF to quell them. 

Yet among those who have most 
vigorously pursued the inconsistencies, 
there is a growing conviction of a massive 
coverup â€” along with a concomitant 
growth of fear spawned by the realization 

Page 293 

that their queries are unwelcome by 
government agencies assuming a 
monolithic front on the cause, the culprits 
and even the number of explosions.. 

Still, the more some federal agents have 
talked, the more inconsistencies they have 
revealed â€” and the more certain he has 
become that there is some kind of coverup, 
said one Oklahoma City man. 

His fear of possible retaliation has 
grown so much that he now insists his 
name not be used. 

He is an upper middle class, college- 
educated professional who would laugh at 
any suggestion he might have any 
community of interest with militia 
members, extreme right-wing groups and 
others whose ideology and hate focus on 
the federal government. 

*** 

The ATF has acknowledged that of the 
15 people assigned to the Murrah building, 
only one agent, a secretary and two clerical 
workers â€” compliance officers â€” were 
working in the building that day (All 
survived the blast). 

ATF agent-in-charge Alex McCauley 
told the Daily Oklahoman earlier that he'd 
left his ninth floor office on April 19 â€” 
then had returned for something he'd 
forgotten. As he was departing via 
elevator, the explosion erupted, trapping 
him in an elevator. 

That would leave 10 ATF agents out of 
the building at the time of the explosion. 

Coincidence? 

Or planned that way because of a 
warning of a possible bomb? 

After Edye Smith's appeal for an 
explanation, top officials quickly sought to 
defuse such talk. 

High-ranking officials from the U.S. 
Attorney's Office and the ATF met with 
her to discuss and then account for the 
whereabouts of the ATF agents. 

It was mere coincidence the ATF agents 
were absent, she was told; 

To further defuse such talk, which 
spread rapidly in the wake of the 
explosion, the director of the of Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 
Washington, D.C. talked to a CNN TV 
reporter; 

"The OKC field office of ATF had two 
or three agents in court down the street 
that morning two in court elsewhere and 
two inspectors on the street," he said, not 
disclosing in the interview where the others 
were. 

And when asked to respond directly to 
Edye Smith's remarks suggesting the ATF 
must have known something was afoot, the 
director flatly denied any bomb threats 
being received by the ATF regarding the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

(The day of the April 19 explosion, 
however, the McCurtain Gazette had talked 
to Jackie Stiles, the daughter of Lewis and 
Frances Stiles of Broken Bow, whose son, 
Bob, a U.S. Department of Agriculture 
veterinarian* worked put of the building. 
Frantic with worry, Jackie Stiles said she 
talked to an FBI agent at the scene who 
told her there had been a bomb threat 
made against the Murrah building the 
previous week.) 

Because of the approaching second 
anniversary -.erf the destruction of the 
Branch Davidian compound in Waco, 
Texas, though, the ATF director said 
agents were essentially placed on alert for 
possible demonstrations. 

*** 

Page 294 

Just days after those statements from the 
ATF, Gazette correspondent J.D: Cash of 
Battiest conducted a lengthy, detailed 
interview with the businessman, Who had 
rushed to the Murrah building because he 
knew a family member was in the area that 
morning. 

The Oklahoma City man said he'd just 
arrived at his downtown office on April 19 
when he heard a long roar and felt the 
ground tremble. 

Moments later, he received a telephone 
call, telling him the blast had occurred just 
minutes away in the downtown area and 
that smoke and fire were pouring out of a 
building only two blocks from where his 
wife worked. 

Racing to the scene, he arrived 14 to 16 
minutes after the blast, he estimates. 

Then, after racing past a few policemen 
and firemen, he came upon the horrific 
scene of destruction. 

It was a scene of pandemonium amid a 
thick miasma of smoke, fire and dust â€” 
wounded, bloodied survivors staggered 
about... the blare of sirens from emergency 
vehicles racing up. 

He was standing amidst what he would 
later learn to be the worst incident of 
terrorism ever to take place on American 
soil. 

Suddenly, his attention was drawn to an 
area just in front of the stricken building, 
where he spotted a group of men 
"...walking very deliberately, with their 
heads down â€” almost as if they were in 
some type of formation." 

Continuing to describe the seemingly 
odd behavior, he added: 

"They were kicking at the ground. Sort 
of shuffling their feet through the rubble as 
if they were looking for something. 

"Then I noticed that they were wearing 
raid jackets and realized they were ATF 

agents. 

"I thought, 'Wow! They must work 
down here someplace â€” to have been here 
so quickly." 

Looking around some more, the witness 
then noticed that there was already crime- 
scene tape around the area. 

How many ATF agents did he see? 

"I know there were eight of them for 
sure, and maybe 1Q," the witness said. 
"They all had on their blue jackets and 
their agency's initials were clearly visible. 
They were only 10 feet from me." 

*** 

What does it mean? 

To that witness, his first-hand 
observations of the ATF agents seems to 
add credence to Edye Smith's accusation 
that the ATF knew something was about to 
happen â€” though it was not that single 
event so much as a combination of things 
that finally convinced the Oklahoma City 
man there was some kind of coverup. 

One of those events was the exclusive 
May 4 story of the McCurtain Gazette 
reporting the belief of a geophysicist that 
seismographs clearly indicated two separate 
and distinct bomb explosions some 10 to 
11 seconds apart. 

Another was the attempt by the U.S. 
Geological Survey to discredit the theory 
of two bombs after the building's 
destruction on May 23 â€” even though, as 
the Gazette reported June 4, Dr. Ray 
Brown adamantly resisted those 
conclusions of the U.S. Geological Survey. 

(The May 4 exclusive story of this 
newspaper was never circulated by the 
Associated Press, though sent. But the 

Page 295 

Associated Press reported in early June the 
conclusions of the U.S. Geological Survey 
that only one bomb destroyed the Murrah 
building â€” though it did not bother to find 
out the Dr. Ray Brown or Dr. Charles 
Mankin, director of the Oklahoma 
Geological Survey, disagreed with the 
report.) 

It was like Alice in Wonderland, the 
witness said. 

Things just keep getting curiouser and 
curiouser. 

There was, for example, the CNN report 
on June 7 that the ATF last November had 
participated in a truck bomb experiment â€” 
and that one of the agents who participated 
just happened to be across the street from 
the Murrah building on the morning of the 
bombing. 

Maybe it was mere coincidence, the 
Oklahoma City businessman said. 

But there seem to be such an unusually 
high number of coincidences that they 
demand an explanation. 

"There are some very obvious and 
serious questions that need to be answered 
here, and those questioned need to be put 
under oath... 

Tve read copies of the stories your 
paper has run on this...and we wish every- 
one else was taking a look at all this too." 

"Hey, we're not trying to cause 
problems or make trouble for anyone â€” we 
just want to clear up these things. I can't 
understand why these issues aren't being 
explored by the national media." 

*** 

Soon after the Gazette published its 
exclusive copyrighted story on May 4 
about the conclusions of the Oklahoma 
Geological Survey official that there were 

two separate bomb blasts rather than one, 
the story gained rapid currency of FAX 
machines and the Ihternet computer 
network â€” though the Associated Press 
and the state's major newspapers ignored 
the story and the conclusions of 
geophysicist Ray Brown. 

A day later, the Gazette got reaction 
from a former Army demolitions expert, 
who said he'd been convinced from the 
beginning â€” after seeing photos of the 
building's damage â€” that the ammonium 
nitrate and fuel oil bomb from the rental 
truck could not have caused all the damage 
to the building. 

The Idabel man speculated that the ATF 
had unauthorized C-4 or plastique 
explosives in the building, thinking it 
would not pose a danger. 

And under ordinary circumstances, it 
wouldn't the former Army sergeant said. 

"You've got to have a special fuse to set 
it off; otherwise it's not dangerous. You 
can shape it just like Play-doh. And just a 
little goes a long way. 

"So it's not all that unusual to have law 
enforcement agents carry it with them to 
blow open a door on a raid. 

"They probably wouldn't store any other 
kind of explosive materials in the 
building," he added. "But they probably 
thought C-4 was safe, since it takes a fuse 
to set it off." 

But C-4 will also explode under on 
other circumstance â€” if it is put under 
3,500 pounds per square inch of pressure. 

An with the collapse of the Alfred P. 
Murrah Building on April 19, that may 
very well what had set off the C-4 and 
caused that second bomb explosion, the ex- 
demolitions expert said. 

A retired FBI agent in California, 
meanwhile, has advanced a theory that the 

Page 296 

second bomb explosion was from a highly 
sophisticated barometric bomb obtainable 

only through certain Middle East terrorist 
groups. 

***** 

Witnesses Confirm Explosives, Second Explosion 

Sunday, June 25, 1995 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
ByJ.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

Witnesses interviewed by the McCurtain 
Gazette have confirmed from first-hand 
experience that there were explosives in 
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building 
after it was wracked by the April 19 
bombing â€” and that there were two 
separate explosions. 

The Gazette reported in an exclusive 
copyrighted story on May 4 that Dr. Ray 
Brown, a geophysicist with the Oklahoma 
Geological Survey, had concluded from 
seismographic readings that the Oklahoma 
City federal building was demolished by 
not one but two separate explosions. 

The FBI, the ATF and other federal 
agencies have steadfastly maintained that 
the only explosion came from a rental 
truck loaded with ammonium nitrate 
fertilizer and fuel oil, and that the prime 
culprit is Timothy McVeigh. 

But parents, grandparents and relatives 
of victims of the Murrah building's 
destruction are not so convinced. Some 10 
days ago they presented a petition to 
members of their congressional delegation, 
asking for an investigation. 

Meanwhile as the Associated Press, the 
mainstream press and the national TV 
networks largely dismiss non-official 
scenarios as the perfervid imagination of 
conspiracy- and paranoia-driven 
government-haters, there is a growing 

number of witnesses taking issue with the 
"official" version, 

*** 

One of the doubters recently appeared 
on the Chuck Harder Show, a syndicated 
radio talk show broadcast out of White 
Springs, Fla., and with 375 markets in the 
U.S., including Radio Station KTOK in 
Oklahoma City. 

On June 15, the show featured free- 
lance investigative reporter Pat Shannon of 
Florida who has been researching the 
Oklahoma City bombing since the day it 
occurred. 

"/ smell fish here and this stofy is not 
going to die, n predicted Shannon at the 
opening of the program. 

"There are too many witnesses that 
know too much. And enough independent 
investigators are working here to blow the 
lid off the thing... 

"The story has Hegs\." 

Referring directly to the articles 
published by the McCurtain Gazette, 
Shannon told the show's host, Chuck 
Harder, "They thought they saw a rat down 
here and...started and independent 
investigation." 

Shannon also told of correspondent J.C. 
Cash interviewing Dick Miller, Oklahoma 

Page 297 

City assistant fire marshal, who admitted 
that high explosives were removed from 
the third floor of the Murrah building right 
after the blast. 

When Shannon told Harder of the 
Associated Press and the state's largest 
newspaper ignoring the Gazette's exclusive, 
copyrighted May 4 story, Harder broke in, 
saying: 

"Hold it! Hold it! Are you saying the 
wire service ignored a blockbuster like 
that?" 

"Thats right" Shannon said. "And the 
state's two largest papers and CNN did, as 
well." 

Shannon the told of interviewing a 
Vietnam war veteran who was trying to 
rescue people from the third floor of the 
Murrah building right after the bombing. 

The veteran told of at least a half-dozen 
ammunition rounds "zinging" past him 
from a large container of ammunition that 
had blown out of the burning cars outside. 

Added Shannon: 

"This vet, who says he's been shot at 
enough to know what exploding bullets 
sound like, explained to me in the 
interview that he went on a national 
television show a few weeks ago, along 
with several other people. And he said that 
everything was going well in the taping of 
that program until he started telling the 
interviewer about having to dodge bullets 
while he was trying to help people on the 
third floor. 

"Well," says Shannon, "...this guy tells 
me now that (this) portion of the show was 
never aired" 

Shannon also quoted Jim Ferguson, an 
electrician and assistant Murrah building 
manager, who said that when the explosion 
occurred he was just across the street and 
"heard two blasts. " 

Shannon also quoted Ferguson as saying 
"My wife and motiher-in-law were just a 
mile and a half away when the heard the 
first blast. And after turning to look in that 
direction, they saw dust and smoke rising, 
then felt and heard die second blast and 
witnessed a second plume erupt into the 
sky." 

*** 

The Gazette also talked to several 
witnesses who told of being on the scene 
and of explosives being in the building. 

One was Brent Bloom, a University of 
Oklahoma graduate who was a VISTA 
volunteer at a homeless shelter just a few 
blocks from the Murrah building. 

Bloom, who works at the homeless 
shelter to get credits for a federal program 
that will help make him a doctor, said he 
rushed to the scene of the explosion as fast 
as he could. 

He ran up to a police officer, who 
denied him access. But when Bloom 
explained that he had emergency first-aid 
training and knew CPR, the policeman 
allowed him in. 

He crawled over rubble and instantly 
found himself in. the day-care center. 

It was a scene of heretofore 
unimaginable horror. 

Then, about an hour or more after 
Bloom had started recovering the dead and 
wounded, a fireman screamed that he had 
discovered a bomb. 

"People began running from the room," 
Bloom said. 

Shortly afterward, men wearing the 
protective clothing of a bomb squad 
showed up. 

Later, he would be allowed to go back 
in. 

Page 298 

But at least two more times, he said, 
there were similar events â€” discovery of a 
bomb or bombs ... fleeing the area ... 
leaving trapped victims behind while city 
and county bomb squads entered the 
facility to remove unexploded devices. 

*** 

For Virgil Steele, another volunteer 
rescuer who has received numerous awards 
and citations for his heroism that day, the 
initial explosion was uncomfortably close 
to where he as working. 

Steele was atop a nearby high-rise going 
up when the initial explosion just after 9 
a.m. April 19 rocked the downtown area. It 
cause die steel frame on which he was 
working to sway "at least 3 feet," he said, 
and knocked him to the asphalt and gravel 
on the roof area. 

Then he "heard and felt a second blast, 
very clearly," he said. 

In just minutes, Steele, too, was drawn 
to the Murrah building's day-care center. 

"No one knew about any truck bomb 
while we were in the building that first 
day," he said. "But we all knew that there 
had to be some kind of bombs that had 
gone off. So when a fireman exclaimed, 
"There's a bomb!" people got pretty shook 
up. I looked over and not 10 steps away 
was a cylindrical pipe may 18-inches long 
â€” sealed on both ends." 

Pretty soon, he said, "here came a 
bunch of guys in their bomb protective 
suits and they took the thing away..." 

A similar incident was repeated later, he 
said. 

A suburban Oklahoma City police 
officer, who arrived on the scene late on 
the morning of April 19, also told of 
bombs being carried away by the bomb 
squads. He would not consent to the use of 
his name. 

Hoping to identify the body of a 
relative's small child while they were laid 
out near the day-care center, he jumped 
over a police crime tape and was starting 
into the day-care center when a fireman 
yelled, "Hey, idiot, that's a bomb!" 

Stunned, the officer looked to where the 
fireman was pointing â€” and saw a 2-ft. X 
2-ft. X 2-ft. corrugated box surrounded by 
more crime tape. 

Then the fireman yelled other warnings: 
"There's one over there and another over 
there! We're waiting for the bomb squads 
to come back from hauling off the others." 

*** 

*** 

There is no doubt in the mind of one 
witness interviewed by the Gazette that 
there was a second blast at the Murrah 
building â€” and that it was very strong. 

Judy Hamilton Morse said she was in 
the ninth floor waiting room of U.S. 
District Judge Luther Bphanon in the Old 
Post Office Building, some 200 yards from 
the Murrah building. 

The judge's secretary screamed, " It's a 
bomb!" as the blast erupted and glass was 
blown from a nearby window. 

Then, with the initial blast still 
reverberating, the secretary stepped from 
around her desk â€” and was then picked up 
by a second blast and slammed all the way 
across the room...right at Morse's feet, 
some 12 feet from the secretary's desk. 

While she does not specifically recall 
multiple explosions, the singularity of that 

Page 299 

event has convinced Morse that there was, 
indeed a powerful second bomb blast. 

***** 

General, Lawmaker Call for Bombing Probe 

Wednesday, June 28, 1995 - McCurtain Gazette 
By Jeff Holladay and J.D. Cash 

A retired Air Force brigadier general, an 
authoritative expert on explosives 
technology, asserts there is no way that the 
April 19 blast which destroyed the Alfred 
P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma 
City could have been done by a single 
truck bomb, the McCurtain Gazette learned 
Tuesday. 

And just days before the bomb-wracked 
building was to be demolished on May 23, 
the retired general had petitioned members 
of Oklahoma's congressional delegation to 
delay the destruction to preserve key 
evidence. 

The Gazette had learned of the letters â€” 
never released publicly but sent on the 
ATF â€” from independent sources and had 
requested a copy from Oklahoma U.S. 
Senator Don Nickles' office, which readily 
complied with the request Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, the Daily Oklahoman 
reported in today's edition that State Rep. 
Charles Key, an Oklahoma City legislator 
who lost a personal friend in the bomb 
blast, has requested an independent state 
investigation by a special House 
committee. 

It also noted that Key has scheduled a 
meeting at 7 p.m. tonight in the chambers 
of the state House for all victims and 
victims' families, and said an 11 a.m. press 
conference Friday will include experts who 
differ with the official FBI version of the 
bomb explosion. 

The Oklahoma City newspaper said Key 
sent a memo to all House legislative 

members and included the letter sent to 
U.S. Senator Don Nickles from retired Air 
Force Brigadier General Benton K. Partin, 
who the Gazette has learned will be one of 
those speaking. 

Partin, of Alexandria, VA., has been 
called "one of the world's foremost experts 
in both the theoretical and practical 
application of explosives technology" by 
one publication. 

In the letter hand-carried to members of 
Congress on May 17, Gen. Partin wrote 
first of this concern that "vital evidence 
will soon be forever destroyed" with the 
pending demolition of the Murrah building 
on May 23. 

Then he quickly got to the nub of his 
concerns: 

"From all the evidence I have seen in 
published material, I can say, with a high 
level of confidence, that the damaged 
pattern on the reinforced concrete super- 
structure could not possibly have been 
attained from the single truck bomb 
without supplementing demolition charges 
at some of the reinforced column bases." 

The thrust of Partin's comments were 
essentially the same as those of an ex- 
Army sergeant and demolitions expert 
from Idabel, who told the Gazette on May 
5 that the pattern of damage was all wrong 
â€” and that he suspected the ATF had 
illegally stored explosives in the building 
and that they had gone off.. .a story since 
given credence by on-site witnesses quoted 

Page 300 

in the June 25 edition of the Sunday 
McCurtain Gazette and Broken Bow News. 

Said the general: 

"The total incompatibility with a single 
truck bomb lies in the fact that either some 
of the column collapsed that not have 
collapsed or some of the columns are still 
standing that should have collapsed and 
did not.. 

"To produce the resulting damage 
pattern on the building, there would have 
to have been an effort with demolition 
charges at column bases to complement or 
supplement the truck bomb damage.." 

Credentials Impeccable 

At this juncture in his letter, General 
Partin sought to establish his credentials 
for making such observations. 

He noted that he had spent 25 years in 
the Air Force in research, design, 
development, test and management of 
weapons development. His duties included 
being commander of the Air Force 
Armament Technology Laboratory. 
Moreover, he was the first chairman of the 
Office of the Secretary of the Defense joint 
service Air Munitions Requirements and 
Development Committee. 

Blast Pattern All Wrong 

"When I first saw the pictures of the 
truck boniVs asymmetrical damage to the 
Federal Building in Oklahoma City, my 
immediate reaction was that the pattern of 
damage would have been technically 
impossible without supplementing 
demolition charges at some of the 
reinforced concrete column bases (a 
standard demolition technique). 

"First, blast through air is a very 
inefficient energy coupling mechanism 
against heavy reinforced concrete beams 

and columns. Second, blast damage 
potential initially falls off more rapidly 
than an inverse function of the distance 
cubed. That is why in conventional 
weapons development, one seeks accuracy 
over yield for hard targets. 

In an aside, the ex-general noted that 
columns in large buildings are not good 
targets for blasts, and referred to the Trade 
Center bombing in New York. One photo 
at the blast's center showed a massive 
concrete-and-steel column still standing 
while steel-reinforced concrete flooring 
was stripped away for several floors. 

Yet, there was apparent damage to 
columns on the backside of the blast in the 
Murrah building leading Partin to this 
assertion. 

"/ know of no way possible to reproduce 
the apparent building damage without 
well-placed demolition charges 
complementing the truck bomb damage. 

Column Damage an Anomaly 

General Partin suggests that there were 
either high-level explosives in the Murrah 
building or that bombs were planted by co- 
conspirators â€” not necessarily connected to 
the truck bombing. 

No other explanation will fly he said. 

The gross asymmetry in the Federal 
Building damage pattern is ipso facto 
evidence that there was most pmbably a 
demolition charge effort and a truck bomb 
effort..." 

At this point, the general jumps full- 
scale into conspiracy theories saying those 
who planted the demolitions and set up the 
truck bomb "need not have known each 
other but it would have to be coordinated 
at some level." 

While his credentials as an expert on 
explosives and armaments are impressive, 

Page 301 

the general's fervid right-wing ideology 
apparently caused some in Congress and 
the media to confuse his technical expertise 
with his politics. 

This statement in the letter, for example, 
apparently caused some senators and 
members of the news media to dismiss his 
conclusions as the rantings of an extreme 
right-wing patriot: 

"Since the Oklahoma bomb tragedy, this 
country has seen on of the most intense 
and most pervasive psycho-political 
campaigns against the so-called Christian 

Right that have ever occurred before in the 
country.." 

The general said in his letter he feared 
another "cover-up" similar to the Waco 
incident involving the Branch Davidians, 
though his request for independent 
evaluations by demolition experts were 
given short shrift and the building was 
demolished May 23. 

His final perorational question, however, 
still lingers long after the Murrah building 
cam tumbling down into rubble. 

"Why the rush to destroy evidence? 1 

***** 

ATFs Explanation Disputed 

Sunday, July 30, 1995 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

Three elevator repairmen for the Alfred 
P. Murrah Federal Building dispute the 
escape claim made by ATFs resident agent 
on the day the Oklahoma City building 
collapsed from bomb explosions April 19. 

The men, who were on the scene just 
minutes after the devastating blasts, told 
the Gazette that the ATF chiefs claims 
were simply not possible. 

Because of what it said were 
widespread rumors that ATF agents had 
evacuated the Murrah building prior to the 
blasts, the ATF sent out a news release 
from its Dallas office and agent-in-charge 
Lester Martz on May 23 saying the 
allegations were "entirely false." 

That story also claimed that the head of 
the local ATF, office in the Murrah 

building, was just departing the building in 
an elevator when the blasts occurred: 

"ATFs Resident Agent in Charge Alex 
McCauley was with a DEA agent in the 
elevator when the bomb exploded. The 
elevator dropped in a free fall from the 
eight floor to the third. The two men were 
trapped in the smoke-filled elevator. The 
emergency buttons and the phone were 
inoperable. On their fourth attempt they 
managed to break through the doors and 
escape the elevator. 11 

Pure fantasy, says repairman Duane 
James. He clearly recalled checking and 
double-checking each elevator that terrible 
morning just to make certain no one was 
trapped in one, James told J.D. Cash. 

Of the six passenger elevators, five were 
stopped between floors, their doors blown 

Page 302 

inward, prompting the safety mechanisms 
to freeze them in place, he said. 

"Once that occurs, the doors cannot be 
opened â€” period," James said. "What I and 
some others did was kick in the ceilings on 
each of those elevators and determined that 
no one was in them." 

He said only one passenger elevator 
could later be repaired and operated 
manually, "and that one was sitting at floor 
level on three or four. 

"And it had no one in it and was, very 
possibly, sitting at that floor when the 
power went off after the blast. 

Certainly, it had not 'free-fallen,' he 
said, nor had any of the others. 

He also said that he and other 
maintenance people also checked to see if 
any of the emergency switches had been 
tripped. Those switches limit speed and cut 
power to the elevator if they start 
accelerating too fast for some reason â€” 
such as a "free fall," he explained. 

"None of those switches were tripped on 
any of the elevators in that building," he 
said. "I, along with other men with our 
company, checked the equipment several 
times. 

"Absolutely no elevators dropped that 
morning." 

In fact, James added, it is impossible for 
modern elevators such as those in the 
Murrah building to "free fall" or drop 
"unless you cut the cables because they are 
counter-balanced to protect the occupants 
from just that sort of danger." 

More Confirmation of Explosives 

Meanwhile, despite claims to the . 
contrary by the ATF, the McCurtain 
Gazette has obtained more photos and 
eyewitness accounts confirming that the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 

maintained a huge cache of weapons and 
explosives in the Murrah building at the 
time of the April 19 explosion that killed 
268 people â€” the worst such incident in 
the nation's history. 

The Gazette had previously reported on 
July 7 that an eyewitness interviewed by 
J.D. Cash told of removing a substantial 
number of weapons and explosives from 
the ninth floor of the stricken building 
some two weeks after it was torn apart by 
bomb blasts. 

Those weapons included a TOW anti- 
tank missile and ammunition. 

Now, two more civilians have come 
forward to describe the arms magazine in 
even more stunning detail. 

The two witnesses (whom we will call 
Andy and Tom in cirder to protect their 
anonymity) add even more credibility to 
the concept that secondary explosions at 
the building were the result of explosives 
illegally stored by members of federal law 
enforcement agencies that office on the 
ninth floor of the Murrah building. 

Andy, a civilian contractor hired to 
perform certain functions for the GSA 
during the rescue operations, actually 
helped the ATF, DEA and Secret Service 
remove weapons and gun safes from the 
ninth floor about two weeks after the 
explosion. 

Recalling the amazing variety of 
weapons the ATF agents had stored in the 
remains of their magazine, he exclaimed: 

"They had everything! ... Home-made 
zip guns, AK-47s, sawed-off shotguns, 
AR-15s, M-16s â€” literally hundreds of 
guns. You name it, they had it all ... any 
kind of weapon you could ever want." 

He also said he recalls seeing an ATF 
agent with a five-gallon bucket of hand 
grenades. 

Page 303 

Being a Vietnam combat veteran, he 
was no stranger to military-style explosives 
and said the grenades were green-colored 
but smooth surfaced, probably concussion 
rather than fragment grenades. 

He said the ATF moved the weapons 
from the ninth floor into the basement 
parking garage, then hauled them away in 
a truck. 

But on the west side of the building, he 
said, there were literally mounds of cases 
of ammunition. 

He recalled the walls of west end of the 
site where the ammunition was stored had 
been blown out. 

"The stuff was everywhere," he said of 
the ammunition. 

Tom, another eyewitness to the ninth 
floor weapons room, also provided a vivid 
description of the remains of the ATF 
arsenal: 

"What is left of that (ATF magazine) 
room is in the far southeast end of the 
ninth floor but much of it was blown away 
and (apparently) disappeared into the 
rubble right on top of the America's Kids 
Day Care Center," he said. 

Equally horrific, the room sat atop the 
area where most of the casualties in the 
building occurred in the April 19 disaster. 

Popularly referred to by rescuers and 
the media as "the pit area," it is a coned-in 
area on the east side of the building where 
the worst of the human carnage took place 
... and which took rescuers some 30 days 
to work through. 

'Scandal of the Decade'? 

In a related matter, the Gazette has 
learned that a well-known Oklahoma trial 
attorney has been retained by a victim of 
the Oklahoma City bombing disaster. 

Asking that his name not be included in 
the story, the attorney said his client has 
provided him with startling evidence that, 
indeed, there were secondary explosions 
the day of the bombing. He believes they 
were the result of illegally stored 
explosives in the building. 

One Oklahoma attorney, who has 
examined mudh of the evidence amassed, 
said "possible malfeasance by these federal 
law enforcement agencies could lead, in 
terms of dollar amount, to the largest class- 
action lawsuit in Oklahoma history." 

Same Story from FBI 

Despite a call for an investigation of the 
ATF by some victims and families of the 
victims of the bombing, the FBI has never 
wavered in its official explanation that the 
bomb blast was caused by a single 
explosion from a fertilizer-and-fuel oil 
bomb in a rental truck parked outside the 
federal building. 

The Gazette, however, reported in an 
exclusive copyrighted story on May 4 that 
the Oklahoma Geological Survey's 
seismographs showed two separate and 
distinct blasts rather than a single bomb. 

Though shunned by the Associated 
Press and other news media, to whom it 
was sent, the story gained wide currency 
via the Internet and FAX machines and has 
prompted increasing skepticism of the 
"official" version. 

â€¢kit-kick 

Page 304 

The McCurtain Daily Gazette in Idabel, Oklahoma is a tiny newspaper with a daily 
press run of 3000 and no web site. Despite this, some of the most original reporting 
about the Oklahoma City bombing originates here, thanks to Gazette reporter J.D. 
Cash. The problem is, does anybody see it? Talk radio hosts like Chuck Harder and 
Jim Quinn are aware of Cash's stories, but not Peter Jennings or Dan Rather. Nor are 
you likely to hear anything from network news, even if Cash's latest blockbuster gains 
legs with the print media. 

Keep reading. Here are some of the compelling stories that follow: 

Eyewitness to Bombing Saw McVeigh, Smiling Mideasterner 

McCurtain Daily Gazette - Friday, August 11, 1995 

"This guy stood out to me because with all the chaos and injured people around me, 

this guy was just standing by himself, staring, at the Murrah with a smile from 

ear to ear!" - Gary Lewis 

Bombing Trial Judges Absence on Day of Blast 'an Amazing Coincidence' 

McCurtain Daily Gazette - Friday, December 1, 1995 

The Final Moments Before the Oklahoma City Bombing 

McCurtain Daily Gazette - Wednesday, January 24, 1996 

Did Conspirators Try 'Dry Run' on Eve of OKC Bombing? 

McCurtain Sunday Gazette - Sunday, September 1, 1996 

Prosecutors Plan to Ignore Other McVeigh Witnesses 

McCurtain Daily Gazette - Thursday, January 9, 1997 

Page 305 

Eyewitness to Bombing Saw McVeigh, Smiling 
Mideasterner 

Friday, August 11, 1995 - McCurtain Gazette 
By J.D. Cash and JeffHolladay 

A strong Mideast connection to the * 
April 19 blasts that destroyed the Alfred P. 
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City 
is suggested by eyewitnesses interviewed 
by The McCurtain Daily Gazette â€” 
including one who told of seeing a man of 
obviously Middle Eastern origins grinning 
from ear to ear after viewing the aftermath 
of the explosion. 

That witness, just minutes before *the 
explosion, also told of almost being run 
over by a big yellow Mercury driven by a 
man he later identified as Tim McVeigh v 
and a passenger he said bore a striking 
resemblance to the "John Doe H" sketch 
later released by the FBI. 

And yet another witness interviewed by 
the Gazette told of seeing a stocky Mideast 
male park a pickup truck near where she 
lives in Oklahoma City soon after the 
explosion. 

About a week later the FBI came 
around she said, and an FBI agent told her 
the yellow pickup had been repainted, was 
originally brown and had been used in the 
bombing. 

The FBI and federal prosecutors have 
never publicly acknowledged any Mideast 
connection to the case. 

They have blamed the building's 
destruction on a fertilizer-and-fuel oil 
bomb set off by McVeigh and fellow anti- 
government conspirators. 

A federal grand jury Thursday indicted 
McVeigh and Terry Nichols on 1 1 felony 
counts, charging them with being, along 
"with others unknown," behind a seven- 

month conspiracy to bomb the Murrah 
building. 

But if the FBI and federal prosecutors 
are refusing to acknowledge a possible 
Mideast connection, it is apparently 
bulking large in the defense strategy of 
McVeigh!s chief defense attorney Stephen 
Jones of Enid. 

"The government's claims that they 
don't know of any other conspirators in a 
bombing of a federal building in the 
Midwest seems to me not to withstand 
scrutiny," Jones said. 

Earlier, he had charged that the FBI and 
federal prosecutors have had a secret 
informant, granted immunity from 
prosecution, who as early as last 
September warned of a conspiracy to blow 
up federal buildings within the U.S. 10th 
Circuit Court of Appeals district. 

Jones said the informant told the FBI 
that the conspirators were a combination of 
American citizens and individuals with 
Arabic names. 

But the Enid lawyer said the informant 
contacted him after seeing McVeigh's 
photo on the cover of a news magazine 
and told Jones he'd never heard McVeigh's 
name or seen him during the time he was 
doing his undercover work. 

Adding Credence to the Mideast 
Connection 

The eyewitnesses interviewed by the 
Gazette add credence to Jones' contention 
of a Mideast connection to the Oklahoma 
City bombing. 

Page 306 

One of those, who spoke exclusively to 
the Gazette, may have had one of the most 
singular experiences so far of any first- 
hand observers â€” being almost run over by 
a car he says was driven by Timothy 
-McVeigh and occupied by "John Doe 11" 
and later witnessing a Mideastern man grin 
with smug satisfaction immediately after 
the bombing. 

Gary Lewis, at the time of the blast, 
was a pressman for the Oklahoma Journal, 
which was extensively 'damaged by the 
force of the explosion. 

About 15 minutes before 9 a.m. that 
fateful morning of April 19, Lewis said 
he'd stepped outside the building to smoke 
his pipe. 

He suddenly remembered that it was 
Wednesday and realized he had not turned 
in last week's uniforms for clean ones. 

Lewis retrieved the dirty uniforms from 
his pickup truck, parked just around the 
corner. 

As he was walking back to the south 
side of the Journal Record building, he 
saw a big yellow Mercury sedan (similar to 
the one that led to McVeigh's arrest on I- 
35 near Perry) racing through a parking lot 
â€” right at him. 

Suddenly, the vehicle made a sharp 
right turn just a few feet in front of him, 
then jumped a par of curb guards, Lewis 
said. 

Once in the alley in front of the Journal 
Record building, Lewis said the vehicle 
with two men inside sped toward Robinson 
Street and out of the parking lot. 

Recalling what he'd seen in a taped 
interview, Lewis said the man driving the 
Mercury matched the photo he'd seen of 
Timothy James McVeigh. 

And, he said, the fellow riding in the 
passenger seat of the Mercury was 

identical to the sketch that the FBI released 
of "John Doe II" right after the bombing. 

Lewis also noted that the license plate 
on the Mercury (which was stopped later 
on 1-35 because it did not have a license 
tag) was dangling by only one screw and 
was clearly an Oklahoma tag. 

But it was what happened after the 
blasts that day that stick out even more 
strikingly in Lewis' mind. 

After emerging from the damaged 
Journal Record building with only minor 
injuries, Lewis said he immediately spotted 
a man with Middle Eastern features 
standing only a few feet away. 

"This guy stood out to me because with 
all the chaos and injured people around 
me, this guy was just standing by himself, 
staring at the Murrah with a smile from 
ear to ear!" 

Another Mideast Connection 

Despite the FBI and federal prosecutors 
failing to acknowledge any possibility of a 
Mideast connection, tapes of Oklahoma 
City police radio traffic shortly after the 
April 19 explosion raise that same 
question. 

' That police radio traffic indicated two 
Middle Eastern males were seen leaving 
the downtown areas at a high rate of speed 
in a brown pickup truck. 

For several days afterward, Oklahoma 
City police were on the lookout for the 
vehicle. 

Meanwhile, during that same time 
period, Oklahoma City resident Mrs. Joe 
Royer was walking her dog behind her 
apartment when she noticed a stocky man 
of seemingly Mideast origin backing a 
yellow pickup truck into a grassy parking 
area used by tenants for their boats and 
recreational vehicles. 

Page 307 

Once the truck was iii the spot, she said 
the man gave her a chilling look "that told 
me to forget I had ever seen him." 

"So I got my dog and we went back 
into the apartment," she told the Gazette. 
"and it was about a week later that the FBI 
showed up and this fellow (an FBI agent) 
is going around the apartments, asking if 
anyone knew anything about that truck 
parked out back." 

She told the FBI agent of seeing the 
man parking the yellow pickup. Then her 
husband asked the agent why it was 
important. 

"That truck was used in the bombing," 
she said the FBI agent related. 

Startled, her husband said, "I thought 
you were looking for a brown truck, not a 
yellow one." 

"If you look close," the agent answered, 
"you can tell that the truck over there has 
recently been painted yellow â€” there's 
overspray on the fenders and the VIN 
(identification numbers) have all been 
ground off." 

When asked if she'd been shown any 
photos by the FBI, she answered 
emphatically, "No!" 

But when a source close to the Gazette's 
investigation showed Mrs. Royer a 
photograph of a stocky Mideastern male 
obtained from other sources, she said, "It 
sure does look like him. I would sure like 
to see a close-up of his eyes. Those eyes 
of his were frightening!" 

'John Doe II 1 Spotted Again 

Yet another person interviewed by the 
Gazette said he saw Timothy McVeigh in a 
yellow Ryder rental truck shortly before 
the explosion â€” with a passenger he said 
showed a striking resemblance to the FBI's 
sketch of "John Doe II." 

Mike Moroz, an employee of Johnny's 
Tire Store, was working at the store on the 
morning of April 19 when two men pulled 
up in a yellow Ryder truck. 

A man he later identified in an FBI 
lineup asTimothy McVeigh got out of the 
truck, Moroz said, and asked for directions 
to 5th and Harvey â€” site of the federal 
building. 

"Then," Moroz told the Gazette, "he 
crawled back into the truck, and sitting 
right next to McVeigh was a man wearing 
a ballcap who, during the entire 
conversation, just sat staring straight 
ahead." 

Moroz said he continued to watch the 
pair off and on for about 10 minutes as 
they just sat in the truck. 

Finally, the truck pulled out. And not 
long after that, he said, and explosion 
rocked the area. 

On Aug. 8, Mike Moroz was shown a 
photo of a suspect obtained by a source 
close to the Gazette investigation, and he 
said it bore a strong resemblance to the 
man he had seen with McVeigh. 

But when asked if the FBI had ever 
shown him the photograph or one of the 
same person, Moroz said "No." 

That photo is one of several of men of 
Middle Eastern origin obtained by a source 
close to the Gazette investigation. 

***** 

Page 308 

Murrah Film Provokes New Call for Investigation 

Sunday, September 10, 1995 - McCurtain Gazette 
By J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

The McCurtain Gazette has obtained 
film footage, taken the afternoon of the 
April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah 
Building in Oklahoma City, that clearly 
depicts federal agents recovering weapons 
and ordnance from the "pit area" of the 
stricken building. 

Taken by a member of the Oklahoma 
County Sheriffs Department, the videotape 
buttresses earlier reports that an arsenal 
room, maintained by the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) on 
the ninth floor of the building, ruptured 
and spilled its contents into the "pit area." 

The video film clearly shows members 
of the ATF, the FBI and the Oklahoma 
City Fire Department removing weapons 
and ordnance from the portion of the 
building where most of the death and 
destruction occurred. 

After months of speculation, the 
startling evidence of the videotape may be 
the first concrete link between an 
extraordinary number of casualties in the 
area and what earlier Gazette witnesses 
asserted were illegally stored explosives by 
federal agencies. 

While the FBI and ATF have steadfastly 
maintained there was only one explosion at 
the Murrah Building (from a fuel and 
fertilizer mix in a rental truck parked 
outside the building), the McCurtain 
Gazette revealed in an exclusive, 
copyrighted story on May 4 that 
seismographic records of the Oklahoma 
Geological Survey showed a second 
explosion. 

Dr. Raymon L. Brown, a geophysicist 
trained at the Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology (MIT), one of the nation's 
leading universities, had characterized the 
second explosion in that May 4 story as 
being "of equal, if not greater, intensity 
than the first." 

State Probe Called For 

In response to the new videotape 
evidence, state Rep. Charles Key, R- 
Oklahoma City, renewed his call for an 
independent state investigation â€” after an 
earlier attempt had been pooh-poohed by 
Gov. Frank Keating and legislative leaders. 

Said Key Saturday: 

"This film establishes two important 
facts: First, it is no longer idle speculation 
that federal law enforcement was 
maintaining an arsenal room in the Murrah 
Building the day of the explosion. 

"And second: It is clear from viewing 
the videotape that an arsenal was ruptured 
in an area of the Murrah Building where 
the experts say a fertilizer bomb could not 
have inflicted such tremendous damage and 
death. 

"I think from these simple observations 
it is clear that this matter needs closer 
examination in order to determine exactly 
who killed whom that terrible day." 

Illegally Stored Explosives? 

Rep. Key's remarks doubting the single- 
explosion theory also stemmed from 
sources quoted May 5 by the Gazette and a 
visit to survivors of the bombing by a 
retired Air Force general, who said 
building damage was inconsistent with a 
single bomb outside the structure. 

Page 309 

Such doubts had first been voiced by an 
Idabel man who formerly was demolitions 
expert with the U.S. Army. He speculated 
that the second explosion had probably 
been caused by C-4, a military grade 
"plastique" that is commonly used by law 
enforcement officers to blow open doors in 
raids. 

While C-4 can be thrown against a wall 
and not explode, and while it normally 
takes a special fuse to set it off, the Idabel 
resident (who spoke on condition of 
anonymity) said it could be set off by 
pressure of up to 3,-500 pounds per square 
inch â€” an event that probably occurred, he 
said, when the building "pancaked" after 
the initial explosion. 

The ex-sergeant's speculation gained 
new credibility in subsequent Gazette 
stories with revelations by witnesses of 
finding explosive materials in the rubble of 
the Murrah Building. 

Capt. Dick Miller of the Oklahoma City 
Fire Marshal's Office confirmed that a box 
marked high explosives was recovered 
from the pit area shortly after the initial 
blast. 

He said it was removed by a bomb 
squad for detonation. Miller said the 2-ft. 
X 2-ft. box was "definitely high 
explosives." 

Later, Miller confirmed to a source for 
the Gazette that the box in question was 
"blasting caps" â€” the type used for C-4. 

Miller backed away from those 
comments later, saying the ATF told him 
the box was only a "training device." 

Additionally, the Gazette quoted 
witnesses earlier who told of the FBI and 
ATF agents removing weapons and 
explosives from a ruptured vault. 

Happened Before, Ex-ATF Agent Says 

Jack Barnett, acting agent in charge of 
the ATF office in Oklahoma City, asserts, 
"We didn't have any ordnance in that 
building. We might have had rifles or 
shotguns or pistols, but if we did they were 
inoperable or for display only." 

Les Martz of the regional Dallas office 
of the ATF also denied the existence of 
any explosives in the Murrah Building. 

But it has happened before, says an ex- 
ATF agent, and it wouldn't surprise him if 
the same thing happened in Oklahoma 
City. 

Rick Sherrow, a former ATF officer 
from Mesa, Arizona, says improperly 
stored explosives in public buildings have 
accidentally detonated before â€” even in the 
nation's capital. 

That incident occurred in 1987 when a 
stockpile of Soviet-manufactured rocket 
fuses exploded during a fire at FBI 
headquarters in Washington D.C. 

Sherrow characterized it as "just another 
typically stupid mistake by the FBI." 

That explosion set in motion an 
investigation by the ATF, which 
discovered that storing explosives in public 
buildings â€” though technically illegal â€” 
was not unusual. 

"C-4 and other explosives are to be 
stored in special bunkers â€” safely away 
from populated areas," he said 

As a result of the ATF investigation, all 
federal agencies were ordered to stop such 
practices and comply with policy. 

"I find it hard to believe that something 
like this could happen â€” the filed offices 
have been explicitly warned against any 
such dangerous and illegal practices," 
Sherrow said. 

But, added the ex-ATF agent: "This 
incident in Oklahoma City certainly 
deserves close scrutiny by Congress in 

Page 310 

order to determine if federal law 
enforcement officers were following proper 
and safe storage procedures.. .and thus 
thoroughly clear up this issue one way or 
the other." 

Videotape Mystery 

The videotape filmed by a sheriffs 
officer makes it clear that federal agents 
don't even want Oklahoma City police 
seeing what they're doing the afternoon 
following the bombing. 

Captured on film are federal agents 
yelling at local police to, "Get out of here! 
- Get back!" 

Also shown is an argument between an 
ATF agent and an Oklahoma City t police 
officer, with the federal agent also insisting 
that a crowd of uniformed police spectators 
be moved from the area. 

During the time this is going on, the 
videotape shows FBI and ATF agents 
carrying various weapons, boxes of 
ammunition, satchels and torn-open boxes 
from the pit area. 

At one point, two federal agents are 
shown removing a device from one of 
these satchels. 

After a brief examination of the strange- 
looking object (which was about the size 
of a football and appeared to have suction 
cups attached to one side), one of the 
agents notices the camera aimed in his 
direction â€” prompting him to quickly 
shove the device back into the satchel. 

Key Suggests Federal Coverup 

State Rep. Charles Key, in renewing his 
call for an independent state investigation, 
suggested there was a federal coverup of 
evidence. 

Alluding to the videotape and evidence 
uncovered by non-government sources such 
as the Gazette, Key said, "It is precisely 
this type of evidence that I predicted a 
special investigation by a state-appointed 
commission would uncover. 

- "It is time for Governor Keating (a 
former FBI agent) to have a reality check. 

"If the FBI can screw around and blow 
up a portion of its own building in 
Washington D.C., then certainly he 
(Keating) can appreciate that similar 
mistakes can be made here in Oklahoma 
City. 

***** 

Reporter's Involvement alleged In Motion to Quash 
Indictments 

September 16, 1995 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

OKLAHOMA CITY - Stephen Jones, 
defense attorney for Timothy McVeigh, 

one of the defendants in the April 19 
bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal 
Building, today filed a motion to dismiss 

Page 311 

the August grand jury indictments of this 
client and co-defendant Terry Nichols â€” 
alleging, among other things, that a 
reporter for The Daily Oklahoman was 
privy to grand jury proceedings. 

Jones also contends there is other 
substantial evidence of irregularities that 
caused the legal process surrounding the 
original indictments to be tainted. 

The Enid attorney, in his brief pled 
today in federal court, included allegations 
of a grand juror who claimed that as many 
as 8 members of the panel were outraged 
by federal prosecutors â€” saying they felt 
federal prosecutors purposely withheld 
evidence of other suspects that may have 
been involved in the conspiracy to bomb 
the federal building. 

Included in Jones' brief was a transcript 
of a story from investigative reporter 
Lawrence W. Meyers of a publication 
called "Media Bypass Magazine" that 
alleges a Daily Oklahoman reporter had 
been in contact with a grand juror prior to 
the indictments and until they were 
rendered. 

The reporter was identified as Robbie 
Trammel, an investigative reporter for the 
newspaper. 

Meyers' article said a member of the 
grand jury was recognized by a member of 
the staff of the newspaper. 

Subsequently, he wrote in the transcript 
included in Jones' brief, Robbie Trammel 
regularly contacted a juror through an 
intermediary for the purpose of asking 
questions about the grand jury 
deliberations. 

And that, Jones alleges amounts to jury 
tampering and taints the procedure. 

The Gazette's own investigation has 
raised a number of questions about the 
grand jury indictments â€” prompting 
investigative reporter J.D. Cash to wonder 
if other suspects might be government 
informants or even under-cover agents who 
failed to stop the deadly April 19 blast that 
destroyed the federal building. 

Coincidentally, Lester Maftz, agent in 
charge of the Dallas office of the ATF, 
confirmed to the Gazette for the first time 
several days ago persistent rumors, for 
months â€” that the ATF had agents 
involved in a surveillance operation just 
hours before the bombing. 

While he would not say where, he did 
say it involved his Oklahoma City agents. 

But when asked if those agents were 
working on a "sting operation" involving 
Timothy McVeigh, the ATF agent declined 
to confirm or deny his agency's 
involvement. 

ickicirk 

Bombing Trial Judges Absence on Day of Blast 'an 
Amazing Coincidence' 

Friday, December 1, 1995 - The McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

Page 312 

Coincidence? 

Playing it Safe? 

Or forewarned? 

The same questions raised in the wake 
of revelations about wholesale absences 
from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms (ATF) offices on the day of the 
April 19 explosions at the Alfred P. 
Murrah Federal Building are now being 
raised about the federal district judge 
picked to preside over the trial of the 
bombing defendants. 

And, as the Gazette is learning, there 
were a number of strangely coincidental 
absences the day of the explosion, 
particularly among law enforcement 
agencies. 

The jurist alluded to above is U.S. 
District Court Judge Wayne Alley, whose 
office faces across the street from the 
Alfred P. Murrah Building â€” â–  but who says 
it was mere coincidence that he was absent 
that day and not the result of being "tipped 
off" to possible terrorist action. 

In light of the revelations, the defense 
attorney for one of the two bombing 
defendants, Michael Tigar, earlier this 
week filed a motion asking that Alley be 
disqualified from being tl\e presiding judge 
at the trial of his client and co-defendant 
Timothy McVeigh. 

Tigar cited an article in the Portland 
Oregonian, Alley's hometown newspaper, 
which interviewed the judge just hors after 
the explosion. 

"Of all the days for this to happen, it's 
absolutely an amazing coincidence" that 
the explosion happened on the day he was 
doing some legal work at home, Alley told 
the newspaper in a telephone interview. 

He then volunteered that "the bombing 
came just weeks after security officials had 
warned (me) to take extra precautions." 

"Let me say that within the past two or 
three weeks, information has been 
disseminated... that indicated concerns on 
the part of people who ought to know that 
we ought to be a little bit more careful." 

Alley said he was cautioned to be on 
the lookout for people casing homes, for 
letter bombs or people wandering around 
in the courthouse who didn't belong there. 

Alley was asked by reporter Dave 
Hogan if such warnings were routine 
security reminders. 

"My subjective impression was there 
was a reason for the dissemination of these 
concerns," Alley said, strongly suggesting 
an impending proximate event* 

When the blasts occurred shortly after 9 
a.m. on April 19, Alley was not in his 
office to see why the warnings were made. 

The explosion shattered glass in his 
office, with some of his law clerks injured 
by flying glass. 

First revelations of Judge Alley's 
absence, ironically, came from Edye Smith, 
who disclosed it on an Oklahoma City 
radio talk show. Within a week, Tigar had 
issued his challenge to Alley. 

Smith, an IRS employee, lost two young 
sons when the Murrah Building exploded 
and collapsed on a kindergarten they were 
attending. 

She was one of the first to ask why 
other employees of the Murrah Building 
weren't warned in advance â€” asserting 
ATF agents were, since most were absent 
the day of the explosion. 

Gov. Frank Keating, a former FBI 
agent, called her remarks "hysterical." 

*** 

But as the Gazette has learned, there were 
a number of officials who did not report to 

Page 313 

work at the Murrah Building on April 19 
besides Judge Alley. 

Not only were all but one of the ATFs 
field agents away at the time of the blast 
but so, too, were the heads of the Secret 
Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, 
U.S. Customs, Housing and Urban 
Development â€” and even the federal 
security detail assigned to protect the 
building. 

Moreover, a number of witnesses not 
only took issue with an ATF report about 
the agent-in-charge free-falling five floors 
in an elevator at the time of the explosion 
but said it was impossible. 

Here is the memo sent out by Lester 
Martz, head of the Dallas office of the 
ATF, to victims of the Oklahoma City 
bombing: 

ATFs Resident Agent in Charge Alex 
McCauley was with a DEA agent in the 
elevator when the bomb exploded. The 
elevator dropped in a free fall from the 
eighth floor to the third. The two men were 
trapped in the smoke-filled elevator. The 
emergency buttons and the phone were 
inoperable. On their fourth attempt they 
managed to break through the doors and 

9 

escape from the elevator" 

Pure fantasy, Murrah Building elevator 
repairman Duane James told the Gazette in 
an exclusive story published July 30. 

He was one of the three elevator 
repairman interviewed who said the ATFs 
claim was impossible. 

AH said they were oh the scene just 
minutes after the devastating blasts. And of 
the six passenger elevators, five were 
stopped between floors, their doors blown 
inward â€” prompting the safety mechanism 
to freeze them in place. And once that 
happens, they said, the doors simply cannot 

be opened. Nor would an elevator be able 
to free-fall, they said. 

Later, Martz (with the Dallas area office 
of the ATF) recanted the story. 

*** 

Further evidence of a possible 
impending terrorist attack on Oklahoma 
City surfaced during an interview several 
weeks ago with Jon Hansen, assistant 
Oklahoma City fke chief . 

During that interview, Hansen revealed 
for the first time to this newspaper that his 
office had received a call from the FBI on 
the Friday before the bombing â€” warning 
the department to be on the lookout for a 
terrorist attack. 

Asked if the warning related to 
suspicions of an upcoming bcmibing attack 
against a federal building in Oklahoma 
City, Hansen said he doubted it and 
thought it might have something to do with 
a Japanese cult which weeks before the 
bombing had sprayed a poison in a Tokyo 
subway. 

But in checks around major cities 
throughout the U.S., Gazette investigative 
reporter J.D. Cash has been unable to find 
a fire or police department in any other 
location which received a warning similar 
to that issued to the Oklahoma City Fire 
Department. 

Subsequently, Hansen was asked if the 
audio tapes (of all incoming telephone calls 
to the fire department, which are routinely 
recorded) would back up the "Japanese 
terrorists" story he told. 

"No," he replied, explaining that "all the 
transmission tapes have been erased." 

Hansen said it did. 

Asked to explain why such important 
crime scene evidence was destroyed, 
Hansen replied, "We made a boo-boo." 

Page 314 

When were they erased? 

Hansen said he wasn't sure. But a 
source inside the department told Cash that 
they were erased shortly after the national 
media made requests for copies. 

As if this were not curious, Chief 
Hansen later changed his story when 
interviewed last week by Jayna Davis of 
KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City. 

The spokesman for the Oklahoma City 
Fire Department told the TV reporter he 
was no longer certain who had called his 
department and put it on alert to terrorist 
attacks. 

"The FBI came in yesterday and told me 
it wasn't them," he said. 

The FBI has repeatedly denied it issued 
such warnings, though the Gazette's 
investigation has found such warnings a 
recurring litany. 

When a downtown Oklahoma City 
steam-generating plant had a night-time 
backfire at its plant less than 24 hours 
before the explosion, for example, 
Oklahoma City police came to the plant â€” 
without being called â€” to ask the night 
maintenance crew if there had been a shot 
fired...and if there were terrorists trying to 
take oyer the plant 

***** 

Suspicions, Questions Haunt Some of Bombing's Survivors 

Sunday, January 21, 1996 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By JD. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

OKLAHOMA CITY - The tears and 
shock had largely faded. 

But as the 200 surviving victims and 
family of the April 19 bombing of the 
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building 
gathered there a month ago for a memorial, 
it was not an event providing closure to 
grief for everyone. 

Instead, sprinkled among the hopeful 
signs of healing, and the smiles and hugs 
shared on that rainy, chilly Dec. 16, was 
an undercurrent of anger and growing 
animosity with the federal institutions 
many are employed with. 

"We know there is something very 
wrong with the bombing investigation," 
said one of the victims, a young woman 
who is a federal employee and lost a 
young child in the blast. 

Speaking barely above a whisper, her 
voice a mixture of anger and pain in the 
light chilly rain, she declares: 

"I can't afford to lose my job, but I 
know Patrick Ryan (the U.S. Attorney 
charged with prosecuting the bombing 
case) is not telling us the whole truth... 

"We know there are others involved, 
and he doesn't seem to care." 

Page 315 

Her husband echoes these concerns. He 
also wonders aloud one of the most 
burning â€” and puzzling â€” questions of the 
survivors: : ' i 

"Why haven r t there been any arrests of 
the others?" 

And then, angrily, he declares, "I bari't 
believe anything from the government 
now! I think Hoppy Heidelberg was right." 

Hoppy Heidelberg, the "renegade" grand 
juror dismissed from the federal inquiry 
panel last year, is becoming a legend 
among many victims. 

His single-minded efforts to persuade 
members of the grand jury to investigate 
other suspects in the April 19 terrorist 
bombing â€” which left 169 dead and 
hundreds of others wounded â€” led to his 
dismissal last October. 

He was unceremoniously kicked off the 
jury after writing a letter to the overseeing 
federal judge, detailing his concerns about 
the way the federal prosecutors were 
handling the case. He implied a cover-up. 

In the wake of that event, lawyers for 
bombing defendants Timothy McVeigh and 
Terry Nichols filed a flurry of legal briefs 
â€” many of them mirroring Heidelberg's 
concerns. ^ 

They asked that all indictments against 
their clients be dismissed, citing a myriad 
of questionable procedures employed by 
federal prosecutors handling the case. A 
final decision on the appeal is still 
pending. 

There were those who attempted to 
dismiss Heidelberg as a devotee of 
conspiracy theories, citing his belief that 
the truth is still unknown about the 
assassination of John F. Kennedy nearly 35 
years ago. 

Yet, the questions he and defense 
attorneys raised galvanized the mounting 

disdain of many bombing victims and their 
families. 

Many are convinced they are not 
hearing anything resembling the truth, the 
whole truth and nothing but the truth from 
prosecutors: 

Nine months after the shocking event, 
th6 inconsistencies, the unanswered 
questions and a growing body of 
information conflicting with the official 
version of events all beg for answers. 

Why does Timothy J. McVeigh remain 
the government's only defendant charged 
with "hands-on" involvement in the 
Oklahoma City bombing? 

And why, according to sources close to 
the investigation, is that not likely to 
change? 

Why did Attorney General Janet Reno 
signal the Justice Department's retreat from 
the investigation last June, announcing 
withdrawal of the $2 million award for 
information leading to the arrest and 
conviction of other conspirators? 

Why did the federal grand jury carefully 
avoid any mention of "John Doe No.2" 
after much ado was made to find him? 
And after reports in the McCurtain Gazette 
from witnesses suggest he was not the 
figment of anybody's imagination â€” but 
was present on the day of the bobbing? 

"How stupid do they think we are?" 
grumbles one victim angrily. 

"We know there were others who helped 
McVeigh do this... Too many witnesses 
have come forward with information.. .It is 
starting to look like the government knows 
who the other killers are â€” and they don't 
want to let the rest of us know. 

"But why?" 

Why, indeed. 

The FBI and federal prosecutors aren't 
talking. And Steve Mullins, a spokesman 

Page 316 

for the federal prosecutors, simply pooh- 
poohs anything but the official version of 
events. 

The Elusive John Doe No. 2 

But the questions about John Doe No. 2 
will not go away. 

And one of those who will not let go is 
Hoppy Heidelberg, a University of Texas 
graduate and horse breeder who was 
kicked off the federal grand jury. 

Heidelberg, despite threats by federal 
officials to throw him in jail if he talks 
about anything the grand jury did, is not 
impressed with their attempts to censor his 
comments. 

After reviewing the government's case 
for much of last summer, Heidelberg 
reached this conclusion: 

"It is likely John Doe No. 2 (subject of 
a worldwide manhunt after the boijibing) is 
a government agent or informant," he 
declared. 

"And if this is true, then the government 
wouldn't want that to come out." 

Heidelberg ridiculed the tactics of 
federal prosecutors handling the grand jury, 
saying it was designed more to obfuscate 
than illuminate â€” particularly "concerning 
the overwhelming evidence that other 
suspects in the bombing do exist 
and. . .remain at large. " 

Nor does he shrink from the 
implications of his earlier remarks. 

"Was this a 'sting operation' by the 
government that went bad? If it was, so be 
it. They should take responsibility for their 
mistakes â€”Just like the rest of us have to. 
None of us is above the law!" 

Forewarned? 

There is mounting evidence, in fact, that 
federal authorities had ample warning of 

the coming attack on the Murrah building 
from an inside informant â€” but still failed 
to stop it 

If it is later shown that the government 
bungled the arrests, the severe criminal and 
civil penalties would likely apply to those 
with responsibility for warning ALL occu- 
pants of the Murrah building of a credible 
risk of a terrorist attack on April 19. 

Some victims, in fact, badly characterize 
themselves as "bait" for a "sting operation" 
that tragically went wrong. 

The pointedly ask why no Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATT) 
agents were present in the building the day 
it exploded. And why so many quickly 
materialized after the bombing. 

Yet, at least one federal judge was 
apparently tipped off about the dangers â€” 
U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley, who just 
happened to be home when the bomb 
exploded April 19. 

Coincidence? Alley maintained it was. 

But on the day of the bombing he 
received a telephone call from a reporter 
on his hometown newspaper, the Portland 
Oregohian. 

As a result of that interview, it came to 
light months later that Alley had told the 
reporter this: That he was told to be on the 
lookout for terrorist activity, saying the 
information "came from people who should 
know." 

Defense attorneys used the information 
to get Alley dismissed as the judge in the 
case. 

Alley's office and courtroom, 
incidentally, sustained substantial damage 
in the blasts while he was home in 
Norman. 

The McCurtain Gazette has uncovered 
other evidence that casts doubts about the 
credibility of the federal prosecution team. 

Page 317 

After weeks of interviewing witnesses 
and accumulating statements from other 
investigators, the Gazette will reveal later 

this week these startling new 
developments. 

â€¢kJckJcie 

Startling New Evidence: 

At Least 4 People Directly Involved in Bombing 

Tuesday, January 23, 1996 - McCurtain Gazette 
By J. D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 
(Story continued from Sunday's Gazette) 

At least four persons were directly 
involved in the April 1 9 bombing of the 
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 
Oklahoma City, the Gazette has learned 
after weeks of interviewing witnesses and 
accumulating statements from other 
investigators. 

And, according to witnesses 
interviewed, the information has been in 
possession of the FBI for quite some time. 

Timothy McVeigh, though, remains the 
government's only defendant charged with 
"hands-on" involvement in the bombing 
that killed 169 men, women and children 
last April and injured hundreds of others. 

(Alleged co-conspirators Terry Nichols 
and Michael Fortier were not even in 
Oklahoma City on the day of the terrorist 
bombing.) 

The findings of Gazette investigative 
reporter J.D. Cash defy all previous 
government assertions that there were no 
additional co-conspirators involved. 

Was it a government "sting operation" 
that went sour? And is it being covered 
up? Those are the questions being asked by 
some bombing victims and their families, 
as well as dismissed federal Hoppy 

Heidelberg, in the wake of growing 
skepticism about the credibility of the 
prosecution as new witnesses are 
discovered. 

The Gazette's findings suggest at least 
four co-conspirators â€” in addition to 
McVeigh â€” worked with military precision 
to circumvent security at the Murrah 
building, detonate bombs and the escape 
using three different vehicles. 

Here is a countdown of events in the 
final 60 minutes before the tragic event of 
last April 19, using eyewitness accounts to 
detail some of the unexplained mysteries 
and evidence that there were other co- 
conspirators involved: 

The Mystery Pickup 

It was just a minute or two after 8 a.m. 
on April 19, 1995, when Leonard Long 
and his daughter, Charise, nearly collided 
with a brown pickup truck â€” one that 
matches the description authorities put out 
an all-points bulletin (APB) for just 
minutes after the bombing. 

Leonard Long vividly recalls seeing two 
men inside the vehicle when it raced out of 
the parking lot of the Alfred P. Murrah 

Page 318 

Federal Building â€” nearly hitting his 
pickup. 

One of the occupants, Long now 
believes, may possibly have been bombing 
defendant Timothy McVeigh. 

And the other, he said, matches the 
description of the dark-complexioned man 
later made famous as "John Doe No. 2." 

Long's detailed recollections of the part- 
Indian or part-Hispanic individual mirror 
those of other witnesses in Oklahoma City 
and Kansas who later reported seeing the 
mysterious character in the company of 
Timothy McVeigh. 

Long said he provided the description of 
the truck and its occupants to law 
enforcement authorities. He said they 
commented that the men may have driven 
through the parking lot of the Murrah 
building to check the security before 
bringing .the bomb-laden yellow rental 
track in. 

Neither Long nor his daughter was 
called to testify before the federal grand 
jury investigating the bombing. 

Another Sighting 

It was 8:35 a.m. â€” some 27 minutes 
before the bomb blasts â€” when Tulsa 
businessman Kyle Hunt saw three 
Caucasian men in a pale sedan following a 
yellow Ryder rental truck near the 
intersection of Main and Robinson street in 
downtown Oklahoma City. 

Noticing that the men in the sedan were 
craning their necks at the nearby buildings, 
Hunt considered offering directions to the 
apparently confused driver. 

But after catching the driver's attention, 
Hunt received what he later characterized 
as a "go-to-hell look" from the young man 
behind the wheel of the sedan. 

Hunt told authorities afterward that the 
driver of the sedan was Timothy McVeigh. 

Hunt was not summoned to testify at the 
grand jury. 

The Bricktown Switch 

Just a few blocks away from Hunt's 
sighting, and just a few minutes later, 
warehouse foreman David Snider recalls 
seeing a Ryder track coasting at a very 
slow speed through the nearly abandoned 
Bricktown region of downtown Oklahoma 
City. 

Thinking it was the delivery he 
1 awaiting, Snider yelled and waved at the 
pair in the Ryder track. 

Snider said afterward he was only about 
eight feet from the two men when they 
passed. He identified the occupants as 
Timothy McVeigh and a man he said 
matched the description of "John Doe No. 
2." 

Snider was not called to testify before 
the grand jury. 

(Hoppy Heidelberg, who raised pointed 
questions about omissions of federal 
prosecutors prior to his dismissal from the 
federal panel, speculated later that "John 
Doe No. 2" is a "government agent or 
informant.") 

There is speculation that the 
conspirators pulled into the Bricktown area 
to make last-minute arrangements at this 
point, with McVeigh and John Doe No. 2 
getting into the Ryder rental track while 
other members of the bombing cabal took 
the remaining two vehicles to getaway 
positions near the Murrah building. 

Next-to-last Stop 

Mike Moroz clearly recalls meeting 
Timothy McVeigh in the minutes before 
the bombing â€” and even shaking his hand. 

Page 319 

He is an employee of Johnny's Tire Center, 
just five blocks from the Murrah building. 

Sometime in the minutes before the 
fateful explosion, a yellow Ryder truck 
pulled into the parking lot of the tire repair 
shop and Moroz went to greet the two men 
inside the truck. 

A tall, lean young man that Moroz 
would later identify as Timothy McVeigh 
stepped down from the rig. Moroz asked 
how he could help. 

"The guy simply asked for directions to 
5th and Harvey (the location of the Murrah 
building) and I told him it was straight 
down the street â€” to the south," Moroz 
said. 

"McVeigh then thanked me, shook my 
hand and crawled back inside the vehicle, 
the other guy never looked at me. He had 
kind of a stem face and was dark 
complected. He also had on a ball cap." 

Moroz said the men stayed there for a 
few minutes, then drove down Hudson in 
the direction of the Murrah building. 

He later helped the FBI identify 
McVeigh from a lineup after the 
defendant's arrest. 

Moroz, however, was not called to 
testify before the federal grand jury 
investigating the bombing. 

Recently, he said, the FBI interviewed 
him again, asking if he saw any radio- 
transmitting equipment inside the Ryder 
truck. 

(Some investigators speculate that the 
real reason the suspects stopped at 
Johnny's Tire Store, which is on a steep 
rise overlooking downtown Oklahoma City, 
was to wait for a radio signal from the 
other conspirators, who were likely already 
in place. The FBI will not comment 
publicly about the recent interview of 
Moroz.) 

Final Meeting 

Almost in the shadow of the Murrah 
building, Joe (a fictitious name, since he 
refuses to allow his real identity to be 
revealed) was smoking a cigarette and 
listening to his car radio when something 
caught his attention: 

It was two men standing behind a Ryder 
rental truck just across the street from the 
Sooner City Post Office parking lot at 5th 
and Harvey. 

Thinking that the men were acting 
suspicious, as they passed something 
between them, Joe watched them closely. 
He noticed two things: 

â€”In front of the Ryder truck, parked at 
a meter on 5th Street, there was an empty 
yellow Mercury sedan. 

â€”And sitting on the passenger side of 
the Ryder truck there was a stoic, stem- 
faced man in a ball cap who just stared 
straight ahead in the direction of the ill- 
fated building. 

Finishing with his cigarette, Joe decided 
there was nothing going on, so he locked 
up his car and went inside to the post 
office. 

Moments later, he came back outside 
and saw one of the men he'd been 
watching earlier â€” only this time the man 
wias walking briskly away from the Ryder 
rental truck. He noticed, too, that the rental 
truck had been moved to near dead-center 
in front of the Murrah building. 

6 Minutes to Blast 

Gary Lewis, a pressman for the Journal- 
Record Co., was enjoying the spring 
weather and his pipe when he recalled it 
was Wednesday â€” the day he was 
supposed to turn in his dirty uniforms for 
clean ones. 

Deciding to retrieve the uniforms from 
his pickup truck â€” parked less than a 

Page 320 

block away â€” Lewis walked toward an 
alley separating the Athenian Restaurant 
from the Journal-Record Building. 

On his way, Lewis notices a man sitting 
behind the wheel of a dirty yellow 
Mercury sedan, its engine idling only a 
few feet from whfcre he passes. 

When he returns with his laundry, the 
first phase of the most terrifying day of 
Lewis' life will begin. 

(Continued Wednesday: The countdown 
to the April 19, 1995 blasts which 
shattered the Murrah building in Oklahoma 
City and more eyewitness accounts.) 

***** 

The Final Moments Before The Oklahoma City Bombing 

January 24, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

EDITOR'S NOTE: The FBI and federal 
authorities have arrested only Timothy 
McVeigh as the hands-on participant in the 
April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. 
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma 
City. Yet, eyewitness accounts suggest at 
least four conspirators were involved in the 
bombing, including "John Doe No. 2" who 
some now speculate is a government 
informant or witness. The latter include 
Hoppy Heidelberg, the federal grand juror 
dismissed because of his hinted criticism 
that the federal grand jury probe into the 
bombing was a sham. He and others now 
believe it was designed to cover up a 
government "sting operation" that went 
tragically wrong. Today's story continues 
the countdown to the last five minutes 
before the blasts that rocked the Murrah 
building. 

5 Minutes to Blast 

Lea Mohr had just about had it. She 
was disgusted. 

She had circled the block for the second 
or third time and was now back in front of 

the Murrah building â€” where a yellow 
Ryder rental truck was still taking up her 
favorite parking spot, the handicapped 
zone. 

Resigned to a longer walk, she decides 
to find a parking place nearby â€” and then 
to give the driver of the Ryder truck a 
piece of her mind when she walked back 
that way. 

4 Minutes to Blast 

Joe (the, eyewitness who refuses to 
allow the use of his real name) has now 
exited the post office and is waiting for the 
light to change at Harvey. 

He sees the Ryder rental truck again â€” 
now parked right in front of the Murrah 
building. And walking away from it very 
briskly is the same tall, lean man he'd seen 
earlier when the vehicle was across from 
the post office. 

Something else catches his eye â€” a 
customized Chevrolet pickup truck with 
tinted windows and big wheels and tires, 
almost identical to one Joe once owned. 

Page 321 

The pickup, he notes, is parked only 
two or three spaces in front of the Ryder 
rental truck. 

After the light changes, Joe turnsnorth. 
Minutes later* he hears and feels the 
terrific blasts which rock Oklahoma City, 

Later, Joe contacts the FBI after he 
recognizes, on television, that same tall, 
lean figure he'd seen on the day of the 
bombing. It was Timothy McVeigh being 
led from the courthouse in Perry two days 
after the bombing. 

Joe was never summoned to testify at 
the grand jury investigating the bombing 
either about McVeigh â€” or the two other 
men he saw with the bombing defendants. 

3 Minutes to Blast 

Gary Lewis, the Journal-Record 
pressman, had his uniforms under one arm 
and was just stepping back into the parking 
lot separating the Murrah building from the 
Journal-Record building. 

Suddenly, the roar of a racing engine 
caught his attention. 

Frozen with surprise and fright, he 
could only stare for a second as he 
watched the yellow sedan, with two males 
inside, coming directly at him. 

Galvanized into action, Lewis leaped 
away from the careening vehicle â€” just as 
the big yellow car hopped a car guard and 
sped west out of the parking lot. 

Gary Lewis was never asked to testify at 
the grand jury looking into the bombing, 
where he would have told authorities that 
the man driving the yellow Mercury was, 
he was convinced Timothy McVeigh. And 
the passenger, he would testify, bore a 
resemblance to the wanted posters of "John 
Doe No. 2." 

2 Minutes to Blast 

"People watching" as a favorite activity 
for Dana Bradley. 

And on the morning of April 19, 1995, 
as the clock ticked to 9 a.m., she was 
watching a dark-complected man in a ball 
cap and heavy ski jacket crawling out of a 
yellow Ryder truck. It was parked directly 
in front of the Murrah federal building. 

Standing with her sister, mother and her 
small child, Dana Bradley from inside the 
Murrah building as the man who had just 
exited the Ryder truck walked westward â€” . 
then suddenly reversed direction and 
headed eastward at a rapid pace. 

When the man walked out of her line of 
vision, she walked to the other side of the 
Murrah building â€” a move that may have 
saved her life. 

Late that same night, Dana Bradley will 
be the last survivor pulled from the 
remains of the shattered federal building. 
Her leg had to be amputated, but her life 
was spared, as was that of her sister. The 
lives of her daughter and mother, though, 
were not. 

Authorities later learned of Bradley's 
story. They interviewed her extensively. 

She was never asked to appear before 
the grand jury. 

5 Seconds to Blast 

Lea Mohr had finally walked around to 
the north side of the Murrah building when 
she spotted the yellow Ryder truck â€” still 
parked in her favorite spot. 

Seconds later, she was to recall later, 
everything around her turned a "hellish" 
orange. She doesn't remember hearing the 
blasts. 

Physicians describe her recovery as a 
miracle. 

Lea Mohr, though, will not testify before 
the grand jury \ though she said the FBI 

Page 322 

Interviewed her â€” and confiscated some 
film from her camera with which she had 
token photos of the Ryder truck. Her 
camera and film escaped unscathed. 

According to interviews with Mohr and 
motions filed by defense attorney Stephen 
Jones, she said she'd taken a series of 
photos of the Ryder track as she circled 
the block minutes prior to the explosions â€” 
intending to complain to authorities 
because the truck was parked in a 
handicapped zone. 

Also visible in the photos, she recalls, 
was a brown pickup truck whose 
description closely matched that of other 
eyewitnesses. 

The FBI has never released these 
pictures to the public nor even confirmed 
their existence. 

The Getaway 

For Kay (whose name is fictitious 
because she refuses to allow its use, 
though willing to talk with the promise of 
anonymity), the moment appeared to mark 
the beginning of Armageddon. 

A few blocks from where she was 
standing, a black-and-white cloud 
mushroomed upward...glass crashed from 
office windows all around the intersection 
of Main and Robinson... the blasts still 
reverberated in her ears. 

Still stunned from the events that 
happened just as she stepped into the 
street, she was nonetheless jolted into 
action by the sight of a brown pickup 
truck, with two men inside, coming straight 
at her. 

She had just managed to step back to 
the curb when the brown pickup truck 
raced past her, Kay recalled to reporter 

Jayna Davis of K-FOR TV in Oklahoma 
City. 

She is convinced that the brown pickup 
truck is the same one for which an APB 
was issued shortly after the bombing. 

Neither Kay nor two other witnesses 
who saw two men jump into a brown truck 
just after the bombing were called before 
the grand jury investigating the bombing. 

The Mystery Deepens 

With all these eyewitnesses available, 
observers are mystified by the action of 
federal authorities in not soliciting their 
testimony â€” but in putting a witness on the 
stand from Junction City, Kansas. 

According to published reports in the 
Dallas Morning News, a deliveryman for a 
Chinese restaurant was called before the 
grand jury and asked several carefully 
crafted but limited questions. 

After the proceedings were completed, 
the witness told Arnold Hamilton, 
Oklahoma bureau chief for the Dallas 
Morning News, that he had indeed 
delivered some food to a room at the 
Dreamland Hotel, earlier established as 
rented by McVeigh â€” but said he'd never 
seen McVeigh there. 

In fact, the deliveryman said, "It was a 
guy who had long hair and in no way 
resembled Timothy McVeigh." 

"I was shocked that prosecutors would 
not let me get that into the record," he 
added. "They only asked me if someone 
accepted the food and paid for it. 

Tm sure those people (the grand jurors) 
thought I was talking about McVeigh...but 
I never saw him." 

***** 

Page 323 

Mystery Surrounds German's Link to Bombing 

Sunday, February 4, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 

From Staff and Wire Reports 

Deepening mystery surrounds the link 
between a German national and the 
bombing last April of the Murrah federal 
building in Oklahoma City and one of its 
purported bombers, Timothy McVeigh, 

It is a link that raises a number of 
intriguing questions. 

Was he an "agent provocateur" working 
undercover for federal agencies in this 
country investigating extremist groups? 

Were those extremist groups somehow 
involved in the bombing? 

Was he himself a neo-Nazi radical? 

An intriguing vein of linkage suggests 
his role â€” whatever it was â€” simply 
cannot be ignored by federal investigators. 

And that it was, somehow, inextricably 
linked to the Oklahoma City bombing. 

If not, why did Timothy McVeigh make 
telephone calls to the German at Elohim 
City near Muldrow? 

And why, the day before the bombing, 
did McVeigh call a lawyer in North 
Carolina where the German was also 
known to stay? 

The German national's mysterious 
presence begs for answers â€” particularly in 
light of compelling evidence suggesting 
Timothy McVeigh did not act alone and 
was, in fact, aided by at least several other 
conspirators on the day of the 
bombing...including the mysterious a"John 
Doe No. 2." 

But McVeigh's only indicted co- 
conspirator is Terry Nichols, who was 
indisputably hot present on the day of the 
April 19, 1995 bombing, which killed 169 
people and injured several hundred others. 

Calls from McVeigh? 

In the days just prior to the bombing of 
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 
Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh^ placed 
one â€” possibly even two â€” telephone calls 
to Elohim City, a religious community in 
eastern Oklahoma. 

The caller asked to speak with a 
German national by the name of Andreas 
Karl Strassmeir. 

And it is Strassmeir's unique military 
background and important family 
connections with the Helmut Kohl 
government in Bonn â€” plus his 
inexplicable associations with the neo-Nazi 
movement in this country â€” that has those 
familiar with the situation scratching their 
heads in puzzlement. 

Equally puzzling is McVeigh's 
purported telephone call to a law firm 
which Andreas Strassmeir once frequented 
and which now serves as his legal, 
representative and spokesman in this 
country. 

The 36-year-old Strassmeir was born in 
former West German to aristocratic parents 
and began visiting the U.S. in 1989, 
according to his attorney, Kirk Lyons of 
Black Mountain, N.G 

That was shortly after the youthful 
Budeswehr (German army) officer had 
received formal training from an elite 
military academy in Hanover, Germany. 

Joan Millar, daughter-in-law of Dr. 
Robert Millar, pastor and founder of 
Elohim City, confirmed that Strassmeir 
was a resident of the community at the 
time of the phone calls but was not 
available to take the calls on April 5 and 

Page 324 

April 17 from McVeigh. She said the 
telephone calls related to a planned visit by 
McVeigh. 

The first telephone calls from McVeigh 
were believed to have been placed around 
April 5 â€” around the time, federal 
investigators alleged, McVeigh was staying 
at the Imperial Motel in Kingman, 
Arizona. 

Sources who can verify the exact time 
of the call have thus far been unwilling to 
divulge specifics. 

But recent interviews by Dr. Millar 
indicate that the founder of Elohim City 
believes there was certainly a call on April 
17 â€” two days prior to the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Did They Meet Earlier? 

What can be confirmed is that the 
person McVeigh asked to speak to, 
Andreas Strassmeir, candidly admits he 
met McVeigh prior to the telephone calls 
â€” though Strassmeir's attorney said he had 
only negligible contract with the bombing 
defendant. 

Referred to as "Andy the German" by 
his associates, Strassmeir also admits he 
had in this possession some of McVeigh's 
uniforms prior to the bombing in 
Oklahoma City. He says he tore the labels 
off and shredded them after the bombing. 

Strassmeir claims he met McVeigh at a 
gun show in Tulsa in 1993. And it was 
there, he said, that he gave McVeigh a 
card with Elohim City's telephone number. 

Strassmeir says it was at this same gun 
shqw in Tulsa that he traded a knife to 
McVeigh for his Desert Storm uniforms. 

And it is this brief and innocent meeting 
that Strassmeir says today is the only 
contact the two ever had. 

Elohim City Connection? 

What, if any role does Elohim City play 
in suggestions that McVeigh was somehow 
linked with wliite separatists? 

That, too, is not clear. 

Elohim City, a 400-acre retreat near 
Muldrow, Okla., has from time to time 
drawn attention from the local and national 
press as well as the FBI and ATF. 

Widely reported by newspapers to be a 
white-separatist commune, this is a notion 
disputed by Dr. Millar, the founder. 

He says the 23-year-old institution and 
its 75 members practice a brand of 
fundamentalism known as Christian 
Identity. He says it has always remained 
â–  non-violent and it certainly no threat to 
anyone. 

Nonetheless, Elohim City has emerged 
in recent weeks as the focus of federal 
investigators, who allege that defendants 
Ray Lampley and his wife and two others 
intended to test a fuel oil and fertilizer 
bomb. 

Federal investigators allege the 
defendants wanted to build more bombs 
and planned to target abortion clinics and 
homosexual and Jewish institutions. 

Millar conceded Lampley and his wife 
have visited Elohim City on a few 
occasions. But he disclaims any knowledge 
of their purported illegal enterprises and 
doesn't think any members of the 
community are at risk of being arrested. 

Still, Elohim City's link to the 
Oklahoma City bombing has been raised 
before. 

Shortly after the arrest of McVeigh and 
Nichols last April, Newsweek magazine 
prepared an article stating, "A source 
reported that Elohim City is going to be 
raided in the near future because of links 
some members of the 'white supremacist' 

Page 325 

group may have had with the (Oklahoma 
City) bombing suspects," 

Reuters News agency reported on May 
21 that Newsweek magazine had received 
information that authorities "pretty well 
knew who was involved in the April 19 
blast, and that husbands and wives as well 
as children as young as 12, were going to 
be arrested at the compound." 

"Furthermore," the story added, "the 
major players, already targeted by the FBI, 
were talking to investigators to get lighter 
sentences." 

Prominently mentioned in this article 
was information concerning an informant 
the FBI had inside religious community, 
and who had provided important 
information about the other members and 
their links to the bombing of the Murrah 
federal building. 

That Newsweek article was profiled last 
May 21 on Boston station WUSA but was 
suspended before widely disseminated. On 
May 29, however, the magazine published 
a more limited story â€” this time omitting 
information about the FBI informant but 
stating that McVeigh called the compound 
on April 5...a charge, at the time, the 
Millar family denied. 

Nothing has ever come of the 
magazine's report that federal authorities 
intended to raid the compound. Nor, to 
date, have any arrests been made of 
Elohim City residents. 

Neither has the FBI informant, 
mentioned in the Newsweek story, ever 
been revealed or confirmed to exist. 

Strassmeir Scrutiny 

The movements and associations of 
Andreas Strassmeir have only recently 
come under scrutiny, despite some 

evidence of his presence in the U.S; for 
several years. 

Though widely believed to have entered 
the U.S. around 1990 or 1991, a source for 
the Immigration and Naturalization Service 
could not locate an exact date for his 
entries. 

Curiously, the INS official said, "We 
have no file on the subject.. .no record of 
entry or exit* exists/ 1 '.. 

A source at INTERPOL says, however, 
that May 1991 is a likely date for entry, 
but Kirk Lyons, his North Carolina 
attorney, says Strassmeir may have visited 
the U.S. on several occasions prior to that 
time. 

Lyons recalls, for example, Strassmeir 
moving to Houston, Texas, around 1990, 
helping Lyons in his law office there at the 
time. He Md Strassmeir came to this 
country on a tourist vias and has, from 
time to time, left the U.S. â€” only to return 
a short time later. 

Lyons is known for his defense of the 
Ku Klux Klan. He is also representing 
some of the survivors and families of the 
victims of the Branch Da vidian fiasco at 
Waco, Texas, whose destruction occurred 
exacdy two years earlier than the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Lyons said that after Strassmeir 1 s stay 
with him in the Houston area, he later 
established a residence in Elohim City. 

Once at Elohim City, Strassmeir set out 
to organize a well-disciplined militia. 

"I served in Vietnam," said one resident, 
"but I never saw anyone so caught up in 
the military thing. I mean, he lived and 
breathed the military. We were impressed 
with his knowledge and enthusiasm.. .so 
Andy was put in charge of the overall 
security at Elohim City." 

Page 326 

* HtlUtllS t^T HAMO/tAN/ 

Some skepticism emerged after 
Strassmeir purchased semi-automatic 
weapons for the militia, then "began trying 
to get us to do illegal things... violent sort 
of stuff," one militia member said. 

"We always were having to explain to 
Andy that we were 'defensive,' not 
'offensive,'" the source said. "We are a 
group who will not tolerate violence 
against others. ..unless we are attacked." 

u It looks like he was trying to set us 
up," the militia member added 

After establishing himself at Elohim 
City, Strassmeir soon became closely 
acquainted with the former Imperial 
Dragon of Oklahoma's Ku Klux Klan, 
â– Dennis Mahon of Tulsa. 

Mahon today is reported to be the No. 3 
official in an organization called White ; 
Aryan Resistance (WAR) â€” an 
organization assigned a high priority for 
investigation by federal agencies because 
of their reported association with some of 
this country's â€” and Europe's â€” leading 
right-wing extremist groups. 

Probe of 'Skinheads' 

During the late 1980s the rise of neo- 
Nazi and "skinhead" extremist groups 
began to worry German authorities â€” 
especially since groups from the U.S. 
appeared to have a role, 

"The American Ku Klux Klan has 
established groups in Germany, which 
recently has seen a dramatic rise in racist 
violence and neo-Nazi activity." 

By the early 1990s, it was abundantly 
clear to German officials that hate groups 
in the U.S. were actively supporting the 
burgeoning growth of extremist movements 
all across Western Europe. 

But it was 1993 before top officials in 
German and the U.S. publicly agreed that 

there was a need for a joint intelligence 
operation â€” involving the surveillance of 
American citizens. 

Thus it was that in December 1993, FBI 
Director Louis Freeh announced that the 
federal agency was gathering information 
about suspected links between extremist 
groups in the U.S. and Germany. 

Interestingly, the project was placed in 
the hands of Larry Potts â€” the FBI's then- 
assistant director for criminal 
investigations. 

By the time of the Oklahoma City 
bombing in April 1995, Potts was the No. 
2 man at the FBI â€” only to be demoted 
and suspended months later for his 
suspected role in the coverup of events in 
Ijl the Ruby Ridge, Idaho, incident. 

Oklahoman Targeted 

After announcing the new cooperative 
agreement between the U.S. and Germany, 
two American Midwesterners were targeted 
for surveillance. 

One is Nebraskan Gary Lex Lauck, 
often referred to as the "Farm Belt Fuhrer." 

Xauck, whose dress and speech is 
modeled after the late Adolf Hitler, once 
enjoyed a prolific network of customers for 
his neo-Nazi propaganda, both here in the 
U.S. and abroad. 

Barely one month after the Oklahoma 
City bombing, Lauck was arrested in 
â€¢ Copenhagen on an international warrant, 
charged with spreading race hate and 
belonging to a criminal organization. He 
has been extradited to Germany and is 
awaiting trial. 

German authorities attributed 
intelligence provided by the FBI with 
aiding in the apprehension of Lauck The 
FBI, however, never publicly acknowledged 
any role. 

Page 327 

Also reliably reported to be targeted for 
the joint U.S.-German surveillance project 
was Dennis Mahon of Tulsa, the 45-year- 
old former Imperial Dragon of the 
Oklahoma Chapter of the KKK whom 
Andreas Strassmeir became acquainted 
with after his stay at Elohim City. 

Mahon is now reportedly active in a 
much more violent group, White Aryan 
Resistance, widely identified as a far-flung 
but interconnected network of violent 
revolutionaries advocating the bverthrow of 
the U.S. government. 

Mahon, whose close friendship with 
Strassmeir developed after the two met at 
Elohim City in 1993, is considered to be 
one of the most important figures in the 
so-called "Aryan movement," which 
encompasses a wide group of 
organizations. 

As early as November 1991, Mahotfs 
activities were attracting the attention of 
authorities here and abroad. 

According to a New York Times story, 
Mahon secretly traveled to Germany in 
1991, where he organized a cross-burning 
in a forest just outside of Berlin. 

A German television reporter told his 
audience that, "German kids look to Mahon 
as a guru. They want his advice on how to 
get rid of foreigners in Germany." 

Noting the rise of violence sweeping 
Germany, the story noted that, "Although 
Mr. Mahon's visit was the first known 
contact between German and foreign white 
supremacists since the current wave of 
violence began, the Klan appears to have 
been active here for at least several 
months." 

That same spring, Mahon told a reporter 
for the Los Angeles Times that, "We're the 
most violent Klan in America. We are 
trained in counterinsurgency." 

While attempting to enter Canada, 
Mahon was detained and subsequently 
arrested in January 1993 â€” with news r 
accounts saying Canadian officials were 
tipped off by an informant that the 
Klansman was covertly trying to enter their 
country. 

Mahon spent a few weeks in jail in 
Canada and was then returned to the U.S. 

But his resolve to organize and bring in 
more followers was not tempered by the 
incident, though it appears that he is being 
more carefijl. 

In a recent interview with the 
McCurtain Gazette , Mahon said smaller 
and better trained "cells" (of three to five 
persons each) was preferable to the larger 
Klans he used to organize. 

"The necessity for smaller, revolutionary 
cells," Mahon explained, "is for security 
from government infiltration v If one cell 
goes down, then our losses are limited." 

Provocateur or Neo-Nazi? 

The linkage between Andreas Karl 
Strassmeir and elements in this country, 
identified by inter-national law 
enforcement officials as dangerous 
extremists* raises two possibilities â€” that 
he was either a neo-Nazi or an undercover 
agent in cooperative investigation of 
Washington and Bonn. 

Among many observers, though, his 
background has created the strong 
suspicion that he came to this country with 
the express purpose of infiltrating extremist 
neo-Nazi groups. 1 

Certainly, the FBI has for decades used 
paid informants and its own agents to 
gather intelligence on j^KK members. 

At one point, in fact, former FBI 
Director J. Edgar Hoover said the FBI had 

Page 328 

more agents at Klan rallies than there were 
legitimate Klansmen. 

There are questions, though, whether 
using; foreign agents to conduct 
surveillance on Americans living here will 
pass constitutional muster, one legal 
analysts who contributed to this story said. 

High Connections 

After conducting an investigation into 
the German national's background, the 
Gazette has learned that Strassmeir 
admitted to only a few close associates that 
he had received training in intelligence 
work while at military school. 

Strassmeir's family also has close ties to 
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, with 
Andreas Strassmeir's father being a veteran 
parliamentarian and former Secretary of 
State in Berlin. 

Gunter Strassmeir has been called by 
Der Spiegel magazine the "architect of 
German reunification." 

But several associates of the younger 
Strassmeir portrayed him as fed up with 
the regimented system in German and his 
life as a young army officer. 

Kirk Lyons, his attorney, said 
Strassmeir simply wanted to come to the 
U.S. to meet an American girl and settle 
down here. 

And Dennis Mahon, the Tulsa 
Klansman, said he didn't like his life in 
Germany. He also said that Strassmeir 
never held a job in the U.S. â€ž 

But friends at Elohim City said 
Strassmeir apparently had plenty of money. 

"Andy bought a house here, a couple of 
cars and whenever he wanted something, 
like a $450 leather jacket, he just bought it. 

"He said he had income from 
somewhere else." 

Lyons, however, told a different story. 
Because he was on a tourist visa, 
Strassmeir was not allowed to work. And 
while he made a down payment on a house 
at Elohim City, and bought a couple of old 
cars, "he was not a big spender." 

Bombing Connection? 

And where was the mysterious 
Strassmeir after the bombing in Oklahoma 
City? 

Shortly after the bombing, he began 
disappearing from Elohim City for days at 
a time, said Dr. Robert Millar, the founder. 

"At one point, the residents became 
concerned about his presence here and so 
we boxes up his belongings and moved 
him out," Millar said. 

Neither Millar nor others could verify 
Strassmeir's alibi for the morning of the 
bombing in Oklahoma City on April 19. 
They said he might have been in the 
compound ... they couldn't remember for 
sure. 

But what they do remember was that on 
April 16, the day prosecutor's contend 
McVeigh came to Oklahoma City to leave 
his car, a helicopter hovered near 
Strassmeir's home. 

"The thing (helicopter) arrived at dawn 
and hovered at tree-top level very briefly, 
just 75 feet or so from Andy's place, then 
disappeared," Millar said. "For the rest of 
the day, fixed-wing aircraft circled the 
area, off and on." 

Could anyone but a federal agency have 
had such access to such aircraft? It is 
possible. But to those who suspect 
Strassmeir of being an undercover agent, it 
is one more piece of the puzzle that seems 
to suggest he was very possibly an 
undercover agent. 

Page 329 

But Lyons reported that Andreas 
Strassmeir moved to Black Mountain, 
N.C., after the residents of Elohim City 
"kicked him out." He lived in the area for 
several months, then went to south Texas 
and then on back to Germany, the lawyer 
said. 

Lyons said that Strassmeir lived for 
several months with Dave Holloway, an 
employee of the C.A.U.S.E. Foundation set 
up by Lyons- 
Ott the day before the bombing in 
Oklahoma City, on April 18, 1995, 
Timothy McVeigh called the organization 
and talked to Holloway, who is also 
reported to be in Germany now. 

***** 

Potentially Explosive Ruling Pends on OKC Bombing Case 

Sunday, February 25, 1996 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
ByJ.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

OKLAHOMA GITY -In a startling 
move Friday, federal prosecutors filed a 
brief with Judge Richard Matsch seeking to 
ban attorneys for bombing defendants Tim 
McVeigh and Terry Nichols from 
"improperly exploiting civil lawsuits to 
shore up their client's defense on criminal 
charges." 

the office of the U.S. Attorney claims 
Stephen Jones, McVeigh's defense 
attorney, plans to use his defense in a 
wrongM death civil lawsuit as a tool to 
interview witnesses that he can't under 
criminal rules of discovery. 

Potentially, the results of the civil case 
on the criminal case could be explosive. 

The civil lawsuit was filed in Canadian 
County by Edye Smith whose two young 
children died in the April 19, 1995 
bombing of the Murrah federal building. 

Federal prosecutors charge McVeigh's 
defense attorney is taking unfair advantage 
of the situation. 

But Glenn Wilburn of Oklahoma City, 
Edye Smith's stepfather, verbally blasted 
federal prosecutors for their interference. 

"My two grandsons were murdered over 
10 months ago and the federal government 
has no right, itiorally or legally, to interfere 
with our family's private legal actions," 
Wilburn said. 

"We have patiently waited for months 
for the government to put their case 
together," he added. "Now it's our turn. To 
say that I'm disappointed in Patrick Ryan 
(the Oklahoma City federal prosecutor) is 
the understatement of all times." 

Wilburn virtually accused federal 
prosecutors of criminal negligence before 
vowing to get to the bottom of the case 
through means of the civil lawsuit. 

"He (Ryan) refused every opportunity to 
call any witnesses before the grand jury 
who had seen other individuals with mr. 
McVeigh just prior to the bombing. 

Page 330 

"We won't tip-toe around John Doe No. 
2 and the rest of them," Wilburn vowed 
forcefully. "We are going to find all the 
perpetrators of this crime. 

"That is what this lawsuit is-, all aibout." 

But federal prosecutors sidestepped the 
interest of the Smith and Wilburn families 
in the brief filed Friday. ? 

It focused instead on how that civil case 
could redound to the favor of McVeigh's 
criminal trial. 

"This clearly is an appropriate case for 
ordering McVeigh temporarily not to 
pursue or receive any civil discovery," the 
federal prosecutors brief said. 

Conspiracy Suggested 

Legal experts theorize that if Jones is 
allowed to use the civil case for 
"discovery" in the criminal case, he might 
be able to get testimony that would suggest 
federal authorities know of a bombing 
conspiracy in advance and that his plient 
was thus the victim of entrapment. 

Earlier, Jones had received permission 
from a Canadian County judge overseeing 
the civil case to subpoena individuals he 
feels can buttress his defense of McVeigh. 

Both sides to the civil lawsuit had 
already stipulated (agreed) that federal 
prosecutors could attend any of the planned 
depositions. 

And, Jones told the press earlier, he 
believes the persons subpoenaed might be 
able to shed light on what he says is a 
bombing conspiracy. 

Likewise, Tulsa trial attorney Larry 
Oliver â€” who represents the Smith- 
Wilburn family â€” said he plans to 
subpoena a number of individuals as well. 

To readers of the McCurtain Gazette, a 
number of the names of those scheduled 
for depositions in early march will be 

familiar â€” attorney Kirk Lyons of North 
Carolina, who has represented a number of 
Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups, 
and Dennis Mahon of Tulsa, a former 
Klansman now affiliated with the more 
radical and violent White Aryan 
Resistant... whose acronym, significantly, 
spells WAR. 

But whether such depositions take place 
will be up to U.S. Judge Richard Matsch, 
who is handling the criminal trial that has 
been moved to Denver. 

Mahon, an admitted bomber and 
disguise artist, has been singled out by 
both sides in the civil lawsuit because of 
his violent history and his close 
relationship with German national Andreas 
Karl Strassmeir. 

As reported in The Sunday Gazette and 
Broken Bow News of Feb. 4, Strassmeir 
recently fled to Germany after the 
newspaper began investigating his ties to 
Timothy McVeigh, the boffibing defendant. 

Readers of the Gazette may recall that 
is was Strassmeir the Tim McVeigh made 
calls to at Elohim City in eastern 
Oklahoma, redoubt of an extreme right- 
wing Christian sect. 

Strassmeir also admitted to having 
possession of McVeigh's Operation Desert 
Storm uniforms, then destroying the name 
tags on them immediately after the 
bombing. 

The testimony of Kirk Lyons is sought 
because he is a close associate of 
Strassmeir. ; 

Additionally, Lyons is expected to be 
quizzed about a lengthy telephone call his 
office received from Timothy McVeigh the 
day before the April 19, 1995, bombing of 
the Alfred P. Murrah Building in 
Oklahoma City. 

Page 331 

It was one of the most deadly terrorist 
attacks in U.S. history, killing 168 and 
wounding more than 400. 

A resolution of the legal dispute could 
come as early as next week. 

That's when Judge Matsch hears 
arguments in Oklahoma City concerning 
other motions filed in the bombing case. 

***** 

Nichols to Turn State's Witness? Source Calls Story Tack 
of Lies" 

Thursday, March 14, 1996 - McCurtain Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with JeffHolladay 

Federal prosecutors may be close to 
cutting a deal with Oklahoma City 
bombing co-defendant Terry Nichols, 
documents filed in federal court in Denver 
indicate. 

If so, it would mean a lesser sentence 
without the possibility of a death sentence 
in exchange for Nichols turning state's 
evidence against Timothy McVeigh, the 
other defendant, to shore up the 
prosecution case. 

But a highly knowledgeable source 
close to Nichols told the McCurtain 
Gazette in stunning never-before-revealed 
disclosures that the potentially exculpatory 
evidence was a "pack of lies" by Nichols to 
minimize his role in one of the worst 
terrorism incidents in the history of the 

US- 
Nichols and McVeigh were indicted last 

Aug. 10 for conspiracy to bomb the Alfred 

P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma 

City last April 19. The blasts left 168 dead 

and hundreds of others wounded. 

The apparent attempt to "plead-out" 

Nichols and turn him into a witness against 

McVeigh came to public light last Friday. 

That's when excerpts from grand jury 
testimony were filed as defense briefs for 
Nichols in a Denver federal court, where 
the trial has been moved. 

Legal experts told the Gazette that the 
sequence of events was reminiscent of 
federal prosecutor's handling of an earlier 
agreement with another alleged co- 
conspirator, Michael Fortier, who agreed to 
cooperate with the government. 

In fact, the, potentially pxculpatory 
evidence in Nichols' favor came from the 
grand jury testimony of Michael Fortier 
and his wife, Lori as reluctant to help 
McVeigh. 

The ne\ys was played prominently over 
the weekend in The Daily Oklahoman 
newspaper, which has close ties to the U.S. 
Attorney's office and which has in the past 
been criticized by defense attorneys as 
being "pro-prosecution." 

Grand jury testimony of the Fortiers 
buttressed Nichols own claims that he was 
not involved in the plot. 

But the source for the McCurtain 
Gazette told an entirely different story â€” 

Page 332 

saying Nichols lied to the FBI to save his 
own hide. 

*** 

Here is an abbreviated summary of what 
Nichols and Fortier said â€” followed by a 
point-by-point rebuttal from the Gazette's 
source, who spoke only on the condition of 
his identity not being revealed: 

^Fortier, ex-Army buddy of McVeigh 
and Nichols from Kingman, Ariz., said 
McVeigh sought his help in early January 
1995 after sensing a reluctance on the part 
of Nichols to help him build a bomb. 

^When Fortier entered his plea 
agreement earlier, he admitted driving by 
the Murrah building with McVeigh on Dec. 
16, 1994, at which time he said McVeigh 
told him he planned to blow iip the 
building. 

^Nichols himself told authorities on 
April 21, shortly after being picked up, 
that he had seen McVeigh only a few 
times prior to the bombing and that he was 
not involved in the plot. 

"â€¢"Just three days before the bombing, 
on April 16, Nichols said McVeigh called 
from Oklahoma City and said he wanted 
his help...that his car had broken down and 
he was stuck in Oklahoma City. Nichols 
said an argument ensued but that he agreed 
to pick up McVeigh and told his wife he 
would be back later that night. 

'â€¢"Nichols said he picked up McVeigh 
in a downtown alley near the Murrah 
building, then drove McVeigh back to 
Junction City, Kan. that night. 

*** 

But the Gazette's source told an entirely 
different story: 

â€¢There was no problem with 
McVeigh's car. Nichols lied to the FBI in 

an attempt to minimize his complicity in 
the conspiracy. 

â€¢"The source said Nichols received the 
call from McVeigh around 3 p.m. on 
Sunday â€” but not from Oklahoma City. . 
Instead, it came from a nearby service 
station in Herrington, Kan. 

And, subsequently, the source said, an 
agreement was worked out for Nichols to 
follow McVeigh from Herrington, Kan. to 
Oklahoma City to drop McVeigh's car off 
and then return McVeigh that same night 
to his rented quarters in Herrington, Kan. 

â€¢"The source said Nichols lied when he 
said contact was minimal. In fact, the two 
had almost daily contact. 

*In fact, witnesses say a yellow Ryder 
rental truck was seen parked at the home 
of Nichols on April 17, 1995. 

^Moreover, witnesses say a man 
described later as "John Doe No. 2" was 
seen with McVeigh at a neighborhood 
convenience store that same night. 

(â€¢"Still other witnesses recall seeing both 
Nichols and McVeigh with a mysterious 
accomplice eating breakfast at the Santa Fe 
Diner â€”just down the street from Nichols' 
house â€” on the morning of April 18...just 
one day before the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

*** 

Rumors have persisted since last 
December that the Nichols defense team 
was seeking a deal whereby Terry Nichols 
would testify against his former business 
partner and army chum in return for a 
lighter sentence. 5 

As it stands now, Nichols faces 
conspiracy murder charges â€” which could 
result in the death penalty if he is 
convicted. 

Page 333 

Legal experts contacted by the Gazette 
said airing the potentially exculpatory 
evidence in the media at this time seems to 
indicate an interest by the prosecution to 
prepare the public for the eventuality of a 
plea agreement. 

In factj the legal experts said similar 
rumors of a pending (plea agreement with 

Michael Fortier were leaked for several , 
months prior to an official announcement 
that a deal had actually been reached 
between the government and Fortier. 

As policy, the U.S. Attorney's office 
does not comment on such matters until 
they are formalized. 

â€¢kirkieie 

McVeigh, White Supremacists, German Linked by FBI 
Agent's Memo 

Thursday, March 21, 1996 - McCurtain Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

The McCurtain Daily Gazette has 
obtained a memorandum prepared by an 
FBI field agent describing an interview 
with an inmate at a Texas penitentiary who 
says he met Timothy McVeigh years ago 
â€” and who said he was in the company of 
the mysterious "John Doe No. 2" whom he 
described as a German national. 

If accurate, it would buttress previously 
established ties in the Gazette's 
investigation bfetween Oklahoma City 
bombing defendant McVeigh, elements of 
the ultra-radical white supremacist 
movement and a German national 
suspected of being an undercover agent for 
the U.S. government's investigation of neo- 
Nazis in America. 

In the memo dated April 28, 1905, just 
nine days after the Oklahoma City blasts 
that killed 168 and wounded hundreds of 
others, the inmate â€” member of the far 
right-wing Aryah nation group â€” told 

Internal Affairs Capt. Wes Adams of the 
Texas Department of Criminal Justice that 
he recognized McVeigh from a single 
encounter before the inmate was 
incarcerated in 1992. 

The inmate told Adams he was 
introduced to McVeigh by another Aryan 
Nation official, who referred to the 
Oklahoma City bombing defendant as 
"Sergeant Mac." 

(McVeigh was a decorated veteran of 
the war against Iraq arid was discharged 
from the Artny with the rank of sergeant.) 

But, the inmate, convicted of stealing a 
pickup truck which he told Adams he was 
going to take to Idaho for use in a 
bombing plot against a federal judge, said 
he agreed to talk to federal authorities 
because he was enraged at the bombing in 
Oklahoma City. 

He told the FBI agent he considered 
"Sergeant Mac" â€” whom he knew as a 
"mercenary" in the white supremacist 

Page 334 

movement â€” an "idiot" for blowing up a 
federal building with a daycare center and 
children present. 

German John Doe 2? 

The inmate's revelations about meeting 
McVeigh in the early nineties also touched 
on the intriguing and mysterious presence 
of a German national â€” believed to be an 
undercover agent â€” whose links to 
McVeigh and white supremacist groups 
was first revealed by the Gazette. 

In the FBI memo, the inmate serving 
time at the Colfield Unit of the Texas 
prison system said when he'd first met 
McVeigh that he'd been in the company of 
a man who looked very much like the 
sketch, recently released at the time, of 
"John Doe No. 2." 

The inmate said the man spoke with a 
heavy German accent and was introduced 
to him as Bonard Sevenackkar (the FBI's 
phonetic spelling). 

Making the introduction, the inmate 
said, was a well-known Aryan Nation 
official who now resides in Arkansas, 
Dwayne Butler. 

Despite the different name^ the man 
with the heavy German accent is believed 
to be Andreas Carl Strassmeir. His name 
and presence are like a thread woven 
through the web of interaction between 
McVeigh and radical white Aryan groups. 

Witnesses have told the Gazette, in fact, 
that Strassmeir frequented gun shows and 
frequently used aliases. 

Strassmeir apparently fled the U.S. after 
the Gazette raised questions about his links 
to white supremacist groups and suggested 
he may be an undercover agent for federal 
agencies â€” an arrangement spawned by 
joint U.S. and German concern in the early 

1990's of a strong interaction between neo- 
Nazis in the U.S. and Europe. 

. Strassmeir admitted he attended a Ku 
Klux Klan rally in Houston, Texas, some 
years ago, though saying he was only a 
spectator. But witnesses as late as 1994 
reported seeing Strassmeir at a Hitler 
Youth meeting at the headquarters of the 
Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho. 

Connection Made 

Late last year, following up on 
information obtained from Interpol, Gazette 
investigative reporter J.D. Cash was able to 
make a connection between McVeigh and 
Strassmeir. 

Those connections were established 
through telephone calls made by McVeigh 
to the German at Elohim City, a Christian 
Aryan redoubt in eastern Oklahoma. 

In turn, interviews with residents at 
Elohim City firmly established links 
between Strassirieir and elements of radical 
white supremacist groups. 

Strassmeir told members of those 
groups that he was disenchanted with his 
native country. 

But background obtained by the Gazette 
raised questions about that explanation. 

Why would a 36-year-old German 
military academy graduate and officer, son 
of a high ranking father considered one of 
the architects of German reunification 
forsake a sparkling career in his native 
land? 

Because of Strassmeir's background in 
intelligence work, the inference was made 
that Strassmeir's presence in the U.S. was 
part of a well-publicized international 
agreement in the early Nineties between 
the U.S. and Germany to identify and root 
out dangerous extremist elements in the 
U.S. â€” who were successfully exporting 
their campaign to Germany. 

Page 335 

Strassmeir Befriends Radicals 

Strassmeir admitted that after arriving in 
the U.S. he immediately moved to 
Houston, Texas and began helping out in 
the law offices of Kirk Lyons â€” an 
attorney who represents some of the 
nation's most sensational members of white 
supremacist groups ranging from the Klan 
to the Aryan Nation and including such 
names as Louis Beam, Tom Metzger and 
Dennis Mahon of Tulsa. 

Beam is the former head of the Texas 
KKK who stood trial with several others in 
the Fort Smith, Ark., sedition trials in 
1988. 

Once listed on the FBI's "Top Ten Most 
Wanted," he was captured in Mexico after 
a bloody gun battle only to be exonerated 
in 1988 and set free. He now travels the 
U.S. speaking out for an all-white 
homeland in the Northwest U.S. 

Dennis Mahon and Tom Metzger, also 
targeted for scrutiny by U.S. and European 
surveillance, make up the top leadership of 
the White Aryan Resistance â€” whose 
acronym, not unintentionally, is WAR. 

Mahon, pf Tulsa, and Strassmeir were, 
in fact, once roommates for a short period 
of time at Elohim City after the Oklahoma 
City terrorist attack on April 19, 1995. 

Later, in an interview with the Gazette 
several months ago, Dennis Mahon said, 
incredibly, that he knew Strassmeir was a 
member of GSG-9 in Germany "but I 
didn't know what that meant." 

GSG-9 is Germany's most exclusive 
anti-terrorist group. It was formed in the 
wake of the slaughter of Jewish athletes 
during the Munich Olympics in 1972 and 
is considered the equivalent of the U.S.'s 
exclusive "Delta" force. 

Kirk Lyons, the lawyer from Black 
Mountain, N.C., who says he represents 

Strassmeir, claims his client was not a 
counter-terrorism plant in this country â€” 
though Jie does admit Strassmeir received 
military intelligence training at the 
Budeswehr Academy in Hanover, 
Germany. 

Strassmeir's Flight 

Strassmeir fled the U.S. after press 
revelations about his ties to radical white 
supremacist groups and pointed suggestions 
that he was an undercover, agent. 

Kirk Lyons, Strassmeir's attorney, said 
Strassflieir fled the U.S. in January and 
returned to his native Germany after 
slipping out of the country. 

Lyons' explanation, in a letter to 
supporters and friends, was this: 

"First, Strassmeir had to be spirited out 
before (Stephen) Jones (McVeigh's 
attorney) and company could get their 
hands on him. Also, there was some 
danger that the FBI might take Jones 
seriously and it would be much easier to 
defend Strassmeir from Germany than form 
inside a federal detention facility." 

Subsequently, Strassmeir prepared a 
sworn affidavit th^t was filed in federal 
court in Denver, where the trial of the 
bombing defendants is to be held. 

Strassmeir Doubters 

Essentially, Strassmeir denies being an 
undercover agent and knowing anything 
about the Oklahoma City bombing. 

His recollection of events around the 
time of the bombing, however, are widely 
at variance with those told Rick Sherrow, a 
writer for Soldier of Fortune Magazine, 
and Joan Millar, daughter of the founder of 
Elohim City. 

As for Strassmeir's exit from the U.S., 
Lyons claimed the involvement of GSG-9 

Page 336 

"because of death threats against Strassmeir 
and his family," which he said were passed 
to them through Interpol by the FBI. 

Ironically, it was a tip from Interpol that 
first led to revelations about Strassmeir and 
his links. 

Interpol sources told the Gazette they 
questioned the comings and goings of 
Strassmeir without his name being on 
official travel documents anywhere. 

German Never Questioned 

The FBI, meanwhile, has never 
interviewed either Andreas Strassmeir or 
Dennis Mahon, though the federal agency 
claims to have interviewed more than 
11,000 persons in connection with the 
Oklahoma City bombing, informed sources 
tell the Gazette. 

icickick 

Snell 'Cased' Murrah Building 

Sunday, March 24, 1996 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with JeffHolladay 

Like pieces coming together in a jigsaw 
puzzle, Timothy McVeigh's contacts in the 
weeks and days before last April's 
Oklahoma City bombing paint a portrait of 
a young man immersed in one of the most 
radical and subversive underground 
political movements in America. 

Just weeks before the bombing of the 
Murrah building, McVeigh told ex-Army 
buddy Michael Fortier that he was going to 
Colorado to join the "Order," a source 
reported to the Gazette. 

The "Order" is the most elite echelon of 
the radical white supremacist secret 
society, the "Silent Brotherhood." 

Fortier told the FBI, according to the 
source, that McVeigh was deeply involved 
in the subversive white supremacist 
movement and wanted Fortier to join â€” 
which Fortier said he declined. 

Fortier, who has already entered a plea 
bargain agreement with the Justice 
Department for his role in the bombing of 

the Murrah building, is expected to testify 
in the Denver trial against McVeigh and 
co-defendant Terry Nichols. 

Inspired by Snell? 

The source also said Fortier told the 
FBI that McVeigh spoke often about the 
scheduled execution of former southeastern 
Oklahoma resident Richard Wayne Snell â€” 
carried out, coincidentally, by Arkansas 
officials on the same day as the April 19, 
1995 bombing. 

Snell, a Muse, Olda., survivalist who 
became a hero in the white supremacist 
movement, was arrested in a June 20, 
1984, shootout with Broken Bow, Okla., 
police just 40 minutes after he was accused 
of killing a black Arkansas state trooper 
who had stopped him at DeQueen, Ark., 
25 miles away. 

Snell was also linked to the killing of a 
Texarkana pawnshop owner, whom he 
mistakenly thought he was Jewish. 

Page 337 

Perhaps more significantly, tjiough, 
Snell had been associated earlier with a 
plot to bomb the Murrah federal building 
in Oklahoma City. 

Most Violent of Radicals? 

The Center for Democratic Renewal in 
Atlanta, Ga., and other organizations that 
track extremist groups, say the Bruders 
Schweigen or "Silent Brotherhood," was a 
nearly forgotten band of white underground 
terrorists before its apparent resurgence 
during the past two decades. 

Now they consider it one of the most 
violent, subversive and terroristic of all 
extreme right-wing groups. 

Moreover, to members of the 
organization, April 19 â€” the date of the 
Oklahoma City bombing â€” is also 
"Patriot* s Day" and a rallying date for its 
membership. 

The "Order" was birthed in the neo-Nazi 
cult's bible, "The Turner Diaries." 

It is a novel about a band of mythical 
white supremacists bent on the violent 
overthrow of the U.S. government through 
every conceivable means of terrorism â€” 
including the bombing of federal buildings. 

Written in 1978 by William Pierce, 
chairman of the National Alliance, "The 
Turner Diaries" became the guiding light 
for a group of real-life home-grown 
terrorists headed by Robert Jay Mathews. 

Mathews, later gunned down in a 
shootout with the FBI in 1984, has 
assumed legendary and martyred status 
among the most violent of the white 
supremacists today. 

Timothy McVeigh was an ardent 
salesman for "The Turner Diaries" and 
always had a copy on his table at gun 
shows. 

He was also, apparently, an equally 
devoted member of the movement. 

More Radical Links 

The Gazette has earlier reported 
McVeigh's leaving messages for German 
national Andreas Carl Strassmeir at Elohim 
City, a white separatist compound near 
Muldrow, Okla. One was just 14 days prior 
to the Oklahoma City bombing; another 
two days before the bombing. 

McVeigh also had a lengthy telephone 
conversation April 18 with a close friend 
of Strassmeir' s, David Holloway, at the 
North Carolina-based CA.U.S.E. 
Foundation. 

CA.U.S.E. is headed by Kirk Lyons, 
widely reported to be the lawyer for many 
of this country's best-known Ku Klux Klan 
and Aryan Nations leaders. 

Recently, Gazette investigative reporter 
J.D. Cash also learned that McVeigh made 
several telephone calls prior to the 
bombing to the National Alliance's western 
headquarters in Fort Mohave, Ariz. 

Richard L. Cofftnan, president of the 
neo-Nazi group, claimed that he didn't 
know McVeigh and said the FBI told him 
about the telephone calls after the 
bdmbing. s 

Cofftnan, asked if he knew anything 
about the "Order" and its current members, 
replied, "No, there is no such group 
anymore." 

But James Ellison, an Elohim City 
resident and a former leader of the terrorist 
underground movement, disagreed. 

He said, "the 'Order' is certainly still a 
functioning group in this country." 

"the only man who knows who all the 
members are, is William Pierce of the 
National ^igitice," said Ellison, who was 
released from a prison halfway house only 

Page 338 

two days after the bombing of the 
Oklahoma City federal building. 

Ellison was present in 1983 at the 
Aryan National Conference attended by 
many of the country's leading right-wing 
extremists, including Robert Jay Mathews 
and several others who shortly thereafter 
formed the "Order." 

OKC Bomb Plot Origins 

There are those who believe the 
bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building 
was mere chance. 

But students of the history of radical 
extremist groups in the U.S. suggest that 
the selection of the Oklahoma City federal 
building was no mere coincidence. 

In fact, first mention of bombing the 
Oklahoma City federal building goes back 
more than a decade. 

James Ellison, mentioned above, turned 
state's evidence against 14 members of the 
white supremacist underground during the 
1988 Fort Smith, Ark., sedition trials. 

It was during interviews with U.S. 
Attorney Snyder at the time that first 
mention of the bombing of the Oklahoma 
City federal building was mentioned. 

The U.S. Attorney said Snyder told him 
that he and Richard Wayne Snell "cased" 
the Oklahoma City federal building in 
1983. 

But Ellison denied he and Snell 
intended to bomb the building. 

Ironically, the 64 -year-old Snell was 
executed in Arkansas last year on the same 
day that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
Building was bombed, killing 168 persons 
and injuring hundreds of others. 

Not only did the bombing-happen on 
the same day as Snell's execution but it 
happened to fall on "Patriot's Day" 
observed by "The Silent Brotherhood." 

The Oklahoma City bombing has been 
called the worst incident of domestic 
terrorism in America. 

***** 

FBI Ignored Lawman's Elohim City Information 

Sunday, April 14, 1996 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

In the days following the April 19, 
1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City 
federal building, the FBI received 
information from state law enforcement 
sources that documented questionable 
activities at Elohim City in extreme eastern 
Oklahoma related to their investigation. 

Incredibly, they ignored it. 

That information, included identifying a 
person wanted by federal authorities and 
disclosing that another resident of the 
white supremacist enclave "strongly 
resembled the sketch of John Doe No. 2," 
the McCurtain Gazette has learned. 

This newspaper has also learned that not 
only did Timothy McVeigh visit the 
religious compound near Muldrow but so 

Page 339 

too did his ex-Army buddy Michael Fortier 
at least once. 

And from 1991 until the summer of 
1995, Elohim City was also the primary 
residence of German national Andreas Carl 
Strassmeir, whose links to McVeigh and 
other have raised questions about what, if 
any, role he played in the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Strassmeir and his lawyer vigorously 
deny he had any personal involvement in 
the bombing of the federal building. 

But as this newspaper reported earlier, 
Strassmeir was linked to Tim McVeigh by 
telephone calls and personal contacts. 

Strassmeir, though, filed a document 
with the federal court in Denver, saying 
he'd only me Timothy McVeigh once â€” at 
a Tulsa gun show in the spring of 1993. 

Visits to Elohim City 

While the Gazette had earlier obtained 
information showing that McVeigh made 
telephone calls to Elohim City, new 
information frorfi a law enforcement source 
shows the FBI was provided documents 
and direct testimony from and Oklahoma 
law enforcement officer that McVeigh 
visited Elohim City as far back as October 
1993. 

That source also said Michael Fortier â€” 
who has already entered a guilty plea for 
his role in the bombing and is expected to 
be a prime witness for the government 
against McVeigh and co-defendant Terry 
Nichols â€” visited Elohim City at least 
once, using the alias "Mike Fountain." 

Tending to substantiate the claim of 
McVeigh's presence at Elohim City is a 
copy of a traffic ticket McVeigh received 
on Oct. 12, 1993, from an Arkansas State 
trooper. The violation occurred on a lightly 
traveled two-lane highway near Cedarville, 

Ark. â€” only 4 miles from the east property 
line of Elohim City, 

The source also said Michael Fortier 
made at least one visit to the white 
supremacist compound and that it occurred 
in late 1994. 

Terrorist Camp? 

The newspaper's source also asserted 
that Strassmeir, a former German military 
officer, was known to be operating a 
terrorist training facility at Elohim City. 

"Every 90 days, Elohim City was 
receiving 25 to 50 men associated with 
militia groups from around the U.S.," the 
source said. "Strassmeir was in charge of 
training those men in terrorist activities." 

Yet Strassmeir's true identity, was often 
concealed because, the source claimed, he 
used aliases and traveled with false 
identification papers. 

Few knew his real identity, which 
Gazette investigative reporter J&gt;D. Cash 
later learned was Andreas Strassmeir â€” 
former German military officer with a 
background in intelligence and a father 
who was a high-ranking member of the 
German parliament. 

Evidence of those false identification 
papers was provided federal authorities 
several days after the Oklahoma City 
bombing by the law enforcement source â€” 
along with information that a "close 
associate of Strassmeir's at Elohim 
City... very strongly resembles the sketch 
circulated of John Doe No. 2...even down 
to a tattoo on his arm." 

This newspaper independently verified 
that this associate of Strassmeir's moved 
from Elohim City shortly after the 
bombing. 

While described as extremely dangerous 
and prone to violence, residents of Elohim 

Page 340 

City believe the individual was never 
interviewed by the FBI. 

Another person of interest to law 
enforcement sources who passed 
information to the FBI was Michael 
Brescia, a one-time roommate of 
Strassmeir's at Elohim City. 

Family members said Brescia fled to 
Tennessee from Pennsylvania to avoid 
attention by the press and authorities. They 
said they had no knowledge of his ever 
being interviewed by the FBI about his 
possible knowledge of the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Strassmeir Wanted 

After the Gazette first broke the story 
that linked Andreas Strassmeir to McVeigh 
and white supremacists, he fled the U.S. 
through Mexico, it has been confirmed by 
Kirk Lyons, a friend and the attorney who 
now represents Strassmeir. 

Since then, it has been learned that a 
warrant for Strassmeir had been issued in 
the early 1990s by the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service for overstaying a 
visa. The FBI received a copy of the 
warrant. 

Lyons, Strassmeir's attorney, now 
concedes there are "unresolved legal 
problems" related to his client's U.S. 
residency, but he said Strassmeir fled for 
another reason. 

Due to death threats passed by the FBI 
through Interpol, Strassmeir had to be 
spirited out of the U.S. with the aid of the 
German counter-terrorism unit, GSG-9 

Even though Strassmeir's father was a 
powerful political figure in German, some 
observers said the cooperation of the FBI 
and GSG-9 to extricate Andreas Strassmeir 
seemed to suggest his own importance as 
well. 

Bundes Grenschutzgruppen 9, (GSG-9) 
is Germany's most revered military 
counter-terrorism unit. Established in the 
wake of the slaughter of Jewish athletes at 
the Munich Olympic games in the 
Seventies, it is today considered on a par 
with their American counterpart, the Delta 
Force. 

An Undercover Operative? 

There has been speculation that Andreas 
Strassmeir might have been a member of 
German intelligence, but no official 
documentation or confirmation has been 
publicly reported. 

What is known is that in 1989, 
Strassmeir graduated from a Military 
Academy in Hanover, Germany â€” and that 
immediately afterward he came to the U.S. 
on a tourist visa and subsequently 
established close ties to the leading neo- 
Nazi and white supremacist groups in the 
United States. 

Strassmeier's attorney says that 
Strassmeier once associated with the most 
extreme elements of those groups and that 
he never held a job while in the U.S. 

But Kirk Lyons, Strassmeir's attorney, 
denies that his client had any intelligence 
training. 

Lyons claimed that Strassmeir was a 
"regular guy" who just wanted to carve 
little wooden figurines of Civil War figures 
and marry an American girl. 

FBI Ignores Evidence? 

Despite the state law enforcement tips 
and the presence of McVeigh, Fortier and 
Strassmeir at Elohim City, the FBI 
apparently was not interested. It never 
pursued the information it was given by 
the law enforcement source. 

Page 341 

At least that's the information from 
Stephen Jones, defense attorney for 
McVeigh, who says he knows of no FBI 
interview with these subjects mentioned 
previously. 

Why, when the FBI so proudly touts the 
11,000 interviews conducted in its 
investigation of the Oklahoma City 
bombing, did it ignore Strassmeir, Brescia 
and others? 

"We had no reason to interview 
Strassmeir," and FBI spokesman said. 

A Burning Suspicion 

Concerning this new information about 
the linkages between McVeigh, Fortief , 
Strassmeir and Elohim City, the Gazette 
contacted Hoppy Heidelberg, the federal 
grand juror dismissed from the panel after 
criticizing its methods and what he 
considered to be deliberate aversions. 

"I said it then and I will repeat it now: 
John Doe No. 2 is either a government 
agent of informant!" 

Just a few weeks after receiving the 
information about Strassmeir and Elohim 
City from state law enforcement sources, 
the Justice Department announced that its 
hunt for John Doe No. 2 was being 
discontinued â€” saying it was all a matter 
of misunderstanding. 

The department's explanation was that 
the confusion resulted from certain 
witnesses at Elliot's Body Shop, the rental 
establishment in Junction City, Kan., where 
McVeigh purportedly rented the truck to 
carry the bomb. 

The FBI and Justice Department said an 
innocent Army private was in the 
establishment the day before McVeigh, and 
that his presence was the source of the 
confusion. 

But published interviews with several 
friends of the employees of Elliot's Body 
Shop say those workers vividly recall 
seeing McVeigh with John Doe No. 2 
when a cash deposit was put down to 
reserve the truck on April 15 â€” and again 
when it was picked up April 17, 1995. 

'Doe' Still Out There 

May 2, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

JckJckic 

DENVER, Colo. â€” It was a hearing 
scheduled to argue the constitutionality of 
a new federal death penalty statute. 

But lawyers for bombing defendant 
Timothy McVeigh spice the otherwise dull 
proceedings with startling evidence from 
the Justice Department: 

"John Doe No. 2" is alive and well 
somewhere â€” and the government knows 
about it. 

Here's the significance pf the vent, 
which went unreported in this morning's 
editions of the state's metro newspapers in 
Oklahoma City and Tulsa: 

Page 342 

Despite earlier comments made by 
federal prosecutors that the government 
had apprehended all the "masterminds" 
involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, 
defense attorney Stephen Jones (McVeigh's 
attorney) released two letters signed by 
special prosecutor Joseph Hartzler that 
clearly contradict those earlier statements 
by the Justice Department. 

Jones obtained letters dated March 25 
and April 15 of this year in which Hartzler 
admits two key witnesses who worked at 
the Ryder truck rental establishment in 
Junction City, Kan., are sticking to their 
story â€” that another person accompanied 
McVeigh when the vehicle allegedly used 
in the bombing was rented. 

Last June, the Justice Department 
discounted a second person being with 
McVeigh when allegedly rented a Ryder 
truck. 

Instead, Justice Department officials 
said it was a matter of confusion by 
witnesses. 

They said Army Private Todd Bunting 
had returned a Ryder rental truck to Elliot's 
Body Shop in Junction City, Kan., on the 
day following McVeigh's alleged rental of 
a truck â€” and that Bunting's description 
had confused those witnesses into believing 
there was a second person involved with 
McVeigh. 

Shortly thereafter, the apparent hunt for 
other conspirators by the government 
apparently either ended or assumed a low 
priority. 

But as the McCurtain Daily Gazette has 
been reporting since the August 1995 

indictment of defendants Terry Nichols and 
Timothy McVeigh, the Justice Department 
assertions were apparently at odds with the 
truth. 

All of the witnesses in Junction City, 
Kan., and in Oklahoma City cited by the 
newspaper have consistently maintained 
that other individuals were seen with 
Timothy McVeigh in the days and minutes 
before the terrible blast which killed 168 
people and left hundreds injured. 

The Hartzler letters were filed 
Wednesday by Jones to support a motion 
by the defense that claims the government 
is not providing all the evidence it 
possesses which could establish the 
existence of other bombing conspirators. 

McVeigh's lead attorney also told U.S. 
District Court Chief Judge Richard P. 
Matsch that the government's own 
admissions clearly prove that the federal 
prosecutors also believe there were others 
involved in what is widely considered this 
nation's worst domestic terrorist attack in 
history. 

Judge Matsch deferred until a later date 
his decision on the evidentiary question, as 
well as motions to throw out the death 
penalty statute which the defense contends 
is overly broad and vague. 

Among state news media, the Gazette is 
the only one to have uncovered compelling 
evidence suggesting federal authorities had 
prior knowledge that a bombing attempt 
would be made on the federal building in 
Oklahoma City last year â€” and that others 
besides those charged were involved in the 
conspiracy. 

***** 

Page 343 

More Evidence Suggests Prior Knowledge of OKC 
Bombing 

Sunday, May 12, 1996 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with JeffHolladay 
First in a series 

A growing body of evidence and 
testimony points inexorably to the 
conclusion that there were those who knew 
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 
Oklahoma City was a bombing target even 
before it was rocked by explosives on 
April 19, 1995. 

It was the worst terrorist incident in the 
history of the U.S., killing 168 persons and 
injuring hundreds more. 

Perhaps the entire devastating truth 
about the bombing of the federal building 
will never be fully known. 

It is doubtful that the conspirators 
themselves, or those who sought to foil 
their deadly scheme, will ever come 
forward with the complete story. 

Yet even in the face of obfuscation and 
the miasmatic odor of cover-up by federal 
agencies, enough compelling evidence has 
surfaced to strongly suggest there were 
those who had prior knowledge of the 
bombing. 

A Family Crusade 

While other families grieved and waited 
passively for retribution, one Oklahoma 
City family began to ask the tough 
questions. 

They were among the first to intuit that 
there were serious discrepancies in the 
story of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms (ATF), which had been 
located on the ninth floor of the Murrah 
building but did not lose one employee â€” 
and whose agents, they were later to learn, 

did not even come to their offices on April 
19, 1995. 

Flame-haired Edye Smith, 23, a 
Treasury Department employee whose two 
young children were killed in the blast that 
destroyed the building's nursery, was 
among the first to publicly voice suspicions 
soon after the blast. 

11 Where the hell was the ATF, I want to 
know?" 

Her utterance, and a challenge to the 
ATF to "come clean" on May 23, 1995, 
stunned a CNN interviewer and signaled 
the family's crusade to unlock and expose 
the truth surrounding the callous murder of 
her children. 

The driving force behind that 
investigation have been Edye Smith's 
parents, Glenn Wilburn, a CPA of quiet 
strength and relentless determination, and 
his wife/Kathy. 

What they learned, and what was shared 
and furthered by certain reporters, has 
sparked revelations and, within the past 
month, a quickening investigation by 
national news media. 

At this point, events suggest an 
incipient scandal that may threaten a 
president's re-election, send numerous 
high-ranking officials to prison, destroy a 
federal agency and expose the national 
treasury to billions of dollars in civil 
liability damages. 

The First Clue 

About two weeks after burying his 
grandsons, Chase Smith, 3, and Colton 

Page 344 

Smith, 2, Glenn Wilburn had a visit from a 
close friend. He told the 45-year-old 
accountant of rumors that the ATF hadn't 
been in its offices on the day the bomb 
exploded. 

After Edye Smith raised that questions 
publicly in her May 23, 1995 interview 
with CNN, federal officials scurried to 
quell the story. 

Wilburn consented to a visit at his home 
by representatives from the Justice and 
Treasury departments. It was attended by 
U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan, two agents 
from Treasury's ATF, and, curiously, a 
representative from the IRS Criminal 
Investigation Division. 

What developed initially was a carefully 
crafted scenario pitched by ATF agent 
Luke Franey. 

At that time, it was five weeks after the 
bombing. 

Franey arrived at Wilbum's home with a 
heavily bandaged right arm and hand. The 
long-haired agent, who wore an earring in 
one ear. claimed he was in the building at 
the time of the blast. After recovering 
consciousness, Franey said, he worked his 
way out of the building and assisted in 
rescue efforts. 

Unimpressed, Glenn Wilburn pried for 
real information. He went right to the heart 
of the matter. 

"Didn't April 19 have any significance 
to your people? You know, Patriots 
Day...the Waco raid.. .Richard SnelVs 
execution? 

"Weren't you concerned that there could 
be a risk that day? 

And then Wilburn figuratively went for 
the jugular: 

"Was the ATF on some kind of special 
alert?" 

Stunned silence fell. The two ATF 
agents mutely shook their heads. Finally, 
Luke Franey responded: "No, there was no 
alert or any concern on our part about the 
significance of that day." 

Wilburn relentlessly pressed the point. 

"Where were your agents that 
morning?" 

"Some were out on assignment," 
answered Franey with a straight face. "And 
some didn't come in because they were out 
of town..." 

"â€” I thought they were at a golf 
tournament," broke in a surprised U.S. 
attorney. 

"That's what I heard too," said Wilburn. 

"No..." stammered Franey. "Our agents 
were working in the field." 

With that, the visitors stood, offered 
condolences and departed. 

But just two hours later, Glenn Wilburn 
heard yet another ATF official say the 
complete opposite of what ATF agent Luke 
Franey had just told him. 

He heard it over CNN from ATF 
Director John Magaw: 

"/ was very concerned about that day 
and issued memos to all of our field 
offices... They were put on alert." 

The CPA knew then he'd been lied to. 

Immediately, he made the obvious 
inductive conclusion: There was some kind 
of cover-up by the ATF. 

Only later was he to have any inkling 
why. 

First Warning 

No story about prior knowledge of the 
Oklahoma City bombing is complete 
without a mysterious letter of immunity 
issued by the Denver, Col., office of the 
U.S. Attorney to Cary James Gagen. 

Page 345 

That immunity agreement was dated 
Sept. 14, 1994 â€” seven months before the 
bombing of the Murrah building â€” on the 
basis of Gagen's assertions that he had 
uncovered a plot to blow up a federal 
building somewhere in the federal 10th 
Circuit, which includes Oklahoma City. 

The impetus for the immunity decision 
revolved around individuals Gagen said he 
was hauling dope for from Kingman, Ariz., 
to Denver. 

After finding that one particular 
envelope contained C-4 explosives rather 
than his usual drug deliveries, Gagen got 
cold feet and contacted federal authorities. 

During interviews with prosecutors, 
Gagen swore he had attended meetings 
where the participants discussed the future 
bombing of a federal building. 

He said the persons involved were 
Caucasians but that they used Mideastern ^ 
and Hispanic names. 

Apparently believing they had a reliable 
informant, federal authorities executed the 
immunity agreement. 

But in early April 1995, a letter to the 
FBI from Gagen â€” warning of a federal 
building bombing within the next two 
weeks â€” was apparently ignored* 

Gagen's letter not only had a note of 
urgency but a virtual guarantee that he 
would stake his reputation on it: 

"/ would NOT ignore the specific 
request for you personally to contact me 
immediately regarding a plot to blow-up a 
federal building. If the information is false, 
request Mr. Allison to charge me 
accordingly. And if they ignore this 
message, I will never again contact any 
law enforcement agency, federal or state, 
regarding those matters in the letter of 
immunity.' 1 

A Select Few Knew 

In the first hours after the bombing; 
media coverage included several references 
to bomb threats being received prior to the 
destruction of the Murrah build^ig. 

But in the face of denials by law 
enforcement officers, those references 
evaporated in any references from news 
stories. 

Even so, one law enforcement officer 
felt so badly over the cover-up that he 
talked privately to Glenn Wilburn to 
expiate liis guilt. The officer insisted on 
anonymity, fearing for his career and 
possibly even his life if he went public. 

Here's what the source learned from a 
high-ranking federal official and what he 
told Wilburn: 

"You are correct about what you 
believe. We knew the building was at risk 
that defy and we took precautions to meet 
that threat." 

Wilburn asked if the law enforcement 
officer was involved in preparations for a 
"bust?" 

"No.. J was only told to not go into the 
building that day. There was none of the 
usual security present at the building that 
morning... n 

Also absent that day was y.S. District 
Judge Wayne Alley, who was originally 
assigned the case but who was later 
removed after it was revealed he was not 
at work on April 19, 1995. 

Alley told his hometown newspaper in 
Portland, Org., that it was just a 
coincidence that he didn't go to work that 
day. 

But he did admit to the Portland 
Oregonidn oh April 19, 1995, that "within 
the past two or three weeks, information 
has beeh disseminated...that indicated 
concerns on the part of people who ought 

Page 346 

to know that we ought to take extra 
precautions." 

Asked by the reporter is that was just a 
periodic security reminder j Alley said: "My 
subjective impression was there was a 
reason for a dissemination of these 
concerns." 

But his taking a day off to do legal 
work at home, he told the newspaper, was 
nothing less than "...absolutely an amazing 
coincidence." 

When that interview came to light later, 
one of the defense attorneys for bombing 
defendants Timothy McVeigh and Terry 
Nichols successfully got Alley removed 
from the case. 

Another Amazing Coincidence 

There was another amazing coincidence 
on the day the Alfred P. Murrah was 
destroyed â€” the presence of the Oklahoma 

County bomb squad near the building 
before it exploded from the blasts. 

And then there was the tip from another 
law enforcement officer that the Oklahoma 
City Fire Department had been placed on 
alert for possible terrorist activity five days 
before the bomb blast. 

In yet another strange coincidence 
suggesting prior knowledge of the 
bombing, a backfire from a steam- 
generating plant in downtown Oklahoma 
City just four days before the bombing 
brought a gaggle of Oklahoma City police 
to Tri-Gen Coip. 

A worker on duty told police it was just 
a backfire. He was startled when one of 
the policeman present said he'd already 
called the bomb squad. 

These and other startling evidence of 
prior knowledge of the bombing will be 
detailed when this story continues Tuesday. 

***** 

Investigation Clearly Suggests Prior Knowledge of OKC 
Bombing 

Tuesday, May 14, 1996 - McCurtain Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 
Second in a series 

Compelling evidence uncovered in an 
investigation by the McCurtain Gazette 
clearly suggests there was prior knowledge 
of the April 19, 1995, bombing that 
destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
Building in Oklahoma City, killed 168 
people and injured hundreds of others. 

Among the most intriguing incidents 
were those that suggest Oklahoma City 
police, firemen and the bomb squad were 
alerted to such a terrorist bombing days 
before it happened. 

The "lightning rod" for a lot of this 
information was Oklahoma City accountant 

Page 347 

Glenn Wilbuni, who took his quest for 
answers on radio and TV talk shows. 

His stepdaughter Edye Smith, who lost 
two young children in the daycare center 
of the Murrah building, had first raised 
publicly questions about the whereabouts 
of the ATF on the day of the bombing. 

Early in the investigation, one of the 
most incredible stories surfaced in the form 
of a tip from a state legislator. 

Distressed that he was unable to get his 
witnesses to come forward, state Rep. Jack 
Dake of Edmond went ahead and relayed 
the information to the Wilburns. 

Dake told this tale: On the morning of 
the bombing, two privately employed 
security guards working near the Murrah 
building spotted a group of men wearing 
gear that clearly indicated they were 
members of a bomb squad. 

The guards watched for a few minutes, 
then about 7:30 a.m. they decided to take 
their usual coffee shop appointment with 
the oncoming shift. 

While drinking coffee, the pair told their 
comrades what they had just witnessed 
outside the Murrah building. 

Minutes later, a powerful explosion 
ripped through the building. 

Subsequently, one of the guards who'd 
seen the bomb squad that morning 
provided that information to Dake's office, 

But even today the man refuses to come 
forward. Dake said the guards had been 
told by their employer not to go public 
with the information. 

*** 

A crank tip? Or the tip of the iceberg in 
a coverup? 

A Capt. Heady of the Oklahoma County 
Sheriffs Department bomb squad said it 

was just a lucky coincidence that the bomb 
squad was training early that day. 

"We just happened to be together as a 
unit that day, rigged out in our gear... We 
were just lucky." 

Those two guards were not the only 
ones who saw the bomb squad. 

Renee Cooper saw them when sh 
dropped her infant son, Antonio, of at the 
Murrah building daycare center. 

Daniel J. Adomitis, an attorney, told of 
seeing a clearly marked bomb-disposal 
truck parked illegally only three blocks 
from the ill-fated Murrah building as he 
was traveling downtown about 7:30 a.m. 
on April 19, 1995. 

*** 

There was also evidence that the 
Oklahoma City Fire Department had 
received a bombing alert five days in 
advance of the explosions. 

It began when an Oklahoma County 
sheriffs deputy passed a note to Edye 
Smith when he spotted her in the 
Oklahoma County courthouse. 

Armed with the tip, Glenn Wilburn 
went to Fire Station No. 1, which had 
dispatched the first men and equipment to 
the Murrah federal building. 

"I understand the FBI called you on . 
April 14 and put the fire department on 
alert," Wilburn said as he leaned over the 
desk of the startled fireman. 

"That's correct, isn't it, Mr. Gaines?" 

"I don't know what you're talking 
about," responded the chief of operations 
for the Oklahoma City Fire Department, 
who promptly excused himself and 
departed. 

Wilburn, still hoping to elicit more 
information through this bluff, stepped into 

Page 348 

another office and announced, "Hello, I" 
lost my two boys in the bombing and I 
understand the FBI called here the Friday 
before and put your people on alert." 

"That's right," responded the man behind 
the desk, Harvey Weathers, chief of 
dispatchers. 

"On Friday, the ahhhh... 14th, Chief 
Gaines received a call from the FBI and 
we were told to be on the alert for terrorist 
activity in the near future. I passed that 
information down the line." 

USA Today also quoted Weathers in an 
April 20, 1995, story in which he told the 
newspaper that the FBI warned the 
Oklahoma City Fire Department on April 
14 about "some possibility of some people 
entering the city over the weekend." He did 
not elaborate to the newspaper. 

*** 

The evidence also clearly suggests 
Oklahoma City police received the same 
alert prior to the bombing. 

On a late Saturday night, four days 
before the bombing of the Murrah 
building, an employee of Tri-Gen in 
downtown Oklahoma City was startled by 
a loud backfire from oiie of his steam 
generators. 

Moments later, police arrived. The 
operator explained that it was only a 
backfire. He was surprised to learn that 
police dispatchers had already called the 
bomb squad. 

He was left wondering the obvious: 
Why would police think an explosion from 
a manufacturing plant would be a terrorist 
incident instead of an industrial accident? 
Four days later, of course, the incident had 
a completely different context. 

But like so many of the peculiar 
incidents preceding the bombing, it went 
unreported in state newspapers and a 
gaggle of TV reporters from all around the 
nation. 

*** 

Some of the most singular testimony 
comes from emergency medical (EMSA) 
worker Tiffany Smith, who arrived on the 
bombing scene within minutes and 
performed heroic rescue work. 

Inside the gutted, gruesome remains of 
the child care center in the Murrah 
building, Smith feverishly sought to find 
the bodies of small victims who still 
exhibited vital signs. 

Occasionally, she would look over and 
marvel at an FBI agent who was working 
with trained precision to stop the severe 
bleeding of other toddlers. 

"Suddenly, I wondered, how could this 
man already be in combat gear and have 
on a Thompson Pack?" 

A Thompson Pack, she explained, is a 
large, fully-equipped emergency medical 
treatment satchel. 

The explosion had only gone off five 
minutes before, yet he was already 
here...dressed like that.and ready with 
medical supplies? 

It was something that she found 
disturbing. 

But if that incongruous element proved 
disturbing, another went beyond that to 
chilling. 

It was a conversation she had with an 
ATF agent assisting in the rescue. 

"I handed a baby to a man in a clearly- 
marked ATF windbreaker and I said, 'I 
can't believe a gas explosion could do all 
this.' 

Page 349 

"This wasn't a gas explosion.. .it was a 
bomb!" responded the ATF agent. 

Surprised by his ready knowledge of the 
situation, Tiffany Smith studied the man's 
relatively unsoiled clothing and asked, "Do 
you have wounded agents in this 
building?" 

His response, she said, was this: "No we 
weren't in the building this morning." 

*** 

But ATF officials later told a different 
story. 

They claimed a receptionist was slightly 
hurt and that two ATF clerical personnel 
were more severely injured. 

And, in response to pointed questions 
from a few reporters about reports that no 
agents were present, the ATF stonewalled. 
They claimed such suggestions were 
irresponsible "conspiracy-mongering" by a 
few "nuts." 

They also claimed ATF agent Luke 
Franey had been in his office on the ninth 
floor at the time of the blast. 

Moreover, they told a story of ATF 
agent-in-charge Alex McCauley riding in 
one of the Murrah building's elevators 
when the blast occurred, claiming he free- 
fell from the eight to the third floor â€” a 
claim refuted by others. 

Several elevator repairmen for the Mid- 
Western Elevator Company said the ATF 
claim was impossible. And Duane James, 
who arrived at the building just moments 
after the explosion, said the elevator crews 
immediately checked the elevators. Five of 
the six elevators were frozen between 
floors, and a sixth had stopped near floor 
level, he said. 

Duane James called the ATF story "pure 
fantasy" and said it was impossible for 
modem elevators to free-fall. 

When confronted with this evidence by 
investigative reporter J.D. Cash, Lester 
Martz, Special Agent in Charge of the 
Dallas regional office of the ATF, said: 

"Well, I have discussed this with the 
agent, and let's say this, Mr. Cash ... 
maybe agent McCauley just imagined he 
free-fell." 

How many workers were in the ATF 
offices when the bomb exploded? 

The ATFs stories went through a 
number of contortions and amendments. 

On the afternoon of the bombing, 
Washington , DC. public affairs 
spokesmen for the ATF said there were a 
total of 20, including a clerical staff of 
three â€” leaving 17 agents. 

But those numbers kept changing. ATF 
officials claimed agents were on duty in 
Ponca City and at other locations. 

Confronted again last December, Martz 
had an entirely new story, though his 
admission may have been inadvertent. 

He said there were an additional five or 
six agents assigned to Oklahoma City and 
that they were not in the building because 
they were involved in an all-night 
"surveillance operation." 

Pointedly asked if that all-night 
surveillance was at the Murrah building, 
the Dallas regional head of the ATF 
balked: "I absolutely will not comment," he 
said. 

*** 

Photojournalist J. Pat Carter, an 
Associated Press and freelance 
photographer who has won numerous 
honors while working with The Daily 

Page 350 

OUahoman and a major newspaper in the 
Northeast, figured he was in the middle of 
one of the biggest stories of his life when 
he arrived on the scene the morning of the 
blast. 

The destruction and death were 
unbelievable to Carter, a one-time Army 
sergeant who served in Vietnam. 

After working almost non-stop for the 
next 48 hours, Carter got caught up enough 
to get some rest. 

And then some of the peculiar 
discrepancies began to dawn on him. 

"It was a few days later that my head 
cleared up enough for the whole picture of 
what happened to make sense." 

And suddenly he realized what he'd 
seen those first few minutes on the scene. 

"The feds had the deal 'wired' from the 
beginning!" Carter exclaimed. 

"I was on Harvey, maybe 100 to 200 
yards from the building, when I saw 
around a half-dozen ATF agents wearing 
their SWAT gear. 

"I don't mean their windbreakers they 
use to work a crime scene; I mean these 

guys were rigged out in bullet-proof vests 
and black SWAT uniforms. They were 
standing near an entrance to a parking, 
garage around 6th Street â€” maybe 30 
minutes to an hour after the blast... certainly 
well before the 10:20 a.m. 'false bomb' 
scare." 

Were these ATF agents who had been 
out the night before on surveillance 
revealed by ATF supervisor Lester Martz? 

The ATF isn't saying. 

Carter, the veteran photojournalist, was 
asked if he were certain about how they 
were dressed. He was. He's been behind 
them on raids many times. 

"They were clearly marked 'ATF,'" he 
said. "I've come in behind these types on 
raids. I know what the ATF wears when 
they undertake a dangerous operation." 

Carter explained that ATF agents carry 
windbreakers that are usually dark blue 
"and that's what you usually see at a crime 
scene." 

"But these guys were obviously part of 
a 'bust' that turned to s â€” ," Carter said. 

***** 

Did ATF Expect Bomb Blast Earlier, Let Down Its Guard? 

Thursday, May 16, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 
Third in a series 

The source: A guilt-ridden, high-level 
government official. 

The event: April 19, 1995, bombing of 
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, 
Oklahoma City. 

Recipient of information: Glenn 
Wilburn, and Oklahoma City CPA who 
lost two young grandchildren in the 
daycare center of the Murrah building and 
launched his own investigation. 

Page 351 

What he was told: Local ATF agents, 
augmented by those from other locations, 
were expecting the bombing attempt 
around 3:30 a.m. April 19, 1995, 5 1/2 
hours before it happened. When nothing 
happened, they let their guard down. 

Of all the compelling evidence 
uncovered by the McCurtain Gazette that 
there was prior knowledge of the bombing 
attempt, none is more chilling that the ATF 
telling its own agents not to go to work a 
the Murrah building that day but failing to 
warn other building workers of the danger. 

The bombing killed 168 men, women 
and children. It injured hundreds of others. 

To Wilburn and his stepdaughter Edye 
Smith, it was not simply a massacre of 
innocent victims. It was murder. 

Having lost faith in the Justice 
Department's investigation, and being 
convinced there was a coverup that reached 
to the highest levels of the federal 
government, Edye Smith filed a wrongful 
death civil suit against Timothy McVeigh 
"and unidentified others." 

It was a venue, they felt, that would 
bring to bear the broad powers of civil 
lawsuit discovery and allow them to 
subpoena witnesses and documents that 
they felt had heretofore remained hidden. 

*** 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms (ATF) has doggedly sought to 
discredit those who questioned the official 
version of bombing events as "conspiracy- 
mongerers" and "nuts" â€” and, surprisingly, 
found a number of takers among the 
Oklahoma and national media. 

Yet, the inconsistencies, the oversights 
and even the outright lies failed, for 
inexplicable reasons, to raise the expected 

questions from state and local media that 
begged for answers. 

The Gazette investigation, for example, 
provided compelling evidence that 
Oklahoma City police, fireman and the 
sheriffs department were alerted in 
advance to a possible bombing by the FBI. 

The ATF hurt its own credibility with 
changing stories. 

But confronted last December by 
investigative reporter J.D. Cash, Lester 
Martz of the Dallas regional office of the 
ATF made what may have been an 
inadvertent admission: 

He said there were an additional five or 
six agents assigned to Oklahoma City and 
that they were not in the building because 
they were involved in an all-night 
"surveillance operation." 

Pointedly asked if that all-night 
surveillance was at the Murrah building, 
the Dallas regional head of the ATF 
balked: "I absolutely will not comment," he 
said. 

Were local ATF agents told not to go 
into the Murrah building on the day of the 
explosion? 

And did they hold a special meeting 
after the explosion to get their stories 
straight? 

The story of at least on eye-witness 
suggests that. 

Bruce Shaw arrived at the building after 
the explosions, frantically seeking word of 
his wife, Terry, who worked in the federal 
credit union. 

He could see that the area of the 
building where his wife worked was 
completely devastated. He wanted to go 
inside and search for her. He was turned 
back. 

Spotting a man in an ATF outfit at 
Sixth and Harvey, Shaw figured the man 
would help him. 

Page 352 

After all, he and his wife had come to 
know most of the ATF agents who, worked 
upstairs. 

Shaw was surprised to find the man was 
a stranger. He was definitely not a member 
of the ATF staff he knew who worked in 
the building. 

"Hey, I need some help!" Shaw said. 
"My wife is on the third and Tve got to 
find some of the local ATF agents to help 
me find her... They know me, I promise â€” 
they'll help..." 

"Sure," responded the ATF agent. "Let 
me see what I can do." 

Using his two-way radio after walking 
out of earshot, he talked briefly, then 
turned back to Shaw an&lt;d his supervisor, 
Tony Brazier. 

"Sorry, those guys are in a debriefing 
right now...I can't get a message to them." 

The statement shattered Shaw's aplomb, 
suddenly, he started to question the whole 
situation. 

"What the hell! Where were they this 
morning? Weren't they in their offices 
upstairs?" 

The ATF agent's response stunned him: 

"Naw...They were paged this morning 
and told not to go inside." 

Bruce Shaw's wife was among the 
fortunate ones â€” she narrowly survived 
after being rescued from the basement, 
three floors below where she worked. 

But Bruce Shaw arid his wife did not go 
public with what they knew until they were 
tracked down by Glenn Wilburn and his 
wife, Kathy. 

Like so many others, they had a hard 
time accepting the idea of a coverup. 

It took some coaxing by the Wilburns, 
but Bruce Shaw eventually agreed to tell 
his story. 

Predictably, the ATF went "ballistic" 
when asked why the ATF agent Shaw had 
seen was on the scene fully one hour 
before Tulsa agents of the ATF arrived and 
hours before others from all around the 
country descended. 

But Shaw's account, in conjunction with 
the observations of J. Pat Carter and 
others, clearly give credence to what Glenn 
Wilburn had been told earlier by a 
government official in confidentiality: 

That the ATF had brought in agents 
from out of state, expecting the bombing to 
occur at 3:30 a.m. But when the "had 
guys" didn't show up by then, the ATF let 
its guard down. 

***** 

London Newspaper: Strassmeir Claims ATF Had Inside 
Informant 

Tuesday, May 28, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

Evidence suggesting the Oklahoma City 
bombing of a federal building was the 

result of a "sting operation" gone wrong, 
first detailed by the McCurtain Gazette, 

Page 353 

was recently asserted outright by German 
national Andreas Strassmeir â€” whose own 
mysterious links to the bombing have been 
raised by this newspaper. 

Strassmeir made the comments in a 
lengthy interview with The Telegraph of 
London, England. 

The newspaper said Strassmeir "claimed 
he had copper-bottomed information about 
the bombing, but seemed torn over how 
much he felt able to impart." 

"The ATF had an informant inside this 
operation. They had advance warning and 
they bungled it," he said. "What they 
should have done is make an arrest while 
the bomb was still being made instead of 
waiting till the last minute for a publicity 
stunt." 

Strassmeir, who fled the U.S. after the 
McCurtain Gazette raised questions about 
his links with those allegedly involved in 
the bombing, was asked by the London 
newspaper if he thought the alleged 
informant would ever speak out. 

"How can he?" the 36-year-old 
Strassmeir replied passionately. 

"What happens if it was a sting 
operation from the very beginning? What 
happens if it comes out that the plant was 
a provocateur? What then? The relatives of 
the victims are going to go crazy, and he's 
going to be held responsible for the murder 
of 168 people? Of course the informant 
can't come forward right now." 

The newspaper said that both before and 
after the outburst Strassmeir repeatedly 
said he was not making veiled references 
to himself. 

Strassmeir, who lives with his parents in 
a well-to-do area of West Berlin and 
whose father is a former top aide to 
Chancellor Helmut Kohl, has denied any 

ties with McVeigh or any role in the 
bombing. 

But his links to McVeigh were exposed 
earlier by this newspaper. 

They include a telephone call that 
McVeigh made to Strassmeir on April 5, 
1995, while the German national was at 
Elohim City, redoubt of a "Christian 
Identity" sect Of the White Aryan 
movement in eastern Oklahoma. 

The Gazette also learned last month that 
an investigative team from ABC news had 
interviewed key witnesses in Kansas who 
confirmed that McVeigh was seen in the 
company of Strassmeir. 

Strassmeir has publicly denied 
implications that he might have been an 
undercover agent for U.S. government 
agencies, admitted only a single meeting 
with McVeigh in 1993. 

But The Sunday Telegraph said in its 
story that an Oklahoma City couple, Glenn 
and Kathy Wilburn, who lost two 
grandchildren in the bombing of the 
Murrah federal building, would name 
Strassmeir in a civil lawsuit as a "U.S. 
federal informant with material knowledge 
of the bombing." 

The newspaper says the Wilburns have 
accumulated evidence "which they claim 
indicates Strassmeir was an undercover 
U.S. agent who, while based at Elohim 
City, penetrated the white separatist 
movement and alerted the authorities about 
the impending attack." 

The Sunday Telegraph also said the 
Wilburns "now believe they have evidence 
from witnesses that five to seven men were 
involved in the bombing, and indications 
that several of these had connections with 
Elohim City." 

Only Timothy McVeigh and Terry 
Nichols are facing federal charges in 

Page 354 

connection with the April 19, 1995, 
bombing that destroyed the Alfred P. 
Murrah Federal Building, killed 168 people 
and wounded hundreds of others. 

The FBI claims nobody else was 
involved. 

But the newspaper indirectly quoted the 
Wilburns that their failure to arrest other 

persons is "because the FBI is afraid of 
exposing the government's negligence." 

"This was a sting operation that went 
berserk," Wilburn told the newspaper. 

He said he didn't blame Strassmeir, 
saying "Andy did his best, he tried to stop 
this thing, we're not blaming him for what 
happened. But we're going to sue the U.S. 
government to break this wide open." 

irtcklck 

2 Ryder Trucks Were Used in Oklahoma City Bombing 

Tuesday, June 4, 1996 - McCurtain Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

It has been more than a year since the 
small Kansas communities of junction City 
and Herington were thrust into the 
spotlight in the wake of the Aptil 19,1995 
bombing in Oklahoma City. 
. Following the arrests of bombing 
suspects Timothy McVeigh and Terry 
Nichols, both were inundated by hoards of 
media. 

That's because, the government alleges, 
the flint hills of central Kansas served as 
the launching pad for a carefully crafted 
conspiracy to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 

Answers on "who" and "why" remain as 
elusive as the infamous "John Doe No. 2" 
mystery that originated there, even as the 
focus of the case has shifted elsewhere. 

Yet what has happened in these 
communities serves as an analogue and a 
microcosm of widespread conviction that 

the government's case is, at best, selective 
â€” and, at worst, a cover-up. 

The unconditional faith that these 
American heartland folks once had in their 
government is now shaken by a growing 
skepticism and downright cynicism. 

At issue here in this core of the nation's 
heartland â€” the symbol of unalloyed 
patriotic fervor and solid, church-going 
values â€” is the government's inability to 
provide credible answers and to make 
arrests of those they believe conspired with 
Nichols and McVeigh. 

A 2nd Ryder Truck 

"This is a farm community," said 
Barbara Whittenberg, "and we don't miss 
much of what folks are up to." 

Whittenberg, who is the owner-operator 
of Herington's Santa Fe Trail diner and 
motel, apparently doesn't miss much, 
either. 

Page 355 

"Terry (Nichols) lived just a block from 
here, and he and McVeigh would come in 
from time to time. I served breakfast to 
McVeigh and Nichols and another 
person...the Saturday before the bombing." 

While they were eating, she said, a 
Ryder rental truck was parked outside. 

"But now we know it wasn't the one 
that was used in downtown Oklahoma 
City," she said. "And we all know there are 
other people involved in this thing, but the 
FBI acts like they don't believe any of us!" 

With a feigned conspiratorial are, she 
adds, "or maybe they do know everything 
and (officials) aren't going to do anything 
about it." 

Among many of the locals who vividly 
recall activities of McVeigh and Nichols in 
the days before the bombing, there is a 
certitude that the defendants had, for a 
time, a second Ryder truck. 

But FBI agents evince no interest, they 
say. 

The problem the government has with 
the reports is this: 

They would indicate the use of a second 
Ryder truck. And that, in turn* could raise 
questions about whether, as some local 
residents believe, McVeigh might have 
been a "fall guy" for other conspirators in 
the other track. 

Here's why: The rear axle segment 
recovered only hours after the bombing 
was traced to Elliott's Body Ship in 
Junction City. It belonged to a 1993 Ford 
truck chassis. 

Computer records and eyewitness 
testimony of Elliott's employees clearly 
indicate that a person fitting the description 
of McVeigh rented that vehicle at 4:22 
p.m. Monday, April 17, 1995. 

The upshot: Any witness recollections 
of McVeigh, Nichols and other persons 

associated with a Ryder truck prior to 
Monday afternoon differ with what the 
federal grand jury was told when the two 
suspects were indicted last Aug. 10. 

"If there is one thing certain in all this, 
there was a second Ryder truck, asserts 
Stephen Jones, McVeigh's defense 
attorney. 

"And the men who built the bomb did 
so on the 10th, 11th and 12th of 
April...days before my client came to 
Junction City." 

Parroting this theory is Michael Tigar, 
who represents Terry Nichols, McVeigh's 
co-defendant. 

Here's what he told the Nichols family 
last year after the arraignment: 

"The bomb that blew up the federal 
building was built by other people several 
days before McVeigh 'showed up'... and the 
government's case will suffer when that 
comes out." 

The Government's Case 

Terry Nichols had only recently 
purchased a home in Herington* Kan., 
when Timothy McVeigh arrived from 
Kingman, Ariz., on Friday, April 14. The 
government contends the pair set about 
putting the final touches to their plan to 
blow up the Oklahoma City federal 
building during the nest few days. 

Federal authorities say McVeigh called 
Elliott's Body Shop on that same Friday 
and reserved a 20-foot Ryder truck. On the 
following day, Saturday, April 15, 1995, 
McVeigh went to Elliott's to put a deposit 
down on the truck, the government says. 

Then, on Monday afternoon, April 17, 
Elliott's employees said a man fitting the 
description of Timothy McVeigh â€” but 
using the alias "Bob Kling" â€” paid for and 
left with a 1993 Ryder rental truck. 

Page 356 

On both that Saturday and Monday, 
employees of the rental establishment 
maintain that McVeigh was accompanied 
by the mysterious subject of a nationwide 
manhunt â€” "John Doe No. 2." 

The government still contends that it 
wasn't until Tuesday morning, April 18, 
1995, that McVeigh and Nichols took the 
truck to Geary Fishing Lake, south of 
Junction City. 

While there, federal authorities contend, 
they mixed a fertilizer and fuel oil bomb. 

Moreover, prosecutors told the federal 
grand jury, it was this very same truck that 
was used to carry the bomb from Kansas 
to Oklahoma City, where it was 
subsequently detonated by Tim McVeigh 
in front of die federal building at 9:02 
a.m., April 19, 1995. 

But was it? Or was there another truck 
involved? And was that other truck 
involved in the bombing? 

Eyewitness accounts from Kansas raise 
questions about the government's 
assertions. 

Different Trucks? 

April 9, 1995, was James Sargent's last 
day in the military at Fort Riley, so the 
Herington resident decided to begin his 
retirement with some fishing. 

Arriving Monday morning, April 10 â€” 
two days before McVeigh leaves Kingman, 
Ariz., to drive to Kansas â€” Sargent clearly 
recalls seeing a yellow Ryder truck parked 
at Geary State Fishing Lake. 

And off and on during that day, he 
recalled several men working in the cargo 
area of the truck. Parked near the rental 
truck was a rust-colored pickup truck and a 
white sedan., he said. 

The next morning, the rental truck was 
still there, he said. 

"I really began to wonder why someone 
would be wasting their money on a rental 
truck out there at a lake," especially since 
no one was fishing, he said. 

Sargent was perplexed and curious. "I 
could never see what was going on 
because they had the truck backed down to 
the edge of the water, and so no one could 
see inside the cargo area unless they were 
in a boat." 

And Sargent was fishing from the bank 
of a lake, he said. 

Extending the time the track was seen 
at the lake is a neighbor of Sargent's from 
Herington, who by coincidence had sold 
Terry Nichols and his wife, Marife, their 
house only a few weeks earlier. 

Georgia Rucker drives each school day 
along Highway 77 to Junction City to take 
her son to a parochial school. 

Some 17 miles north of Herington, she 
and her son pass within 150 yards of the 
eastern shore of Geary Lake. 

On the mornings of April 13 and April 
14, 1995, the Herington real estate broker 
and her son noted the odd sight of a bright 
yellow moving van parked near the shore 
of the lake, 

"During that time of year, there isn't any 
foliage yet, and that truck really stood out," 
Rucker said. "My son and I kept joking 
about why people Would be paying rent on 
a moving van while it just sat out there." 

"There were some other vehicles there," 
she added, "but I don't remember what 
kind." 

Not until Tuesday did she drive the 
route again because the parochial school 
was out on Monday, April 17, 1995. On 
Tuesday, she again saw a yellow truck at 
the lake in the very same place. 

But what she and her son didn't realize 
until later was that it was a wholly 

Page357 

different truck they'd seen the previous 
week. 

It was the Ryder truck the Ruckers had 
seen that day which would be delivered to 
Oklahoma City. 

Motel's Famous Guest 

The Dreamland Motel in Junction City, 
Kan., is where Tim McVeigh would spend 
his last few days of freedom â€” and where 
witnesses would place him with a car and 
a Ryder rental truck that would later foe 
linked with the Oklahoma City bombing by 
federal authorities. 

"When he checked in (Friday, April 14, 
1995), he was driving a yellow Mercury 
sedan," recalls owner-manager Lea 
McGown, who operates the '60's era 
roadside motel which parallels the main 
highway into Junction City. 

"The car was trashy looking, but Mr. 
McVeigh was neat and seemed pleasant." 

The next day, McGown recalled that 
America's most notorious criminal 
defendant wheeled into her parking lot 
with a large moving van. 

"Mr. McVeigh parked outside my office 
window and came inside," she said. "He 
asked if he could park the truck in front of 
his room... I told him no, he should park it 
under our sign â€” so others could get 
through the lot easier." 

She described the yellow truck as the 
next-to-the-largest size that Ryder rents but 
said it was "an older model â€” maybe 8 to 

12 years old." 

The following day, on Easter Sunday 
(April 16, 1995), McVeigh pulled into the 
lot again at mid-afternoon. 

Mrs. McGown and her son related some 
odd behavior they'd seen with McVeigh 
related to the rental truck. 

"For several minutes one day, McVeigh 
was outside my window â€” working with 
the latch on the cargo door of the older 
truck. Eric came in laughing and said, 
"Watch him, mother; he keeps wrestling 
with that latch â€” trying to get it to 
lock...AU he has to do is raise the door up 
and then slam it." 

But McVeigh never raised the sliding 
cargo door. He was apparently concerned 
other guests in the parking lot might see 
inside the truck's cargo bed. 

New Truck Arrives 

But on Monday evening, April 18, 
1995, McVeigh arrived at the motel in a 
different Ryder rental truck, the motel 
owner said. 

It was smaller and newer, said 
McGown, who has been interviewed 
several times by the FBI and whose 
identification of a drawing of "John Doe 
No. 2" led federal officials to the Perry, 
Okla., jail where McVeigh was being held 
on unrelated traffic and firearms charges. 

"I never said anything about it to him, 
but I wondered what was wrong with the 
old one?" Mrs. McGown said. 

The following morning, McGown said 
around 5 a.m., "I heard doors slamming 
and when I looked outside around 6, the 
truck was gone. 

"I never saw Mr. McVeigh again until 
he was shown on television after his 
arrest." 

Near Nichols' Home 

There was one final sighting of a yellow 
Ryder rental truck in Herington â€” and it 
was just one block from the house of Terry 
Nichols. 

Returning from a sales meeting in 
Manhattan, Kan., Carol (name protected by 

Page 358 

request) saw a Ryder truck in the parking 
lot of a diner in Herington just after 
midnight on April 19, 1995 â€” the day of 
the Oklahoma City bombing. 

Coincidence? 

"I saw a large Ryder truck and cream- 
colored, large mid-80's sedan sitting in the 
parking lot of the Santa Fe Trail's diner. At 
the time, I thought the owner of the 
restaurant's sister had just come to town." 

She explained Barbara Whittenberg's 
sister was moving to the town and was 
expected at any time. 

Was this the "second" mysterious Ryder 
truck that witnesses associated with the 
cream-colored sedan at Geary Lake a week 
earlier? 

Or was it the truck McVeigh is alleged 
to have used in the actual bombing? 

Meanwhile, in Perry.,. 

About 7:30 p.m. the day before the 
bombing in Oklahoma City, patrons of the 
Cattle Baron's Restaurant near Perry recall 
two strangers sitting in the rear wing 
sipping beer and eating steaks. 

Co-owner Judy Leonard, who said some 
customers had been interviewed by the 
FBI, offered this information: 

"I saw the men â€” they were young. One 
had short, light brown hair, like McVeigh. 
The other..! don't remember as well as 
some of the customers do." 

But some customers "say it was 
McVeigh for sure and the John Doe No. 2 
fellow," she said. 

"One thing for sure: While the two were 
here that Tuesday evening, outside was a 

Ryder truck matching the description of the 

one used in the bombing," Leonard added. 

Bomb Material Transfer 

Many witnesses interviewed in Junction 
City and Herington are today certain that 
on Tuesday, April 18, 1995 â€” the day 
before the Oklahoma City bombing â€” 
Timothy McVeigh and other conspirators 
transferred the barrels from the older Ryder 
truck to the truck McVeigh is believed to 
have rented Monday evening. 

Theories abound as to why. 

Some believe that the other members of 
the conspiracy wanted to tie McVeigh to 
the crime â€” making him the "fall guy." 

Whatever the reason, residents 
interviewed all agree that the official line 
presented by the government is, among 
other things, incomplete â€” if, indeed, not 
misleading. 

(Wednesday, investigative reporter 
J.D. Cash continues his interviews from 
Kansas, including possible links drawn 
between young people who were friend 
of Tim McVeigh and former Elohim 
City residents, including a man they 
knew as "Andy the German." 

The story also details intriguing new 
evidence that Richard Snell, arrested at 
Broken Bow for the slaying of an 
Arkansas state trooper, may have known 
of the impending Oklahoma City 
bombing while he waited on death row 
in Arkansas for his own execution.) 

***** 

Page 359 

McVeigh's Friends in Kansas and the Elohim City Link 

Wednesday, June, 5 1996- The McCurtain Daily Gazette 

By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

(Investigative reporter J.D. Cash 
today continues his interviews in the 
Kansas heartland related to Oklahoma 
City bombing defendant Timothy 
McVeigh and the peculiar links he 
found there with former Elohim City 
residents.) 

HERINGTON, Kansas â€” Oklahoma 
City bombing defendant and admitted 
criminal conspirator Michael Fortier had 
many young friends in the function City 
and Herington area â€” and among them 
was a mysterious young main known as 
"Andy the German." 

That's the assertion of a women 
interviewed this week by the Gazette who 
said her own daughter was among 
McVeigh's acquaintances in these flint hills 
communities. 

Speaking only on condition that her 
name not be published, the witness stated 
that her daughter first introduced her to 
McVeigh in 1992. 

"Tim and Mike Fortier had many high 
school-age friends, plus others they met at 
Fort Ridley when they were soldiers there," 
she said. 

"One of the problems that my daughter 
had was with a roommate, at the time, who 
was pretty wild." 

Elaborating, she said, "My daughter 
would come home sometimes and find the 
house full of drunken teenagers...McVeigh 
and some of his army buddies would be 
there, too." 

Strassmeir Linked? 

When shown a picture of former Elohim 
City resident Andreas Carl Strassmeir, the 
woman hesitated briefly, then said: 

"If that young man is known as 'Andy,' 
and if he is German, then, yes, he has been 
to my home. He and Timmy were friends 
of my daughter and her ex- 
roommate... Andy dated a girl by the name 
of Katherine, and they had an Austrian 
friend named Cotti that they all ran around 

with." 

As reported earlier by the Gazette. 
Andreas Strassmeir was linked to McVeigh 
by at least one and possibly two telephone 
calls that McVeigh made to the Elohim 
City redoubt in eastern Oklahoma just days 
before the bombing of the Oklahoma City 
federal building. 

Strassmeir, a German military officer, 
was known to his friends as "Andy" or 
"Andy the German." 

Strassmeir fled to his native Berlin 
earlier this year shortly after a Gazette 
story, later picked up by some national 
media, raised questions about his possible 
links to groups that might have been 
involved in the Oklahoma City bombing. 

Strassmeir, who maintained a residence 
at Elohim City from 1992 through the late 
summer of 1995, has repeatedly denied any 
associations with McVeigh â€” other than a 
chance meeting at a Tulsa gun show in 
1993. 

Elohim City Connections 

Elohim City, a small religious enclave 
in eastern Oklahoma, significantly had 
links not only with Strassmeir but a far 
more notorious figure â€” Richard Wayne 

Page 360 

Snell, who was put to death in Arkansas 
on the very same day as the April 19, 
1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building in Oklahoma City...a 
building ironically that Snell had "cased" a 
decade earlier as the potential site of a 
bombing. 

Snell was convicted of the murder of a 
black Arkansas highway patrol trooper and 
a Texarkana pawnshop owner he 
mistakenly thought was Jewish. He was 
captured in Broken Bow a decade ago after 
he killed the state trooper in Arkansas and 
was fleeing. Broken Bow officers had to 
shoot it out with Snell before being able to 
take him into custody. 

Snell's daughter and son-in-law still live 
at Elohim City...his remains are interred 
there...and the Rev. Robert Millar, the 
spiritual leader of Elohim City, pastored 
the condemned man prior to his execution 
last April 19 â€” hours after the bombs had 
exploded in Oklahoma City. 

Snell has now been elevated to the 
pantheon of "patriot heroes" by some 
extreme right-wing supremacist groups. 

Several news accounts have hinted the 
bombing of the federal building may have 
been motivated more by the scheduled 
execution of Snell that retribution for the 
Branch Davidian fiasco two years earlier. 

Uncanny Prediction 

And, oddly, it was Snell who actually 
predicted the bombing of a federal building 
prior to his death. 

A guess? Or foreknowledge? 

According to a Denver Post story, Snell 
told an Arkansas state prison official 
several times prior to his execution that his 
death would be preceded by the bombing 
of a federal building â€” for which, Snell 
said, Mideast terrorists would initially be 
blamed. 

The accuracy of his predictions were 
uncanny. 

Yet Snell's own conduct on the day of 
the Oklahoma City bombing suggested 
foreknowledge, not just an uncanny guess. 

Awaiting liis death last April 19, Snell 
watched the television coverage of the 
Oklahoma City bombing with unconcealed 
glee, the prison official reported. 

Snell would laugh, he said, and repeat 
for anyone around, "I told you this was 
going to happen today!" 

John Doe No. 2 in Kansas? 

Herington, Kan., residents interviewed 
also recall that McVeigh was a close friend 
of Strassmeir's Elohim City roommate, 
Michael Brescia. 

The witness interviewed by the Gazette 
remembers him well. 

"Mike (Brescia) was introduced to me at 
Cardie's Comer on day in 1992 or 1993," 
she said. "My daughter saw me drive up 
and she brought him over to meet me." 

She described him as a young man in 
his 20s "and very good looking â€” 
obviously a body builder. 

"All the girls thought he was really 
something. They called him the 'Big 
Kahoona' because his complexion made his 
look Hawaiian. 

"Tim and Mike were good friends, and 
some people here think he is the one the 
FBI is looking for." 

Asked to explain why, she responded 
firmly: 

"Mike Brescia fits the description the 
FBI published after the bombing...you 
know, Joe Doe No. 2." 

And did the FBI know? 

"I have told them this myself!" 

Family Nightmare 

Page 361 

Recalling the day McVeigh was located 
by federal authorities in Perry, Okla., 
where he was being held on unrelated 
firearms and traffic charges, tjie witness 
said, "My daughter called and said, 'Mom, 
have you seen the TV?...Thatis Tim that's 
been arrested!'" 

Panicked by her past associations with 
the bombing suspect, the young girl asked 
her mother what she should do. 

"I told her to call the 800 number the 
FBI had been advertising for people to call 
if they had information. 

"That started our family's long 
nightmare." 

She then explained that federal 
authorities descended on the family with 
numerous interviews. 

"They wanted my daughter's letters and 
pictures...the names of all Tim's 
friends... and it still goes on," the woman 
said. 

"Just a few weeks ago they were asking 
about things they thought my daughter 
might have done â€” that have nothing 
whatsoever to do with the bombing." 

And then the news media "found out 
about her and began reporting that she was 
Tim's girlfriend, but she wasn't.. .Maybe 
her roommate might have been â€” but not 
my daughter." 

As a result of what the woman 
considers this intrusivenegs, her daughter 
has moved and is living in seclusion. 

A Baffling Mystery 

As to the ex-roommate's location, 
people in Harington, Kan., are both baffled 
â€” and suspicious. 

"She disappeared after the bombing," 
this newspaper's witness said. "She was 
very young and wild and messed around 

with McVeigh's friends from Fort Riley. 
Mike Fortier, Tim, Andy and Mike Brescia 
would take the girls to these pasture parties 
on a ranch near Lincolnville and buy beer 
for the kids. 

"So maybe she knew too much, Maybe 
she's hiding. Or is dead...like the others!" 

What the witness alluded to were two 
suspicious deaths that occurred n^ar 
Herington around the time of the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Residents say a house where a body was 
found three weeks before the bombing is 
the same house Tim McVeigh and his 
friends once frequented. A badly burned 
body was found after a blaze destroyed the 
house. 

Police reports indicate a man was 
trapped in the house and burned to death. 
Likely cause was related to the man's 
heavy drinking, police said. 

Curiously, two days after the bombing, 
the body of another man was donned in a 
burned-out pickup truck. Authorities have 
been unable to identify the remains. 

More Denials from Strassmeir Lawyer 

Kirk Lyons, a North Carolina attorney 
who says he represents Strassmeir, says he 
finds the whole thing laughable. 

"There is nothing to what these 
witnesses are telling the media about my 
client being identified in the Junction City 
area, EVER!" 

Lyons referred at a document he helped 
Strassmeir prepare earlier this year and 
which was filed in Denver. It says 
Strassmeir might have met McVeigh at a 
Tulsa gun show in 1993. But it says 
Strassmeir doesn't know why McVeigh 
called him at Elohim City, and Lyons 
denied Strassmeir got any message. 

Page 362 

He also said Strassmeir had only been 
to Kansas once â€” and that was a tourist to 
Dodge City. 

Lyons further claims Strassmeir was 
helping a farmer build a fence on the day 
of the bombing. 

Brescia On Run? 

As for Brescia's links to Junction City 
and McVeigh and Fortier, he fled the 
Elohim City compound some months ago 

and has been unavailable for comment 
since. 

His whereabouts remain a mystery since 
his name was first mentioned. 

Brescia's parents in Pennsylvania have 
been regularly contacted by the media, but 
requests for interviews have been curtly 
refiised. 

More recently, though, the family told 
an investigator for McVeigh's defense team 
that Brescia was moving around the 
country and on the run because he believed 
he was the object of FBI surveillance. 

***** 

More Arrests Pending in Oklahoma City Bombing Case? 

Sunday, June 9, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
ByJ.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - "Sex, drugs and 
rock 'n roll" sums up one young girl's 
experiences with Timothy McVeigh and 
his friends from Fort Riley, Kansas. 

Living in seclusion now just a few 
miles from here, Catina Lawson 
desperately wants to shed the label of "Tim 
McVeigh's ex-girlfriend." 

But it won't go away. Media attention 
has suddenly focused on the 23-year-old 
former Herington, Kan., resident, whose 
lurid recollections may provide 
investigators critical evidence in the 
Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy. 

And she may soon be the focus of even 
more attention with the possible arrest of 
another suspect in the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

A high-level source at the FBI has 
confirmed that at least one more persona 
associated with the Oklahoma City 
bombing investigation may be arrested in 
the near future. 

Possibly related to that information, the 
Daily Oklahoman reported in Saturday's 
edition that the federal grand jury's term 
has been extended for an additional six 
months to further investigate the Oklahoma 
City bombing. 

Grand jury members have convened at 
least twice during the past 60 days after 
months of inactivity, it was reported. 

An Eyewitness to Crucial Links 

Catina Lawson's testimony is important 
because of linkage it shows between 
McVeigh and others. 

Page 363 

Lawson was mentioned â€” but not 
named â€” in a Time Magazine story just a 
week after McVeigh's arrest on bombing 
conspiracy charges. It reported that a 
female friend of McVeigh's from the Fort 
Riley area had been questioned extensively 
by the FBI. 

For more than a year, Catina Lawson 
escaped press interviews by keeping a low 
profile as she moved about the 
Northwestern U.S. 

Now, in the wake of stories in the 
Gazette last week that may have 
established critical links between McVeigh 
and other suspected conspirators, there is 
fresh interest in Catina Lawson's story. 

On Wednesday, June 5, this newspaper 
reported that the mother of a Herington, 
Kan., girl identified a photo of Andreas 
Carl Strassmeir and said she met the 
German military officer during the fall of 
1992. She said her daughter's friends 
brought the young man to her home. 

The woman also said she knew her 
daughter was a friend of bombing 
defendant Timothy McVeigh and admitted 
co-conspirator Michael Fortier. 

Moreover, she told the Gazette that her 
daughter introduced her to Strassmeir's 
former Elohim City, Michael Brescia, 
about the same time. 

If accurate, the critical importance of 
the information is that it establishes an 
association between Strassmeir, Brescia, 
Fortier and McVeigh â€” one that Strassmeir 
and his attorney have repeatedly and 
vigorously denied. 

National media investigators first turned 
their attention to possible connections 
between the Oklahoma City bombing and 
certain ex-Elohim City residents after the 
Gazette reported this exclusive information 
last January: 

That Tim McVeigh had called 
Strassmeir at Elohim City on April 5, 
1995, only seconds after McVeigh called a 
Ryder truck rental establishment, according 
to telephone records. 

Elohim City, a redoubt of the Christian 
Aryan supremacist movement in eastern 
Oklahoma, is where Richard Wayne Snell's 
body was buried following his execution in 
Arkansas on April 19, 1995 â€” just 12 
hours after a truck bomb ripped apart the 
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 
168 persons and injuring hundreds more. 

Is there a connection between the 
compound and the Oklahoma City 
bombing? 

McVeigh's defense attorney Stephen 
Jones of Enid, thinks so. 

He believes the well-publicized 
execution of Snell, who has been elevated 
to hero status among many white 
supremacist groups may have been the 
actual motive for the bombing of the 
Oklahoma City federal building. 

Partying with McVeigh 

"I was never Tim's girl," Catina Lawson 
asserts, though she apparently knew him 
well. 

"My ex-roommate and I partied with 
Tim McVeigh and his friends when I was 
a senior in high school. There is a rumor 
that we were lovers, but it's not true. 

"My ex-roommate was pretty wikL.you 
might try to find here and maybe she will 
tell you what her involvement was. I know 
she would fill up the bathtub with jello and 
have some of the soldiers from Fort Riley 
over... 

"I don't remember some of the stuff that 
happened real well anymore..." ' 

Catina Lawson said she was actually 
closer to Michael Fortier, Tim McVeigh's 

Page 364 

ex-Army buddy, who has already 
confessed to his role in the bombing. 

"Mike and I were close... I liked him a 
lot. He rode a Harley. My roommate and I 
would go up to Junction City and rent a 
motel room at the Dreamland, and Mike 
(Fortier) and Brescia and some of the other 
guys from Fort Riley would come by and 
party with us." 

Describing drug use at the time, she 
said, "Mike (Fortier) was always messed 
up on something... I know for a fact he 
'dropped acid' (LSD) and I think he 'shot 
up' too." 

McVeigh, on the other hand, she said, 
"didn't go in for that stuff. ..he liked to 
drink beer. He was quiet, you know...shy 
around the girls unless there was a subject 
he was interested in that came up. Then he 
would get into the conversation â€” 
sometimes pretty hot and heavy." 

Detailing her experiences with the 
serious side of McVeigh, she remembered 
the decorated Desert Storm veteran as 
sometimes being erratic around other 
people. 

"Politics and the screwed-up government 
were Tim's passion. Tim was really down 
on the government after he came back 
from the Gulf War." 

Investigative reporter J.D. Cash 
authenticated the likelihood that Catina 
Lawson knew McVeigh because she spoke 
of several personal facets of the bombing 
defendant's demeanor and conduct that 
coincided with observations Cash made 
during an exclusive interview last February 
with him. 

He cited these examples of her remarks, 
which he said only someone who knew 
McVeigh would note: 

"You know, when Tim gets into 
political discussions, his whole personality 

changes, he goes from .being a happy-go- 
lucky guy to sort of a college professor... 

"He takes charge, leans back in his 
chair...crosses his legs and begins speaking 
with authority...He becomes a totally 
different person." 

Also, she said, "Tim was really hung up 
on his sister Jennifer... You know, she is 
really wild. He told us she would go to 
bars and jello-wrestle other girls. 

Her Reaction to ORG Bombing 

Catina Lawson was asked her reaction 
to the Oklahoma City bombing. 

Could she believe it was carried out by 
her friends and acquaintances? 

"I am sick â€” sick â€” about all this," she 
said. "I can't believe my friends could be 
capable of anything like that." 

Yet she wanted to do the right thing, 
she said, so "I called the FBI when they 
arrested Tim. And they have been 
interviewing me about all this stuff." 

Recently, though, "some strange things 
have been happening," she said. 

"When I got home a few weeks ago, 
almost all of my pictures of these people 
that I ran around with in Kansas... and 
some letters were missing. All my personal 
things had been gone through... 

"Then, two days later, a couple of FBI 
agents found me again and started asking 
questions about what was in my letters and 
things like that. I'mÂ° sure they were the 
ones who went through my things because 
they knew stuff I hadn't told them." 

She explained: "They are trying to find 
my ex-roommate... Brescia's old 
girlfriend.. .and a couple of other girls that 
we partied with." 

Cash, at this juncture, showed Catina 
Lawson a photo of Andreas Strassmeir. 

Page 365 

And she, like her mother, readily 
identified it. 

"Sure, that's Andy," she said. 

"I really don't remember much about 
him other than he was a jerk. He was 
really cocky around everyone. He told us 
his dad was a big deal in Germany...some 
kind of political leader... 

"He has a foreign accent and is kinda 
buck-toothed." 

Asked to be more specific about her 
relationship with the son of Germany's 
former secretary of state, she responded: 

"I can't thing of where we may have 
gone together...I think he was with 
McVeigh's buddies at the U.S. Grant Club 
in Junction City one night. We may have 
danced, then gone outside and messed 
around in his car...I'm not sure â€” I 
probably met 200 soldiers that summer. 

"All I remember is that he ran with Tim 
(McVeigh) and Mike (Fortier) and that 
whole crowd â€” and that he was an 
arrogant jerk... and he had bad breath." 

â€¢John Doe No. 2' ID'd? 

Lawson was handed the FBI sketch of 
the infamous "John Doe No. 2" that federal 
investigators had sought shortly after the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

"Yes, this sketch is pretty close to what 
Mike looks like," she said, alluding to 
Mike Brescia. 

"My mom told the FBI all this some 
time ago." 

She noted some differences "in the eyes 
and the cheekbones" between the sketch 
and her recollection of Brescia, then added: 

"But I guess when you consider that 
Mike had unusually large muscles in his 
upper body and arms,..and his height and 
weight, hair color.. .maybe it's him. 

"Brescia looks Hawaiian too â€” that's 
what they say John Doe 2 looked like, but 
I don't know../ 1 

Nervously, she added, "I don't like 
answering questions about Mike â€” he's 
still out there someplace. Tim and Mike 
Fortier arein jaiL.but Brescia is still out 
there." 

***** 

Hunt for ' John Doe No. 2' Intensifies; Did FBI Blow 
Another Lead? 

Sunday, June 30, 1996 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

The FBI, which once promised to 
pursue the Oklahoma City bombing 
investigation "without rest," may have 
allowed bombing suspect "John Doe No. 2" 

slip from under its nose and escape to 
Canada. 

Curiously, the federal agency also 
allowed a mysterious German national with 

Page 366 

possible knowledge and links to the 
bombing to flee the U.S. and make his way 
back to Berlin. 

Both had ties to Elohim City, a white 
separatist religious compound in eastern 
Oklahoma, which key witnesses believe 
holds many of the secrets to the "Patriot's 
Day" mass murder of April 19, 1995, in 
Oklahoma City. 

Their suspicions focus on Andreas Carl 
Strassmeir, 37, Michael Brescia, 24, and 
Dennis W. Mahon, 46. 

As reported earlier in the Gazette, Andy 
Strassmeir fled the U.S. through Mexico 
last January after pointed questions were 
raised in his newspaper about his links to 
bombing suspects. 

Strassmeir today is back in his native 
Berlin and enjoying the legal protection of 
German political officials that his father, 
former Secretary of State Guenther 
Strassmeir, put into office. 

Only after repeated articles and news 
programs about Strassmeir and his 
connections to bombing defendant Timothy 
McVeigh and Elohim City did the U.S. 
attorney's office in Oklahoma City ever 
bother to contact him. 

Kirk Lyons, Strassmeir's attorney in the 
U.S., said his client recently participated in 
a 90-minute conference call with a 
representative of the Justice Department. 

Strassmeir has previously denied any 
knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing 
despite links clearly established between 
him, McVeigh and other purported 
suspects. 

Now, the Gazette has just learned that 
Strassmeir's former Elohim City roommate, 
Michael Brescia â€” suspected to be "John 
Doe No. 2" by some witnesses â€” may 
have slipped away from the U.S. and made 
his way to Canada. 

Center of Conspiracy? 

Do the secrets of the Oklahoma City 
bombing reside somewhere within the 
Christian Identity religious compound of 
Elohim City? 

To some investigators, witnesses and 
victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, 
there seems mounting evidence that the 
white separatist compound has yet to give 
up all its secrets. And they would like 
authorities to step up their probe of the 
compound. 

The Gazette has learned that just weeks 
before the bombing, the Rev. Robert 
Millar, founder of Elohim City, sought out 
a meeting with FBI officials in Muskogee. 

He warned them, "Something very bad 
is about to happen to the federal 
, government, and white supremacists may 
get the blame for it." 

No other details of the meeting are 
available, but it raises tantalizing new 
questions about foreknowledge of the 
pending bombing attack. 

And what of Oklahoma City bombing 
defendant Tim McVeigh? 

Did he have links with Elohim City? 

McVeigh's visits to Elohim City have 
been consistently denied by residents. But 
a traffic citation issued to McVeigh in 
1993 on a backroads highway just four 
miles from Elohim City seems to dispute 
that. 

In fact, Morris Dees of the Southern 
Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., 
recently said at a news conference in 
Denver that his sources told him McVeigh 
had visited the religious compound more 
than a dozen times prior to the bombing. 

This information coincides with law 
enforcement sources contacted by the 
Gazette, who also confirmed he visited 
Elohim City on numerous occasions using 
the alias "Tim Tuttle." 

Page 367 

Another visitor to the compound was L 
McVeigh's ex-army buddy and admitted % v 
co-conspirator, Michael Fortier. a 

Feds Sticking to Story . 

During a pretrial hearing in Denver only fy 
a few weeks ago, special prosecutor Beth t 
Wilkerson told U.S. District Judge Richard % 
Matsch that the government had the only ^ 
two "masterminds" in the bombing â€” \ 

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Q* 

But that contention is now evaporating ' 
under intense press scrutiny which suggests L 
the involvement of others in the bombing. 

At least part of that story goes back to v 
June 14, 1995, when the Justice ^ 

Department announced that the witnesses \j 
at Elliott's Body Shop in Junction City, 
Kan., were confused when they said there V 
was a second person with McVeigh when 
he rented a Ryder rental truck â€” the one 
federal prosecutors believe were used in 
the Oklahoma City bombing. 

As this newspaper has previously 
reported, the employees of Elliott's Body 
Shop have never changed their belief that 
another person was present with McVeigh 
when he rented the truck. 

"1 know McVeigh was there with 
another person...I helped the FBI do the 
sketch of John Doe No. 2," said Tom 
Kessenger recently. "I watched him 
standing there for a long time...He had his 
arms crossed and never said a word while 
one of our employees filled out the rental 
papers for McVeigh." 

Kessenger described John Doe No. 2 as 
around 5-9 tall, with short dark hair, trim. 
He was wearing a T-shirt on the day of the 
truck rental with a portion of a tattoo 
showing on his upper left amu Kessenger 
said. 

y yo&lt;) Â«*" H ,rt 

/ 

"He is youngish and very good looking 
for a guy â€” what you would call a ladies 

man'." 

When shown a college yearbook photo 
taken in 1990 of Michael Brescia, 
Kessenger said after careful study, "I think 
that's very close!.. .He could be the man 
I'm looking for." 

'More Leads 

Dennis W. Mahon of Tulsa, former 
head of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma 
and reputedly the No. 3 official with the 
White Aryan Resistance at the time of the 
bombing identified Brescia in an interview 
last January with this newspaper as being 
the person depicted in the sketch of John 
Doe No. 2. 

"He's the pretty boy they are looking 
for," Mahon said. "He's 5-8 or so, and he's 
got short, dark hair combed back... a tan, 
strong upper body and a tattoo on his 
arm..." 

Another witness also identified John 
Doe No. 2 as being with McVeigh when 
he checked into the Dreamland Motel in 
Junction City, Kan., on April 14, 1995. 

A hairdresser at a local beauty salon, 
who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 
McVeigh and another man came to the 
shop, with the second man asking if he 
could get a haircut. 

She told him she didn't have time and 
they left. 

But shown a photo later of Brescia, the 
witness seemed shocked. "That could be 
him," she said. "I would want to see a 
better picture to be sure." 

But getting a better photo of Brescia, a 
former LaSalle student, is not easy. 

On a recent trip to Elohim City, Joan 
Millar, daughter-in-law of the founder, 
produced one â€” but declined to allow it to 

Page 368 

be circulated. She explained that Michael 
Brescia is still engaged to her daughter. 

Did he have a tattoo on his arm as 
Dennis Mahon had said? 

"Yes, but I won't tell you what it is or 
where it is located," Joan Millar said. 

It had previously been reported, though, 
that Brescia has a tattoo of a circle with a 
cross in the center â€” reportedly the 
emblem of the white supremacist group, 
White Aryan Resistance. 

Brescia's Movements 

Brescia's movements after the bombing 
have often been difficult to determine. 

This past January, the Gazette contacted 
a close friend of Brescia's, Mark Thomas, 
the leader of the White Aryan Resistance 
in the Pennsylvania area, who admitted 
Brescia had visited Oklahoma prior to the 
bombing and was then staying on his farm 
near Allentown, Pa. 

Later, an investigator for McVeigh's 
defense team talked to Brescia's father, 
who told him his son had left the Thomas 
farm. 

A break in the search for Brescia may 
have occurred recently when two former 
Elohim City residents, Scott Stedeford and 
Kevin McCarthy, were nabbed by the FBI 
in Ohio for questioning in the Aryan 
Nation's bank robberies. Prosecutors say 
the men were part of a series of bank 
holdups between 1992 and 1995. 

Brescia is believed to have formed a 
rock band with the two after the Oklahoma 
City bombing. 

The Rev. Robert Millar, head of Elohim 
City, said Stedeford and McCarthy had 
been sent by Thomas to stay at Elohim 
City and that while that there they were 
associates of Brescia and Strassmeir. 

Was it possible Brescia could be 
involved in the bank robberies? 

Millar said he couldn't imagine Brescia 
doing anything like that. 

"But if he (Breccia) did do something 
illegal.. it would be something that 
Strassmeir put him up to." 

He said it would not surprise him to 
learn that Strassmeir got Brescia into 
"something like the gun robbery in Hot 
Springs." 

Two other witnesses interviewed by the 
newspaper discussed McVeigh's 
associations with Brescia. 

In a related development, England's 
London Sunday Telegraph will report in 
today's edition that these witnesses told the 
FBI only four days after the bombing that 
the subject of the nationwide manhunt, 
John Doe No. 2, was an old friend of 
McVeigh's â€” Michael Brescia. 

A former friend of Tim McVeigh's, the 
woman told reporters that she and her 
Herington, Kaii., girlfriend "partied" with 
McVeigh, Fortier and Brescia during 1992. 

Said Catina Lawson: "I told the FBI 
when they arrested Tim, that they should 
be looking for his friend Mike as 
well...because he fits the sketch and 
description of John Doe No. 2." 

Carina's mother, interviewed separately 
by this newspaper a few weeks ago, told 
much the same story and related that 
Andreas Strassmeir had visited her home 
that same year. 

"Andy (Strassmeir) was a friend of my 
daughter's friends â€” who included 
McVeigh, Fortier and Brescia," she said. 
"Four days after the bombing, I told the 
FBI that they should be looking for him 
(Brescia) because he fit the description of 

Page 369 

John Doe No. 2 and he was a companion 
of Tim's..." 

Is the FBI really looking for Brescia? 

Federal sources have told the Gazette 
they have some questions they'd like to ask 
Brescia â€” but that's about the extent of 
their comments. 

Meantime, several large news 
organizations â€” including the New York 
Times, Long Telegraph, the Tennessean 
and the Philadelphia Inquirer, along with 

ABG and NBC â€” are also looking for 
Brescia. ..so far, without any luck. 

Sources at ABC report they have 
investigators in Canada now because of 
tips they've received that Brescia is there. 

Joan Millar told the Gazette last week 
that her daughter is in contact with Brescia 
but that she will not reveal his 
whereabouts. 

"I know he hasn't been picked up by the 
FBI.. .that is all I will say about that." 

***** 

FBI Says Strassmeir Was Government 'Operative' 

Sunday, July 14, 1996 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J. D. Cash - First of Two Parts 

After months of official "no comments," 
and even outright denials, a highly placed 
source at the FBI has confirmed that 
Andreas Carl Strassmeir was a paid 
government informant sent by the Bureau 
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to 
infiltrate Elohim City â€” a Christian 
Identity religious compound near Muldrow, 
Okla. 

Following numerous investigative 
reports by national and international news 
services about the mysterious German 
"tourist" with suspicious ties to Timothy 
McVeigh, some supervisory-level agents at 
the Bureau now want to distance 
themselves from mounting evidence that 
the QKC bombing was a "blown sting 
operation" by the ATF â€” an operation of 
which Strassmeir, himself, has admitted 
intimate knowledge. 

Supplementing the Gazette's nine-month 
investigation into links between Strassmeir, 
McVeigh and the neo-Nazi movement in 
this country, a variety of news 
organizations have also begun uncovering 
and reporting some unsettling facts about 
the German national's activities and 
associations. Such revelations now include 
that of a family in Arkansas whose bodies 
were recently found handcuffed and 
submerged in an Arkansas bayou and a 
bank robber turned government witness â€” 
discovered Friday, dangling from a bed 
sheet in his cell. 

ATF Computer Fingerprints' 

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, 
a high-level source at the FBI confirmed 
that the ATF "indices" reflect "substantial" 
intelligence-gathering activities in which 
Strassmeir was a participant. 

Page 370 

"Indices" are classified computer- 
generated files, maintained by federal law 
enforcement organizations, and are used by 
their intelligence units to track data on the 
suspicious activities of various groups and 
individuals. 

This last Monday, the Denver court 
made public an order that gives lawyers for 
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols 
approval to gain access to any government 
wiretaps on the bombing defendants. Any 
FBI and ATF indices that mention 
Strassmeir are expected to become hotly 
contested targets of discovery requests as 
well. 

In the past, attorneys for McVeigh and 
Nichols have bitterly argued to Ju4ge 
Matsch that the Justice Department has not 
been forthcoming with all "exculpatory" 
evidence that it has in its possession. Very 
clearly, said one legal expert, if there is 
evidence that a government informant was 
working within the Oklahoma City 
bombing conspiracy, that evidence could 
be critical to a defense team's case â€” 
especially if the defense of "entrapment" is 
to be raised. 

The McVeigh-Strassmeir 'Flap' 

As reported earlier by the Gazette, the 
"flap" over Andreas Strassmeir began when 
the Gazette reported that residents of 
Elohim City said that Timothy McVeigh 
was trying to contact Strassmeir â€” just 
days before the bombing of the Oklahoma 
City Federal Building. 

Phone records indicate that on April 5, 
a call was made to Elohim City from a 
motel room registered to Timothy 
McVeigh. That call was just seconds after 
McVeigh is widely reported to have called 
a Ryder truck rental establishment in 
Arizona. 

When evidence of the Elohim City call 
was leaked to the press, national attention 
suddenly rained down on the white 
supremacist community. 

"We don't know anything about such a 
call," the Rev. Millar assured reporters a 
month after the bombing, adding, "If Tim 
McVeigh did call, no one here knows 
anything about it." 

Months later, Millar discovered that 
there had been one or two calls to the 
compound â€” by McVeigh. Today, Millar 
says those calls were for their "Chief of 
Security," Andreas Strassmeir. 

The substance of the message, Miller 
recalls, was that Strassmeir should be told 
that McVeigh would be visiting soon. 

Today, residents there maintain they 
don't know Tim McVeigh and don't 
believe the bombing defendant ever visited 
Elohim City. 

Following the Gazette story concerning 
the McVeigh phone call(s), Strassmeir's 
attorney, Kirk Lyons, sent out a newsletter 
to his friends and supporters. 

Detailing Strassmeir's sudden departure 
from the U.S., Lyons explained that due to 
death threats and harassment, his client had 
to be spirited out of the U.S. using a covert 
route through Mexico â€” eventually 
arriving safely in Berlin. 

Aiding Strassmeir's "escape," Lyons 
said, was Germany's equivalent of our 
Delta Force â€” the vaunted counter- 
terrorism unit, GSG-9. 

Strassmeir's Story 

Hoping to explain away the McVeigh 
phone calls to Elohim City, Strassmeir's 
attorney prepared and distributed an 
unsigned and unsworn statement saying 
that if Strassmeir ever met McVeigh, it 

Page 371 

was a single encounter at a gun show in 
Tulsa in the summer of 1993. 

In that document, Strassmeir says he 
can only vaguely recall such a meeting, 
but, if there was one, he may have given 
McVeigh a card with Elohim City's phone 
number on it. 

Also, the statement includes a reference 
to some military fatigues that McVeigh 
traded for a Navy combat knife that 
belonged to the German national. 

Documents obtained by the Gazette 
indicate that McVeigh had, at the time of 
his arrest, a knife quite similar to the one 
Strassmeir describes. 

Based on the formal statement, 
Strassmeir believes that McVeigh must 
have retained the Elohim City card for two 
years, until, as prosecutors allege, he was 
in the midst of planning and executing the 
Oklahoma City bombing. And then, for 
reasons no one has publicly explained, the 
accused mass-murderer suddenly decided 
to contact Strassmeir for the first time 
since the Tulsa Gun Show. 

The Strassmeir Family 

The son of one of Europe's most able 
and influential politicians, Andreas 
Strassmeir began "visiting" the U.S. in 
1988. Up to that time, the then 28-year-old 
German army officer had served in the 
Panzer Grenadiers and a short stint as 
liaison to Great Britain's prestigious Welsh 
Guards. 

Concurrently, Strassmeir's father, 
Guenther, had risen to the position of 
Secretary of State to Berlin, a position 
which gave the veteran parliamentarian 
virtual control over almost every ministry 
in the former capital city. 

The younger Strassmeir has admitted to 
journalists that his military assignments 
sometimes included covert projects and 

training. This was at a time when his 
father was deeply involved in West 
Germany's effort to destroy communism 
abroad and quell the rise of fascism at 
home. 

Eventually, the family's shared dream of 
reunification of the divided Germanies was 
realized* but in its wake, the streets of 
Germany would be littered with elements 
of discontent. Such discontent was often 
directed by a violent and burgeoning 
fascist movement â€” the neo-Nazi 
"Skinheads," a movement with direct links 
to the United States. 

Special Project Promised 

Reported in Hit London Sunday 
Telegraph, Strassmeir told interviewers that 
he settled in the U.S. in 1989 because of a 
"special project" he was promised by the 
U.S. Justice Department. 

Although Andreas Strassmeir has never 
commented publicly about what that 
project may have been, one clue may be 
gleaned from the announcement of a joint 
surveillance operation between the United 
States and Germany. The target of that 
operation â€” the U.S.-based neo-Nazi 
movement. 

In 1993, Louis Freeh, the head of the 
FBI, and Ron Nobles, then the No. 2 
official from the Treasury, revealed for the 
first time that an agreement had been 
reached between the U.S. and Germany to 
monitor the export of U.S.-produced neo- 
Nazi literature. 

Also announced at that time was an . 
agreement to share intelligence on terrorist 
groups that were suspected of operating in 
concert between the U.S. and Germany. 
Making this necessary, the governments 
agreed, was the recent rise of "skinhead" 
and Ku Klux Klan cells in Germany. Such 

Page 372 

groups were believed to be, in large part, 
supported by members of various white 
supremacist groups, who had been 
traveling to Germany from the U.S. 

Civil War or 007 Buff? 

Retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Vincent 
Petruskie, of Petruskie and Associates of 
Manassas, Va., recalls that the first time 
Strassmeir came to the U.S., he was with 
some other young Germans, intent on 
participating in the 125th anniversary of 
the Battle of Gettysburg. 

Petruskie, a former intelligence agent 
for the Office of Special Investigations 
(OSI), says he took Strassmeir under his 
wing and tried to find him employment in 
the federal government performing 
undercover work. It was a task that, 
Strassmeir's attorney now says, could not , 
be accomplished because of legal hurdles. 

Says Lyons, "Colonel Petruskie and I 
tried to find Andy any kind of job we 
could, but since he (Strassmeir) only had a 
tourist visa and no green card (work 
permit), we couldn't find him anything but 
odd jobs." 

Disputing the story that Strassmeir 
didn't have proper documentation to obtain 
employment is a copy of a driver's license 
that the Gazette has obtained. It shows 
that, somehow, the German "tourist" was 
able to obtain a valid Tennessee license 
and social security number in 1992. 

And apparently, one of the "odd jobs" 
Lyons and Petruskie spoke of was, indeed, 
unique. 

During an interview in Berlin a few 
weeks ago, a question was put to 
Strassmeir which appeared to shock him. 

Conducting the interview was Oklahoma 
City attorney Mike Johnston, who asked 
Strassmeir about the attempted purchase of 

some Boeing 747s that the German had 
been involved with. 

Johnston recalls that "Strassmeir was 
shocked, and then sputtered, 'How did you 
know that?'" 

Eventually, Strassmeir settled down and 
said he was acting as a middle man for an 
old family friend, Colonel Petruskie, who 
he also described as "an ex-CIA guy that 
my father has known since the Cold War." 

However, Petruskie told the New 
American magazine afterwards that, yes, he 
was trying to help set up an air cargo 
service in South America, but he was not 
ex-CIA, but rather a former OSI 
intelligence officer. Also, Petruskie told the 
New American he had never met 
Strassmeir's father, who he believed he had 
spoken with on the phone one time. 

So why did Strassmeir "vacation" in the 
U.S. for eight years, in clear violation of 
the normal short-term tourist visa 
restrictions? 

Kirk Lyons said, "When Andy came to 
the U.S., he found our way of life much 
more free and easy than the stifling 
political atmosphere in Germany. Andy 
was really hung up on our Civil War 
history and wanted to meet American 
girls." 

Strassmeir's attorney adds, "So, for a 
while, I arranged for Andy to stay with a 
friend of mine in Texas... Later, I arranged 
for Andy to move to Elohim City." 

Texans Remember Strassmeir 

Former and current members of the 
Texas Light Infantry Brigade (TLI), a 
mish-mash of Civil War reenactors and 
survivalists, vividly recall the lanky 
foreigner â€” some with disdain. 

Page 373 

"Strassmeir set me up and ruined ffiy 
life," reports one man, who has fled Texas 
and 
now lives in Colorado. 

Referring to the TLI militia group that 
was established initially with the help of 
Kirk Lyons and Lyons' close associate, 
Dave Holloway, the Colorado resident 
spoke only on the condition of anonymity 
during a tape-recorded interview. 

"Andy was coming to our meetings in 
1989 and 1990, By July of 1996, my life 
and freedom were in danger because of 
Strassmeir," he said, adding, "Some of the 
members of our group began following that 
guy at night. We were suspicions of him 
and who he really was... He told us he was 
wanted by the Immigration Service because 
he said he was here illegally. Once, we 
followed him to a federal building and 
watched him use the key pad to enter the 
offices at night.Then, we knew he was a 
federal agent of some kind." 

Following this incident, the source said, 
other members of the group became 
concerned, too. 

"So, I told Andy that if he had some 
problems with the feds, he shbuld quit 
coming to pur meetings...We didn't need 
his problems. 

"After that," the man explained, "All 
hell broke loose... The ATF set me up on 
two occasions, and some of the other guys 
were set up, too. Finally, in July of 1991, 1 
took off." 

According to an Aryan Nation official 
who has been serving time since late 1992 
in a Texas penitentiary, he, too, recalls 
Strassmeir's associates in the Lone Star 
State, and, as well, in Hayden Lake, Idaho. 

"I met Strassmeir at a Aryan Nation 
function at Hayden Lake in early 1992," 
recalls B J. Farrington. "I also remember 

another guy that we there, Timmy 
McVeigh!" 

The convicted car their said of McVeigh 
and Strassmeir, "I can't tell you much 
about the German fellow. Everyone in the 
(white separatist) movement knew who 
Andy was, but not much about 
him...Timmy, though, was known in the 
movement as a "mercenary," someone you 
could wind up and send out on a job. That 
guy is an idiot for killing all those kids," 
said Farrington, adding, "McVeigh should 
have blown up the building at night." 

According to Strassmeir, he has never 
been to any Aryan Nation functions in 
Idaho. His statement says he attended a 
Klan rally in Texas once, as an observer. 

Kansans ID Photos 

It was in the rough-hewn flint hills of 
central Kansas that indicted bombing 
conspirators and ex-army buddies Tim 
McVeigh, Michael Fortier and Terry 
Nichols spent much of their time. 

When McVeigh finished his service at 
nearby Fort Riley, the decorated Desert 
Storm herb settled in Herington for a short 
while. Later, he would frequent the area 
regularly. Mike Fortier made some Mends 
there as well. And, after coming and going 
from the area for several years, Terry 
Nichols even purchased a home there. 

But Kirk Lyons says his client has 
never been to Kansas. A statement several 
witnesses strongly disagree with. 

Connie Smith, who lives near 
Herington, recognized photos of Strassmeir 
and some others she was shown. 

"Yes, I recognize that man's picture," 
said Smith recently. "In 1992, my daughter 
was a student, and she had a lot of friends 
in Herington and Junction City. Tim 
McVeigh was one of them. 

Page 374 

"My daughter, Catina, and her 
roommate dated some soldiers that year. 
Sometimes, the girls would bring their 
friends to our house...That is how, I 
believe, I met Andy Strassmeir.. .He came 
to our house with some of the other young 
people." 

When shown a picture of a man 
Strassmeir would later share a house with 
at Elohim City, Connie Smith said, "Yes, 
that is Mike Brescia... I met him at a 
convenience store in Herington. Timmy 
was there and my daughter and brought 
Mike over and introduced me...He 
(Brescia) was a friend of McVeigh's and 
some of the other young people in 
Herington. 

"I told the FBI about Brescia four days 
after the bombing, because he (Brescia) fits 
the description of John Doe No. 2." 

Catina Iiiwson, Smith's daughter, recalls 
the German's acid personality and several 
of his friends from her "party days" in 
Herington and Junction City. 

"Yes, I met Andy that year (1992). He 
told me his father was some big political 
deal in Germany. I don't think he was a 
soldier in the American army...And I 
remember that he liked to dress in black, 
and he was real cold and arrogant â€” a real 
jerk!" 

Explaining the others in the group, 
Catina said, "My roommate dated a friend 
of his, Mike Brescia. I was friends with 
McVeigh and Fortier as well. I've already 
told the FBI that they should be looking 
for Brescia â€” he fits the description of 
John Doe No. 2." 

Barbara Wittenberg, who owns the 
Sante Fe Trails Diner in Herington, 
remembers that Nichols and McVeigh 
came into the diner on Saturday before the 
bombing. Sitting with them that day was, 

Wittenberg believes, the elusive John Doe 
No. 2. 

Wittenberg recounted the morning: "I 
asked them why they had a Ryder truck 
outside. I wasn't being nosey, I just 
wondered if Terry Nichols was moving. 
My sister was moving here, and she 
needed to find a place. Well, the guy who 
they haven't arrested yet â€” John Doe No. 2 
â€” he blurted out that they were going to 
Oklahoma. When that happened," 
Wittenberg said, "it was like someone 
threw ice water on the 
conversation...McVeigh and Nichols just 
stared at the guy." 

Larry Wild and his wife say they met 
Strassmeir in the days before the bombing 
near a wooded area on Fort Riley property. 

"We go up to Cameron Springs when 
they stock trout," said Mr. Wild, a retired 
high school coach. "I was shown a picture 
of Strassmeir by the FBI earlier... Yes, he's 
a German you know...He and someone else 
walked near us while we were fishing. We 
struck up a conversation. I noted his accent 
and thought maybe he worked at the Fort. 
I asked him if he worked for the 
government, and he just laughed." 

Confronted with what these witnesses 
have told this paper and the FBI, Kirk 
Lyons said that McVeigh defense 
investigators have been passing his client's 
picture around in an attempt to influence 
them to lie. Also, Lyons says, he has 
worked out an "ironclad alibi" for his 
client. 

According to Lyons, Strassmeir couldn't 
have been in Kansas before the bombing, 
because he was building a fence for an 
elderly couple near Elohim City. 

"Those people Andy worked for made 
notes on their calendar and can prove that 

Page 375 

Andy was near Elohim City from April 5 
through the 19th." 

Several weeks ago, this paper asked Mr. 
Lyons to provide the name of the persons 
Andy was working for and a copy of the 
calendar. At that time, Lyons said he 

would think about it. To date, he has not 
provided such information. 

(Tuesday: How a key witness, shortly 
after making a deal with agents, was found 
dead in his jail cell Friday). 

***** 

Agents Probe OKC Bombing Links to Bank Robberies 

Tuesday, July 16, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash - Second of Two Parts 

Elohim City is no stranger to problems 
with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms or intrusive surveillance 
techniques. 

Today, folks who make their home on 
the 400-acre Christian Identity compound 
near Muldrow get a little edgy when you 
bring up the names of Andy Strassmeir or 
some of his purported associates. 

It seems that Andy brought a lot of bad 
luck down on the white separatist colony. 
Last August, when investigators for the 
Timothy McVeigh defense team began 
showing up here, several residents 
suddenly took off. 

"(Mike) Brescia, the Ward brothers and 
Strassmeir all sort of moved about that 
time," recounts the spiritual leader of the 
community. The Rev. Millar continued, 
"Andy was sent to us by Kirk Lyons, and I 
still believe Kirk is a fine patriot, but we're 
not so sure about Andy anymore. 1 ' 

Today's chief of security at Elohim City 
recalls some ideas Andy had, 

"As soon as Andy arrived here," 
remembers Zara Patterson, "he told me he 

wanted to take over the security job. I 
didn't care...It was one less headache for 
me." 

Later, Strassmeir's demands became 
more questionable. 

"Strassmeir went out and replaced all 
our deer rifles with assault weapons," said 
Patterson. "Next, he wanted us to start 
doing illegal stuff... a lot of illegal stuff. I 
kept telling Andy that we were defensive 
here, and we didn't want any problems 
from the law. During the mid-'80s, we had 
a standoff with the feds. I told him to keep 
us out of trouble." 

Patterson wouldn't say what the projects 
were that Strassmeir wanted to do, but the 
Rev. Millar did shed a tiny bit of light on 
the subject. 

"The illegal gun business!" Millar 
commented, "And when I found out about 
it, I put a stop to it!" 

Kirk Lyons, Strassmeir's attorney, still 
maintains that Strassmeir was never head 
of security at Elohim City and that his 

Page 376 

client would certainly never promote 
anything illegal. 

However, a source with state law 
enforcement quite familiar with 
intelligence reports on Elohim City 
residents says that Strassmeir was believed 
to be operating a large-scale terrorist- 
training facility at Elohim City. 

Speaking on the condition that his name 
not be used, the source said, "Every few 
months, IS to 30 individuals from around 
the U.S. would show up for a few weeks 
of military-style training. The recruits," the 
source explained, "were primarily members 
of the Aryan Nation." 

Among those who participated, the 
source said, was Timothy McVpigh, who, 
it is widely believed, was a regular visitor 
to the reclusive compound. 

Tending to evidence this, in October 
1993, McVeigh was ticketed on a back- 
roads highway which winds its way past 
Elohim City. 

And, in spite of Kirk Lyons' statements 
to the media, every resident at Elohim City 
interviewed by the Gazette says that 
Strassmeir and his roommate, Mike 
Brescia, were stripped of their security 
roles because of "training exercises" the 
elders thought were "too violent." 

A professed revolutionary who kept a 
travel trailer at Elohim City well 
remembers the German Strassmeir. 

"Yeah, I thought Andy was a friend," 
explained former Oklahoma KKK leader 
Dennis Mahon. He added, "I knew that he 
had some type of undercover background 
in Germany, but I didn't think he was all 
that smart." 

Mahon, who shares a home with his 
twin brother in Tulsa, is currently the 
reputed No. 3 man in the Aryan Nation 

spin-off, White Aryan Resistance 
(W.A.R.). 

Only a few weeks before the Oklahoma 
City bombing, Mahon received a phone 
call from a Nebraskan who the German 
government has long wanted to get their 
hands on. Gary Lex Lauck, dubbed the 
"Farm Belt Fuhrer" by the media, had, for 
many years, been the primary source of 
neo-Nazi materials flowing into Germany. 
But not anymore. 

"Yeah, I got a call from Lauck 
sometime before the bombing...He told me 
that he was making another trip to Europe. 
I told him he was too hot, and he shouldn't 

Shaking his head, Mahon says now, "He 
should have listened." 

Mahon, who is also banned from 
traveling to Canada or Germany because of 
his own KKK-organizing activities, related 
how his buddy, Lauck, was arrested when 
he got off the plane in Denmark. Mahon 
believes the authorities knew he was 
coming. But how? 

"Well, I did tell Strassmeir about the . 
trip," said Mahon. "You know, I really 
thought Andy was OK..." 

Family's Remains Located 

On June 28, the remains of an Arkansas 
couple and an eight-year-old child were 
located by a fisherman in the Illinois river 
bayou near Russellville. State authorities 
report that the bodies had been handcuffed 
at the feet and hands and their heads 
wrapped in trash bags and bound with duct 
tape. 

William Mueller, 53 a gun show dealer, 
his wife, Nancy, 28 and her daughter, 
Sarah Powell, lived in a cabin near Tilley, 
Ark. Authorities believe they were 
abducted from their home on Jan. 5 of this 

Page 377 

year. Neighbors say the couple's place had 
been broken into and there were some 
signs of trouble inside, but no blood. 

Since the bodies were discovered, the 
Arkansas Democrat Gazette has been 
regularly reporting on the story. The eerie 
similarities to another robbery of an 
Arkansas gun dealer have capsed 
investigators to examine possible 
connections to suspected members of the 
Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy. 

On Nov. 5, 1994, a Royal, Ark., gun 
dealer was robbed and bound with duct 
tape. His Ufe spared, Roger Moore lived to 
tell authorities that he suspected a former 
house guest, Timothy McVeigh. Later, a 
federal Grand Jury reported that the 
robbery Vas indeed linked to McVeigh, 
Nichols and Fortier. And, evidence 
showed, the proceeds of the stolen loot 
helped finance the bombing conspiracy. 

Authorities believe the Muellers were 
preparing to attend a gun show in 
Oklahoma, but probably never left their 
home. An investigation was bfegun when 
neighbors reported the family, and much of 
their personal property, was missing. 
Friends also noted the Muellers' animals 
were locked up and had not been fed. A 
month later, the missing family's 
automobile and trailer were found some 17 
niiles from their house. 

Arkansas authorities also say that the 
Muellers were involved in an earlier 
incident. 

In February 1995, Williairi Mueller 
reported that his home had been broken 
into and some $35,000 to $50,000 worth of 
silver bars, gun parts and ammunition had 
been removed. Later, friends say, Mueller 
began expressing fears that the robbers 
would return and kill him. Some of those 
same friends say Mueller khew who the 
burglars were. 

Mueller, a Special Forces veteran, told a 
friend and fellow militia member, George 
Eaton, that he was concerned that he might 
be a target for assassination. Mueller 
explained to Eaton that he believed this 
because he had been having trouble with 
the ATF. The problem, Mueller said, 
centered on the type of products the family 
was selling at gun shows. 

The Mueller's did not sell many 
firearms at the shows, rather, their sales 
were primarily gun parts, ammunition and 
anti-government video tapes, books and 
assorted literature. Friends say much of 
that literature was highly critical of the 
Clinton administration and his political 
cronies. 

Complaining about the situation to an 
Arkansas news reporter a month before the 
family was murdered, Mueller and his wife 
told Gene Worgis that they had written a 
letter to their congressman detailing their 
feelings about the ATF's (perceived) 
harassment. 

Armed with correspondence related to 
the subject, Mueller explained to Worgis 
that promoters of gun shows told him to 
stop selling the anti-government literature 
because the ATF was threatening to "cause 
them problems." 

One letter Mueller showed Worgis was 
from the director of the ATF, John Magaw, 
that responded directly to Mueller's 
complaints. In that document, Magaw 
explained that, "While the ATF couldn't 
legally regulate the type of products 
Mueller sold, the ATF had a new policy 
which encouraged promoters of gun shows 
to improve their image by essentially 
policing their clients who rented tables at 
the shows." 

Producing a spiral binder that Mr. 
Mueller kept his notes in, the dealer told 

Page 378 

Worgis that he was especially concerned 
about two men who had given him trouble 
at an earlier show. Those two men, 
Mueller believed, were probably ATF 
agents because they were arguing with him 
about the type df materials he was selling. 
Worgis told the McCurtain Gazette that 
the two men's names, written down in 
Mueller's notebook, were Michael Brescia 
and Andreas Strassmeir. 

Informant Scared Stiff 

During a series of interviews conducted 
by Ambrose Evans-Prichard, the 
Washington-based correspondent for the 
London Telegraph, Strassmeir revealed 
many of the closely guarded facts, 
involving the bombing of the Murrah 
federal building. Some of the facts that 
Strassmeir exhibited knowledge of have 
never been reported/When asked how he 
knew these things, the coy German replied, 
"I have sources." 

Readily admitting that the ATF "blew 
the sting" at the Murrah building, 
Strassmeir told Evans-Prichard that, 
"McVeigh made some changes in the plan 
â€” he is a very undisciplined soldier, you 
know.. .In retrospect, the ATF should have 
made the bust when the bomb was being 
built in Junction City." 

When was the building to be blown up? 

Evans-Prichard reports that Strassmeir 
replied, "During the night, when no one 
was there â€” that's why the ATF had the 
building staked out from midnight until 
6:00 a.m. Later, the informant believed that 
the bombing was off for that day and 
reported that... The ATF lost control of the 
situation, and McVeigh and the others, 
were able to bomb the building." 

How many trucks were used? 

"Two trucks were used in the 
operation." 

How many men were in the parking lot 
with McVeigh? 

"Four, plus the informant and 
McVeigh." 

Asked if the informant would ever 
speak out, Strassmeir was quoted as saying 
to Evans-Prichard, "How can he? What 
happens if it was a sting operations from 
the very beginning? What happens if it 
comes out that the plant was a 
provocateur? What then? the relatives of 
the victims are going to go crazy, and he's 
going to be held responsible for the deaths 
of 168 people? Of course the informant 
can't come forward. He's scared stiff right 
now." 

Dead Men Don't Speak 

Immediately after the arrest of McVeigh 
and Nichols, federal investigators said 
there could be reason to suspect the 
bombers might have been involved in a 
series of bank holdups which had spring up 
across the Midwest. A group calling itself 
the Aryan Republican Army had been on a 
wide-ranging and profitable crime spree 
since 1992. 

Mocking their pursuers with cartoons 
and letters to newspapers, the bandits used 
various disguises, including Bill Clinton 
masks and Santa Claus hats, and 
sometimes even donned makeup and wigs 
to appear Middle Eastern. Witnesses said 
the crooks often spoke in "gibberish" while 
they cleaned out the tellers' drawers. 

By December of last year, the men had 
hit 22 banks and made off with some 
$250,000. Investigators said that much of 
the money was funneled back to various 
neo-Nazi groups. None of it has ever been 
recovered. 

Page 379 

Finally, a break in the case occurred in 
January, when pair of suspects were 
arrested in Ohio. Peter K. Langan, 37, and 
Richard Lee Guthrie Jr., 38, were picked 
up and charged as accomplices in the 
robbers. Soon after, Guthrie made a deal 
with prosecutors and began naming names. 
And some of those names would be 
familiar ones. 

Admitting that the, gang's purpose was 
to finance the white supremacist 
movement, Guthrie eventually led 
investigators to two other members of the 
group, Kevin McCarthy, 19, and Scott 
Stedeford, 27. On May 24 and 22, 
respectively, the two were arrested near 
their hometown of Philadelphia, Pa. 

In short order, various news 
organizations found out that the last two 
suspects hail links to Elohim City and two 
former residents there, Andreas Strassmeif i; 
and Michael Brescia. 

"Yes, it's true," said Millar. "Those two 
men stayed at Elohim City before the 
bombing. Stedeford for a short time, 
maybe a few weeks. Kevin McCarthy, for 
several months." 

Also, Millar remembers, "Strassmeir and 
Brescia did spend some time with them 
while they were here." 

In fact, after Brescia left Oklahoma in 
January, he returned to his native 
Pennsylvania and stayed with white 

supremacist guru Mark Thomas, 44, also a 
Pennsylvanian. 

A close Mend of fellow Aryan Nation 
radical Dennis Mahon, Mark Thomas now 
admits that he visited Elohim City just 
days before the bombing. Thomas says the 
trip was to visit with his son, who also 
lived at the compound. During questioning 
by the FBI, the elder Thomas admitted that 
he introduced Stedeford and McCarthy to 
Guthrie and Langan. 

Media investigators also report that 
Mike Brescia 1 formed a rock band dubbed 
"Cyanide" with McCartliy and Stedeford 
just prior to the pair's arrest. 

Referred to as the "Mystery Man" in a 
June 30 story appearing in the Philadelphia 
Inquirer, local authorities indicated that 
Brescia could be of special interest to 
them, although his whereabouts are 
unknown. 

However, the man who recently made a 
deal with prosecutors is not going to be of 
any help now. Richard Guthrie's testimony 
was expected to unlock this tangled web of 
characters and events, but that inmate was 
found dead Friday. 

Kentucky prison officials said that they 
found Guthrie hanging from a bed sheet in 
his cell. The cause of death has been 
tentatively ruled as suicide. Authorities say 
two notes were left in the cell. The 
contents of the notes were not released. 

JcrkJckJc 

Weeks Before Bombing, ATF Had Out 'Wanted' Posters 

Sunday, July 28, 1996 ',- McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

Page 380 

Was the mysterious German visitor 
Andreas Strassmeir part of a carefully 
crafted and top-secret government 
operation? 

Or did high-level federal law 
enforcement officials simply bungle 
opportunities to arrest and question the 
same man described in a "wanted" poster 
as a heavily-armed "illegal alien" traveling 
around the U.S. and purportedly providing 
paramilitary training to suspected terrorist 
groups? 

The questions take on pointed urgency 
and ominous implications with fresh 
documents obtained by the McCurtain 
Gazette from the FBI. 

Those documents show that Strassmeir 
was the subject of a "BOLO" bulletin (Be 
On The Lookout) by the ATF, seeking his 
arrest weeks before the bombing of the 
Murrah building in Oklahoma City. 

Even more incredibly, the Gazette has 
obtained FBI documents that indicate the 
former German military officer, whose 
links to bombing defendant Timothy 
McVeigh have been detailed by this 
newspaper, was once considered a suspect 
in the attack on the Murrah building. 

But he was never, for some unexplained 
reason, detained or questioned by the FBI 
during the eight months he remained in the 
U.S. after the bombing. 

(Only after pointed queries about his 
links to the bombing suspects from this 
newspaper did Strassmeir flee the country. 
He remains in seclusion in his parents' 
Berlin home under heavy security.) 

In light of claims by the U.S. Justice 
Department to have conducted more than 
21,000 interviews globally in an attempt to 
identify those who may have been involved 
in the worst terrorist bombing in the 
nation's history, the "oversight" of federal 

agencies in questioning Strassmeir is 
singularly curious. 

Was Strassmeir, then, an undercover 
agent for a federal agency? 

As reported recently by the Gazette, a 
high-level official at the FBI said the 
classified computer records of the ATF 
contain evidence that Strassmeir was 
indeed a key component in the agency's 
espionage operation at Elohim City near 
Muldrow, Okla., and several far-flung neo- 
Nazi groups around the country. 

Why 'Wanted' Notice? 

The ATF, however, has refused to 
confirm or deny the reports to members of 
the national news media. It has consistently 
refused to comment or make any official 
statements regarding this newspaper's 
story. 

But if Strassmeir were a paid ATF 
informant, why did the Tulsa office of the 
ATF issue a BOLO for him just weeks 
before the bombing of the Oklahoma City 
federal building? 

Was it a case of the left hand of the 
agency not knowing what the right had 
was doing? 

Or was it designed to be a credible 
"extraction" for an undercover agent? 

The ATF is not saying. The only link is 
the high-level FBI official's remarks made 
unofficially. 

What is known is that weeks before the 
bombing in Oklahoma City, the Tulsa ATF 
provided the Oklahoma Highway Patrol a 
BOLO for what it described as the security 
chief at the Elohim City compound. 

Here's what the BOLO said: 

Andreas Strassmeir W/M 5-17-59, heavy 
German Accent 

Black Hair/Blue Eyes 

- 1" scar on chin, wears cammo fatigues 

Page 381 

- Possible Tennessee drivers license 

- Came to USA in 5/91, passport was 
good until 8/91. He never left the country. 
INS says he does not have an extension of 
his VISA 

- Possibly in blue Chevy, late model tag 
BXH 346 (not of file), usually has someone 
driving him 

- Carries a .45 auto pistol at all times 

- He is an illegal alien, ATF wants to 
be notified if he is stopped and has the gun 
on him. They will file the charges 

Contact: Agent Angela Finley ATF 
Office: 918-581-7731 (or) Pager: 918- 
672-2755 

State Help on German 

Within 36 hours of.the bombing of the 
Oklahoma City federal building, senior 
officials at the ATF and FBI were provided 
intelligence on Strassmeir from Oklahoma 
law enforcement members, this newspaper 
has learned. 

In mid-May 1995, a written report from 
the FBI detailed those suspicions from 
Oklahoma terrorism experts concerning 
Strassmeir, 

That classified document indicated: That 
Strassmeir was a German citizen and his 
father a powerful, former member of the 
German parliament.. .that he was in the 
German military...that he was the principal 
militia trainer at Elohim City, a redoubt of 
the Christian Identity Movement. 

Federal officials were also advised that 
the Immigration and Naturalization Service 
had an outstanding warrant for Strassmeir' s 
arrest for failing to leave the U.S. when his 
visa expired. 

Additional facts were also broached in 
the documents sent to federal authorities. 

They should be considered within the 
context of former Elohim City resident 
Richard Wayne Snell, whose death 

sentence in an Arkansas prison was carried 
out just hours after the Oklahoma City 
bombing â€” and may have inspired it, some 
knowledgeable observers content. 

Snell told Arkansas prison officials just 
four days before his scheduled execution 
that there would be a bombing on the day 
of his death. He didn't say where, but Snell 
and another well-known radical, James 
Ellison, had cased the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building in Oklahoma City back in 
the early 198ps. 

The report to the FBI from state 
intelligence observers noted that Strassmeir 
was alleged to train platoon-sized groups 
consisting of 30 to 40 individual militia 
members from throughout the U.S. every 
three months at Elohim City. ..that 
Strassmeir was observed at Elohim City as 
recently as two weeks prior to that... that 
Strassmeir had in the past attempted to 
purchase a 747 aircraft from Lufthansa 
Airlines...that in 1992, some 960 yards of 
concrete were transported to Elohim City 
via 122 concrete trucks, presumably for 
bunkers and weapons storage 
facilities...that the compound was believed 
to be generating income through the sale of 
illegal drugs produced on the 400-acre 
compounds...and that a confidential source 
advised that another resident of Elohim 
City bore a striking resemblance to "John 
Doe No. 2," then being sought by federal 
authorities. 

Strassmeir, Brescia There 

Thus, a month after the bombing of the 
Oklahoma City federal building, Strassmeir 
was still a resident of the compound, 
according to the report. 

Now, the Gazette has obtained film 
footage made on May 24, 1995, by an 
Oklahoma news service that clearly shows 
Strassmeir walking around in the Elohim 

Page 382 

City compound, armed with a pistol in a 
leg holster. 

Also captured on another news clip 
made days earlier was Michael Brescia â€” 
the young man eyewitnesses in Kansas 
have described to this newspaper as "John 
Doe No. 2," wanted for questioning in 
connection with the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Brescia coincidentally, was Strassmeir's 
roommate at Elohim City. 

The uncovering of such facts is proving 
frustrating to some Oklahoma lawmen, 
who are puzzled and angry that Strassmeir 
and others have apparently never been 

questioned in a timely manner by federal 
authorities. 

Here's what one law enforcement officer 
said: 

"We found the axle from the truck that 
led to Junction City and McVeigh. Our 
Highway Patrolman arrested McVeigh. 
And that arrest led to Terry Nichols and 
Mike Fortier... 

"Since then, nothing in this investigation 
has accomplished anything. But we're told 
by the Bureau that Strassmeir and his 
buddies are not important. 

"Bull â€” !" 

***** 

Did Conspirators Try 'Dry Run' on Eve of OKC Bombing? 

Sunday, September 1, 1996 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J. D. Cash with Jejf Holladay 

Additional evidence of a wider 
conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing 
than admitted by federal authorities 
continues to surface. 

Not only does the evidence suggest 
there were two rental trucks involved in 
the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred 
P. Murrah Federal Building but that there 
were other men involved besides Timothy 
McVeigh and Terry Nichols. 

The U.S. Attorney continues to 
emphasize only one rental truck and claim 
McVeigh and Nichols were the only active 
coconspirators. 

But this newspaper has recently learned 
of additional witnesses who say they 
provided crucial evidence to federal 
authorities that would buttress earlier 
McCurtain Gazette stories clearly 

suggesting the involvement of two rental 
trucks and multiple conspirators. 

The bombing was the worst incidence 
of domestic terrorism in the history of the 
U.S., killing 168 people and injuring 
hundreds of others. 

One of the witnesses who talked to this 
newspaper was a security guard assigned to 
the Murrah Building. 

He reported a strange incident that 
occurred the afternoon before the bombing, 
obviously aimed at testing security at the 
building prior to the bombing attempt. 

Guy Rubsamen said three individuals 
pulled up in a yellow moving truck about 
4:45 p.m. April 18, 1995, "dead center" in 
front of the federal building. 

Page 383 

The men killed the motor, Jumped out 
and ran to the west, disappearing around 
the comer of the building, he said. 

Rubsamen could only describe them as 
white males, dressed in jeans and wearing 
ball caps. 

The guard said after watching the three 
run away from the vehicle, he went to 
another part of the building where he made 
a telephone call not related to the incident. 

But about 20 minutes later, when he 
returned to the north side of the building, 
Rubsamen said the truck was gone. 

The event was perplexing to the security 
guard. He could think of no explanation â€” 
until the bombing the next day suggested 
answers. 

Rubsamen said the truck appeared to 
once have been a Ryder rental truck 
because it was yellow but the letters had 
been painted over or "rubbed off" â€” not a 
description matching that of the other 
rental truck. 

Following the bombing, the security 
guard said he was contacted by an 
employee of the Department of Housing 
and Urban Development (HUD), who had 
also witnessed the strange incident. 

They compared notes with what they 
were hearing on news accounts about the 
type of truck used, and Rubsamen went to 
the FBI with his information. 

Rubsamen says now that no one from 
the FBI ever contacted him again. 

Unexplained Disparities 

Such evidence of a wider conspiracy is 
at odds with repeated statement by officials 
with the Justice Department that all the 
"major players" in the bombing have been 
apprehended. 

And Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry 
Lynn Nichols, awaiting trial in Denver, 

remain the only two persons charged in the 
crime. 

Yet, the disparities in the story of 
federal authorities and eyewitness accounts 
previously reported in this newspaper 
simply cannot be reconciled. 

As the Gazette reported on June 4 this 
year, several witnesses in Kansas vividly 
recall seeing McVeigh and other persons in 
control of a yellow moving van days 
before the Oklahoma City bombing â€” a 
vehiple that federal investigators have 
completely dismissed from the picture. 

Because of a vehicle identification 
number (VIN) found on the rear axle 
recovered near the bombing site, federal 
authorities say it was a 1993 Ford Ryder 
truck with a 20-foot van body used in the 
bombing. 

FBI agents also told the federal grand 
jury that Timothy McVeigh, using the ^alia 
Bob Kling, rented the Ryder moving truck 
from Elliott's Body Shop in Junction City, 
Kan., late Monday afternoon, April 17, 
1995 â€”just two days before the Oklahoma 
City bombing. 

But witnesses in Junction City told the 
Gazette that on Saturday and Sunday, April 
15-16, 1995, they saw McVeigh at the 
Dreamland Motel with an older model 
yellow moving van. 

Lea McGown, manager of the 
Dreamland Motel, says she and her son 
saw McVeigh with a large yellow moving 
van on those days â€” and even had a 
discussion with the former Desert Storm 
war veteran about where he would park the 
vehicle. 

But on Monday evening, April 17, 
1995, Lea McGown said McVeigh arrived 
with a newer, smaller yellow moving truck. 

When she saw the newer moving truck, 
McGowen told this newspaper, "I 

Page 384 

wondered to myself, what was wrong with 
. tfe other one?" 

The government also told the Oklahoma 
City federal grand jury that on Tuesday 
morning, July 18, 1995, McVeigh and 
Teny Nichols took 'the 1993 model rental 
moving truck to nearby Geary Lake, where 
they mixed a two-ton fertilizer-and-f uel oil 
bomb. 

And to back up their claim, the FBI 
provided soil samples from a spot near the 
lake where lab technicians found evidence 
of diesel fuel. 

But as the Gazette reported on June 4, 
retired army sergeant James Sergeant told 
the FBI that he was fishing at the small 
reservoir on April 10-12, 1995, and 
witnessed several men working in the 
cargo area of a larger, older moving van 
parked at the same location from which the 
FBI took its soil samples. 

The. retired army sergeant's story was 
confirmed by Herington, Kan., real estate 
agent Georgia Rucker. She told the FBI 
that on those same days (April 10-12, 
1995) she drove her son to parochial 
school in Junction City and saw the same 
truck Sergeant described â€” backed up to 
the lake in the same spot the retired army 
sergeant had described. 

Attorneys for McVeigh and Nichols 
have told this newspaper they believe the 
bomb used to destroy the Murrah Building 
in Oklahoma City was actually built on 
April 10-12 at Geary Lake, Kan., by 
persons not yet identified. 

Said Nichols' defense attorney, Michael 
Tigar: "This evidence is a disaster for the 
government because McVeigh was not 
even in Junction City until the 14th and 
my client (Terry Nichols) has just as good 
an alibi for those days (April 10-12, 1995) 
as well." 

More 2-Truck Witnesses 

Are the FBI and the federal prosecutors 
covering up evidence to protect an 
undercover agent? 

Or are they simply refusing to believe 
eyewitnesses about the presence of two 
yellow rental trucks because it doesn't fit 
preconceived notions? 

Or does it Suggest their investigation 
has been less than thorough and perhaps 
even slipshod? 

Whatever the explanation, two 
eyewitnesses recently interviewed by this 
newspaper said the FBI was not only NOT 
interested in their stories â€” but tried to get 
them to change what they said they saw. 
T Connie Hood and David King recently 
told Gazette lead investigator J.D. Cash 
that they were at the Dreamland Motel 
during the same time McVeigh was and 
remember the yellow truck and more. 

Said Connie Hood: 'Ttold the FBI that I 
came to the motel that weekend to see 
David and saw several men hanging 
around the truck... McVeigh and the John 
Doe No. 2 suspect were getting out of the 
truck when I pulled in." 

David King concurred and said one of 
the men he saw near the truck was Terry 
Nichols. 

Added King, "I gave the FBI a 
polygraph examination a few months ago 
and they still argued with me about what I 
am telling people... 

"I don't give a hoot what they tell me I 
saw â€” I know what I saw." 

Connie Hood told this newspaper she 
got so angry at the contentiousness of FBI 
agents about what she saw that she got into 
a screaming match after a polygraph was 
administered to her. 

"I saw John Doe No. 2 with McVeigh in 
the parking lot, and a couple of other guys 

Page 385 

were helping them. They were working on 
that old truck they had. There was a trailer 
hooked to the track that afternoon, and it 
had a lot of stuff in it. I couldn't tell what 
because a tarp covered the trailer." 

After the FBI polygraphed the two 
recently, Connie Hood said she lost her 
temper when one of the FBI agents "told 
me to quit saying these things." 

"This one guy there said they couldn't 
be true... 

"I told him, 'EXCUSE ME, SIR!!!' ...I 
know what I saw!" 

Official Version Improbable? 

Suggestions have been made by several 
experts that whoever built the bomb that 
destroyed the Murrah Building must have 
required several days to assemble it, then 
transferred the device to the truck rented 
April 17, 1995. 

Since it is indisputable that Timothy 
McVeigh was in Kingman, Ariz., until 
April 12, 1995, and did not arrive in 
Junction City, Kan., until April 14, 1995, 

these experts theorize that other persons â€” 
still not apprehended â€” must have been 
responsible for building the deadly device. 

One of the government's witnesses 
seems to agree. 

An FBI bomb expert testified at hearing 
recently, saying the bomb used on the 
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City 
was a combination of fertilizer, fuel and 
"military" ordnance. 

And how long would it take to make 
such a bomb, one powerful enough to blow 
up the multi-story downtown Oklahoma 
City structure? 

The FBI bomb expert said such a bomb 
would require "some period of time" to 
manufacture, clearly suggesting a period of 
time longer that McVeigh was in Kansas. 

McVeigh's only comment to the public 
and media during the nearly year and a 
half he's been incarcerated, issued on the 
first anniversary of the Oklahoma City 
bombing, was to say he'd "never built a 
bomb in my life." 

***** 

Videotape Won't Help Theory 

Thursday, September 12, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with JeffHolladay 

Evidence uncovered by the McCurtain 
Gazette disputes a story this past Sunday in 
the state's largest newspaper about what 
federal prosecutors say is the importance of 
a "getaway map" found in the trash can of 
bombing co-defendant Terry Nichols' 
Kansas house. 

Quoting unnamed sources, The Sunday 
Oklahoman said federal investigators 
located a handwritten piece of paper 
wadded up in Nichols trash can at his 
Herington, Kan., home just days after last 
year's April 19 bombing of the Alfred 
Murrah Federal Building. 

Page 386 

The story said authorities considered the 
scrap of paper "among the most crucial 
evidence found at Nichols' home." 

Federal investigators believe the piece 
of paper depicts a drawing of the Murrah 
building, the Regency Tower Apartments, 
the YMCA and Interstate 235, the 
newspaper said. 

Referring to that same note, the 
Oklahoman speculated that it also reflected 
an escape route from the Murrah building 
to a point north of the YMCA. 

It is that location â€” just north of the 
YMCA â€” that authorities had said earlier 
they believed to be the vicinity where 
McVeigh's car was hidden on April 16, 
1995, with the help of Nichols. 

Because the government's theory is that 
bombing co-defendant Timothy McVeigh 
drove alone to Oklahoma City in a 20-foot 
Ryder truck, prosecutors must establish a 
credible explanation of how he could have 
been arrested 70 minutes after the bombing 
in a Mercury sedan halfway to Kansas. 

The Oklahoman said the map could be 
used by prosecutors at the trial to challenge 
Nichols' claim that he was in Oklahoma 
City a few days before the attack only 
because McVeigh had developed car 
trouble and needed a ride. 

But an earlier exclusive story broken by 
the McCurtain Gazette seemed to indicate 
that Nichols had probably lied to the FBI 
when he told them McVeigh called on 
April 16, 1995, asking for a ride back to 
Kansas because his car was broken down 
in Oklahoma City. 

On the basis of telephone records, this 
newspaper reported that McVeigh's call 
was actually placed from a telephone booth 
a few blocks from the Nichols' Herington, 
Kan., address â€” and not from Oklahoma 
City. 

The suggestion was thus that Nichols 
and McVeigh likely traveled in separate 
vehicles to Oklahoma City that afternoon 
in order for McVeigh to drop his care off. 

Because Terry Nichols, 41, and Timothy 
McVeigh, 28, remain the only two charged 
in the Oklahoma City bombing, the upshot 
is that federal prosecutors must establish a 
link to the bombing conspiracy between 
the two â€” a linkage made difficult by 
overwhelming evidence that Nichols was 
not in Oklahoma City at the time of the 
bombing but in central Kansas the entire 
day. 

Pitfalls in Map Theory? 

Â« Moreover, other pitfalls in the "getaway 
map" theory include witness statements 
that the FBI unsuccessfully scoured the 
area after the bombing, trying to establish 
that McVeigh's 1977 yellow Mercury 
sedan had been left before the bombing. 

Weeks after the bombing, the FBI even 
put out a public appeal in the June 25, 
1995 edition of the Oklahoman asking for 
the public's help in establishing where 
McVeigh's car may have been left. 

Additipnally, there are the assertions 
made by management at YMCA and 
nearby businesses who said confusion 
arose because a YMCA resident owned a 
yellow sedan similar to McVeigh's. 

Video Tape Destroys Theory? 

The government's insistence tfyat only 
two persons were involved in the 
conspiracy, plus a videotape in the 
possession of both defendant's lawyers and 
eyewitnesses, could prove disastrous for 
the prosecution's case. 

The Gazette has reviewed a portion of a 
video tape made from a camera on the 
south side of the Journal Record building 

Page 387 

on the morning of the bombing, and what 
it shows does not help the government's 
case. 

Should that videotape be introduced into 
evidence, the jury may conclude what 
eyewitnesses have already told the FBI: 

That minutes before the Oklahoma City 
blast that killed 168 persons and wounded 
hundreds more, two persons sped away 
from the crime scene in a yellow Mercury 
auto similar to the one McVeigh was 
driving when he was arrested some 70 
miles north of Oklahoma City. 

Since the evidence seems 
incontrovertible that Terry Nichols was in 
Kansas, who was the other person? 

As reported by the Gazette last year, 
Journal Record pressman Gary Lewis told 
the FBI and federal prosecutors that there 
were two persons in the yellow Mercury as 
it raced east through the business 
newspaper's parking lot, nearly running 
over him before heading south down 
Robinson (paralleling the YMCA) and 
finally disappearing just moments before 
the fatal blast. 

In short, the evidence shows that at not 
time did the suspected bombers travel 
along a route taking them north of the 
YMCA indicated by the purported "escape 
map." 

The video taken from security cameras 
as the Journal Record were turned over to 
the FBI by Danny Payne, operations 
manager for Hogan Properties, at the 
behest of his boss, Dan Hogan, who 
believed the videos might show who blew 
up the nearby Murrah building. 

Video shots from the business 
newspaper's security cameras contain 
sequential shots taken from four different 
locations around the building. 

But the most critical footage was taken 
by a camera mounted on the south side of 

the business newspaper, panning in an 
easterly direction toward the fire escape 
stairs and the YMCA building across the 
street. 

Also clearly visible in the high-quality 
video is the intersection of 5th and 
Robinson streets and the northeast comer 
of the Murrah building. 

Today, the camera stand and cable are 
all that remain on the south wall of the 
building, much of which was heavily 
damaged in the Murrah building blast, 
including the camera itself. 

Eyewitnesses Dispute Fed Theory 

While Terry Nichols' defense lawyers 
have been tight-lipped about their strategy, 
many believe they will focus tlie jury's 
attention on several eyewitnesses who 
place McVeigh with persons other than 
Nichols in the days, hours arid minutes 
before the bombing. 

That strategy, legal experts say, is 
designed to cast suspicions on the 
prosecutors' overall case â€” as well as to 
raise the possibility that the government's 
arrest of Nichols was a mistake. 

Danny Wilkerson is one such witness 
who could cast doubt on the government's 
theory that McVeigh was alone on the 
morning of the bombing. 

Wilkerson, 37, who operates a shop on 
the ground floor of the Regency Tower 
Apartments, just 100 yards from the 
Murrah building, said that on the morning 
of the bombing a person he believes to be 
Timothy McVeigh pulled up outside his 
business in a yellow moving van. 

"McVeigh came inside and bought two 
cokes and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes," 
Wilkerson said. "It was after 8:30 a.m...I 
asked him if he was moving in and he very 
calmly told me, 'No.'" 

Page 388 

Wilkerson said that McVeigh during the 
conversation was "incredible calm." 

Was McVeigh alone? 

Wilkerson said, "No, there was someone 
sitting in the Ryder track. And when 
McVeigh left, he got in the track with that 
person and they left together." 

A few minutes later, Wilkerson noted 
that the track had returned and was parked 
at a meter on the other side of 5th Street. 

"I guess they circled the building, 
because the first place they parked, the 
sign says '3 minutes only,'" Wilkerson said. 

"When the track showed up next, I . 
noticed that McVeigh had gotten out of the 
track and was walking around.. .the other 
person was still inside the van. 

"Later, it pulled out and then there was 
the explosion." 

Available to verify Wilkerson's account 
is a video tape from the Regency Tower 

security camera that is still mounted less 
than 15 feet from where the van first 
pulled up that morning. 

The poor quality of the video makes it 
impossible to tell how many persons were 
in the track. But it does show the track 
making two appearances before the 9:02 
a.m. blast. 

Such evidence by Nichols' defense 
attorney would clearly be aimed at casting 
suspicion on the prosecution's entire case 
and implicating McVeigh and others. 

In fact, Nichols' attorney Michael Tigar 
recently asked the Denver federal court to 
separate his client's trial from McVeigh's, 
contending the two defendants would be 
forced "to defend themselves by accusing 
the other." 

Jury selection for the federal trial is not 
expected to begin until after the first of the 
year. 

***** 

Is Videotape from Topless Bar the 'Smoking Gun' in OKC 
Bombing? 

September 15, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

A videotape recorded from a security 
camera mounted in the dressing room of a 
Tulsa topless bar may prove to be the 
"smoking gun" in the Oklahoma City 
bombing â€” eventually establishing the 
identities of certain key members of the 
conspiracy, their whereabouts at a critical 
point in the plan and, most incredibly, the 
cold-blooded spirit which motivated 
America's worst act of domestic terrorism. 

Obtained from "Lady Godiva's," the 
April 8, 1995, videotape reveals stunning 
conversations from dancers discussing 
customers in the bar that night who 
bragged of the upcoming April 19, 1995, 
bombing of the Murrah federal building on 
Oklahoma City. 

Possibly the most shocking portion of 
the tape occurs when one of the dancers 
walks into the dressing room at 8:37 p.m., 
approaches two other girls and begins 

Page 389 

relaying a conversation she'd just had with 
a customer. 

The first part of the conversation is 
difficult to ascertain. But eventually the 
girl is clearly heard saying, "And he said, 
Tm a very smart man\..'You are?VYes, I 
am'...And on April 19, 1995, you'll 
remember me for the rest of your life! 111 

Laughing, she says, "Oh, really?" 

"Yes, you will*" he responded. 

Smiling wide, the dancer starts to walk 
out of the dressing room where the security 
camera was located, then turns back to the 
other girls and says, "Weirdo," before 
returning out front. 

Only minutes later, the same girl 
reappears in the dressing room. At this 
time, she strikes up a conversation with 
another girl, Sawn Tea, who is combing 
her hair in front of a mirror. 

"You know those guys I'm sitting out 
there with? Well, one of them says he's 
looking for a girl to fool around with 
tonight. Are you interested?" 

Replies Shawn tea: "Oh, I can't do that 
stuff all weekend." 

After discussing money, Shawn Tea 
says, "Well, OK, I'll figure out a way to 
scam 'em." 

*** 

Shortly after reviewing the tape last 
Thursday afternoon, the Gazette began 
interviewing various witnesses who were in 
the club the night of April 8, 1995. 

Using a photo spread of more than a 
dozen different individuals, positive 
identification of two men have been made 
so far. 

But since one of the witnesses, Shawn 
Tea Farrens, 23, was found dead in her 
apartment the same afternoon this 

newspaper began its investigation, the , 
Gazette has elected not to release the f 
names of the remaining witnesses â€” or the 
photos they have identified r- until federal 
and state law enforcement authorities 
receive a copy of the video and have had 
an opportunity to proceed with their 
investigation, 

Shawn Tea Farrens was believed to be 
alone at the time of her death, and 
authorities are still investigating wh^t they 
speculate may be a drug-related overdose 
or a suicide. ... 

*** 

Significantly, a member of the security 
force at "Lade fiodiva's" reported a yellow 
moving van was parked outside the topless 
dance club the night of April 8, 1995, 

The description provided by the security 
man matches those of witnesses in 
Oklahoma and Kansas who said there was 
a second truck used in the conspiracy. The 
second truck did not have Ryder 
identification but was apparently once a 
rental truck that had been sold to a private 
buyer, witnesses said. 

As the Gazette has previously reported, 
this track is believed by many to have 
been used to haul the ingredients for the 
bomb that were later transferred to a 1993 
Ryder rental truck that the government 
alleges were rented by indicted bomb 
conspirator Timothy McVeigh. 

As this newspaper also reported earlier, 
witnesses describe seeing men working in 
the cargo hold of an older faded yellow 
truck at Geary Lake, Kan., on April 10-12, 
1995. 

Federal prosecutors, though, told the 
Oklahoma City federal grand jurors who 
indicted: McVeigh and Terry Nichols that 

Page 390 

the bomb was not built at Geary Lake until 
the morning of April 18, 1995. 

The government also contends that 
Timothy McVeigh rented the Ryder track 
used in the Oklahoma Gity bombing at 
Junction City, Kan., on the afternoon of 
April 17, 1995. 

The Gazette had learned earlier that 
there was never ANY evidence presented 
to the federal grand jury about the 
existence of a second truck; 

But several witnesses quoted in previous 
Gazette stories had clear recollections that 
McVeigh was seen with an older faded 
yellow moving van at the Dreamland 
Motel in Junction City, Kan., on April 15- 
16,1995. 

Since motel records indicate that 
McVeigh did not check into the Dreamland 
until April 14, confusion over witnesses 
who reported seeing a truck at Geary Lake 
on April 10-12 have caused many to 
dismiss their reports â€” and, thus, the 
whole second truck theory. 

If, however, it is established that 
McVeigh and others were in Tulsa on 
April 8, 1995, with such a truck, then it 
may have significance: 

Authorities may be able to establish 
important new links in the conspiracy 
through registration records of similar 
trucks in the eastern Oklahoma area. 

It is undisputed thkt indicted co- 
conspirator Terry Nichols left for Michigan 
on April 5, 1995, and did not return to 
Herington, Kan., until April 10. 

And, according to motel registration and 
telephone records linked to McVeigh, he 
checked into a Kingman, Ariz., motel on 
April 5 and paid for a room through April 
12. 

For that reason, it has been assumed 
that McVeigh stayed in the Kingman area 
for the entire period. 

But closer examination of the telephone 
calls made from his motel room indicate a 
clear pattern â€” steady phone activity until 
April 7, when they cease, not resuming 
until noon on April 1 1. 

Such a gap in the telephone calls could 
mean McVeigh flew from the Kingman 
area to eastern Oklahoma or western 
Arkansas for the purpose of picking up the 
second truck. Only two days later, witness 
statements indicate the truck showing up at 
Geary Lake in Kansas. 

Thus, McVeigh may have boarded a 
flight back to Arizona after delivering the 
truck to the Kansas location where, 
authorities say, soil samples at the lake 
indicate the ingredients for the bomb were 
mixed. 

*** 

It is not merely idle speculation that 
McVeigh flew to eastern Oklahoma or 
western Arkansas to pick up the second 
truck. 

Records subpoenaed by the government 
indicate McVeigh may have made such a 
trip to Fort Smith, Ark., between March 31 
and April 14, 1995. 

Curiously, an employee of an airport 
taxi service in Fort Smith could not 
elaborate on why the taxi firm's records for 
that period were seized by federal agents 
working on what the government calls the 
"OKBOMB" case. 

Worth noting is a telephone call widely 
reported to have been made by McVeigh 
on April 5, 1995 from Kingman, Ariz., to 
Elohim City in eastern Oklahoma. 

Elohim City, a white separatist 
compound that has received widespread 
publicity because of possible links to the 
bombing, sprawls over some 1,000 acres 

Page 391 

near the Oklahoma-Arkansas border â€”just 
a few miles from Fort Smith, Ark. 

According to residents at the retreat, 
McVeigh left a message when he called on 
April 5, 1995, saying he'd be visiting Soon. 

Residents deny, though, that McVeigh 
ever actually visited Elohim City. 

***** 

More OKC Bombing Victims 1 Families Demanding 
Answers 

Thursday, September 19, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

Is the federal government "stonewalling" 
evidence from the public and defense 
attorneys for bombing co-defendants 
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols that 
would answer some of the disturbing 
questions raised by the McCurtain Gazette 
during the past year and a half? 

In a strange twist of fate, some of the 
victims of the Oklahoma City bombing are 
growing uneasy with what they feel are 
government efforts to deny defense 
attorneys' requests for evidence. 

Gazette investigative reported J.D. Cash 
has learned that of more than 170 requests 
for information, more than 100 remain 
unresolved after a year of wrangling â€” that 
most concern issues raised by this 
newspaper such as storage of explosives 
inside the Murrah building, alleged prior 
knowledge on the part of certain federal 
law enforcement agencies, and intelligence 
reports about government informants and 
undercover agents involved in the bombing 
conspiracy. 

While attorneys for the prosecution and 
defense are under orders from the Denver 

federal court not to publicly comment 
about the case, the Gazette has learned that 
prosecutors have been telling the trial 
judge that many of the defense requests 
have been "excessive" or that the 
government knows nothing about evidence 
the defense says it has. 

One such battle has been over an 
attempt by defense lawyers to gain access 
to FBI and ATF records concerning 
Andreas Carl Strassmeir â€” the mysterious 
German national who resided for several 
years at the white separatist compound 
near Muldrpw called Elohim City. 

As the Gazette first reported, it was 
Strassmeir that McVeigh was trying to 
contact by telephone at Elohim City in the 
days before the bombing. 

And as this newspaper later reported, 
high-level FBI sources confirmed that 
Strassmeir was an informant for the ATF 
(Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 
of the Treasury Department, of which 
Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating was once a 
high-ranking official), placed there to 
infiltrate the new-Nazi movement in this 

Page 392 

country and abroad. Strassmeir's attorney 
denies the allegation. 

But such statements run counter to 
eyewitnesses interviewed by the Gazette. 
They said Strassmeir and his Elohim Gity 
roommate, Michael Brescia, were seen 
with bombing co-defendant Tim McVeigh 
a number of times over the years. 

And a number of those eyewitnesses 
asserted that Brescia was the mysterious 
"John Doe No. 2" originally sought by 
federal officials after the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Neither man (Brescia or Strassmeir) was 
interviewed by federal authorities during 
the months following the bombing, 
according to Gazette sources, despite 
repeated attempts by certain state law 
enforcement officers who felt both men 
were involved in the conspiracy. 

The government prosecution team this 
week filed a 44-page brief this week in 
Denver federal court, saying they had no 
information that any government informant 
or agent had any prior knowledge of the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Still not volunteered by prosecutors, 
however, are the intelligence files 
concerning Strassmeir â€” even though the 
government will not specifically deny that 
such files exist. 

All of this action by the Government 
infuriates Glenn Wilburn of Oklahoma City 
and his family, who say they have had 
their $30 million civil lawsuit against 
McVeigh and others "tied up" by the 
government since early this year â€” waiting 
for a ruling by the Denver court on these 
matters so they can proceed with their own 
pre-trial discovery. 

The Wilburns daughter, Edye Smith, 
lost her two sons, Chase 3, and Colton, 2, 
in the April 19, 1995 bombing of the 

Murrah building while they were in the 
structure's daycare center. 

Early this year, Edye Smith filed a 
wrongful death action as a means to gain 
statements from witnesses, convinced that 
there is a government coverup. 

"We have waited for over six months to 
start our discovery," said Edye Smith's 
stepfather, Glenn Wilburn. "We have been 
stonewalled by the government in this 
matter...a matter which should not be of 
any concern to them because this is a civil 
suit." 

Wilburn said when prosecutors found 
out about his stepdaughter's civil lawsuit 
against McVeigh, they immediately filed 
for an order seeking an injunction against 
civil discovery pending the outcome of the 
criminal proceedings. The government said 
they feared McVeigh's lawyers might enjoy 
broader rules of discovery in the civil 
action. 

But Wilburn contends the government's 
tactic could cost them a further two-year 
wait. 

Meanwhile, Wilburn is also fuming at 
the federal government's success in 
derailing a federal grand jury he and state 
Rep. Charles Key, R-Okla. City, have 
sought for. more than a year. 

Wilburn, an accountant who has taken 
an active role in seeking the truth about the 
bombing, says federal prosecutors talk like 
they have an open-and-shut case against 
McVeigh and Nichols. 

But he wonders, on the basis of all the 
disturbing information he has learned, what 
they "are really trying to hide." 

The McCurtain Gazette has learned that 
several other families of bombing victims 
have been meeting with representatives 
from the U.S. Attorney's office â€” as well 

Page 393 

as Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob 
Macy. 

Subject of the meetings? 

Growing discontent by some families in 
the wake of published reports in this 
newspaper and private conversations by 
some eyewitnesses who say they saw a 
bomb squad outside the federal building 
even before the bomb exploded, though 
they were not warned of any impending 
danger. 

There were also concerns voiced about 
the large number of witnesses who 
reported seeing other persons with 
McVeigh in the hours and minutes before 
the bombing. 

Said Jannie Coverdale, another 
grandparent who lost two grandchildren in 
the bombing: "We want the government to 
step up their investigation and arrest the 
rest of the people who were involved in 
this...Everyone knows there are others." 

Families who attended the meeting 
reportedly came away unsatisfied with 

what they were told, though withholding 
public comments about specifics. 

Wednesday, more frustration for defense 
attorneys surfaced when lawyers for 
McVeigh asked the Denver federal court to 
bar testimony by blast experts after an 
experiment to replicate the type of bomb 
used in the Murrah explosion effectively 
barred a defense expert from meaningful 
participation. 

According to the filing, the government 
in June tested a 5,000 pound bombing in 
New Mexico, which government experts 
were allowed to view from a bunker 1,000 
feet away but which experts for the 
defense were kept a mile away and refused 
permission to view the blast site. 

The government contended it kept the 
defense attorneys' expert ftp the scene out 
of "safety considerations." 

But Rob Nigh, an attorney for the 
defense, called that reasoning a "blatant 
sham." 

***** 

Victim Names Strassmeir, Brescia, Fortier in Civil Suit 

October 2, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

A significant change is being made in a 
wrongful death civil lawsuit filed by 
Oklahoma City bombing victim Edye 
Smith â€” the addition of Andreas 
Strassmeir, Michael Fortier and Michael 
Brescia as co-defendants, the McCurtain 
Gazette has learned. 

The Tulsa law firm of Larry Oliver and 
Associates filed the documents in Canadian 
County district court Tuesday. 

Edye Ann Smith, who lost two young 
children at a daycare center in the April 
19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Muirah 
Federal Building, filed the $30 million 
wrongful death lawsuit last January. 

Page 394 

It names Oklahoma City bombing co- 
defendant Timothy McVeigh and "persons 
unknown" as defendants. 

Strassmeir, 37, Fortier, 27 and Brespia, 
24, are no strangers to readers who 
followed the McCurtain Gazette 
newspaper's stories for nearly a year and a 
half. 

Attorneys for Smith said they intend to 
eventually prove that the government 1iad 
prior knowledge of the impending bomb 
threat to the building but failed to warn 
occupants. 

So far, no particular governmental 
agency has been names in the civil lawsuit, 
which is entirely separate from the 
impending criminal trial in Denver for 
McVeigh and accused co-cdrispirator Terry 
Nichols. 

But Edye Smith and her parents, Glenn 
and Kathy Wilburn of Oklahoma City, 
have often said in interviews that they 
believe the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms Bureau of the Treasury 
Department) were involved in a "sting 
operation" that went sour. 

Edye Smith, 24, lost her only two 
children, Chase, 3, and Colton, 2, when a 
truck bomb authorities allege was built by 
McVeigh and Nichols exploded a few feet 
from the daycare center on the second 
floor of the Murrah building. 

The bombing also took the lives of 166 
other persons and injured more than 400 
others. It has been called the worst incident 
of terrorism in U.S. history. 

*** 

Shortly after Smith's civil lawsuit was 
filed in January, the federal government 
sought to stop her attorneys from deposing 
witnesses â€” saying McVeigh might gain 

an advantage over the government as a 
result of broader rules of discovery allowed 
in civil lawsuits over more limited means 
in criminal charges. 

The federal government contended 
Smith should be forced to wait until all 
criminal trials are completed before being 
allowed to proceed with the civil lawsuit. 

Likewise, the government argued to the 
court, lawyers for McVeigh should be 
blocked from getting testimony from 
witnesses in the civil lawsuit. 

Such a delay, legal experts say, could 
last for two years because of the possibility 
that McVeigh and Nichols may receive 
separate federal trials â€” and then face -state 
murder charges as well. 

However, naming other defendants in 
the civil action means the discovery 
process can proceed regardless of a judge's 
ruling on McVeigh's legal standing in the 
case, the Gazette has been told by legal 
experts. 

*** 

As reported earlier in the Gazette, 
Andreas Carl Strassmeir came under 
scrutiny when it was revealed by Elohim 
City residents that he was the German 
national Timothy McVeigh tried to contact 
by telephone just days before the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Strassmeir's attorney, Kirk Lyons of 
Black Mountain, N.C., has repeatedly said 
his client does not personally know 
McVeigh and had only a chance meeting 
with him in the spring of 1995. 

Lyons said it was also mere coincidence 
that McVeigh kept a note with Strassmeir's 
number on it for almost two years 
following the gun show... and that 
McVeigh called Strassmeir about a planned 
visit to Elohim City shortly after calling a 

Page 395 

Ryder truck rental place in Arizona â€” a 
visit that never took place, Strassmeir and 
white separatists at Elohim City said. 

Yet, die former German military 
intelligence officer fled to his native Berlin 
earlier this year after investigators for 
Timothy McVeigh began questioning him. 

Kirk Lyons said Strassmeir had to leave 
the country to protect himself from arrest 
by the FBI. 

Because Strassmeir's family are 
powerful political figures in Germany, 
Lyons also said that Berlin was a much 
safer place for the younger Strassmeir from 
what he termed "ridiculous rumors spread 
by the media and McVeigh's attorney, 
Stephen Jones." 

(Strassmeir's father, Guenther, recently 
retired from his position as secretary of 
state to Berlin. He is now an unpaid 
adviser to German Chancellor Helmet 
Kohl. Andreas Strassmeir's uncle is a 
parliamentarian in the German government, 
and a brother holds elective office on the 
Berlin city council.) 

Despite the FBI's boast that they have 
interviewed more than 21,000 persons in 
connection with the Oklahoma City 
bombing, Strassmeir was never interviewed 
by them while he was in this country â€” 
possibly because FBI sources reported 
Strassmeir was actually an undercover ATF 
agent. (Strassmeir denies the charge.) 

The government has thus far blocked 
defense attorney Stephen Jones's effort to 
obtain intelligence files on Strassmeir â€” 
which the ATF admitted they had. 

But another attempt is being made. The 
McVeigh defense recently filed new 
motions with the Denver federal court, 
asking Judge Richard Matsch to order the 
agency to turn over their files on 
Strassmeir. 

*** 

Michael Brescia, also names a defendant 
in the wrongful death civil lawsuit, is a 
former ; roommate of Strassmeir's at Elohim 
City. 

He is also the person identified by 
witnesses in Kansas (identified by Gazette 
lead investigator J. D. Cash) as the man 
they believed to be the object of the FBI's 
search for "John Doe No. 2." 

Inexplicably, only a few weeks into the 
investigation, Attorney General Janet Reno 
announced the whole thing was a mistake 
â€” and that there was no "John Doe No. 2." 

The Clinton appointee said persons who 
say they saw. McVeigh with the mystery 
man were probably confused. 

But dozens of witnesses interviewed by 
the Gazette and other news media continue 
to assert there were accomplices with 
McVeigh â€” including the so-called "John 
Doe No. 2" figure â€” in the days and 
minutes before the bombing. 

And a number of them said Michael 
Brescia looked very much like "John Doe 
No. 2." 

FBI sources however, have told the 
Gazette that Brescia is not a suspect in the 
bombing. 

Brescia left the Christian Identity 
redoubt at Elohim City near Muldrow in 
the fall of 1995. The Pennsylvania native 
has been reported in various places in the 
Northeast since then. 

In May of this year, two of Brescia's 
friends from Elohim City were arrested in 
Philadelphia and charged with a series of 
bank robberies. 

Later published reports identified them 
as members of a neo-Nazi group that 
called themselves the Aryan Republican 
Army and pulled a string of 18 bank 

Page 396 

robberies that netted them in excess of 
$200,000 between January 1994 and 
December 1995. 

Since the arrest of McVeigh and 
Nichols, various reports have surfaced in 
the press quoting federal authorities as 
saying they suspect the bombing suspects 
might also be involved in some of the 
same bank robberies. 

Brescia, who was member of a rock 
band with two of the alleged bank robbers, 
is currently living at his parent's home in 
Philadelphia. 

*** 

Michael Fortier was also names a 
defendant in the unlawful death civil 
lawsuit. 

Fortier, 27, entered a plea of guilty with 
prosecutors in exchange for promised 
testimony against his ex-Army buddies, 
Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh. 

Under that agreement in August 1995, 
Fortier faces up to 24 years in prison for 
admitting to transporting and selling stolen 
property, lying to the FBI, and failing to 

report McVeigh and Nichols' bombing 
plans. 

Prosecutors, however, never presented 
any evidence to the grand jury that Fortier 
had any actual involvement with the 
bombing. 

Fortier's plea agreement also has an 
"out" clause for federal authorities: It says 
that if the government gets any information 
that Fortier was involved with the 
conspiracy to bomb any federal building, 
the agreement is voidable and he could be 
charged with crimes subject to the death 
penalty. 

Edye Smith's wrongful death lawsuit, 
however, alleges that Fortier DID have 
actual involvement in the conspiracy â€” 
along with the others names in the action. 

If the assertion is supported by facts, it 
could disrupt the government's case â€” 
possibly prompting withdrawal of the plea 
bargain agreement or Fortier's refusal to 
testify against McVeigh and Nichols. 

Hearings are currently being held in 
Denver federal court on motions to 
separate the trials of McVeigh and Nichols. 

***** 

Canadians Air Club Film 

October 23, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 

The Canadian Broadcasting Company 
on Tuesday night began airing what major 
news networks in this country have so far 
declined to â€” witness reports that 
Oklahoma City suspect Timothy McVeigh 
was sighted just days before the nation's 

worst terrorist bombing at a Julsa topless 
bar. 

On a program called "The Fifth Estate," 
the Canadian counterpart to this country's 
"60 Minutes," reporters recapped much of 
what this newspaper has been reporting for 

Page 397 

more than 18 months, including portions of 
a security film from the Tulsa topless bar 
obtained by Gazette reporter John Gash 
and an NBC reporter. 

Focus of the Canadian report were 
possible connections to a former Canadian 
resident, Robert Millar, who is spiritual 
leader of the Christian Identity compound 
called Elohim City, which is located on the 
Oklahoma-Arkansas border near Fort 
Smith, Ark. 

Contained in the CBC report was the 
videotape taken in the dressing room of 
Lady Godiva's on the night of April 8, 
1995. One of the dancers there makes 
references to a customer she had been 
sitting with that night, who was bragging 
that she would never forget him after April 
19, 1995. , 

The McCurtain Gazette's exclusive story 
on this topic, published on Sept. 25, didn't 
reveal the identities of the other men with 
that braggart, pending review by state and 
federal agents. 

Today it can be revealed that from 
photographs, witnesses at the club 
identified the man jdoing the bragging as 
Timothy McVeigh, and those seated with 
him as Michael Brescia, 24, and his former 
Elohim City roommate, Andreas 
Strassmeir, 37. 

The witnesses from the topless club 
agreed to appear on that Canadian TV 
segment, identifying the photos. 

The FBI has reviewed a copy of the 
video from thfe club and has also 
interviewed the same witnesses featured in 
the CBC prograkn, but the Justice 
Department has made no official comment 
on what they intend to do with the 
evidence. 

Also this week, government prosecutors 
filed papers in the Denver court asking the 
judge in the Oklahoma City bombing case 

to block efforts by McVeigh's defense 
team in seeking government files on 
Strassmeir and his activities. 

Hearings are scheduled on the matter 
for Nov. 14-15. 

Strassmeir is a former German military 
officer whom residents of Elohim City say 
McVeigh called on April 5, 1995, when 
phone records indicate such a call was 
placed from McVeigh's motel room in 
Kingman, Ariz., to Elohim City. That call 
was made only seconds after a Ryder 
Truck rental establishment in Arizona had 
been contacted using a prepaid phone card 
linked to Timothy McVeigh and Terry 
Nichols. 

While Strassmeir's attorney, Kirk Lyons 
of Black Mountain, N.C., admits his client 
may have met McVeigh at a Tulsa gun 
show in 1993, he says Strassmeir had no 
contact with McVeigh since then. 

Lyons said his client came to the United 
States in 1989 as a tourist and "just hung 
around" because he liked the girls and the 
American customs. 

For his part, Michael Brescia has never 
commented on the bombing matter publicly 
and has refused interview requests. 

Brescia left Elohim City in the fall of 
1995 and returned to his native 
Philadelphia where he started a rock band 
called Cyanide with two other former 
Elohim City residents, Scott A. Stedford, 
27 and Kevin W. McCarthy, 19. 

In May of this year, McCarthy and 
Stedford were arrested for their alleged 
roles in what has become known as the 
Midwest bank robberies. 

In all, authorities believe, there were 
some 19 banks robbed in seven states by 
members of the gang. Ov^r $200,000 was 
reported stolen, and none of it has been 
recovered. 

Page 398 

After the Oklahoma City bombing, the 
New York Times quoted FBI sources as 
saying that McVeigh and Nichols could be 
linked to those bank robberies. However, 

they have never been charged with those 
crimes. 

FBI sources say they do not consider 
Brescia a suspect in the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

***** 

British Newsman Predicts OKC Bombing To Begin 
Unraveling 

November 13, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with JeffHolladay 

A British newspaper reporter predicted 
in the Sunday London Telegraph that the 
real story of the Oklahoma City bombing 
(detailed in the McCurtain Daily Gazette 
during the past year and a half) will soon 
begin to unravel â€” and that when it does, a 
cover-up reaching to the highest levels of 
the federal government will be exposed. 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Washington 
correspondent for the London newspaper, 
said in an analysis piece this past Sunday 
that he doubted that the Justice Department 
"can keep the lid on this case for much 
longer." 

"The truth will out," he predicted, and 
when it does it could very well reach to 
the president himself. 

Evans-Pritchard had led his story by 
noting the strong ties between Clinton and 
the Oklahoma City bombing: 

Relaxing on Air Force Qne after the 
election, Bill Clinton told reporters it was 
the Oklahoma bombing that proved the 
turning point in his political fortunes. 

It was the moment when the militias, the 
Christian Right and the Gingrich onslaught 

against government, all melded together in 
the public mind as one rampant movement 
of extremism. 

"It broke a spell in the country as the 
people began searching for our common 
ground again," said Clinton. 

I was struck by the observation, because 
I have long believed that the Oklahoma 
bombing was the spring-board for the 
remarkable come-back of Clinton. 

Evans-Pritchard said Clinton "seized the 
moment". He blamed Right-wing radio talk 
shows for sowing distrust of government 
institutions and for creating a climate of 
"hate" that fostered recourse to violence. 
He did not name the Republicans as co- 
conspirators; he did not have to. The US 
media made the connection for him. 

"What if the government has suppressed 
the full truth?" Evans-Pritchard asked. 

What if the most important investigation 
in modern history has been compromised 
to ensure the re-election of the President? 

"These are not idle questions," Evans- 
Pritchard wrote, citing the evidence 

Page 399 

gathered by Glenn and Kathy Wilbum of 
Oklahoma City, much of which has been 
presented in Oklahoma exclusively through 
the McCurtain Daily Gazette. 

Evans-Pritchard said the amassed 
evidence has "demolished the prosecution 
claim that McVeigh acted alone at the 
crime scene." 

And with the family's filing of a civil 
lawsuit naming Michael Brescia and 
former German army officer Andreas 
Strassmeir as co-conspirators with 
McVeigh, the British journalist is confident 
the truth will come out. 

Fortunately for Clinton this story did 
not break in the mainstream media before 
the election. But it has been percolating 
for several months... 

And while the Justice Department has 
immense power, Evans-Pritchard wrote, "I 
doubt that it can keep the lid on this case 
for much longer. The truth will out, and if 
it is shown that the Oklahoma bombing 
was a federal sting that went wrong, and 
was then covered up under pressure from 
the White House, Clinton will have a lot of 
explaining to do." 

***** 

Federal Agents Probing New Links to OKC Bombing 

December 12, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

Federal authorities are gathering 
evidence that could establish a link 
between members of the Oklahoma City 
bombing conspiracy... radical members of 
the white separatist movement... a 
burglary. ..and the subsequent brutal murder 
of an Arkansas family who made their 
living selling anti-government literature at 
gun shows, the McCurtain Gazette has 
learned. 

And in a new development, the 
Associated Press reported Wednesday that 
a military-style firearm belonging to 
murdered Arkansas gun show exhibitor 
William A. Mueller had been recovered 
from a Spokane, Wash., man arrested in 
South Dakota. 

Arrested there and charges with 
possessing stolen property was Sean 
Michael Haines, whom the McCurtain 
Gazette has learned was a member of a 
neo-Nazi "skinhead" group operating in the 
Northwest U.S. 

During Haines' arraignment in Sioux 
Falls, S.D., Deputy State's Attorney Mark 
Reedstrom said the admitted white 
supremacist had a firearm in his vehicle 
which records show belonged to the late 
Bill Mueller of Tilly, Ark. 

Reedstrom said Haines carried forms of 
identification from three states and had 
white supremacist literature in his car when 
he was picked up at a rest stop on 1-90 
near the Minnesota border. 

Page 400 

Arkansas Gun Robberies 

Last year, when Terry L. Nichols and 
co-defendant Timothy J. McVeigh were 
indicted with "others unknown" for the 
April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing of 
the Murrah federal building, the grand 
jury's report said the conspiracy was 
financed in part by the Nov. 5, 1994, 
robbery of an Arkansas gun dealer. 

That theft involved 70 weapons and 
other property taken at gunpoint from a 
Royal, Ark, man. 

Roger Moore, the 60-year-old victim, 
said he was alone at 9:15 a.m. when he 
stepped outside his house and was 
surprised by an intruder who wore 
"woodland" pattern camouflage fatigues 
and a black ski mask. 

The suspect subdued Moore with a 
pistol-grip shotgun and then found him 
with flex cuff restraints and duct tape. 

As it turns out, Moore was once a 
friend of Tim McVeigh and says the two 
met at a gun show in Florida in 1993 and 
stayed in contact thereafter. 

Moore told investigators that on one 
visit to his home, McVeigh was wearing a 
T-shitt emblazoned with the words "White 
Power." 

The McCurtain Gazette has also learned 
that McVeigh's associations include 
membership in the Ku Klux Klan. 

Moreover, the Desert Storm veteran has 
boasted that his Klan membership was 
personally approved by Arkansas resident 
Thorn Rob, a Christian Identity minister 
and national chaplain for the KKK. 

Initially, Moore fingered McVeigh as 
the prime suspect in the robbery â€” 
explaining that the young drifter had been 
a house guest and was one of very few 
people familiar with the large gun 
collection he maintained at his home. 

But Moore also told authorities the only 
person he got a look at on the day of the 
robbery was too short to be McVeigh. 

Indeed, subsequent eyewitness reports â€” 
supported by telephone and motel records 
â€” place McVeigh several hundred miles 
from the crime scene that weekend. 

As for co-defendant Terry Nichols' 
alleged role in the robbery, ex-Army buddy 
Mike Fortier told the FBI that McVeigh 
called him after the Royal, Ark., heist and 
said, "Nichols got Bob!" 

Fortier told authorities that McVeigh 
always referred to Moore by his alias, Bob 
Miller. 

Fortier has pleaded guilty to 
transporting some of Moore's firearms and 
later selling them at the direction of 
McVeigh. 

After the bombing, when the ATF and 
FBI raided Terry Nichols' home in Kansas, 
they located 33 firearms and other items 
believed taken in the Roger Moore heist. 

Roger Moore said later that his 
insurance company would pay only a 
fraction of the value of his total loss. 

Investigation Broadens 

Because of reports and other evidence, 
authorities have expanded their 
investigation into yet another Arkansas 
robbery reported by a gun show exhibitor. 

And like the Moore robbery, the victim 
told people he might know who the 
mastermind was. 

In September of this year, the trial judge 
scheduled to hear the McVeigh-Nichols 
case placed under seal a subpoena for sales 
tax records from the Missouri Department 
of Revenue related to a gun show held in 
Sedalia, Mo., on Feb. 10-11, 1995. 

Included in the subpoena were the 
names of McVeigh, Nichols and Michael 

Page 401 

Fortier and the two dozen aliases used by 
the men* 

The FBI believes Terry Nichols and 
possibly co-defendant Tim McVeigh could 
have attended a portion of that gun show. 

FBI officials have sought similar tax 
records from other states where they 
believe Fortier, McVeigh and Nichols may 
have liquidated stolen property, using the 
proceeds to finance the bombing 
conspiracy. 

The McCurtain Gazette recently located 
two witnesses whose account of Terry 
Nichols' visit to Sedalia, Mo., has led 
criminal investigators into one of Arkansas' 
most grisly unsolved crimes. 

The Motel Memory 

The owners of a Sedalia motel say that 
Terry Nichols checked into their 12-unit 
inn between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Feb. 10, 
1995. 

He was alone, they said, and records 
indicated he used the alia "Joe Rivers." 

Phillip Shaw, owner of the Motel 
Memory, signed Nichols in that wintry 
night after negotiating a lower rate for the 
soft-spoken traveler. 

"He was very polite and mentioned that 
he was here for a gun show," Shaw said. 
"He asked me if I would give him a 
discount on the room if he paid for two 
nights in advance... I agreed to take less." 

Early the next morning, Shaw's wife 
Betty, noticed an odd assortment of items 
in the GMC pickup belonging to their 
guest in Room No. 2. 

"His truck had a camper shell," Mrs. 
Shaw recalled. "I looked in the right side 
window of the camper and could see that 
the truck was crammed full of stuff â€” 
including large boxes marked 
'Ammunition.' 

"Then I remembered he told my 
husband that he was here for a gun show." 

later that morning, "I saw that the truck 
was gone, so I went to clean his room," 
Mrs. Shaw said. 

"When I opened the door, I couldn't 
believe it! The floors and bed were 
covered with all these crates of 
ammunition. I couldn't clean the room 
because of all the heavy boxes and tarps he 
had moved in there." 

Robbery Link? 

Shortly after Mrs. Shaw's startling 
discovery, 150 miles down Highway 65, an 
Arkansas family reported their home had 
been robbed of a large quantity of 
ammunition and other valuables. 

According to official reports, gun show 
dealer William Mueller told Searcy County 
sheriffs investigators that sometime after 3 
p.m. on Feb. 10, 1995, his secluded home 
north of Tilly was broken into â€” and some 
$40,000 worth of property taken. 

Missing items listed in the burglary 
report were silver coins, gun parts, 
survivalist gear â€” and 30 cases of 
ammunition containing more than 17,000 
rounds of various calibers. 

The Muellers filed their report the 
evening of Feb. 12, 1995, only a couple of 
hours after returning froni a weekend away 
from home. 

Puzzled by Nichols' Visit 

Investigators say they are puzzled about 
many facets of Nichols' visit to Sedalia. 

First, evidence indicates that on Feb. 10, 
1995, Nichols was traveling through 
Manhattan, Kan., at 1:30 p.m. and, thus, 
very likely missed most, if not all, of the 
first day of the two-day gun show. 

Page 402 

McVeigh's whereabouts are less certain 
until he makes a telephone call late on the 
evening of Feb. 12, 1995, from a motel in 
Arizona. 

Then there is Betty Shaw's account of 
Nichols hauling thousands of rounds of 
ammunition from someplace, then leaving 
the merchandise in his room during the 
second and final day of the gun show. 

And finally, legitimate gun show 
merchants say there is such a small margin 
of profit in legally purchased factory 
ammunition that typically only persons 
involved in selling reloaded ammo or hard- 
to-get specialty calibers ever bother to deal 
at all in ammo. 

Equally baffling are the strange 
connections to characters and events 
surrounding the Mueller family themselves. 

Paranoia? 

For many years, Bill Mueller 53, and 
his wife, Nancy, 28, were regulars at gun 
shows. 

Instead of selling firearms, though, the 
Mueller's wares were primarily politically 
charged books, bumper stickers and video 
tapes. 

The majority of the material was highly 
critical of the federal government â€” a 
product line which the couple later 
believed caused them to come under the 
scrutiny of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms of the U.S. Treasury 
Department (ATF). 

Confirming this was reported Gene 
Worgis, who says he met the Muellers at a 
show at Little Rock in November 1995. 

By the time Worgis spoke with the 
Muellers, more than eight months had 
passed since the couple had reported the 
burglary and still their property had not 
been recovered. Nor had the insurance 
company paid the claim. 

Writing for a newsletter, Worgis 
reported that the Muellers told him gun 
show promoters were placing pressure on 
him to stop selling "anti-government 
materials." 

Friends reported that Bill Mueller 
believed the ATF had coerced gun show 
promoters into barring exhibitors who 
displayed such materials. 

Indeed, when Worgis published his 
story, included in it was a letter from ATF 
head John Magaw admitting the agency 
had encouraged promoters to "self-police" 
themselves and improve their overall image 
by discouraging exhibitors from selling 
items not related to hunting and other 
shooting sports. 

Possibly significant, Worgis wrote that 
Bill Mueller said there were tow men who 
approached him at a gun show in Fort 
Smith, Ark., earlier in the year â€” and that 
he was greatly concerned about them. 

"It's been one strange thing after 
another," Worgis quoted Mueller. 

"First, the ATF tells me things in my 
booth have to be removed. Then I'm 
introduced to another strange fellow, Andy 
Strassmeir, who seemed to parrot the same 
ATF line. 

"And he introduced me to a real far out 
guy named Mike Brescia..." 

Mueller then told Worgis that he 
remembered the two because he believed 
they might be connected with his home's 
burglary â€” or even the ATF. 

Worgis also reported that Mueller 
showed him a spiral notebook where the 
exhibitor had gone so far â€” so great was 
his concern â€” as to write down the two 
men's names. 

Tangled Web of Characters 

Page 403 

Links between Strassmeir, Brescia and 
McVeigh were first reported in the 
McCurtain Gazette, including the 
information that Strassmeir and Brescia 
were once roommates at a white separatist 
compound near Fort Smith, Ark., called 
Elohim City. 

Residents of the small Oklahoma 
compound, near Muldrow, told the Gazette 
that it was their former chief of staff, 
Andreas Strassmeir, that Timothy McVeigh 
had called for via telephone on April 5, 
1995. 

Investigators believe the timing of the 
call is significant. 

That's because it occurred only seconds 
after telephone records indicate McVeigh, 
or someone using his credit card, phoned a 
Ryder truck rental establishment in 
Arizona. 

It was a Ryder truck rented in Junction 
City, Kan., a few days later that was used 
to transport the bomb which destroyed the 
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 
Oklahoma City. 

Mole Role Confirmed 

An FBI intelligence source confirmed 
that Strassmeir â€” a former German 
military officer â€” was the ATFs 
intelligence "mole" inside Elohim City. 

This past spring, after a court-appointed 
investigator for Timothy McVeigh 
interviewed Strassmeir, the German 
national's attorney Kirk Lyons of Black 
Mountain, N.C., sent out a newsletter 
saying his client had returned to Berlin, 
Germany, because of death threats â€” and 
to avoid arrest. 

Responding to allegations that 
Strassmeir was an undercover intelligence 
officer for the federal government, Lyons 
told the Gazette that his client did nothing 

more than fill out some job applications 
requesting employment from the DEA 
(Drug Enforcement) or INS (immigration). 

Meanwhile, the ATF has refused to 
comment on whether Strassmeir worked 
for them. But the presiding judge at the 
bombing trail in Denver recently ordered 
the government to turn over any such 
records to the Nichols and McVeigh legal 
defense teams. 

Muellers Feared for Lives? 

Whoever the perpetrators of the 
burglary of the Mueller residence in 
Arkansas, those who knew Bill and Nancy 
Mueller said they were scared because they 
might know who did it â€” and feared they'd 
come back to kill them. 

A man claiming to be a friend of the 
family, George Eaton, told the Gazette that 
he believed the Muellers had information 
concerning the missing property and maybe 
some "other things." 

Eaton would not elaborate on what he 
meant by "other things." But he did 
acknowledge being present when his 
friend, Andy Strassmeir, quarreled with 
Bill Mueller at the Fort Smith gun show. 

Until recently, Eaton lived near Elohim 
City and publishes the "Patriot Report" that 
Timothy McVeigh subscribed to at his 
sister's address in New York prior to the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Eaton told this newspaper he doesn't 
know McVeigh and can't recall why his 
sister's name was on his subscriber list. 

As for Brescia, Strassmeir's former 
sidekick, Eaton acknowledges the subject 
lived at his home in the fall of 1995. 

Another Elohim City regular and close 
associate of Strassmeir and Brescia, Tulsan 
Dennis Mahon of the White Aryan 
Resistance (W.A.R.), told reporters he 

Page 404 

knew Bill Mueller because they attended 
militia meetings in Mountainsburg, Ark., 
together. 

And, according to published reports, the 
Mueller's house in Tilly, Ark., was 
acquired sometime after a friend of the 
family, Timothy Coombs, abandoned the 
property and later went into hiding for his 
alleged participation in the shooting of a 
highway patrolman in Missouri. 

Insurance Never Paid 

Searcy County investigators say the 
Muellers filed a detailed list of property 
reported stolen in the February 1995 
incident but that no check was ever issued 
by the insurance company. 

A spokesman at the Searcy County 
sheriffs department would only say 
Mueller failed to show up at his office on 
three separate occasions for meetings with 
an investigator hired by the insurance 
company to look into the purported 
burglary. 

Death Fears Realized 

In early January of this year, a business 
partner of Bill Mueller stopped by the 
family's remote mountain home and found 
it vacant. 

Although there was no blood inside the 
house, or signs of a struggle* the door to 
the house was kicked in and farm animals 
were starving. 

Authorities began an investigation after 
getting the report. â€¢ 

And several days later, Mueller's Jeep 
Cherokee was located some 17 miles from 
their Tilly residence. 

Some Mueller friends told investigators 
the couple may have just decided to take 
off for some reason. Others said they 
might have gone into hiding because of 

fears Mueller had that he was targeted for 
assassination. 

Finally, it was a fisherman's horrifying 
catch that moved the case to the front 
pages of Arkansas newspapers. 

The Arkansas Gazette reported that 
Mueller, his wife and her 8-year-old 
daughter, Sarah Powell, were recovered by 
divers on June 28-29 from the Illinois 
Bayou in north-central Arkansas after a 
fisherman reported snagging a portion of a 
human leg. 

Subsequent stories quoted witnesses at 
the scene who said the victims had been 
handcuffed together at the hands and feet 
â€” with plastic bags wrapped over their 
heads and fastened with duct tape. 

All three members of the family were 
located in 20 feet of water â€” tied to a 
heavy rock. 

Feds Join Investigation 

The Gazette has learned that the FBI 
and ATF have joined local and state 
authorities in Arkansas to sort through the 
suspicious nature of the Mueller burglary 
in hopes of finding clues that might 
explain the execution-style murders. 

Sources also note that a few of the 
Muellers belongings have been recovered, 
though the vast majority of the property 
remains unaccounted for. 

Also unaccounted for is some $50,000 
the Arkansas Gazette reported the Muellers 
were believed to have received from an 
inheritance only days before they 
disappeared. 

As for the thousands of rounds of 
ammunition listed as missing from 
Mueller's residence, sources say they have 
located "lot numbers" from receipts 
Mueller had. 

Page 405 

They are checking those against 
property seized from several locations â€” 
including the James and Terry Nichols' 

homes raided after the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

icieieicic 

Terrorism, Bank Robberies Are Legacy of White 
Separatists 

December 26, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash with JeffHolladay 
First in a Series 

(Editor's Note: Bombings...teixorism...bank 
robberies...white separatists. They've all 
been linked, at one time or another, in the 
McCurtain Gazette stories about the 
Oklahoma City bombing, one of the worst 
terrorist incidents in the history of the U.S. 
Yet, few Americans or Oklahomans today 
have any inkling of the ideology that 
drives these home-grown revolutionaries, 
whose links to the "OKBOMB" case may 
be closer than previously believed. The 
series of stories that follow detail the 
resurrection of white separatism, the 
ideology that drives the movement and the 
criminal enterprises that finance it.) 

Stirring from the ashes of Whidbey 
Island in Washington state, memories of 
the revolutionary figure Robert Jay 
Mathews â€” leader of the near-mythical 
white separatist group known as the 
"Order" â€” were rekindled earlier this year 
during stunning testimony detailing a string 
of bank robberies in the Midwest. 

At a pre-trial hearing this summer, gnd 
at a criminal trial last month, crucial 

evidence portrayed a robbery spree of 
white separatists as part of their plans for a 
home-grown revolution. 

It bears a striking resemblance to a 
similar pursuit a decade ago by Mathews, 
whose death in '84 elevated him to the 
pantheon of demi-gods in the Aryan 
movement. 

Arrested and charged so far are alleged 
gang members Kevin W. McCarthy, 19; 
Peter Kl Langan, 38; Scott A. Stedeford, 
27; and Richard L. Guthrie Jr., 37. 

In November, the government put its 
first defendant on trial in Des Moines, 
Iowa, with defendant Scott Stedeford being 
found guilty after only two hours of 
deliberation by a jury. 

More bank robbery trials are pending. 

Providing riveting testimony about the 
group earlier was a former "skinhead" who 
described an audacious plan by a rag-tag 
group of revolutionaries bent on the 
destruction of the federal establishment. 

"Our goal was to open the door to 
overthrow the United States government," 
said Kevin McCarthy. 

Page 406 

McCarthy, who entered a plea bargain 
agreement with federal prosecutors in 
exchange for testimony, told the court that 
he was recruited by the gang in the fall of 
1994. 

Afterward, he participated in six bank 
robberies, with the major portion of 
proceeds divided equally among members, 
McCarthy testified. 

Some of the loot, he testified, was put 
away for expenses; some for other "acts." 

McCarthy was not asked to elaborate on 
what these acts might have been. 

But allegations that they included 
funding for various terrorist operations â€” 
such as the Oklahoma City bombing â€” 
have caused the FBI to investigate several 
individuals and groups that may have 
received funds. 

His "cell," McCarthy testified, was part 
of what the members called the "Aryan 
Republican Army." And his leader, he said, 
was Peter "Commander Pedro" Langan. 

Federal prosecutors allege that, 
beginning with a Jan. 25, 1994, heist in 
Ames, Iowa, Langan and the others went 
on a binge of 21 other bank robberies 
across seven states â€” netting more than 
$250,000. None of the money has been 
recovered. 

*** 

Based on telephone records eyewitness 
accounts and official statements provided 
the FBI in conjunction with the Oklahoma 
City bombing investigation, the McVeigh- 
Nichols "cell of alleged bombing 
conspirators may be linked to the Aryan 
Republican Army more closely that has yet 
been reported. 

That linkage, sources have told the 
Gazette, may be the result of a rebirth of a 
secret society of ultra-right-wing 
revolutionaries...long believed to have been 
destroyed but rising, Phoenix-like, from the 
ashes of a group that emerged a decade 
ago. 

***** 

Mathews, The 'Silent Brotherhood/ and Revolution 

December 27, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

Second in a Series 

(Editor's Note: Timothy McVeigh and 
other contemporary white separatists did 
not emerge full-blown like Zeus during the 
past several years. Instead, they are a 

continuum of the white separatist 
movement spawned by Robert Jay 
Mathews and others a decade or more ago. 
Here is the story of Mathews, who is 

Page 407 

credited with shaping much of the radical 
elements of the white separatist 
movement.) 

In the early 1960s, Bob Mathews was 
growing up in Barry Goldwater's Arizona, 
amid a national political trend many 
believed was witnessing a nation going 
down the path of creeping socialism â€” 
even communism. 

Perplexed by the course was taking, 
Mathews dabbled with right-wing issues 
when he joined the John Birch Society at 
age 12. 

By the age of 18, Mathews was training 
in the desert with the Sons of Liberty, 
preparing for the coming guerrilla war 
against communist invaders. 

His ideology and views continued to 
become more extreme. 

After reading William Gayle Simpson's 
"Which Way Western Man," he became a 
tax protester. 

And after mailing in his membership fee 
to the publisher of the book, William 
Pierce of the National Alliance, the die 
was cast for what Mathews would 
eventually, become. 

Pierce, a former University of Oregon 
physics professor, is best known today for 
writing the "Turner Diaries" â€” considered 
a blueprint for a white-led insurrection by 
an underground group called "The Order." 

It was a bible for the white separatist 
movement. 

And it provided both an identity and a 
purpose for people like Bob Mathews â€” 
and, later, Timothy McVeigh. 

By 1974, Mathews was on probation for 
tax fraud. Intrigued by the allure of the 
former Northwest Territories, the young 
man packed up his wife and son, then 
headed for Metaline Falls, Washington. 

Not long after arriving, Mathews paid a 
visit to a white separatist enclave, the 
Church of Jesus Christ Christian, at 
Hayden Lake, Idaho, several hours from 
where he lived. 

Soon, Mathews decided he and his wife 
had found a place they could call home, 
people they could befriend â€” and a cause 
they could support...the struggle for a 
white Aryan homeland. 

Pastor Richard Butler ruled over the 20- 
acre retreat. It was rapidly becoming a 
mecca for white separatists seeking like- 
minded people. 

Mathews became a regular. Eventually, 
he would become a leader. 

Kahl's Death Proves Catalyst 

By July 1983, the death of tax protester 
and Posse Comitates member Gordon Kahl 
had fueled a rowdier-than-usual tone at 
Hayden Lake's annual "Aryan World 
Congress." 

Already Mathews was emerging as a 
can-do leader. He had successfully 
convinced a few other men that he could 
translate the fictional "Turner Diaries" into 
reality. 

Gordon Kahl's death, plus the fiery 
speeches, the inflammatory rhetoric and a 
sense of urgency to strike while the iron 
was hot, spawned Mathews' plan for 
guerilla warfare against the federal 
government. 

The goal of "The Order," or "Bruders 
Schweigen" (Silent Brotherhood), as 
Mathews' group came to be know, was an 
all-white homeland in the Northwestern 
U.S. 

Federal authorities, though, thought the 
plan sounded a lot more like secession and 
sedition. 

Page 408 

But it was the group's means more than 
their ends that eventually caused the 
greatest calamity for all involved. 

After getting a logging contract with the 
U.S. Forest Service to support their cause, 
but discovering that the work was hard and 
the returns insufficient for their purposes, 
the group turned to crime. 

The gang's first hit was a porno store. 
Their take: $369.10. 

"Revolutions have started from less," 
Mathews told his supporters. 

Fulfilling his promise, it wasn't long 
before the Silent Brotherhood pulled more 
grandiose schemes. 

Setting up a printing press they 
experimented with counterfeiting. 

But the real money, as former eastern 
Oklahoma outlaw "Pretty Boy" Floyd was 
wont to say was in banks. And that's 
where the Silent Brotherhood turned 
next...well, sort of. 

In 1984, they robbed an armored car of 
$235,000 in Washington state, sending 
$40,000 of it to the Aryan Nations 
headquarters at Hayden Lake, Idaho. 

With time, the gang's activities became 
more sophisticated. They experimented 
with disguises. They tried diversionary 
tactics designed to throw authorities off 
their trail. 

Sending police to the wrong side of 
town just minutes before a heist was a 
favorite ploy. 

Mathews' code name became "Carlos" 
after he darkened his face for a robbery 
and the police issued an APB for a 
Hispanic individual. 

Using aliases, the gang paid cash for 
inexpensive used cars they'd abandon 
within a few hundred yards of the group's 
robberies. 

They traveled under aliases obtained 
from cemeteries and obituaries, using those 
to get birth certificates, Social Security 
numbers and driver licenses. 

After months of honing their skills, the 
gang worked up a plan which resulted in 
their largest and most daring heist ever. 

It was an ambush of a Brink's armored 
car. It took place in daylight at a steep 
bend in Highway 20, near California's 
scenic Route 101. 

Working in full view of shocked 
motorists, members of The Order hauled 
sack after sack from the armored car â€” an 
incredible $3.8 million when they tallied 
the take later. 

Flush with more cash than they ever 
dreamed possible, the revolutionaries set 
out across country, making substantial 
donations to leading figures in the 
"movement." 

Mathews' Death 

But as is often the case in such matters, 
it was an informant that did the gang in. 

Tom Martinez had agreed to work for 
the FBI in exchange for a reduction in 
sentence on charges related to passing 
some of the gang's counterfeit money. 

He arranged a meeting in Portland with 
Mathews and another gang member. And 
by early November 1984, authorities had 
Mathews in their sights and were ready to 
close in. 

Deploying 150 SWAT team agents from 
Seattle, Portland, Butte, San Francisco and 
Los Angeles, and supported by a hostage 
rescue team from FBI headquarters in 
Quantico, Va., the FBI surrounded 
Mathews inside a rented house at 
Smugglers Cove on Whidbey Island in 
Washington's Puget Sound. 

Page 409 

But Mathews refused to surrender after 
hours of attempts. Eight agents stormed the 
two-story dwelling. Mathews fired his 
machine-gun blindly through the wood 
flooring, beating off the attack by FBI 
agents, who escaped unhurt but shaken into 
the nearby woods. 

Next, the situation became a hide-and- 
seek game. Mathews ran from window to 
window, shooting at agents â€” who 
returned fire from the woods. 

After attempting a helicopter assault that 
nearly got the craft shot down, instructions 
came from the FBI command post: Ixfo M- 
79 starburst flares into the rapidly 
deteriorating vacation home. 

That set it ablaze. Then stockpiled 
ammunition began detonating. 

As a conflagration enveloped the house, 
agents waited anxiously for Mathews to 
surrender. 

He never did. 

The following morning, the FBI 
surveyed the charred remains. There they 

found the badly burned remains of Robert 
Jay Mathews. 

His gold "Bruders Schweigen" 
medallion had melted and was imbedded in 
his chest cavity. It seemed to symbolize 
Mathews' own version of Valhalla. 

The Order Flounders 

Following Mathews' death, and the 
arrest of other members, "The Order" 
completely crumbled. 

Twenty-four members were indicted by 
a grand jury in Seattle, and by the time the 
trial began in the fall of 1985, 12 had 
already pled guilty. When verdicts were 
announced for the others, 10 more were 
headed to prison. 

But Mathews' death, replete with its 
gotterdamerung Germanic myth overtones 
in his fiery death in battle, served to make 
him a martyr in the cause...and to keep 
alive the embers of the white separatist 
movement. 

ick-kick 

String of Bank Heists Helped Finance 'Aryan Army' 

December 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 

Third in a Series 

For nearly a decade, federal authorities 
believed "The Order" had perished with the 
violent death of Robert Jay Mathews in 
1984. 

Many believed the organization existed, 
once again, only in the fiction of William 

Pierce's "Turner Diaries" ...a make-believe 
game of robbery and genocide between the 
covers of a racist's paperback book. 

Yet, as events were to demonstrate, 
"The Order" was only nascent â€” not dead. 

Page 410 

The organizer this time seemed an 
unlikely candidate, the son of a former 
CIA agent who was apparently spring from 
jail to be an undercover agent for a federal 
agency. 

His name is Peter K. Langan â€” or 
"Commander Pedro" as he came to be 
known by his colleagues. 

Langan is said to have begun organizing 
his "army" shortly after his release from 
jail in August 1993. 

How he got released in the first place is 
singularly curious. 

Langan was being held on charges 
related to a 1992 armed robbery of a Pizza 
Hut in Lovonia, Ga., when a strange 
opportunity came his way. 

According to a sworn affidavit filed by 
FBI Agent Kenneth C. Howard, Langan 
agreed to be an informant for the Secret 
Service in return for his release from 
Georgia custody, 

That statement said the Secret Service 
was seeking information oh far right-wing 
militant groups â€” in particular, one 
Richard Lee Guthrie Jr., a court-marshalled 
ex-Navy Seal and an old friend of 
Langan's from Maryland. 

After accepting the deal, Langan was 
sprung from jail and set up in Ohio, where 
he was to cooperate with authorities in 
locating Guthrie. 

But somewhere along the line, the 
agreement went awry. 

Secret Service Agent Dick Rathnell 
summed up the fiasco this way: 

"Our main interest was to find if there 
was an interest to harm the president or 
overthrow the government.. .We didn't 
know they were these bank robbers." 

For his part, "Commander Pedro" did 
locate his old friend Guthrie. 

Soon afterward, the pair had a "safe 
house" in Pittsburgh, Kan., from which 
they are alleged to have begun a crime 
spree. 

Bank Robberies Begin 

That crime spree of bank robberies in 
the Midwest was so prolific that authorities 
likened it to the incredible record of the 
Jesse James Gang more than a century 
earlier. 

Employing cheap used cars and 
disguises that included Bill Clinton masks, 
hard hats, T-shirts with FBI or ATF logos 
and even a Santa Gaus suit, two gang 
members would enter a bank heavily 
armed while a third waited in the getaway 
car. 

Then, while holding employees and 
customers at bay, one member would vault 
the counter and clean out the drawers. 

During these heists, the men would 
speak to each other in gibberish as they 
went through a well-rehearsed routine, 
trying to make those present think they 
were foreigners. 

When finished, a member of the gang 
would leave a bomb at the bank with 
instructions not to activate the alarms. 

FBI spokesman Larry Holmquist said 
the pipe bombs left at the crime scene 
were usually small ones with either no 
explosives or designed to d little damage. 
No one was ever injured in the robbery 
spree, Holmquist said, and gang members 
often displayed a wry sense of humor. 

In one such episode, the gang left a 
gold pipe bomb nestled inside an Easter 
basket with a Twinkie. 

The bank robbers also had a perverse 
sense of -fun. 

When authorities did eventually locate 
the gang's abandoned getaway car, they'd 

Page 411 

often find it had been purchased in the 
name of various retired FBI agents. 

Using a variety of aliases obtained from 
blank stolen birth certificates, the men 
obtained Social Security numbers and 
driver's licenses. 

The new identification was used to 
travel widely between safe houses and 
motels, casing and robbing banks and 
leaving their gear and weapons in storage 
lockers around the nation. 

They were cocky and not above poking 
fun at their pursuers. 

On several occasions, the gang even 
sent letters and cartoons to newspapers 
mocking their pursuers. They signed 
themselves the "Midwest Bank Robbers." 

But this past January, the FBI caught 
and arrested Richard Guthrie after a two- 
mile chase through Cincinnati, Ohio, 
ending when his vehicle crashed into a 
snowdrift. 

Three days later, Langan's rented house 
in Columbus was placed under surveillance 
by a team of agents. When he emerged, the 
neighborhood erupted in gunfire. 

He was later arrested after a hail of 
bullets from FBI agents, which Langan 
likened more to an assassination attempt 
than an arrest. 

A pre-trial hearing later vindicated his 
assertion that he had never fired at FBI 
agents. 

An FBI spokesman told media members 
that, "We had information that (Langan) 
wouldn't be taken alive." 

Partnership Collapses 

During a subsequent hearing, Langan 
denied taking part in any bank robberies 
and told the judge he wanted to be referred 
to as "Commander Pedro." 

He alluded to himself as "just another 
innocent person caught up in the tyrannical 
legal system...Power to the people! Up 
with the revolution!" 

Ironically, those rallying cries were the 
same used two decades earlier by black 
militants. 

But Langan made it abundantly clear 
that he was a white militant â€” calling 
himself the founder of the Aryan 
Republican Army. 

He told the judge its mission was to 
overthrow the government and "set free the 
oppressed people of North America." 

Separately, Richard Guthrie indicated 
that he wanted to be a bit more 
cooperative. 

And after entering into a plea bargain, 
Guthrie's information led to the arrests of 
alleged fellow gang members Kevin 
McCarthy and Scott Stedeford near. 
Philadelphia in May. 

To members of the media, Richard 
Guthrie confirmed that some of the 
unrecovered money from the bank heists 
was "spread around" the white separatist 
movement. 

He also told reporters his deal with the 
government included a promise to provide 
them with information about organizations 
"whose goal is the overthrow of the U.S. 
government or to engage in domestic 
terrorism." 

But how much information the 
government actually got from Guthrie is 
not publicly known â€” and never may be. 

For just nine days after signing the plea 
bargain â€” and only hours after telling a 
reporter for the Los Angeles Times that he 
intended to write a tell-all book that 
"would go a lot further into what we were 
really doing," Guthrie died. 

Page 412 

He was found hanged in his jail cell 
from his bed sheets. 

Cause of death? It has been listed, 
officially, as suicide. 

***** 

An Ex- Wife's Suspicions in the OKC Bomb Case 

Tuesday, December 31, 1996 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash with Jeff Holladay 
Fourth in a Series 

Shortly after the Oklahoma City 
bombing on April 19,1 995, federal 
investigators publicly speculated in a New 
York Times story that bombing suspects 
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were 
somehow connected to the Midwestern 
bank robbery spree. 

Terry Nichols' ex-wife, Lana Padilla, 
mentions several times in her book, "By 
Blood Betrayed," that she suspects Nichols 
and McVeigh were involved with the gang. 

A reliable source familiar with the 
investigation confirmed that admitted co- 
conspirator Michael Fortier told the FBI 
that ex- Army buddy Tim McVeigh said in 
February 1995 that he (McVeigh) was 
going to Colorado to join the "Order." 

Confirming the re-emergency of the 
"Order," a search of the Columbus, Ohio, 
rental of Peter Langan yielded a video tape 
made by gang members for recruiting 
purposes. 

That evidence, along with statements by 
a former friend of Langan and Guthrie, 
supports the notion that the Midwest Bank 
Bandits had indeed formed a new "Order." 

Appearing on the video with a black 
knit ski mask pulled down across his face, 
Langan explained that his "army" is made 

up of a number of cells that function 
independently but with common goals. 

And in what may or may not be a 
coincidence, that video tape â€” completed 
around January 1995 â€” warns that federal 
buildings may have to be bombed and that 
civilian casualties should be expected. 

Langan asserted that his group is 
dedicated to the eradication of federal 
"whores" and all non-white and non- 
Christian peoples. 

Holding up a book that Timothy 
McVeigh sold at gun shows around the 
country, Langan tells potential recruits to 
read "The Turner Diaries" to better 
understand the coming revolution. 

Also during the show-and-tell session, 
Langan displays a copy of the "The Silent 
Brotherhood" and recommends it for the 
author's detailed account of Bob Mathews' 
"Order." 

*** 

Expected to be a key witness for the 
government in the upcoming trail of 
Commander Pedro is a fellow who once 
was a considered a close friend of the 
professed revolutionary â€” Shawn Kenney 
of Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Page 413 

He provided the tip that led to Guthrie 
and Langan's arrests last January. 

According to court transcripts at the 
Stedeford trial, Kenney told prosecutors 
that he met Langan at a Christian Identity 
meeting in 1991. 

Describing his close relationship with 
Guthrie and Langan, Kenney explained to 
the court that he accompanied the pair 
when they cased banks in Ohio and 
armored cars in Arkansas. 

Kenney said Langan boasted that his 
gang was modeled after the group founded 
by Robert Mathews â€” the "Order." 

*** 

Beyond these links, and those in Lana 
Padilla's account in her book, is there any 
solid evidence that McVeigh and/or 
Nichols had any associations with gang 
members? Or that they received any of the 
stolen $250,000? 

The Oklahoma City federal grand jury's 
final report concluded that the Oklahoma 
City bombing was financed by a gun 
robbery in Arkansas on Nov. 5, 1994. 

Yet, federal authorities have said that all 
the components for the alleged bomb were 
already purchased or stolen by the date of 
the Arkansas robbery. 

Moreover, witnesses have placed 
McVeigh hundreds of miles from Arkansas 
on the date of the crime. (Nichols 1 
attorneys won't discuss whether their client 
has a similar alibi.) 

Perhaps the most pointed and pertinent 
question, though, is how McVeigh and 
Nichols could have supported themselves 
and yet traveled so extensively during 1994 
and 1995. 

Records indicate that Nichols and his 
wife traveled to the Philippines on 
numerous occasions prior to the bombing. 

And telephone calling card and motel 
registrations show that McVeigh and 
Nichols, sometimes together but often 
independently, crisscrossed the United 
States on a regular basis in the year before 
the Oklahoma City bombing. 

All of these trips suggest that the pair 
required substantial sources of funds â€” 
funds that their spotty employment records 
and gun show business would not likely 
fully explain. 

Moreover, the telephone and motel 
records show an inexplicable pattern: Of 
the 12 bank robberies that happened before 
the bombing, McVeigh's whereabouts are 
unknown for a few days before and after 
11 of those heists. 

There is yet another suggestive event 
revealed by Lana Padilla about her ex- 
husband, Terry Nichols. 

A few days after her ex-husband went 
on a November 1994 trip to the 
Philippines, she told federal investigators 
she checked a Las Vegas storage locked 
rented by Terry Nichols. 

She said it contained more than $60,000 
in silver bullion â€” along with wigs and 
masks. 

And the same week she discovered the 
suspicious loot, she discovered a bag 
containing $20,000 that Nichols had taped 
to the back of her kitchen utensil drawer, 
she also told investigators. 

*** 

When Richard Guthrie was alive, there 
was a tantalizing possibility that the puzzle 
might fall into place. 

But since his death, attention has shifted 
to any testimony Kevin McCarthy â€” 

Page 414 

another of the alleged Midwest bank 
robbers â€” might provide. 

His testimony could possibly be the 
nexus between the Aryan Republican 
Army and the McVeigh-Nichols clique. 

ieieie-kie 

Oklahoma Scoops 

1997 - The New Yorker 
The Talk of the Town 

More and more people are paying 
attention to news coming out of Idabel, 
Oklahoma. A small timber town in the 
southeast comer of the state, Idabel is 
home to the McCurtain Daily Gazette, a 
county paper that, for some time now, has 
been scooping the Times, the Washington 
Post, the A.P., CNN, and the networks 
with stories â€” mixed in with local reports 
of gospel singings, cattle prices, and 
school-lunch menus â€” about the bombing 
of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, 
in Oklahoma City, which took a hundred 
and sixty-eight lives two years ago in 
April. Last week, the Gazette was in the 
national news because of rumors that its 
reported on the case was the source of 
what the Dallas Morning News had 
published as a confession by the chief 
bombing suspect, Timothy McVeigh. The 
Gazette not only denied the rumors but 
declared that the confession was a hoax 
designed to smoke out a potential witness 
â€” a charge that was confirmed by Stephen 
Jones, McVeigh's attorney in Denver, 
where the bombing trial is scheduled to 
start on March 31st. 

This was all quite heady for a 
newspaper with a circulation of only sixty- 

five hundred, but its reported J.D. Cash, 
whose entire journalistic career has been 
devoted to the bombing, seemed to take it 
in stride. In covering the labyrinthine 
investigation into the case, Cash, a forty- 
four-year-old Tulsan who had had a 
successful career in real estate and 
banking, has written some sixty stories on 
the subject, many of them controversial. 
Last September, a series of Cash articles 
placed McVeigh in a Tulsa topless bar 
eleven days before the explosion, boasting 
to a stripper that "on April 19, 1995, you'll 
remember me for the rest pf your life!" 
The exotic dancer was reported to have 
identified in photographs McVeigh and two 
friends from Elohim City, a white 
separatist compound east of Tulsa. In 
January, Cash and the Gazette printed 
excerpts from an F.B.I, statement given by 
McVeigh's sister, in which she confessed 
to having laundered stolen money at her 
brother's request. Just a few weeks ago, the 
paper came out with its most provocative 
revelation to date. This Cash exclusive 
quoted on Carol E. Howe to the effect that, 
as a paid informant for the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms on 
activities at Elohim City, she had warned 

Page 415 

of plans to target various federal buildings, 
among them the one in Oklahoma City. 
(Howe's statement remains unconfirmed, 
and the A.T.F. has refused to comment, 
citing a gag order by the judge in the 
case.) 

Many of Cash's scoops have been 
picked up by the more powerful media, 
with grudging, sometimes skeptical ' 
acknowledgment. A Washington Post story 
last week described Cash as a "conspiracy 
theorist" while granting that a number of 
his "major" articles have "held up." The 
credibility of some of Cash's sources â€” 
notably Howe â€” has been questioned, as 
has the degree of his own involvement. (It 
was a private investigator for the McVeigh 
defense who had showed Cash the 
purported "confession" while they were 
traveling to meet with members of the far 
right last year.) Still, on one of the 
country's biggest stories the media 
establishment has found itself trailing a 
news organization with just seven reporters 
on its payroll. 

In his office on Central Avenue, Bruce 
Willingham, the owner-publisher of the 
Gazette (and smaller sister paper, the 
News), scarcely looks the part of a 
crusader. Soft-spoken and rather cuddly in 
appearance, Willingham, who is forty-two, 
was a reporter for the Gazette and a part- 
time chicken farmer when he bought the 
two papers, in 1988. It was a big jump, he 
says, from fryers to publishing, but he had 
been the editor of his school paper in 
Asheville, North Carolina, and had taken 
writing classes at Chapel Hill. Under 
Willingham, who says that his favorite 
writer is still Mark Twain, the Gazette 
became popular for its "Call the Editor" 
column, which invites readers to sound off. 
(A recent correspondent wrote, "There are 

several negative names that come to mind 
when I think of Joe Bob....What is the 
definition of dung beetle?") Politically, 
Willingham describes himself as a 
conservative on fiscal matters, a 
progressive on racial and social issues. 

The Gazette hadn't raised its sights 
much beyond McCurtain County until 
Cash, who looks a bit like Harry Dean 
Stanton, appeared in Willingham's office, 
ten days after the bombing, with an article 
based on interviews with technical experts 
and with witnesses who had been at the 
site of the explosion. Cash quoted an 
assistant fire marshal who claimed to have 
seen a bomb squad leaving the building 
with unexploded munitions after the blast. 
The article speculated that the material 
might have been part of a government 
arsenal whose presence contributed to the 
bomb damage. Willingham took Cash on 
after checking his sources and satisfying 
himself that his new reported had no 
hidden agenda. Cash's journalistic debut 
was awarded a statewide prize for 
investigative reporting. 

In national stories about the Morning 
News controversy last week, it was pointed 
out that several of Cash's articles had been 
reprinted in Jubilee, a publication of the 
Christian Identity movement.. Cash says 
that he gave permission to reprint them 
simply to gain access to far-right sources. 
"Anyone who implies that I am a neo-Nazi 
is a liar or a fool," he added, mentioning 
that he has received at least one threat 
from the "paranoid right." For now, he 
said, he has no higher ambition than to 
continue coming up with scoops for the 
Gazette. "Talking to those militia guys, if 
you told them you were from the New 
York Times they'd either shun you or 

Page 416 

likely shoot you," he said. "Me, they don't 

worry about." 

***** 

Prosecutors Plan to Ignore Other McVeigh Eyewitnesses 

Thursday, January 9, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay 

The Rocky Mountain News today 
reported that prosecutors in the Oklahoma 
City bombing case plan to call only a 
single eyewitness to buttress their 
contention that Timothy McVeigh was 
alone when he parked a Ryder rental truck 
outside the Alfred P. Murrah Building. 

That contention flies in the face of 
previous information revealed by the 
McCurtain Gazette that more than a half- 
dozen people saw McVeigh with at least 
three different men on the day of the 
bombing. 

Said the Colorado newspaper in this 
. morning's edition: 

"What differentiates William Dunlap 
from at least seven other witnesses who 
say they saw McVeigh near a Ryder truck 
in downtown Oklahoma City that day: 
Dunlap supports the government's 
contention that McVeigh alone delivered 
the truck bomb. 

"The other supposed eyewitnesses say 
they saw McVeigh with up to three other 
people just before the bombing that killed 
168. That would raise questions about as- 
yet-unidentified accomplices." 

The newspaper reported that Dunlap, 
who was leaving the post office a block 
from the Murrah building minutes before 
the bomb blew up on April 19, 1995, says 

he saw a man resembling McVeigh walk to 
the back of a Ryder truck in front of the 
federal building. 

"Dunlap's name was revealed in court 
papers unsealed Wednesday by U.S. 
District Judge Richard Matsch, who will 
preside over McVeigh's trial beginning 
March 31 in Denver. Dunlap was among 
the nine witnesses the government said it 
may call," the newspaper said. 

McVeigh attorney Stephen Jones seeks 
to throw out testimony from seven, 
including that of Dunlap, it said. 

The defense contents the witnesses' 
identification of McVeigh as the man they 
saw before the bombing â€” in Oklahoma, 
Kansas and Arizona â€” were tainted by 
massive publicity. 

Jones said the seven challenged 
witnesses didn't select McVeigh from 
photo lineups until after the video was 
aired of McVeigh being removed in 
shackles from the Noble County, Okla., 
jail. 

Prosecutor Scott Mendeloff said 
witnesses' identification was "not tainted." 

Besides Dunlap, the witnesses being 
challenged by Jones are: 

- Fred Skrdla, a gas station attendant in 
Billings, Okla., who says McVeigh stopped 

Page 417 

to fuel a Ryder truck between 1 a.m. and 3 
a.m. on the day of the bombing. 

- David Ferris, a Junction City, Kan., 
taxi driver who said he dropped McVeigh 
at a McDonald's restaurant there in April 
17, near the time and shop where the truck 
was rented. 

- Eldon Elliott and Tom Kessenger, who 
rented the truck to a man they identified as 
McVeigh in Junction City on April 17. 

- Tim Donahue, a Marion, Kan., rancher 
who employed Terry Nichols, McVeigh's 
co-defendant, and where McVeigh is said 
to have visited in September 1994, 
Donahue, prior to McVeigh being shown 
on national TV, had described him as older 
and shorter. 

- Glynn Tipton, a fuel sales manager 
from Manhattan, Kan., who said McVeigh 
approached him at a drag race in Tdpeka 
in October 1994 to buy racing fuel, 

1 
allegedly one of the components of the 
Oklahoma City bomb. 

"At least seven other people told the 
FBI they saw a man resembling McVeigh 
in or near a Ryder truck on Oklahoma City 
the morning of the bombing," the Colorado 
newspaper said, using information provided 
by the McCurtain Daily Gazette. 

In another development Wednesday, 
Terry Nichols' defense lawyers asked 
Judge Matsch to disqualify prosecutors 
Scott Mendeloff and Larry Mackey from 
the case, saying they may have influenced 
witnesses. 

The Gazette had earlier carried stories 
quoting witnesses as saying federal agents 
refused to believe their stories and sought 
to get them to change them in regard to 
persons seen with McVeigh prior to the 
bombing. 

***** 

McVeigh's Sister Laundered Proceeds of Bank Robbery 

ATF Surveillance Confirmed by Informant 
January 25, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

The sister of Oklahoma City bombing 
suspect Timothy McVeigh told authorities 
that her brother was part of a group that 
believed the government should be 
overthrown and that the propriety of 
robbing banks to finance that objective 
should be "evaluated in light of the need 
for action." 

In a sworn statement, dated May 2, 
1995, Jennifer McVeigh, then 21, said that 

she was given three (3) $100 bills and 
asked that they be exchanged for "clean 
money" because, her brother said, the bills 
were from a recent bank robbery in which 
he and others had participated. 

Jennifer McVeigh was picked up for 
questioning in Florida shortly after he 
brother and his ex-army buddy, Terry 
Nichols, were identified as suspect in the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Page 418 

Jennifer McVeigh's sworn statement 
was made after FBI agents in Buffalo, 
N.Y., told her that her original affidavit of 
May 1 would need to be verified by a 
polygraph examiner. 

After learning that one of the questions 
the examiner would pose referred to the 
completeness of her information 
concerning her brother's suspicious 
activities before the bombing of the federal 
building in Oklahoma, she asked to make 
another affidavit. 

In the May 2 affidavit, McVeigh's sister 
details the bombing defendant's 
associations with "others" â€” "others" who 
she claimed she could not identify, but 
who were involved in a recent bank 
robbery and other criminal acts. 

Referring to a conversation with her 
brother in December 1994, at their recently 
deceased grandfather's New York 
residence, a portion of Ms. McVeigh's May 
2, 1995, statement says: 

"He (Timothy McVeigh) had been 
involved in a bank robbery but did not 
provide any further details concerning the 
robbery. He advised me that he had not 
actually participated in the robbery itself, 
but was somehow involved in the planning 
or setting up of this robbery. Although he 
did not identify the participants by name, 
he stated that "they" had committed the 
robbery. His purpose for relating this 
information to me was to request that I 
exchange some of my own money for what 
I recall to be approximately three (3) $100 
bills. 

"He explained that this money was from 
the bank robbery and he wished to 
circulate this money through me. To the 
best of my recollection, I then gave my 
brother what I recall to be approximately 
$300 of my personal cash, in exchange for 

three $100 bills, which I deposited within 
the next several days in an account at the 
Unit No. Federal Credit Union, Lockport, 
N.Y. 

"I observed at that time that my brother 
had on his person an undetermined 
quantity of $100 bills, of which he 
provided me a small portion. 

"It is my belief that this bank robbery 
had occurred within the recent past. I was 
not made aware of the details or if there 
were additional robberies involving my 
brother or any of his associates. I do recall 
that my brother remarked that the money 
he had in his possession represented his 
share of the bank robbery proceeds." 

Jennifer McVeigh's recollections to 
agents also included statements regarding a 
letter he brother sent her dated Dec. 24, 
1993. 

In that letter, Jennifer said her brother 
states, "Persons who rob banks may not be 
criminals at all. He implied Jews are 
running the country and a large degree of 
control is exercised by the Free Masons. 
Banks are the real thieves and the income 
tax is illegal." 

McVeigh also told agents that a letter 
highly critical of the Waco raid â€” that they 
had recovered from her computer disk â€” 
was actually written by her brother and 
mailed to the American Legion in the fall 
of 1994. 

As well, she said, her brother had' 
anonymously mailed a copy of that letter 
to an ATF office with a note 
accompanying it which said, "You Mother 
F 's are going to hang." 

Timothy McVeigh's purported 
involvement with a group of bank robbers 
may find its way into a bank robbery trial 
currently going on in Columbus, Ohio. 

Page 419 

In the first of several anticipated bank 
robbery trials for self-styled revolutionary 
Peter K. "Commander Pedro" Langan, the 
government alleges that he led several 
others in planning and executing a number 
of heists. Currently Langan is standing trial 
for robberies of two Ohio banks in 1994. 

Authorities say Langan's gang, dubbed 
the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), used 
the bank robbery proceeds to further their 
proclaimed goal of a race-based revolution 
in this country. 

Very little of the estimated $250,000 
taken in the multi-state crime spree has yet 
been recovered. 

Several members of the national media 
have been closely watching JLangan's trial 
â€” now entering its third week â€” searching 
for clues that might emerge which could 
link the Aryan Republican Army and the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Thus far, only Langan, 38 and three 
others, Scott A. Stedeford, 28, Kevin 
McCarthy, 19, and the late Richard 
Guthrie, 38, have been arrested for their 
suspected roles in a string of 22 bank 
heists across seven Midwestern states. 

Scott Stedeford has already been tried 
and convicted for one of the robberies and 
still faces charges for several others. 

McCarthy and Guthrie had earlier pled 
guilty to numerous robberies and entered 
into plea agreements to testify for the 
government. 

Last July, only days after entering into a 
plea deal, Richard Guthrie was found 
hanged in his jail cell. Authorities contend 
it was suicide. 

Suspicious links between McVeigh and 
Langan's group have recently come under 
scrutiny of the media as more and more 
details have surfaced involving the gang's 
associations with former residents of 

Elohim City â€” a white separatist enclave 
in far eastern Oklahoma. 

According to published reports, 
Langan's group was modeled after another 
band of revolutionaries called the "Order" 
that, over a decade ago, used proceeds 
from various armored car heists to advance 
their goal of a white-led insurrection 
against the federal establishment. 

In a video tape obtained by the 
McCurtain Gazette, Peter Langan appears 
in disguise while he explains to potential 
recruits that the goal of the ARA is the 
overthrow of the federal government and 
the subsequent execution of all Jews and 
deportation of all non-whites from the 
United States. 

In the tape, made only a few months 
before the Oklahoma City bombing, 
Langan says, "Federal buildings may have 
to be bombed and civilian loss of life is 
regrettable but expected." 

Thus far, authorities have revealed little 
that ties McVeigh to the ARA, but the 
Gazette has now learned that an ATF paid 
informant has linked McVeigh and his ex- 
army buddy, Michael Fortier to Elohim 
City and several members of the alleged 
bank robbery scheme. 

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, 
the confidential informant said that the 
Tulsa office of the ATF was conducting 
surveillance and collecting data on 
residents of Elohim City â€” prior to and 
after the bombing of the Murrah Federal 
Building. 

During this period, the ATF confidential 
informant recalled visits by McVeigh and 
Fortier to the compound along with regular 
visits by Langan, Guthrie, Stedeford and 
McCarthy. 

As well, the informant reported that 
conversations and video tapes of some 

Page 420 

members of the ARA were passed along to 
the informant's "handler," Special Agent 
Angela Finley of the Tulsa ATF office. 

In one such episode, the informant 
recalled for the Gazette that Agent Finley 
helped the informant set up recording 
equipment so certain subjects could be 
filmed handling explosives. 

That tape, the informant told the 
Gazette, was turned over to Agent Finley 
after members of the ARA had dinner at 
the informant's house. 

Clearly depicted on that tape the 
informant says is Elohim City's security 
advisor, German national Andreas Karl 
Strassmeir painting hand grenades with two 
members of the ARA. 

Gazette readers may recall that 
Strassmeir os the mysterious figure whom 
residents of Elohim City say Timothy 
McVeigh telephoned in the days before the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

While Strassmeir's North Carolina 
attorney, Kirk Lyons, denies any 
substantial associations between McVeigh 
and Strassmeir, the confidential source says 
that statement is entirely untrue and that 
McVeigh was well-known to Strassmeir 
and his circle of friends. 

The informant also said that Strassmeir's 
discussions involving the bombing of a 
federal building were passed along to 
Agent Finley in the fall of 1994. 

However, according to Lyons, 
Strassmeir was never officially questioned 
as a suspect by the authorities during the 
several months he remained in this country 
after the bombing. 

As reported by the Gazette, Strassmeir \ 
is believed to have also been at ATF 
"mole" at Elohim City. * 

This is a charge both Strassmeir and his 
attorney have steadfastly denied, in spite of : 

evidence obtained by attorneys for Timothy 
McVeigh, which indicate that Strassmeir 
applied for various jobs with U.S. law 
enforcement agencies after beginning to 
visit this country in 1988. 

Strassmeir, 37, a former German 
military officer with training in intelligence 
work, abruptly departed the U.S. last 
January and currently resides at his father's 
home in Berlin. 

Strassmeir's father, Guenther, served 
over 20 years in the West German 
parliament and is a close confidant of 
current German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl. 

At the time of Guenther Strassmeir's 
retirement, he was serving as Secretary of 
State to Berlin and was considered one of 
the key architects of the reunification of 
the divided Germanies. 

Attorneys for McVeigh have been 
seeking information from prosecutors about 
the younger Strassmeir's alleged ties to 
international terrorism and various federal 
agencies where he sought employment. 

Andreas Strassmeir and his former 
Elohim City roommate, Michael Brescia, 
have been named along with Timothy 
McVeigh and Michael Fortier in a 
wrongful death civil suit by bombing 
victim Edye Smith of Oklahoma City. 

Smith lost her only two children, Chase, 
3, and Colton, 2, in the April 19, 1995 
attack on the federal building. 

Although Brescia was reportedly served 
by attorneys for Smith with the multi- 
million dollar suit, the defendant did not 
respond within the statutory period and has 
apparently decided to default on the action 
rather than appear and defend himself. 

Also, the Los Angeles Times reported 
Jan. 15 that Brescia's attorneys confirm 
that the 26-year-old neo-Nazi has received 
a letter from the Philadelphia U.S. 
Attorney's office acknowledging that he is 

Page 421 

the target of a wide-ranging probe 
involving various criminal acts. 

Reported in the Columbus Dispatch and 
the McCurtain Daily Gazette, Brescia was 
alluded to by Kevin McCarthy in earlier 
court testimony as a participant in the Aug 
30, 1995, robbery of a bank in Madison, 
Wis. 

According to the ATF's confidential 
informant at Elohim Gity, Michael Brescia 
was a close associate of McCarthy and 
other members of the ARA. 

The Rev. Robert Millar, the spiritual 
leader at Elohim City, said Brescia, 
Stedeford and McCarthy performed in the 
compound's band, The Iron Cross, and 
later formed a group in Philadelphia, called 
Cyanide. 

***** 

Informant Who Warned of Bombing 
Now Fears for Her Life 

Government's Lie Detector Tests Showed Her Reports Truthful 
Tuesday, February 11, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

Sipping iced tea between whispers, she 
suddenly pauses and her eyes narrow when 
two men choose a table 15 feet away. 

"Those are the guys I gold you 
about.they've been following me ever 
since I left Tulsa," she says. 

Across the way, the thirtyish pair, 
dressed in jeans and flannel shirts, place a 
bag of fries on the table between them and 
blend with the rush of Turner Turnpike 
travelers at this McDonald's restaurant. 

With a knowing look that belies her 
age, the petite and immaculately dressed 
26-year-old pushes back her shoulder- 
length, sandy blond hair, then turns with a 
forced smile. 

"This is the way it's been since they ' 
raided my house in December. I'm 
constantly under surveillance," she says. 

Her next movements draw solemn stares 
from both men when she picks up her 
purse and reaches inside. After she 
produces a harmless cellular phone, the 
men appear relieved and turn their gaze 
back to the sack of fries, which still 
remains untouched. 

With a muffled giggle, she points inside 
her purse and whispers: "See those?" 

In the bottom of the leather bag are two 
semi-automatic pistols. 

"I won't be easy to kill!" 

Setting the purse squarely in her lap, 
she turns her attention to a photograph on 
the table and studies it carefully. "That's 
Pete Langan, OK, the bank robber. He was 
one of the leaders, but when I knew him, 
his hair was long and stringy.. .and 
reddish." 

Page 422 

Curiosity now overwhelms one of the 
men and he approaches, he bends over a 
nearby water fountain. Oblivious to the 
stream of water, he fixes his eyes on the 
picture laying flat on the table. Eternal 
seconds pass, then his eyes meet hers. 

Suddenly, he turns back and rejoins his 
partner. 

"He knows I've 'made' him," she offers 
in a smooth voice. "They'll probably be 
leaving soon." 

As if scripted, minutes later the two 
men do head for the door, leaving behind 
the bag of fries â€” cold and untouched. 

Somewhat relieved, but proud of her 
uncanny senses which have kept her alive 
to this point, the former Miss Teenage 
America semi-finalist puts the cell phone 
back on top of the two pistols and zips her 
purse shut. 

"Sometimes I think this is all just a 
game to them," she says. 

Dangerous Liaisons 

Such is the life today of one Carol E. 
Howe. 

Her resume reflects numerous 
accomplishments such as opera debutante, 
beauty queen, actress and award-winning 
hunter/jumper horse competitor. She was 
an honors high school and college student. 

Not listed on that published resume is 
her stint as neo-Nazi infiltrator, working 
under contract for the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), when plans 
to bomb federal buildings and overthrow 
the U.S. government were openly discussed 
in front of her by some of America's most 
notorious figures in the extreme right-wing. 

Nor are the numerous lie detector tests 
she took to prove her truthfulness while 
working for BATF mentioned as part of 
her background. 

On the run now, Howe has become the 
prey in a high-stakes game of wits and 
intrigue. 

Suddenly the 5-foot, 98-pound blond is 
among the most sought-out women in 
America and is dodging the national 
media, who desperately want to interview 
her. 

One of Howe's greatest concerns, 
though, is about those who might want to 
kill her before a nation can hear her story. 

Her cover now "blown" and the Justice 
Department confirming that she was a paid 
informant, Howe has so far eluded 
everyone and done so with the ease of a 
seasoned undercover agent. 

Beginning with a Christmas Eve call 
from this newspaper, Howe's incredible 
recollections are now making their way 
around the globe. 

Until just days ago, details of Howe's 
work for the BATF, and her firsthand 
knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing 
conspiracy, remained buried from public 
view by an agency whose very existence 
now be threatened by the evidence she 
once provided it. 

During a series of clandestine 
interviews, Howe told the McCurtain Daily 
Gazette that the BATF knew as far back as 
the fall of 1994 that the Muirah Federal 
Building and two other Oklahoma federal 
buildings had been targeted for destruction 
by residents of and frequent visitors to an 
eastern Oklahoma religious cult know as 
ElohimCity. 

Howe's "handler" was Special Agent 
Angela Finley of the Tulsa office of the 
BATF. And, during the interviews, she 
described in great detail her work for that 
agent whom she simply calls, "Angie." 

Among her more than 70 reports to 
Finley were warnings that two Elohim City 

Page 423 

subjects were casing three Oklahoma 
federal buildings â€” and preparing for a 
subsequent bombing* 

She now believes that on April 19, 
1995, those same subjects â€” with the aid 
of others â€” bombed the Murrah Federal 
Building, the worst act of terrorism in U.S. 
history. 

Today, Howe wonders what went 
wrong. With all the information she gave 
the agency, why didn't the BATF stop the 
bombing? It is a haunting question shared 
now by many Americans, including those 
who are now for the first time hearing in 
the national media serious allegations of 
what Howe says is the indisputable truth â€” 
that the government had "detailed prior 
knowledge" of the plot to bomb the 
building, but somehow failed to stop it. 

True Confessions 

In early December, this newspaper 
received a tip that How had been a regular 
visitor to Elohim City during the months 
before the bombing of the Oklahoma City 
federal building. 

The newspaper also learned that while 
at Elohim City, she had developed 
associations with several persons who were 
involved in a string of bank robberies and 
some involved in the bombing, according 
to witnesses who spoke with the FBI. 

Before the newspaper's first interview 
with Howe on Dec. 13, the FBI raided the 
Tulsa residence she shared with a 
boyfriend. ! 

Her boyfriend, James Dodson Veifhaus 
Jr. was subsequently indicted by a Tulsa 
grand jury and now faces charges that he 
willfully made a bomb threat and was in 
possession of an unregistered destructive 
device. 

After the Dec. 24 phone call, Howe 
began a series of interviews with this 
newspaper concerning how she came to be 
involved with members of a radical 
underground group known as the Aryan 
Republican Army. 

Over time, she finally admitted her role 
as paid informant for the BATF and the 
information she had passed to that agency 
before and after the bombing on the 
Oklahoma City federal building. 

Early in the interviews, Howe described 
her dealings with the mysterious German 
tourist and Elohim City security adviser, 
Andreas Karl Strassmeir. 

"I kinda had a relationship with him for 
a while," said Howe. "He was real quiet 
and reserved... and when he did speak, you 
could hardly understand him because of his 
accient. 

"We talked about relationships once, 
and he said he wasn't interested in settling 
down with a woman. All he wanted to do 
was blow up federal buildings! 

It was also at that same meeting that he 
shoved his hand down my dress and I 
thought, well, he was doing something 
else, but now that I think about it, I think 
he was feeling for a wire (recording 
device)." â–  &lt; 

Howe said Strassmeir's best Mends at 
Elohim City were Pete Ward, Kevin 
McCarthy, and Mike Brescia, and that a 
close Tulsa Mend was Dennis Mahon. 

"Dennis brought me out to Elohim City 
in the summer of 1994 and introduced me 
around. After that, I started hanging around 
with the people there and in December, I 
moved into a travel trailer he kept out 
there. But when it go too cold, I moved in 
with one of the families. I stayed for about 
five weeks that time." 

Page 424 

Howe said it was during this December, 
1994, period that Timothy McVeigh and 
Mike Fortier visited. 

"Sometime before Christmas a lot of 
guys showed up at EC (Elohim City). One 
that I recall was Tim (McVeigh), who I 
only knew.. .a guy who used the name 
Fontaine, a person I now recognize as 
Mike Fortier." 

Referring to McVeigh, she said, "I never 
even spoke to him. He was considered a 
'good soldier* by the members of the ARA, 
but not a leader; he was just someone you 
sent out on jobs, because he was reliable. 

"I never knew much about Fontaine 
(Fortier). His name was mentioned a lot by 
the guys when they would be talking in 
other parts of Andy's house â€” you know, 
making plans they didn't want me to hear 
the details of." 

By the third interview with this 
newspaper, Howe decided to reveal how 
her government informant role developed 
within the radical white separatist 
movement. 

"I was contacted by Dennis Mahon after 
I ordered some literature from this group 
called the White Aryan Resistance," she 
said. "He wanted to have a closer 
relationship than I did, and later he 
threatened me when I tried to get away 
from his group. I went down and obtained 
a protective order from the Tulsa County 
Court. 

"Shortly after I got the court order, I 
was contacted by Special Agent Angela 
Finley from the Tulsa BATF and she 
wanted to know if I wanted to get even. 
Angie said she would pay me to set up 
Dennis... I went along with it." ' r 

After signing a contract Finley 
provided, Howe was put on the payroll at 
$120 per week, beginning in mid-1994. 

Part of her goal was to film Mahon 
arming hand grenades. 

As part of the plan, Howe and Finley 
went shopping and bought a trunk. Next, 
they had a tiny surveillance camera 
mounted inside, with a small hole drilled 
for the lens, and placed it in Howe's 
residence. 

Howe said that she and Finley had 
bought legal, practice grenades from an 
army surplus store. 

"I got Dennis talked into making them 
real and he did so on camera. Later, we 
went out to Elohim City and blew them 
up. 

"Angie got the film, then told me to 
have Dennis introduce me to the people at 
Elohim City and get information of 
Strassmeir and the other radicals." 

That was how she met Strassmeir and 
the others, she said. 

"I started going to as many of their 
meetings as I could and met a lot of people 
who were very secretive. But sometime in 
November there was a meeting and 
Strassmeir and Mahon said it was time to 
quit talking and go to war. 

"I reported all this to Angie." 

Howe said Finley then wanted her to try 
to get Strassmeir on film handling 
grenades, so in the fall of 1994, she invited 
him to dinner. 

"He brought in Pete Langan and Kevin 
McCarthy, the bank robbers.' In no time I 
had them painting the grenades in front of 
the surveillance camera and I later gave the 
film to Angie." 

But Howe grew increasingly 
disenchanted with her work. 

"In March of 1995, 1 got fed up with 
the whole thing because of my negative 
feelings about Rev. (Robert) Millar and 
some of the other people at Elohim City," 

Page 425 

she said. "Angie hadn't made any arrests, 
either, and that was frustrating, so I quit 
going out there... until after the building got 
blown up!" 

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof 

Howe's recollection of the precise time 
of her next contact with the BATF is 
unclear, but she believes agent Finley 
contacted her within 24 hours following 
the bombing of the Murrah building. 

Howe said Finley told her to find 
Mahon, because he was a subject of the 
bombing investigation. Next, Finley took 
her to a secret command post near the 
Murrah building^ Howe said. There, in the 
basement of the Oklahoma Publishing 
Company building at Fourth and 
Broadway, she was debriefed by BATF 
and FBI agents, of and on, for the next 
three days 

According to a BATF document dated 
April 21, 1995, Howe told Special Agents 
Blanchard and Finley that the sketches of 
the suspects who rented the truck used in 
the bombing appeared to be Elohim City 
roommates of Andreas Strassmeir and 
close associates of Dennis Mahon. 

Reflected in that report, Howe told the 
agents: "John Doe No. 1 is either Pete or 
Tony (Ward) and no one in the world 
looks more like the sketch of John Doe 
No. 2 than Michael Brescia." 

Howe also told agents that "everyone at 
Elohim City was reading The Turner 
Diaries and Mein Kampf" 

Howe's investigative interviews also 
indicate that she told authorities: "Reverend 
Millar was working the people up into a 
frenzy about a Holy War that he said 
would come by the anniversary of Waco 
(April 19)." Further, she said, Millar 
warned that "they had to strike first or they 

would end up like David Koresh and his 
followers." 

Howe also reminded agents after the 
bombing about what she had told Finley 
before, that people at Elohim City had 
been casing the IRS building in Tulsa and 
the federal buildings in Oklahoma City and 
Tulsa for several months. 

In the April 21 post-bombing interview, 
Howe told agents Finley and Blanchard 
that she did not recognize the name 
"Timothy McVeigh." 

Bolstering Howe's claims about the 
information she allegedly gave BATF are 
documents recently discovered that the 
government was supposed to turn over to 
the McVeigh defense team as part of the 
pre-trial discovery process, but which had 
not been. 

The Gazette has learned that Howe's 
detailed information concerning the 
bombing conspiracy at Elohim City is 
contained in monthly reports the Tulsa 
office of the BATF had accumulated prior 
to the bombing of the federal building. 

Contained within those reports is clear 
and concise intelligence data spelling out 
Mahon's and Strassmeir's alleged 
statements about their plans to bomb 
federal installations and activities 
involving, among other things, the physical 
surveillance of the Murrah Federal 
Building during the months preceding the 
April 19, 1995 bombing. 

Her reports reflect that Strassmeir and 
Mahon made three trips to Oklahoma City 
to inspect the federal building, in 
November and December of 1994 and in 
February 1995. 

Furthermore, and potentially lethal to 
any attempt to discredit her, Howe was 
routinely polygraphed by the government 
during title - time she was making her 

Page 426 

monthly reports to the BATF. The 
government's own documents indicating 
she passed, "showing no deception on her 
part in any polygraph examination." 

The government seemed to place an 
even higher value on the reliability of 
Howe's information after the Oklahoma 
City bombing. 

"While they had me in a motel room in 
Oklahoma City...they started in about how 
I needed to go back to Elohim City and get 
some more information about who was 
there and some weapons' bunkers at EC. I 
told them they were crazy â€” I'd get 
killed!" 

But government documents indicate she 
finally did agree to return to Elohim City, 
this time at a far higher rate of pay â€” ' $400 
per day. 

"It was a few days after the bombing," 
Howe recalled for the Gazette. "I went 
back and there was a lot of talk about 
being raided.. .There were a lot of new 
faces, too â€” guys who were heavily armed 
and who were talking about a stand-off 
with the feds." 

Howe said she was supposed to check 
on who was there and especially to see 
who or what might be in some small 
buildings on the back of the property. 

"I spent about four days at EC, then 
returned and was debriefed about the 
situation." And, she added, "Strassmeir was 
missing from the compound!" 

Dances With Wolves 

Based upon information received 14 
months ago, the Gazette began looking into 
Andreas Strassmeir and his associations 
with far-right extremists in this country. 

A story one year ago detailed the nature 
of his associations and his connections to 
bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh, by 

virtue of a single phone McVeigh's call 
card records indicate was made to Elohim 
City. 

A story here last July quoted a high- 
level, anonymous source in the intelligence 
division of the FBI who described 
Strassmeir as an "intelligence asset" of the 
BATF. 

Other stories published about that time 
quoted witnesses in Kansas and Oklahoma 
who claimed Strassmeir and Brescia were 
associates of McVeigh's and had been for 
at least two years. 

But could there really be two BATF 
informants at Elohim City at the same time 
â€” How and Strassmeir? 

A former government undercover agent 
who played a key role in one of this 
nation's most publicized sting operations 
said it wouldn't be unusual. 

"It is typical, for agencies such as the 
CIA, FBI and the ATF to place multiple 
'moles' inside a place like Elohim City and 
play one resource off the other, without 
either one knowing the identity of the 
other," the former agent said. 

"The reasons are obvious. First, there is 
no way a law enforcement agency is going 
to risk exposing the life of one of their 
assets should the other 'resource' succumb 
to torture or decide to double-cross the 
agency. And, of course, the monitoring of 
information can best be verified if neither 
resource knows who the other is. That's the 
only way this game works, and it's the 
only way it succeeds." 

The Justice Department has consistently 
told the press, and Judge Richard Matsch, 
that Andreas Strassmeir is not now and 
never has been a suspect in the Oklahoma 
City bombing. Nor was he interviewed in 
the aftermath of the attack. 

Page 427 

As recently as last month, responding to 
requests by McVeigh's defense attorneys 
seeking information on Strassmeir, Beth 
Wilkerson, a key member of the Denver 
prosecution team, told Judge Match that 
the government had no evidence linking 
Strassmeir with the Oklahoma City 
bombing. Therefore, she contended, the 
government had not withheld anything 
from the defense concerning Strassmeir or 
any other possible suspects. 

However, the Gazette has learned that at 
least some members of the FBI did indeed 
consider Strassmeir a suspect immediately 
after the bombing. 

High level sources told the Gazette that 
a cable dated April 18, 1995 was sent to 
the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C. 
from the U.S. embassy in Bonn, Germany, 
responding to a request the previous day 
from Special Agent Hudspeth concerning 
information on Strassmeir. 

That April 28 cable provided detailed 
intelligence to the FBI, collected from 
various German law enforcement data 
bases, concerning Strassmeir's travels and 
history. 

Strassmeir is referred to in that "priority 
cable" as a "suspect" in the Oklahoma City 
bombing investigation, and the Bonn 
embassy provided photographs of him, plus 
a list of addresses where he had lived 
during the previous decade along with 
assurances that his military records would 
be dispatched as soon as they were 
obtained. 

Also, the Gazette has learned, on March 
18, 1996, a special intelligence bulletin 
was issued by the Diplomatic Security 
Division, Counter Terrorism Unit, of the 
Department of State concerning 
Strassmeir's previous alleged criminal 
activities while in the United States. 

The cable states that Strassmeir 
overstayed his visa in 1991 and was known 
td have been the militia training officer for 
a white separatist group called WAR. 

Quoting from the cable, "He 
(Strassmeir) has been the subject of several 
investigations for purchasing weapons, and 
making the weapons fire on full automatic. 
Strassmeir should not be allowed to return 
to the U.S." 

Strassmeir's North Carolina attorney, 
Kirk Lyons, says his client was never a 
suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing and 
left the United States in January 1996 only 
because he feared being brought in the 
Oklahoma City bombing investigation due 
to statements the McVeigh defense team 
was making in the press. 

The attorney says Strassmeir only met 
McVeigh once, at a Tulsa gun show in the 
spring of 1993. 

As to why McVeigh called Elohim City 
two weeks before the bombing and left a 
message for Strassmeir, saying he would 
be visiting soon, Lyons says the whole 
thing is a mystery. 

According to NBC News and a 
prominent London newspaper, Strassmeir % 
has either left Berlin or is avoiding the 
media since the Howe revelations emerged. 
Prior to that, the former German military 
officer had been living in his parents' 
fashionable Berlin home and freely giving 
media interviews. 

Strassmeir's father recently retired as 
Secretary of State to Berlin, and he is still 
considered a close confidante of German 
Chancellor Helmet Kohl. 

A few days ago, Strassmeir's former 
roommate at Elohim City, Michael Brescia, 
was indicated and arrested for his alleged 
role in robbing a bank in Madison, Wis. 
The government says that Brescia joined 

Page 428 

with other members of the Aryan 
Republican Army in pulling off the Aug. 
30, 1995 heist. 

Dennis Mahon of Tulsa says he 
considers Carol Howe's truthfulness to be 
unreliable, and he charges that she has 
abused drugs in the past. 

Mahon claims it was Howe who 
promoted most of the illegal and violent 
acts discussed at Elohim City. 

"They want to drag me into this thing," 
he says, "and I barely remember ever even 
meeting Tim McVeigh. It was Strassmeir 
who was meeting with McVeigh, not me." 

icickick 

Cash: He's Not Source of Hoax in Dallas Newspaper 

Sunday, March 2, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 

It's sad that a newspaper with the 
national stature of the Dallas Morning 
News would be taken in by a hoax, but 
that's exactly what happened in the case of 
documents the newspaper used in a story 
Saturday, McCurtain. Gazette reporter J.D. 
Cash says. 

He also denied rumors in Denver that 
he was the source of those documents. 

Quoting defense documents, the Dallas 
Morning News reported that Timothy 
McVeigh told his lawyers that he helped 
build the bomb that blew up the Oklahoma 
City federal building in an attack 
calculated to ensure a "body count" and 
prove a point to the government. 

McVeigh's lawyer immediately labeled 
the report a hoax by "the most 
irresponsible paper in the country." He said 
McVeigh, when told of the report, said: 
"There's a practical joker every week." 

The paper, however, is standing by its 
story. 

Cash, whose stories on the Oklahoma 
City bombing have scooped the national 

media on several occasions, said he's been 
aware for a long time of the documents the 
Dallas Morning News used for its story. 
But, he added, someone has misled the 
newspaper as to what the documents are. 

Tm familiar with the documents and 
why they were created," Cash said. 

He said the so-called "McVeigh 
Confession" are documents prepared by 
McVeigh's defense team "for a specific and 
limited purpose." 

The documents, he said, are a mixture 
of fact and fantasy that were "purposefully 
and skillfully created so as to allow a 
member of the McVeigh defense team the 
opportunity to gain access and information 
from a single source in their complex arid 
sprawling investigation." 

But, he added, anyone familiar with the 
intimate details of the Oklahoma City 
bombing should be able to tell that much 
of the information in the documents is 
concocted, and that the documents should 
therefore be wholly discounted. 

Page 429 

Cash says that to his knowledge, 
McVeigh's defense team has no legitimate 
documents that indicate McVeigh has 
professed his guilt in the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Despite that, this newspaper's editorial 
opinions on the bombing â€” as stated on its 
Commentary Page â€” haven't changed: That 
whether or not the government is able to 
prove its case in Denver, the facts are 
convincing beyond a reasonable doubt that 
McVeigh â€” and several others â€” did 
indeed conspire to set off explosives at the 
Murrah Building. 

The McCurtain Gazette on Saturday 
flatly denied rumors that Cash or anyone 
else at the newspaper was the source of the 
documents used in the Dallas Morning 
News story. Some members of the press in 
Denver say Cash's name has been floated, 
there as the intermediary who provided the 
documents to the Dallas paper. 

With McVeigh's trial scheduled to begin 
March 31, the Dallas Morning News report 
was the third and perhaps most 
controversial of three newspaper reports to 
suggest that the former soldier has 
confessed to the crime. 

The New York Times reported a month 
after the April 1995 attack that McVeigh 
acknowledged responsibility for the blast to 
two people â€” not named in the article â€” 
who had visited him in prison. That June, 
the Daily Oklahoman reported that 
McVeigh had confessed to one of the 
newspaper's sources. 

This time, details and quotes of the 
supposed confession were posted on the 
Morning News' World Wide Web site 
Friday afternoon. The newspaper described 
the documents as sutnmaties of meetings 
with McVeigh between July and December 

1995 at El Reno Federal Correctional 
Institution in Oklahoma. 

During one interview in July 1995, 
McVeigh was asked about an anti- 
government activist's assertion that he 
would have been a hero if he had bombed 
the building at night when fewer people 
would have been killed. 

"Mr. McVeigh looked directly into my 
eyes and told me, 'That would not have 
gotten the point across to the government. 
We needed a body count to make our 
point,'" the*defense staff member wrote. 

At another point, McVeigh disputed a 
waitress' claim that she knew the identity 
of another man who actually drove the 
bomb truck, the newspaper said. 

"Mr. McVeigh again insisted that he 
was the one who drove the Ryder truck," 
the interviewer wrote. 

Because the reports were based on 
McVeigh's meetings with a defense team 
member,, they are not available to 
prosecutors and will probably never be 
introduced to the Jury. 

"I think it's a hoax," said Stephen Jones, 
McVeigh's attorney. He said the Morning 
News may have been given bogus 
documents by someone who has ill will 
toward the newspaper. 

Jones met with prosecutors and U.S. 
District Judge Richard Matsch late Friday 
to complain about the report. But he said 
he didn't plan any legal action against the 
paper. 

Ralph Langer, the newspaper's executive 
vice-president and editor, said the story 
was not a hoax. . 

"We would not publish a story that we 
did not have an extremely high degree of 
confidence in the reporting, in the 
documents and in the research," Langer 
said. 

Page 430 

Prosecutors and codefendant Terry 
Nichols' attorney, Michael Tigar, declined 
comment when contacted by The 
Associated Press. 

McVeigh is scheduled to go on trial on 
murder and conspiracy charges, with 
Nichols to be tried later. If convicted, they 
could receive the death penalty for the 
attack, which killed 168 people and injured 
more than 500. 

Prosecutors have estimated that 4,800 
pounds of fertilizer went into the bomb, 
but McVeigh reportedly told the 
interviewer it was built with 5,400 pounds 
of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, purchased 
for $540, blended with about $3,000 worth 
of high-powered racing fuel: 

"Mr. McVeigh states that 108 50-pound 
bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer were 
mixed with the nitro fuel purchased by 
Terry Nichols," the interviewer wrote. 

McVeigh said they bankrolled the 
bombing in part with the November 1994 
robbery of Arkansas gun dealer Roger 
Moore. "Mr. McVeigh stated that he laid 
out the plan and that Terry Nichols alone 
broke into Moore's house and stole the 
weapons," the report says. 

That account was similar to a statement 
given in August 1995 by Michael Fortier, a 

former friend and Army associate and now 
a key witness against him. Fortier pleaded 
guilty to helping transport the stolen 
weapons and failing to warn the 
government of the bomb plot. 

McVeigh described how he and Fortier 
picked up the guns from Council Qrove, 
Kan., where Nichols had stored them. He 
said Fortier took the weapons to sell in 
Kingman, Ariz., where both men once 
lived and worked. 

McVeigh also detailed a burglary 
outlined in broad terms in the federal 
indictment. McVeigh said that he and 
Nichols stole explosives from a storage 
building at a Marion, Kan., quarry in 
October 1994. 

In published interviews, McVeigh has 
avoided directly answering the question of 
his guilt or innocence. 

In Oklahoma, there was outrage and 
concern among relatives of the bombing 
victims that the report would taint a jury 
pool or delay the trial. 

"This is the kind of thing that I was 
afraid would happen with the long delay," 
Bud Welch, whose 23-year-old daughter 
was killed in the blast, told The Daily 
Oklahoman. 

kkkkk 

On OKC Bombing 

'Howe: I'm Not Keeping My Mouth Shut Any Longer' 

Thursday, March 13, 1997 - Mc Curtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

The incredible saga of Carol E. Howe â€” 
a former undercover informant for the 

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 
(BATF) â€” took another bizarre twist 

. Page 431 

Wednesday when the U.S. Attorney's 
office in Tulsa released criminal 
indictments against the former college 
honor student and ex-Tulsa Opera 
Debutante. 

Carol Howe has recently been the 
subject of several national news stories 
since the McCurtain Daily Gazette 
discovered evidence that she had reported 
to her BATF "handlers" a plot to bomb the 
Oklahoma City federal building by 
members of a neo-Nazi religious cult 
located in eastern Oklahoma. 

The three-count indictment alleges 
Howe conspired with former housemate 
James Dodson Veifhaus Jr. to willfully 
make a bomb threat and possessed a non- 
registered destructive device. 

On Dec. 13, the FBI raided the Tulsa 
residence that Howe shared with Viefhaus 
after receiving information concerning a 
cryptic message on the pair's answering 
machine. 

During a Dec. 18 preliminary hearing, 
FBI agent Pete Rickel told the court that a 
search of the residence found ammonium 
nitrate and other chemicals that could be 
used to make a bomb. 

The agent also testified that books 
describing how to make bombs, plus 
various weapons, were found at the 
property. 

According to testimony at the hearing, 
the raid was touched off when a person in 
Seattle, Wash., reported a menacing 
message on an answering machine that was 
subsequently traced to the residence of 
Viefhaus and Howe. 

Viefhaus was arrested after he admitted 
it was his voice on the answering machine. 

The Gazette has learned that the 
message included references to a holy war 
with an "Aryan" agenda. 

The pre-recorded message also 
contained a statement referring to a letter 
purportedly received from "a high-ranking 
revolutionary commander" demanding that 
action be taken against the government by 
all white warriors by Dec. 15 â€” and that if 
the action were not taken, bombs would be 
activated in 15 pre-selected cities. 

Subsequently, Viefhaus was indicted for 
his role. He has been in custody since 
December awaiting trial. 

Timing of Indictment Questioned 

As for Carol Howe, the 26-year-old 
blonde dropped out of college recently. 

She has been living in seclusion at an 
undisclosed location since her work as a 
contract undercover informant for the 
BATF was first revealed in an exclusive 
Feb. 1 1 interview printed in the Gazette. 

The Tulsa World reported this morning 
that Howe's attorney, Allan Smallwood of 
Tulsa, said his client will turn herself in 
next week and that he expects to 
vigorously defend her against the charges. 

Adding to the twists and turns in the 
young woman's life, Howe is believed to 
be a key witness for the defense in the 
upcoming trial of Timothy McVeigh. 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a 
source on the McVeigh defense team said 
tlje timing of the indictments against Howe 
â€” coming two months after Viefhaus' were 
handed down and only weeks before the 
McVeigh trial begins â€” appears to be a 
desperate attempt by the Justice 
Department to impugn her credibility 
before she testifies in Denver. 

Warned of Bombings in Advance 

During the course of several meetings 
and telephone interviews earlier, How told 
the Gazette that she warned the BATF for 

Page 432 

months about plans to bomb three 
Oklahoma City federal offices prior to the 
actual April 19, 1995, bombing of the 
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. 

Howe also told this newspaper that she 
believed the raid on her property last 
December was part of a plan to destroy her 
â€” saying she feared her life was in 
jeopardy because of her knowledge of the 
plot to bomb the Murrah building and the 
government's failure to heed her warnings. 

Indeed, according to documents recently 
discovered by the McVeigh defense team, 
Howe told her "handler" with the BATF 
that Tulsan Dennis Mahon and former 
Elohim City resident Andreas Karl 
Strassmeir announced as long ago as 
November 1994 that three potential sites 
for destruction had been selected. 

Those potential targets, Howe's reports 
stated, were the Tulsa federal building, the 
Tulsa office of the IRS and the Oklahoma 
City federal building. 

Howe also told authorities that other 
residents of Elohim City, a religious cult 
near the Arkansas state line close to 
Muldrow, were being whipped into a 
frenzy about a coming holy war. The 
compound's religious guru, the Rev. Robert 
Millar, said that holy war would come by 
April 19, 1995, she said. 

According to Howe's report, Millar in 
January 1995 began warning the residents 
of Elohim City that they would "end up 
like David Koresh and the Branch 
Davidians if (they) did not act first." 

Howe also told authorities that 
Strassmeir and Mahon actually "cased the 
Murrah building on three occasions before 
the bombing." 

According to Howe's April 21 interview 
with authorities, she said she did not 
recognize the name Timothy McVeigh but 

believed the sketches of subjects being 
circulated by the FBI were men she knew 
at Elohim City who associated with Mahon 
and Strassmeir. 

Although Carol Howe's BATF files 
indicate she passed each of the polygraphs 
administered while she worked for them, 
incredibly no one at the Justice Department 
obtained arrest and search warrants for 
anyone at Elohim City. 

Nor did the FBI ever interview 
Strassmeir and Mahon about Howe's 
information. 

Instead, Howe's reports indicate her rate 
of pay was increased for $120 per week to 
$400 per day after the Oklahoma City 
bombing when she was persuaded to return 
to Elohim City, alone, and see what sort of 
activity was going on there. 

After spending four days at the 
compound, Howe reported back to 
authorities that Mahon and Strassmeir had 
disappeared from the property and that 
there had been an influx of heavily armed 
men preparing for a raid. 

The Justice Department now says Howe 
was unreliable and had to be fired. 

During the course of our interview with 
Howe, she said on several occasions that 
she believed the FBI had been attempting 
to lure her into doing something illegal for 
quite some time in order to put her in jail 
â€” or, at the very least, to stop her from 
going public with what she knew about the 
April 19, 1995, bombing. 

Howe, in an interview earlier this year, 
produced a faxed document from a person 
she said had been contacting her for 
several months, regularly encouraging 
Viefhaus and her to get involved in various 
illegal acts, including purchasing machine 
guns. 

Page 433 

Reflected on the document acquired by 
the Gazette is a telephone number 
indicating where it was faxed from. 

Oklahoma City private investigator 
Bruce Dierks traced the phone number to 
2926 S. 130th E. Ave. in Tulsa. 

Dierks said the residence was rented in 
the name of "E. Ingersoll" but that when 
the phone records were checked, the bill 
was actually paid by now well-known FBI 
informant Richard E. Schrum. 

Schrum testified last year at a bombing 
trial that resulted in convictions for several 
persons accused of plotting to bomb gay 
bars and synagogues. 

Schrum testified during the trial that he 
was paid by the FBI to infiltrate right-wing 
groups. 

At press time today, Carol Howe 
contacted J.D. Cash and said she was 
returning to Tulsa to surrender to 
authorities. 

But Howe was apparently not 
intimidated by the federal action, defiantly 
telling Cash: 

"If the Justice Department thinks this is 
going to sjhut me up...well, it's going to 
have the opposite effect.. .These are actions 
clearly designed to discredit my before the 
McVeigh trial." * 

She left this parting promise: 

Tm not keeping my mouth shut any 
longer about Oklahoma City!" 

***** 

Cash Reiterates /Hoax 1 Assertion on Alleged McVeigh 
Confession 

Wednesday, March 19, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 

Private investigator Richard Reyna has 
denied faking a confession from bombing 
defendant Timothy McVeigh, according to 
a story in today's edition of the Daily 
Oklahoman. 

But McCurtain Daily Gazette 
investigative reporter J.D. Cash today 
reiterated his earlier assertions that the 
document he was made aware of about a 
year ago "contained little that could be 
considered as reliable representations of 
facts and events concerning the bombing of 
the Murrah federal building." 

Cash also reiterated his bfelief that the 
current flurry of excitement over the 
existence of a purported "McVeigh 
confession" is much ado about nothing. 

But in the current atmosphere of "a 
wave of Machiavellian conspiracy theories 
sweeping the land," Cash said he wouldn't 
be surprised to see a fresh story or two 
next week. 

Reyna's name surfaced after the Dallas 
Morning News reported recently that 
McVeigh admitted during defense 
interviews that he bombed the Oklahoma 
City federal building. 

Page 434 

But the Gazette reported in a March 1 
press release that the documents apparently 
used by the Dallas newspaper were a 
"hoax." 

Cash reiterated the "hoax" label today, 
saying the documents were apparently 
created to elicit information from a source 
in the investigation: 

Not only were those documents a hoax, 
Cash said, but he believed excerpts from 
that same document have now made their 
way to Playboy magazine's web site. 

Cash said he first saw the documents 
about a year ago when he and Reyna, a 
Conroe, Texas, private investigator 
working for McVeigh's defense attorneys, 
were on a highway in Oklahoma on their 
way to visit a group of people they'd 
interviewed several times earlier. 

When Reyna showed him the 
documents, Cash recalled laughing and 
saying whoever wrote the report was really 
creative, later saying it rang false and 
sounded like a Mickey Spillane novel. He 
assumed Reyna had written it, and Cash 
said he kidded the investigator about some 
of the creative touches. 

Reyna, in a rare press interview with the 
Oklahoma City newspaper, denied showing 
any such documents to Cash or of faking 
any documents. , 

As an investigator, Reyna was 
apparently feeling under the gun, thinking 
his professional integrity might have been 
compromised by reports that he was 

making disclosures to the press, usually 
considered a professional "no-no" for 
investigators. 

"You don't do those things," Reyna told 
the newspaper. 

He also cited the dangers of making 
such disclosures, saying, "I'm already 
inviting all sorts of dangers by going into 
those areas...rm not going to compound 
this with untruthful things and put myself 
even at a bigger risk..." 

Cash today reiterated what he had told 
news organizations earlier â€” that he was 
not privy to what went on in an April 1996 
meeting between White Aryan leader Louis 
Beam and Reyna. But Cash adamantly 
stood by his comments that it was Reyna 
who had showed him the documents. 

Cash and the Gbzette also issued a 
statement saying, "We are steadfast in our 
belief that Reyna had nothing to do with 
certain defense documents being leaked to 
Playboy or the Dallas Morning News" 

Given the present climate, Cash and the 
newspaper said it was "highly predictable 
the entire document that is the sum and 
substance of this fiasco will eventually be 
printed in its full text." 

When that day comes, the newspaper 
and Cash said, "We believe rational folks 
will judge the contents and conclude, as 
we did a year ago, that the document is a 
gross misrepresentation of the known facts 
surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing." 

***** 

Page 435 

Prior Knowledge Alleged 

OKC Bombing Victims, Families File Claims Against 
Government 

Thursday, March 20, 1997 - McCurtcUn Daily Gazette 

By Jeff Holladay 

OKLAHOMA CITY - Thirty-four 
victims of the Oklahoma City bombing 
filed separate claims totalling a whopping 
$850 million against federal agencies 
Wednesday. 

They allege the U.S. government had 
prior knowledge of the bombing dangers 
but did nothing to protect workers in the 
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on 
April 19, 1995, resulting in the deaths of 
168 persons and the wounding of 500 
others. 

The civil lawsuits, each seeking $25 
million, come exactly a month before the 
statute of limitations would have ended for 
victims to seek damages â€” a concern about 
civil liability that some victims felt had 
motivated a coverup by federal agencies. 

It was not the first civil lawsuit alleging 
the federal government failed to protect 
occupants of the Murrah building when its 
agencies had prior knowledge of plans to 
bomb it. 

In January 1996, Edye Ann Smith, who 
lost two young children in the bombing, 
filed a $30 million wrongful death lawsuit 
â€” with attorneys for Smith saying they 
intended to eventually prove the 
government had prior knowledge of the 
planned bombing. 

She named Oklahoma City bombing co- 
defendant Timothy McVeigh and "persons 
unknown" as defendants but amended the 
lawsuit Oct. 1, 1996, to include Andreas 
Strassmeir, 37, Mike Fortier, 27, and Mike 
Brescia, 24, as co-defendants. 

That lawsuit was based largely on 
discoveries made in an investigation by the 
McCurtain Daily Gazette, which had 
already concluded there was compelling 
circumstantial evidence of a government 
coverup. V 

Then, on Feb. 11, this newspaper 
provided an exclusive, blockbuster report 
that Carol Howe, a former undercover 
agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms (BATF), had reported to her 
agency handler as far back as the fall of 
1994 that the Murrah building in 
Oklahoma City was among targets for 
bombing by neo-Nazi elements. 

Some victims and victims' families, 
such as Glenn and Kathy Wilburn of 
Oklahoma City, who lost two 
grandchildren in the bombing, believe the 
report helped clear the air for some victims 
and their families about government 
culpability. 

Richard A. Bieder, a Connecticut 
attorney, said in a Wednesday press 
conference, "The United States government 
neglected to protect persons in and around 
the Murrah Building despite knowing that 
terrorists had discussed plans for violence 
before April 19, 1995." 

Among those filing claims were Glenn 
and Kathy Wilburn, Whose Wo grandsons, 
Chase and Colton, died in the building's 
day-care center, and whose mother, Edye 
Ann Smith, had earlier filed the wrongful 
death lawsuit against the government. 

Page 436 

"We want the truth. We want every 
facet of the truth brought out," said 
Wilburn, who has complained bitterly 
about failure of the Oklahoma bureau of 
the Associated Press to report disclosures 
made in the McCurtain Gazette. 

Wilburn also has repeatedly criticized 
federal officials, who have just as 
repeatedly denied any prior knowledge of 
the bombing. 

Claims in the federal lawsuits were 
aimed at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, the 
General Services Administration, the 
Federal Protective Services and the U.S. 
Marshal's Service. 

Wilburn had been aghast when federal 
officials first told him April 19 had no 
special significance for the, despite it being 
considered "Patriot's Day" by many far 
right-wing groups in the aftermath of the 
April 19, 1994, shootout and fire with the 
Branch Davidians of David Koresh near 
Waco, Texas. 

But Bieder, attorney for those seeking 
damager, said federal authorities also 
should have been aware of a 1985 threat to 
bomb the federal building made by Richard 
Wayne Snell, a white supremacist who was 

executed in Arkansas later the same day of 
the bombing. 

Snell's spiritual advisor during his last 
days was Robert Millar, the head of 
Elohim City, a white separatist compound 
close to Muldrow and near the Arkansas 
state line. Snell, considered a hero among 
some white separatist groups, is buried at 
the compound. 

Significantly, ATF undercover agent 
Carol Howe's reports of bombing threats to 
the Murrah building and other federal 
facilities in Oklahoma largely came out of 
the time she spent at Elohim City, the 
Gazette had reported. 

Telephone records also show Oklahoma 
City bombing defendant Timothy McVeigh 
called the compound prior to the bombing. 
Interviews by this newspaper revealed he 
asked to speak to Andreas Strassmeir, the 
German national who late became head of 
the compound's security and who was 
named as a defendant in the Oklahoma 
City bombing in the civil lawsuit filed by 
Edye Smith. (Strassmeir later fled back to 
Germany, where his father is a powerful 
political figure.) 

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols 
face separate trials on murder and 
conspiracy charges in the bombing. 
McVeigh's trial is to begin March 31. 

***** 

An Unlikely Duo Makes Big Headlines in Oklahoma Blast 

Free-Lance Writer Teams Up With Grieving Granddad; 
Far Right Also Has a Role 
March 25, 1997- Watt Street Journal 

By Robert Tomsho, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal 

Page 437 

OKLAHOMA CITY - Among the 
bewildering human bonds forged after the 
1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building is the friendship of J.D. 
Gash and Glenn Wilburn. 

The two have spent many months 
jointly pursuing their own investigation 
into the blast, bringing them attention from 
both mainstream media and fringe political 
groups. As a result of their work, the two 
men were invited to speak last April to a 
Lake Tahoe, Nev., convention of the 
antigovernment right wing. 

Mr. Cash, a reedy 44-year-old who 
recently became a journalist, decided to go. 
He says he had no political motives; he 
simply saw it as a way to meet new 
sources. "Oh hell, this was the opportunity 
of a lifetime," he says, holding a snapshot 
of himself with Louis Beam, former grpnd 
dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan. 

Mr. Wilburn, 47, a silver-haired 
accountant, thought hard about making the 
trip but, as the grandfather of two toddlers 
murdered in the blast, concluded that he 
qquldri't appear on the same podium with 
white supremacists. "It just would not be 
right," he says softly. 

Despite different motivations, Mr. 
Wilburn and Mr. Cash form the core of a 
loose-knit band of survivors, journalists, 
private investigators and conspiracy 
theorists delving into the April 19, 1995, 
explosion that killed 168 people and 
injured 500. From a patchwork of taped 
interviews, leaked documents and tips, they 
have stitched together their own theories 
about the explosion. 

Mr. Cash and Mr. Wilburn both believe 
that accused bomber Timothy McVeigh 
was involved, but they also say that the 
government knew about a broader plot 
beforehand, yet by its own bungling failed 

to stop it. "They wanted to bust it right 
before it happened, and they screwed up," 
Mr. Wilburn says â€” an allegation the 
government denies. 

Such claims will take a back seat to the 
trial of accused bomber Mr. McVeigh, 
scheduled to begin in Denver March 31. 
But truth has become an elusive 
commodity in the wake of a crime 
involving volatile emotions, secretive 
brotherhoods and a raft of reporters eager 
to expand upon nuggets of fact. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Wilburn and Mr. Cash 
are making wives. 

Mr. Wilburn was a primary force behind 
a decision by several dozen survivors and 
victims' families last week to file notice in 
federal court in Oklahoma City of their 
intent to sue the government. Seeking $850 
million in damages, they allege that 
authorities knew or should have known 
enough to take precautions to prevent the 
bombing. 

Mr. Cash recently gained an unlikely 
measure of celebrity for disputing a Feb. 
28 report by the Dallas Morning News that 
accused bomber Mr. McVeigh has 
confessed to members of his defense team. 
While Mr. McVeigh's attorneys attacked 
the story, Mr. Cash told other media that, 
based on his reporting, the Dallas daily had 
been duped by an investigator's hoax 
designed to coerce information from a 
white supremacist. The investigator denied 
falsifying documents. He also has quit the 
defense team. Meanwhile, the Morning 
News stands by its story. 

Though his reporting experience 
consists mostly of freelancing for the tiny 
McCurtain Daily Gazette in Idabel, Okla., 
larger media outlets â€” such as Time 
magazine and ABC News â€” have followed 
Mr. Cash's lead on several stories. "He's 

Page 438 

been out there on the edge, and most of 
what he has said has been pretty damned 
good," says Don Thrasher, a producer for 
the ABC News program "20/20". 

Mr. Cash has written extensively about 
possible links between the bombing and a 
gang of white-supremacist bank robbers. 
He was among the first journalists to detail 
Mr. McVeigh's possible connections to 
some residents of Elohim City, Okla., a 
white-separatist compound. 

Prosecutors declined interview requests 
for this story, but previously they have said 
they have no evidence that anyone other 
than Mr. McVeigh and co-defendant Terry 
Nichols were the main perpetrators of the 
bombing. 

Before the bombing, the closest Mr. 
Cash had come to journalism was an 
unpublished novel about lost Nazi gold. 
With degrees in economics and law from 
the University of Tulsa, he built homes for 
a time, worked for a thrift and invested in 
real estate. After a 1992 divorce, he moved 
to the mountains north of Idabel, in 
southeastern Oklahoma. 

There, after watching coverage of the 
tragedy for a few days, Mr. Cash decided 
to gather string for a book. He says his 
motives were journalistic, and he had no 
political agenda. He soon appeared at the 
Daily Gazette, circulation 6,500 with a 
manuscript alleging that government 
munitions might have triggered a second 
explosion â€” an allegation denied by 
authorities. After doing some checking of 
its own, the paper published it. (An 
Oklahoma geophysicist did report initially 
that seismographs recorded two distinct 
explosive events but now says the "second 
blast" appears to be an echo of the first.) 

Mr. Cash soon fielded a call from the 
Jubilee, a Midpines, Calif., journal of the 

far right that he says he had never heard of 
before. It reprinted the Gazette stories and 
sent him to interview the Wilburns with 
whom he quickly joined forces. Mr. Cash 
had been running into problems getting 
through to sources, so the Wilburns, with 
their status as bereaved grandparents, 
proved invaluable. 

From their comfortable kitchen, 
decorated with 1950s memorabilia, the 
Wilburns had been relentlessly phoning 
bombing witnesses for interviews. "The 
FBI didn't have grandkids in there, I did," 
Mr. Wilburn told one banker who, like 
several others, eventually talked to him on 
tape about seeing Mr. McVeigh in 
downtown Oklahoma City with several 
other men on the morning of the bombing. 

Mr. Wilburn was impressed by Mr. 
Cash's attention to detail during their joint 
interviews. "We could almost know what 
each other was thinking," he recalls. Mr. 
Cash's efforts, in turn, were fueled by the 
grief and generosity of the Wilburns. They 
let him sleep in a bedroom adorned with 
photos and paintings of their grandsons, 
Chase and Colton Smith, whose old room 
was just down the hall. 

Together, Mr. Cash and the Wilburns 
ran down some spectacular blind alleys. 
Thinking one photo showed a well-known 
radical fleeing the bomb scene, they spent 
weeks tracking the man down before 
someone recognized him as a local 
maintenance worker. But in retracing the 
government's own investigation, they also 
interviewed legitimate witnesses and 
tipsters, including the Kansas clerk who 
rented the Ryder truck to Mr. McVeigh. 

They became news sources for the 
Village Voice in New York, the London 
Telegraph and ABC News, among others. 
Their efforts attracted the attention of 

Page 439 

Stephen Jones, Mr. McVeigh's attorney, 
who eventually granted Mr. Cash an off- 
the-record interview with his client. 

Using his status as a Jubilee writer, Mr. 
Cash became a frequent visitor to Elohim 
City, a secretive enclave of the Christian 
Identity movement, which holds that white 
Europeans are the chosen people of God. 

Mr. Cash obtained Mr. McVeigh's 
phone records, which indicated that Mr. 
McVeigh's telephone card had been used a 
few days before the bombing to contact 
Andreas Steassmeir, a German citizen and 
weapons enthusiast who occasionally 
visited Elohim City. Mr. Cash's stories 
sparked follow-ups by the Associated Press 
and Time, although Mr. Strassmeir's 
attorney, Kirk Lyons, contends that his 
client had nothing to do with the bombing. 
"It is kindergarten journalism," he says. 

With Mr. Cash now alleging that Mr. 
McVeigh has links to a string of bank 
robberies committed by white separatists, 
even Mr. McVeigh's attorney has backed 
away. "He is a hard worker," Mr. Jones 
says, but "many of the things he postulates 
as theories simply are not consistent with 
what I know to be the known facts." 

Meanwhile, his friend, Mr. Wilburn, 
vows to continue pursuing information, 
regardless of the source. Though convinced 
that Mr. McVeigh is guilty, he swaps tips 
with his defense team. In his own kitchen, 
he had endured the hug of a white 
supremacist who, in the days after the 
bombing, publicly disparaged the 
Oklahoma City deaths. 

"I am obsessed with finding out what 
happened," Mr. Wilburn says. "I would talk 
to a roomful of Martians." 

***** 

Gazette's Reporter Has Himself Become 
The Story for Many 

Wednesday, March 26, 1997- McCurtain Daily Gazette 

Even for McCurtain Gazette reporter 
J.D. Cash, Tuesday was a bit strange. 

He awoke to learn that a drawing of 
him was on the front page of the Wall 
Street Journal, along with a long story 
about him and Glenn Wilburn. The story 
was entitled, "An Unlikely Duo Makes Big 
Headlines in Oklahoma Blast." 

By 11 a,m., a "Good Morning, America" 
news and camera crew that had flown to 
Dallas and then driven to Idabel, arrived at 
the local newspaper offices. The Gazette's 
advertising department was converted into 

a TV studio, with black velvet lining the 
walls. 

At his home at Battiest, Cash was 
summoned for an interview. 

Til be there when I finish making my 
stew," he said. 

Shoreen Maghame with "Good Morning, 
America" interviewed Cash for nearly two 
hours (the segment is tentatively scheduled 
for Monday's program.) 

Then she predicted that crews from 
every major network would be making a 

Page 440 

similar trek to Idabel within the next 
month. 

Outside the room, a reported from New 
York City's "Newsday," a prestigious Long 
Island newspaper, waited his turn. 

While doing so, he interviewed the 
newspaper's publisher, receptionists and 
others about how the community was 
taking all this national attention. He even 
interviewed a woman from Arkansas who 
had driven over from DeQueen, hoping to 
meet Cash and bringing him a fresh 
bouquet of tulips. 

Ironically, the Newsday reporter was a 
former Idabel resident, Pete Bowles. He 
recalled that when he went to school with 
Idabel councilman Jack Griffin here, 
Griffin was known as "Bulldog." Some of 
those who visited the Gazette offices 
Tuesday morning remembered Bowles 
from the 1960s. 

Bowles said he never would have 
believed such an assignment would arise, 
but he jumped at the opportunity to do a 
story in his old stomping grounds, getting 
the chance to meet old friends while 
writing about Cash, the newspaper and the 
series of stories on the Oklahoma bombing 
that have brought the spotlight to southeast 
Oklahoma. 

Also on Tuesday, a reporter from the 
British Broadcasting Company (BBC) 
called, wanting to know when it would be 
convenient for his film crew to arrive from 
London â€” and by the way, he asked, just 
how does one locate Idabel, Oklahoma? 

What has drawn attention to this 
newspaper is Cash's nearly two-year-long 
investigation of the Oklahoma City 
bombing and a series of stories that have 
caused even skeptics to take note. 

"He's been out there on the edge, and 
most of what he has said has been pretty 

damned good," Don Thrasher, producer for 
the ABC news program "20/20" told the 
Wall Street Journal. 

In Sunday's Washington Post, reporter 
Peter Carlson listed the various theories on 
John Doe 2 and said the most credible one 
was that put forth in this newspaper by 
J.D. Cash. ] 

Carlson said a person would be tempted 
to dismiss the detailed reporting by Cash 
except for one thing: So much of it has 
turned out to be true. 

For example, Carlson notes that Cash 
reported in the McCurtain Gazette that 
Michael Brescia, an Elohim City resident 
and roommate of Andreas Strassmeir, had 
been involved in the Midwest bank 
robberies. Cash had reported that several 
months before Brescia was indicted for his 
connection to the series of bank robberies. 

"Although Cash's stories appear in the 
McCurtain Daily Gazette, a newspaper 
1 with a circulation of only 6,500, his 
influence is far wider," Carlson wrote. 

Cash has broken several national stories 
i here. They include an interview with 
undercover ATF informant Carol 
Howe...revelatioris of a heretofore-secret 
fc affidavit the FBI has of McVeigh's sister 
alleging that her brother had laundered 
bank robbery proceeds.. .McVeigh's call to 
Strassmeir at Elohim City...strippers at a 
Tulsa club identifying McVeigh only 1 1 
days before the bombing as telling them 
people would never forget him after April 
19... a second Ryder truck involved in the 
bombing...and on and on. 

*** 

Just who is this character, J.D. Cash? 
The 44-year-old Battiest resident has 
only recently become known to many 

Page 441 

McCurtain County residents, much less the ( 
national media. 

Gash was bom in Oklahoma City and 
moved to Tulsa when he was about 15. 
While attending Tulsa Junior College there, 
he began work for Sooner Federal in the 
mortgage business, later going to work for 
Modern American Mortgage. 

He became a home builder, graduated 
with honors from the University of Tulsa 
with a degree in economics and attended 
law school at the University of Tulsa on a 
scholarship and graduated with honors â€” 
but never practiced law, 

He and the women he would marry â€” 
and later divorce â€” made a lot money in 
the title business, but Cash's first love, he's 
always said, has been history. 

In 1992, with his father in Battiest 
ailing, Cash moved to this county and built 
a home, did a lot of fishing and started 
work on a book about what happened to 
the huge hordes of Nazi gold at the end of 
World Warn. 

In January 1995 his father died. And a 
few months later, a close friend died in the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

It was questions about the bombing that 
led him to this newspaper. It seemed to 
him there were questions not being 
answered about the bombing, and he 
wanted to explore them. ( 

Eventually, he'd connect with Glenn and 
Kathy Wilburn, who had lost two 
grandsons in the bombing and who also 
were investigating on their own. 

Cash and the Wilburns have become so 
close that ti^ey bought a funeral plot for 
him where the two grandchildren are 
buried. 

They often work side-by-side at the 
Wilburn's home in Oklahoma City, and 
have together done about 400 tape- 

recorded interviews pertaining to the 
bombing. That's probably more interviews 
than any single FBI agent has conducted. 

Cash says his work with the Wilburns 
and sharing information with other 
reporters is the reason he's been able to get 
so many scoops. 

He praises Bob Ruth of the Columbus 
Dispatch, Judy Thomas of the Kansas City 
Star, Mike Boettcher of NBC (formerly 
publisher of the now-defunct Oklahoma 
Monthly), Mark Fazlollah of the 
Philadelphia Inquirer, and Ambrose-Evans 
Pritchard, Washington, D.C, correspondent 
of the London Telegraph. 

(Editor-publisher Bruce Willingham and 
reporter Jeff HoUaday have worked with 
Cash on some of the stories, with Holladay 
serving primarily as a copy editor, but the 
press of daily business has limited their 
involvement.) 

Together, the reporters above have 
formed a "kind of little club" of reporters 
sharing information and sources, and 
working various angles of a story that 
spans many states and a few countries. 

And Cash says more stories are coming 
â€” including one so hot that Willinghajn is 
reluctant to carry it, fearing for Cash's 
safety. 

But Cash knows the risks. He told a 
group in Idabel last December that he feels 
it's one of the most important stories of the 
century, and he will continue working on it 
until the entire truth comes out. 

Glenn Wilburn shares that drive. 
Wilburn is now dying from a terminal 
disease, and his main ambition in life is to 
see the truth about the bombing come out 
before he dies. 

***** 

Page 442 

* L\Kt ALi. Jut (UsToF Moff Wte&amp;ll 

Mahon: McVeigh Planned Bank Heists, Wanted to Be 
'Patriot Hero' 

Tuesday, April 1, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D, Cash 

At the heart of an extensive and 
revealing legal document filed by Stephen 
Jones, attorney for accused Oklahoma City 
bombing defendant Timothy McVeigh, the 
claim is made that Tulsan Dennis Mahon 
and mysterious German national Andreas 
Strassmeir, plus ait least four other 
"unindicted" persons, likely planned and 
executed the bombing of the Alfred P. 
Murrah Federal Building with the avowed 
intention of setting into motion a race- 
based civil war. 

As well, Jones alleges the government 
had prior knowledge of the conspiracy to 
bomb the Oklahoma City federal building 
yet bungled plans to stop it. 

Also included in the defense petition is 
a tantalizing reference to ap intermediary 
who tape-recorded a message from Mahon 
to McVeigh. 

I was that intermediary. 

Regarding this, Jones writes, "A defense 
attorney has interviewed Mahon and the 
defense received, through an intermediary, 
a tape recording that Mahon had made to 
be given to our client. The intermediary 
felt that the delivery of such tape recording 
was improper and was concerned about its 
implications and forwarded it to the 
defense. The defense did not know 
whether the purpose of this tape recording 
was to encourage the defendant to 
'sacrifice' himself for the eventual 'justice' 
of the cause or was a subtle threat intended 
to remind the defendant that members of 
his family were vulnerable." 

Added Jones: "When the defense 
learned that Mahon and his brother had 
telephoned Germany with orders to kill 
Strassmeir, the FBI was immediately 
informed. Mahon's taped message goes on 
to say that Mr. McVeigh is 'innocent by 
reasons of entrapment, but notwithstanding 
being innocent, he should accept the 
sacrifice in order that justice may prevail.'" 

For more than a year, a deposition 
containing sworn statements implicating 
others in the bombing conspiracy has been 
under seal with the Denver court and 
therefore hidden from public view. 

The deposition reveals an extraordinary 
interview with a person who was the target 
of the so-called "McVeigh Confession." 
(The hoax document recently published by 
the Dallas Morning News and also placed 
on Playboy Magazine's web site). 

Until now, the target of the "hoax 
confession" has never been identified by 
this newspaper. Nor were the means 
employed to obtain one of the most 
startling, incredible admissions ever made 
public. 

Now that story can be told. 

As evidenced by a tape-recorded 
message to McVeigh, White Aryan 
Resistance (W.A.R.) leader Dennis Mahon 
was clearly confused s to this reporter's 
sympathies and associations during our 
first interview on Jan. 21, 1996. 

That's when Mahon not only implicated 
himself in the bombing but also two of this 
closest comrades - comrades that, today, 
are sitting in jail in Pennsylvania for what 

Page 443 

the government says is their shared role in 
a far-flung conspiracy to rob banks in 
order to finance a rape-based civil 
upheaval. 

But even later, after Mahon learned the 
actual intentions of this reporter, he 
continued to piece together many of the 
elements of the bombing conspiracy. If 
accurate, they indeed reflect a complex 
plan which, Klahon finally admitted, was 
designed to produce civil disobedience and 
to establish McVeigh as a patriot martyr 
for the more radical elements of the 
international white power movement. 

Considerable evidence tending to 
corroborate Mahon's various statements to 
the Gazette are set forth in the defense's 
action file last week seeking a stay in the 
trial. 

Contained within the petition are a host 
of items the defense says it has uncovered 
- evidence that attorney Stephen Jones 
believes could prove his client's innocence 
while implicating Mahon and several other 
individuals, who once lived or frequented a 
far-right compound in eastern Oklahoma 
called Elohim City. 

The centerpiece of the 200-plus page 
public document is an international 
conspiracy scenario that the defense hoes 
will persuade the 10th Circuit Court of 
Appeals that government prosecutors have 
failed to provide documentation 
exculpatory to McVeigh. 

Jones alleges the Justice Department has 
ignored â€” whether intentionally or through 
negligence - substantial proof that other 
persons may have perpetrated the bombing. 

In federal criminal cases, the 
government is responsible for turning over 
evidence in its possession which might 
tend to prove the innocence of a person 
charged with a crime. 

Thus, by filing this 1 lth-hour petition, 
the defense hopes the appeals court will 
step in and instruct the U.S, District Judge 
Richard P. Matsch to issue orders requiring 
the government to provide evidence that 
Jones believes the government is either 
hiding or has neglected to dig up. 

Among the many allegations of 
impropriety, Jones asserts the government 
has "prior knowledge" of the plot to blow 
up the Murrah federal building because an 
informant at Elohim City, Carol E. Howe, 
told her Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco 
(BATF) handler before the bombing that 
Mahon and Strassmeir were plotting to 
destroy federal buildings and installations. 

Howe said one of the three possible 
targets Mahon and Strassmeir had 
mentioned was the Oklahoma City federal 
building, where 168 persons perished on 
April 19, 1995. 

The McVeigh defense believes the 
government tried to disguise Howe's 
identity and her, information by "doctoring" 
documents in such a way that defense 
computers could not identify and locate the 
critically important information that Jones 
says his client "desperately needs to defend 
himself." 

Jones only learned of the existence of 
Howe and her work for the BATF at 
Elohim City after the McCurtain Gazette 
revealed her undercover operation at the 
1,0-00-acre compound. 

On Jan. 29, Jones confronted the 
prosecution in Judge Matsch's chambers 
and was told that buried among 21 1,000 
pages of discovery material provided his 
office by the government over one year 
ago/ Howe's brief but potentially crucial 
statements to federal authorities could be 
found. 

Page 444 

After being provided the document's ID 
number, Jones finally located it and 
quickly discovered that every single name 
contained in it had been misspelled - and 
thus, couldn't be searched by computer 
with accurate spellings used. 

Iii the petition, Jones claims the 
misspellings were deliberate. 

"Defense council is convinced that the 
government has engaged in a willful and 
knowing cover-up of information supplied 
to it by its informant. The defense was 
unable to locate this insert using a 
computer because all major search terms 
contained the insert were misspelled. 
Elohim City was misspelled or 
misidentified, (Elohim City), as was 
Mahon (Mehaun), Strassmeir 
(Strassmeyer), the Rev. Robert Millar (Bob 
Lamar) and in addition, Carol Howe was 
not identified in the insert at all." 

The series of mistakes explained why 
the defense's CD-ROM computer program, 
which operates dn a "key word index," 
could not identify the potentially explosive 
evidence â€” evidence that clearly indicates 
the BATF's own paid informant believes 
persons at Elohim City plotted to bomb the 
Oklahoma City federal building. 

The defense filing also accused the 
government of stonewalling earlier requests 
for similar evidence of "prior knowledge" 
of a plot to bomb the federal building 
because of "the bureaucratic instinct for 
self-preservation and the institutional 
pressures for a neat and tidy conviction in 
this case to ensure that, in die absence of 
coercion by this court, information vital to 
the defense will simply never see the light 
of day." 

Jones also contends that besides Mahon 
and Strassmeir, there could be as many as 
four other unindicted persons involved in 

the bombing and, further, "The government 
possesses information which would shed 
light on the identities of those persons." 

Employing brutal language, McVeigh's 
petition claims that Howe's information 
"suggests strongly that the BATF, the most 
hapless and beleaguered of the federal law 
enforcement agencies, may have had notice 
that militant right-wing radicals had 
targeted the Alfred P. Murrah building for 
destruction and botches the interception of 
the plan in the finest Waco tradition." 

Referring to Howe's recent indictment 
be a federal grand jury in Tulsa, Jones 
wrote, "The defense believes that an 
indictment was obtained against Carol 
Howe for the purposes of 'leverage' against 
her in order to keep her mouth shut about 
what she knows about the activities of 
Mahon and Strassmeir... The institutional 
repercussions for BATF if Carol Howe is 
telling the truth could be the death knell of 
that organization." 

Jones contends that there is "a high 
probability, certainly at least a high 
possibility, that Mahon and Strassmeir are 
part of a conspiracy that planned to bomb 
the federal building, and may have in fact 
been part of the conspiracy to bomb the 
Murrah building." 

Continuing, "Andreas Strassmeir's 
roommate, Mike Brescia, and two other 
residence of Elohim City have now been 
indicted by a federal grand jury for 22 
Midwestern bank robberies in which false 
FBI identification and threats of bombs 
were involved. These robberies, according 
to the indictment, were to finance the 
Aryan Republican Army (which included 
as one of its members Dennis Mahon)." 

Will the Real Dennis Mahon Please 
Stand Up? 

^ C*Â£H H*S 4 

Page 445 

'Bic 

"Don't ever forget Bob Mathews and 
don't ever forget the "Order" ... because 
that's what's gonna happen again soon ... 
It's coming again! ... Revolution is 
coming,... it's coming sooner than you 
think!" -Dennis Mahon, July 1991, Aryan 
World Congress, Hayden Lake, Idahd 

Were these only preposterous rantings 
of a demagogue or the prophesies of a 
madman with a plan? 

Most of those who attended the 1991 
annual gathering of this country's most 
radical white separatists may have initially 
discounted what the 6-1, 190-pound self- 
described revolutionary was saying. 

After all,, in 1991 the 40-year-old 
Oklahoma White Knight's KKK leader was 
considered by many counter-terrorism 
experts (and even by some of his peers) to 
be little more than a mouthy upstart in the 
white power movement. 

A showman of sorts, Mahon strutted 
among the nation's most dangerous movers 
and shakers in the terrorist underground - 
individuals such as late-Grand Dragon of 
the Michigan Klan, Bob Miles, and former 
Grand Dragon of the Texas Knights of the 
KKK, Louis Beam. 

Eventually Mahon would forge an 
alliance with Tom Metzger's White Aryan 
Resistance, (W.A.R.) - an incredibly 
violent international group of Skinheads, 
who regularly make the police blotters for 
a variety of race-based crimes* 

During the late Ws and into the '90's, 
Mahon exhibited a yearning for media 
attention as he traveled the U.S., Canada 
and Germany organizing "cross lightings" 
and making speeches that were so 
incendiary he was subsequently banned 
from both Canada and Germany. 

However bold the words, though, 
Mahon's searing and very public bravado 

was not suspected of being translated into 
violent action against the system. 

In a word, Mahon was labeled a "talker" 
by some important members of the various 
shadowy underground hate groups which 
dot the global landscape. That label dogged 
Mahon until a hellish blast decimated the 
Oklahoma City federal building on April 
19, 1995. 

Several months after the bombing, this 
newspaper received a tip through an 
intermediary who had a source at Hayden 
Lake claiming Dennis Mahon was one of 
the ring leaders in the group that bombed 
the federal building. 

At the same time that information was 
being developed, it was discovered that 
Mahon had ties to a mysterious figure 
who, for three years, lived at Elohim City. 

That man, Andreas Carl Strassmeir, a 
former officer in the German army with 
close connections to the Kohl government, 
had forged a friendship with Mahon after 
taking over the job of weapons and 
security consultant at Elohim City. 

Deepening the interest in Strassmeir was 
information received from a McVeigh 
defense investigator, who revealed it was 
Strassmeir that McVeigh admitted calling 
Elohim City for on April 5, 1995, leaving 
a message with a woman saying, "Tell 
Andy I'll be visiting soon." 

Subsequently, Joan Millar, the daughter- 
in-law of the Rev. Millar (fonder of 
Elohim City), admitted to the FBI that she 
was the person McVeigh spoke with that 
day. 

The call to Elohim City is considered 
particularly damning for two reasons: 

(1) It was made from a motel room in 
Kingman, Ariz., that was registered to 
McVeigh. 

(2) And the call occurred only seconds 
after a calling -card linked to McVeigh and 

Page 446 

the co-defendant Terry Nichols was used to 
phone a Ryder truck rental establishment in 
Arizona. 

Based upon these facts, in December 
1995, a member of the McVeigh, defense 
team arranged for an interview with 
Strassmeir, who had left Elohim City in 
August and was living in Black Mountain, 
N.C 

During the interview, Strassmeir 
admitted several things of interest, 
including the unsettling fact that he had 
Timothy McVeigh's desert storm battle 
fatigues and had removed, then destroyed, 
the name tag stitched to the shirt 
immediately after learning of McVeigh's 
arrest. 

That interview persuaded McVeigh's 
investigator to track down Mahon. 

In mid-January 1996, the investigator 
met with Mahon at the office of a Tulsa 
attorney who represented the W.A.R. 
leader. 

On January 20, this reporter also 
contacted Mahon and established a time to 
meet the following day. 

The Interview 

Arriving at Mahon's residence that he 
shares with his twin brother, Dennis 
Mahon was first shown a newspaper 
popular among members of the Christian 
Identity religion, called Jubilee. 

A full-page ad was pointed out to 
Mahon that showed this reporter's 
photograph along with Aryan Nations guru 
and frequent Jubilee contributor, Louis 
Beam. Mahon was clearly impressed when 
it was explained that I would soon be 
visiting with Beam at Lake Tahoe where a 
conference was to be held. 

Next, Mahon was shown a letter from 
the Jones law firm, granting this reporter 
permission to meet with McVeigh at the El 

Reno federal prison, on Feb. 13, for a 
"special visitor" interview. 

Immediately, Mahon settled on his sofa 
and asked, "Why are journalists beginning 
to recognize and report that there are other 
persons involved in the bombing of the 
Murrah building?" 

Incredulous, he added, "For the longest 
time it seemed like everyone had walked 
away from that information, from that 
understanding, so why is this beginning 
again?" 

Ignoring the lack of response, Mahon 
said, "You have no idea how much trouble 
and negative reactions have resulted 
because the building was blown up during 
the day .. and with a day care center, no 
less ... Why wasn't the IRS building blown 
up at night?" 

Mahon's answer is summarized in a 
sealed deposition taken on March 26, 
1996: 

"And he (Mahon) indicated that the 
results of the bombing were not as he 
anticipated. He felt like this would cause a 
coming together of radicals around the 
country who would begin a campaign of 
terrorism. In retrospect, he feels like the 
IRS building should have been bombed 
instead of the Murrah building and 
probably should have been bombed at 
night. The day care center and the killing 
of children was having a negative effect...," 

With Mahon apparently believing that 
this reporter was connected to the neo-Nazi 
movement because of articles that had 
appeared in Jubilee, I predicted to him that 
McVeigh was going to "go down quietly" 
but suggested there was a very real 
problem. I then said that my information 
was that Strassmeir was suspected of being 
a German intelligence officer and still 
connected to the German military. 

Page 447 

Summarized in the deposition is 
Mahon's reaction to the news: 

"He went pale and screamed." 

What is not reflected in the deposition 
is the colorful and vivid account of the 
unforgettable (and comical) moment when 
Mahon hauled his giant frame from the 
sofa, then gazed at the ceiling and wailed, 
"Oh sweet Jesus, I'm f~!" 

Completely overwhelmed, Mahon next 
began pacing the room, shaking his head 
and saying, "I can't believe it... not Andy... 
God, no,... it can't be true!" 

As reported in the deposition, Mahon's 
next statements are noted: 

"He then within a few minutes started 
discussing how important it was to get a 
hold of Mark Thomas, who is an Aryan 
Nations official in Pennsylvania, and Mike 
Brescia, who at that time I understood was 
staying at Mark's farm, which is outside 
Philadelphia, Penn. 

"He indicated to me that they were 
deeply involved. He indicated that Mike 
Brescia was the person that we refer to as 
the pretty John Doe (No. 1) - the younger 
one with the pug nose that is in the sketch. 
I think there are two or three different 
sketches. He has all the features and so 
forth, he wanted even to show me a film 
with him on it but he was never able to 
find anything." 

Grabbing the phone, Mahon then 
nervously dialed. When a connection was 
made to Thomas' farm, he stuttered, "I am 
here with a friend of Louis Beam's and he 
says we've got real trouble... Strassmeir 
could be a snitch... he may be government! 
We need to come see you and Mike." 

Thomas was very upset that we were 
even having a conversation. He didn't 
understand why we were talking. But I 
asked if he had been at Elohim City about 

the time of the bombing. Thomas indicated 
he had been there the weekend before the 
bombing. 

I said, "Well, then you must have stayed 
for Snell's funeral (which occurred 
immediately after OKC bombing)." He got 
nervous. 

"No, no, I didn't stay for the funeral... 
let me talk to Dennis." 

Death Threat on Strassmeir 

Although his brother was periodically 
drifting in and out of the room, trying to 
allay Mahon's fears of impending doom, 
soon both were on the line with a person 
in Germany. 

The call is described in the deposition: 

"The gist of the conversation was they 
(Mahon and his brother, who was acting as 
interpreter) wanted Andreas Strassmeir 
checked out, they wanted to find out of 
Andreas Strassmeir could be an agent for 
the German government. They said that 
Andreas Strassmeir had once been a friend 
and once been a very good friend, but if it 
turned out that Andreas Strassmeir had 
double-crossed the, then he (Dennis) 
wanted to hold a 30-minute trial â€” Let me 
back up â€” He wanted Andreas shot in both 
kneecaps and a confession elicited from 
him, then hold a 30-minute trial and then 
execute him." 

Next, Mahon agreed to make a tape 
recording for McVeigh â€” and wanted me 
to take it to him in prison. 

On the tape, Mahon initially explains to 
McVeigh that I was a reporter for Jubilee. 
Then he adds, "Tim, I want to thank you 
for 'hanging-tough'" (jail-house slang for 
taking all the blame for a crime while not 
exposing any other participants). "I believe 
you are innocent because of entrapment. I 
believe you have been set-up! " 

Page 448 

Tapping McVeigh's "hot buttons," 
Mahon told McVeigh, "I do believe this 
government is the most evil government on 
the face, of this earth. I believe they 
massacred those people at Waco. I think 
every agent there should be tried for 
murder. I believe every agent at Ruby 
Ridge should be tried for accessory to 
murder. And I believe Horiuchi ... the 
HRT... sniper ... should be tried for 
murder." 

Twice near the end of the tape-recorded 
message, Mahon firmly reminds McVeigh 
to "hang-tough." Then Mahon urges him to 
"Remember all the 'good soldiers' who 
have fallen on the field of battle in their 
fight for the cause ... Justice will be done, 
Tim." 

Before concluding the interview, this 
reporter commented to Mahon, "There are 
people at Aryan Nations at Hayden Lake 
who have fingered you as being an 
important part of the conspiracy." 

The deposition details Mahon's shock: 

"That's why Metzger (head of W.A.R.) 
has cut me off." 

"What do you mean?" I asked. 

"Two weeks before, Metzger called me 
and he said, 'We will not have any more 
conversations, any contact, telephone or 
otherwise, until I let you know. You are 
hot right now." 

A Trip to the Mountains 

Several months passed before 
substantial contacts were made with Mahon 
again by this reporter. 

During the spring and summer of 1996, 
witnesses were located in Kansas and 
Oklahoma that had already told the FBI of 
McVeigh's associations with Michael 
Brescia and Andreas Strassmeir, thus 

Mahon's incredible admissions of Jan. 21 
had a ring of truth. 

Beginning with a mid-summer call from 
a victim in the bombing, asking for a 
meeting with Mahon, the shaken voice on 
the other end of the tape-recorded call 
asked, "Why?" 

When it was explained that the victim 
believed Mahon had important information 
concerning the bombing, he said, "You 
need to talk to Strassmeir, ... Andy knows, 
... Andy knows everything!" 

A few days after the call, this reporter 
began a regular dialogue with Mahon. 
During the course of the next several 
months, many hours of interviews were 
conducted in Tulsa, McCurtain County and 
over the phone. 

Much of the information imparted dealt 
with the activities of people who had 
moved in and out of Elohim City and the 
various criminal enterprises that took place 
there. 

The problem with such information, 
though, is that Mahon wafts between 
multiple personalities that occasionally 
spout pure fiction designed to disseminate 
disinformation or aggrandize his life's 
unusual accomplishments. â€ž^_ A 

But many pieces of Mahon's ^ 

information were checking out, so the ^-t â–  
dialogue was continued. In the early fall of\ 
1996, Mahon traveled from Tulsa in his / 
pickup-camper and stayed at my home iox^y 
three days. 1" 

During that period, Mahon appeared 
much more open, almost relieved to 
discuss various facts about the Aryan 
Republican Army and its members. 

Stark reality seemed to be having an 
effect on him, as the authorities had 
arrested four members of his gang for bank 
robbery and the arrests of two more 

Page 449 

alleged gang members, Mike Brescia and 
Mark Thomas, were on the horizon. 

But most alarming to Mahon was that 
one of the A.R.A. members, Kevin 
McCarthy, was cooperating with the 
authorities and another member, Richard 
Guthrie, had made a plea bargain and had 
made statements to authorities before being 
found hanged in his jail cell. Thus, by 
October, Mahon saw his world closing in. 

"Every day," Mahon told me, "the feds 
put another fence post around me.. It won't , 
be long before I go down with the rest of 
the guys." 

Sitting in my living room one evening, 
Mahon sipped 100 proof vodka and 
lamented, "When they arrest Mark Thomas 
... he'll rat me out first. I know him too 
well ... he's weak. Mark has a thing for 
young girls and he won't like spending the 
rest of his life locked up with a bunch of 
nigger boys." 

When asked if Thomas would implicate 
him in just the bank robberies, Mahon 
shook his head and said, "No ... he'll nail 
me for everything ... everything!" 

During the surreal and often comical 
three days the White Aryan Resistance 
leader spent in McCurtain County, the man 
listed by European authorities as an 
"international terrorist" took time out to 
defrost my refrigerator, clean two VCRs, 
replace some bumed-out light bulbs and 
intermittently complain about what a poor 
housekeeper I was. 

In the evenings we would take Jeep 
rides in the mountains, drinking beer while 
Mahon recounted various tales such as the 
favorite abortion clinic bombings he had 
conducted and the spectacular and 
ingenious plans he had worked out for an 
armored car heist. 

Mahon was in a word, reminiscent. And 
with most of his friends in jail or hiding 
out, lonely. 

Taken by the fall scenery, Mahon 
quickly fell in love with the lightly 
populated northern end of the county. 

"This is an Aryan paradise," he often 
commented. 

Pouring through several scrapbooks he 
had brought for me to see, the W.A.R. 
leader took time to explain the history of 
the Klan and Aryan Nations movement 
around the globe. His stories were detailed 
and enlightening. 

Letters from members of the neo-Nazi 
movement throughout the United States, 
Canada, Europe, South America, Australia 
and the Philippines established his 
international recognition and credentials. 

Often displaying photographs of the 
leaders of the various organizations, 
Mahon, sometimes near tears, described his 
association with various high-profile 
members of the movement that he used to 
meet with and scheme no telling what. 
Those were the heady days for the aspiring 
recalcitrant. 

In great detail, Mahon described how 
the leadership's tactics had evolved from 
marching around in robes and lighting 
crosses to today's underground cell 
structure which is far more violent and 
secretive. 

Clearly sensing the end of his freedom 
was imminent, Mahon hammered at a 
phrase that he wanted me to remember: 
"Revolutionaries are not bom ... they are 
made." 

Pushing across a copy of his resume, he 
explained, "I've served my country in the 
Navy and I've been to college. I've worked 
for all those airlines as a mechanic and I 

Page 450 

was about to be married to a girl when I 
got fired from Braniff Airlines in 1989." 

Elaborating, Mahon said, "I got fired 
because of my beliefs ... I know what it's 
like to be discriminated against because of 
what I am .. Like the nigger. I lost my girl 
and now I have no family ... nothing." 

Looking over the resume, Mahon listed 
employment with not only Braniff but also 
with TWA, Republic Airlines, Eastern and 
Boeing. 

Eventually, Mahon became more 
specific about his role with the A.R.A. and 
said that the Aryan Republican Army has a 
rebirth of the "Order" â€” a group and a 
theology his hero Bob Mathews had 
formed and died for more than a decade 
ago. 

Mahon's gang was made up of some 20 
or 21 persons, operating in cells of three to 
five, and the plan was as straightforward 
and violent as Mathews' was. 

Rob, pillage and murder in the name of 
the white race and the coming revolution. 

The nucleus of the group was formed 
around a bank robbery cell whose members 
were now rapidly ending up in prison. 

Eventually, Mahon admitted that the 
most noteworthy member of the A.R.A. 
was the young man, Timothy McVeigh. 

Mahon said that McVeigh, a former 
armored car driver, helped plan some of 
the bank heists. 

Incredibly, a few months later, Mahon's 
statements were borne out when this 
reporter discovered McVeigh's own sister 
on May 2, 1995, made a sworn statement 
to the FBI where she gave many of the 
same facts. 

In an eerie but frank conversation, 
Mahon described McVeigh as a "good 
soldier, who from the beginning wanted to 

be the fall guy in the bombing â€” securing 
his plate in history as a patriot hero." 

Then shown an artist's sketch done by 
ABC News of the person that a witness is 
Kansas said used the name of Bob King 
(the name used to rent the bomb-laden 
Ryder truck) and who accepted a carry-out 
food order at the same room rented to 
McVeigh at the Dreamland Motel, Mahon 
didn't hesitate, "That's Pete Ward." 

"Ward," Mahon explained, "was known 
at Elohim City as 'Andy's shadow' ... Ward 
went everywhere Strassmeir did and is 
dumb as dirt." 

Did PeteWard rent the Ryder truck in 
Junction City? 

"Well," Mahon smiled, "you know his 
brother, Tony, has a pocked complexion ... 
Maybe you ought to go to Belen, N.M., 
and get a picture of him, too." 

Who built the bomb? 

Looking over a series of photographs of 
the blown-out nine-story federal building, 
Mahon peered up, "I'll tell you who didn't 
build that bomb - Tim or Terry. Hell, 
they don't know the first thing about how 
to build what did this!" 

Finally, one day I told Mahon how I 
first learned of his relationship with 
McVeigh and another important tidbit. 

"Rev. Millar told me a year ago that 
you used to bring McVeigh down to 
Elohim City to use the gun range. He also 
told me on tape that Brescia helped with 
the Hot Springs gun robbery of Roger 
Moore..." 

"Oh, that son-of-a-bitch! ... That dumb 
son-of-a-bitch doesn't know when to keep 
his mouth shut!" 

Such is the stuff of Dennis Mahon. 

***** 

Page 451 

The Businessman Turned Journalist 

Thursday, April 3, 1997 - Newsday 
By Pete Bowles 

John David Cash HI, a pleasant, 
unassuming reporter whose resume as a 
journalist contains but one continuing 
story, has been discovered here in the 
southeast comer of Oklahoma in this small 
town which calls itself "Tree City USA." 
"It's our 15 minutes of fame," staffer 
Tisha Holladay said the other day when a 
television crew from "Good Morning 
America" showed up at the McCurtain 
Daily Gazette to interview (he 44-year-old 
Cash- 
Cash, a onetime Tulsa banker and 
businessman with no former experience as 
a reporter, has of late captured the 
attention of the national media for his 
series of articles in the Gazette, most of 
them controversial scoops, about the 
deadly bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building in Oklahoma City some 
225 miles and worlds apart from Idabel. 

A law-school graduate with time on his 
hands and money in the bank, Cash began 
his career as an investigative reporter for 
the Gazette less than two years ago, some 
10 days after the nation's most devastating 
terrorist attack. 

In brief, Cash says he believes the April 
19, 1995, bombing - which killed 168 
people and injured 500 â€” was the result of 
a tangled, massive conspiracy involving 
neo-Nazi white supremacists who planted 
the bomb and bungling federal agents who 
had prior knowledge of the blast but failed 
to stop it. He has told his readers that he 
believes that at least four persons in 
addition to the two arrested suspects 
participated in the delivery and ignition of 
the truck bomb. 

So far, it has taken him more than 65 
articles to tell his story of intrigue and 
cover-up. 

At first, his stories in the 6,500- 
circulation Gazette were largely ignored by 
the outside world. But recently, Cash and 
his exclusives have grabbed headlines - 
including one in The New Yorker entitled 
"Oklahoma Scoops." 

"It was rather discouraging," related â€¢â–  
Brad Reesing, the paper's sports editor. 
"Now we have media from all over the 
U.S., England and even Canada showing 
interest in his stories. It shocked people 
who thought, 'How can a paper with such 
a small circulation have any idea of what 
is going on?'" 

Although a number of Cash's. so-called 
scoops have been used by some of the 
country's major media outlets, including 
Time and ABC News, the government has 
denied most of his allegations. While 
conceding that many of his "major" articles 
have been accurate, a recent story in The 
Washington Post described Cash as a 
"conspiracy theorist." 

"He's been put there on the edge, and 
most of what he has said has been pretty 
damned good," Don Thrasher, a producer 
for ABC News' "20/20," told The Wall 
Street Journal. But several Oklahoma 
reporters contacted by Newsday who have 
covered the bombing story questioned his 
credibility and privately charged that he 
has gotten too involved with some of his 
sources. 

Reesing and his boss, editor and 
publisher Bruce Willingham, recalled the 

Page 452 

day the bearded stranger in blue jeans 
walked into the paper with a story he 
wanted published. The story, dully written 
and in a form more suitable for a legal 
brief, declared that the blast may have 
been caused by the illegal storage of 
explosives in the downtown federal 
building. 

"He just came out of the hills," Reesing 
said of Cash, who hails from Battiest, a 
mountain community 45 miles north of 
Idabel in an isolated region of McCurtain 
County. 

"I didn't know the guy from Adam, and 
I wasn't wild about carrying the story," 
said Willingham, the Gazette's former 
police reporter and a part-time chicken 
farmer who bought the paper in 1988. But 
after checking with some of his police 
sources and having rewrite man Jeff 
Holladay put it into English, Willingham 
decided to run Cash's story. 

"It wasn't well-written," Cash admitted 
with a smile. "It wasn't in the style that 
you write for in a newspaper." 

But the story, appearing for the first 
time anywhere - 15 days after the 
bombing â€” made the front page of the 
Gazette. 

"Secondary Explosion Revealed in 
Murrah Blast" proclaimed the banner 
headline. The story carried the byline of 
J.D. Cash. "I didn't want to mess up 
[singer] Johnny Cash," explained Cash. 

It and later stories won Cash the 
Oklahoma Society for Professional 
Journalists' top prize for investigative 
reporting in 1995, even though the second 
blast theory was later discredited. 

Readers in McCurtain County, 
population 34,000 and primarily noted as a 
timber and recreational area slightly larger 
than Rhode Island, also began to notice 

that the Gazette's area of coverage had 
expanded somewhat because of Cash and 
his unorthodox tactics. 

Before Cash, the Gazette's front page 
had been devoted exclusively to local news 
about such weighty matters as the company 
picnic at the Weyerhaeuser sawmill, the 
release of thousands of 7-inch-long 
German trout into the rapidly flowing 
Mountain Fork River, the deaths and births 
in the communities of Broken Bow, 
Eagletown, Moon, America and Iron Stobi 

"It proves to me somebody was on the 
ball on reporting that thing," 86-year-old 
Otis Hall, a retired Idabel real-estate agent 
and former head of the Board of Elections, 
said of the bombing story. "I think the 
whole thing was botched by the feds. His 
stories have brought Idabel a lot of 
recognition because they come here to see 
him and get his information. There is a lot 
of stuff coming out now." 

Among the "stuff that Cash reported in 
the Gazette was a series of stories last 
September that placed bombing suspect 
Timothy McVeigh in a Tulsa topless bar 
1 1 days before the explosion. According to 
a security videotape he says was given to 
him by the owner of the bar, a stripper 
remarked that day that she had met a 
"crazy guy" who told her that "on April 19, 
1995, you'll remember me for the rest of 
your life!" Cash said the dancer identified 
the man as McVeigh. 

In another bombshell last January, Cash 
and the Gazette reported that McVeigh's 
sister, Jennifer, had told FBI agents that 
her brother was part of a hate group that 
believed the government should be 
overthrown and that she had laundered 
stolen money for him. According to FBI 
documents published by the Gazette, 
Jennifer McVeigh said that her brother and 

Page 453 

his associates were involved in bank 
robberies, and Cash theorized the proceeds 
helped finance the bombing. 

His biggest "scoop" came Feb. 11, when 
Cash reported that Carol E. Howe, a 
former beauty queen, actress and award- 
winning jumper-horse competitor, had 
worked as a paid informant for the U.S. 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms . 
and had infiltrated Elohim City, a white- 
separatist compound near the Oklahoma- 
Arkansas state line. 

Cash reported that during a series of 
clandestine interviews, Howe told him that 
she warned ATF agents in the fall of 1994 
that Elohim City terrorists had targeted 
three Oklahoma federal buildings - 
including the Murrah building - for 
bombings. He also obtained telephone 
records showing that McVeigh had placed 
a call to Elohim City shortly before the 
bombing. 

During a length interview with a 
reporter at Tooties Restaurant in 
Hochatown â€” half-way between Idabel and 
his log cabin home in Battiest - Cash said 
he has no compunction about using deceit, 
trickery or cozy relationships in gathering 
information for his big story. 

The chain-smoking journalist, who 
drives a mud-covered Jeep on his ventures 
through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and 
Kansas, said that he often secretly records 
his meetings with a "wire" hidden in his 
ostrich-skin cowboy boots. He also has 
managed to ingratiate himself with law- 
enforcement sources, relatives of victims, 
purported eyewitnesses and neo-Nazi 
hatemohgers. 

He credited much of his success to 
Glenn and Kathy Wilburn of Oklahoma 
City, whose two grandsons, Chase and 
Colton Smith, were killed in the explosion. 
He said the couple introduced him to 

witnesses who were either afraid or 
unwilling to talk to reporters about what 
they had seen on the day of the bombing. 

He said he often lives with the 
Wilburns, and they have become good 
friends. "They bought me a cemetery plot 
with their family in Oklahoma City," said 
Cash. 

"Early on there weren't many people 
who would listen to us," said Kathy 
Wilburn, who worked at the IRS building 
and dropped her grandsons at the Murrah 
day-care center before the bomb went off. 
"John did, and he was sold on the facts we 
had gathered. John joined our team." 

She said she and her husband, an 
accountant, told Cash they strongly 
suspected that the government had prior 
knowledge of the bombing plot. With their 
assistance and using information gathered 
from witnesses and law-enforcement 
sources, Cash wrote that the blast came 
after a bungled sting operation during 
which federal agents planned to capture the 
bombers before they set off the bomb. 

"John has been ahead of everyone else," 
said Kathy Wilburn, one of 34 plaintiffs 
who recently filed a $850-million federal 
suit charging that federal agencies had 
prior knowledge of the bombing and did 
nothing to protect workers in the Murrah 
building. 

Federal officials refused to comment on 
Cash's allegations, but prosecutors 
previously have said they have no evidence 
that anyone other than McVeigh and co- 
defendant Terry Nichols were the main 
suspects in the bombing. The government 
has also denied that federal agents knew 
about the bombing in advance. 

"We can't talk about [Cash] or any of 
his theories," said Tom Hill, a spokesman 
for the ATF, which has been the focus of 

Page 454 

most of Cash's broadsides. "Anything that 
need to be said will be covered in the trial. 
That is the place it will all come out." 

Jury selection for the trial, being held in 
Denver, started Monday. 

Cash, a 1988 gradate of Tulsa 
University Law School who never took the 
bar exam, got into journalism by accident. 

He divorced in 1990 with no children, 
moved to Battiest in 1992 to look after his 
father, a retired oil man who had 
emphysema. He built his father a small log 
cabin and began writing a novel about 
missing Nazi gold in the last days of 
World War H. His father died Jan- 15, 
1995. Having enough money from his 
inheritance and real-estate days, Cash 
remained in Battiest, spending most of his 
time fishing and hunting. 

After the bombing, Cash followed 
events on his satellite-equipped television 
and soon learned that an attorney friend of 
his had been killed in the blast. "As I was 
watching the coverage on CNN, there were 
more and more things that bothered me," 
he said. 

One night over a beer, Cash said he told 
a friend: "If these reporters don't start 
asking the right questions I think I'll just 
pick up the phone and make a few calls 
and see what happens." 

From his own experience, Cash said he 
knew that law-enforcement people often 
stored ammunition, hand grenades and C-4 
explosives in arsenal rooms in federal 
buildings. He said a federal agency that 
leased space in a building he owned in 
Tulsa once asked him for permission to 
build a concrete-lined storage facility in the 
building to store explosives and that he 
rejected the plan as being illegal. 

Cash, from interviews with the fire 
marshal's office and others, ascertained that 

a box marked "high explosives" had been 
found shortly after the blast and removed 
by a police bomb squad. And he said a 
seismologist told him that a second blast - 
even more potent than the initial blast from 
the rental truck -had been recorded 10 to 
11 seconds later. 

Two months after the bombing, the U.S. 
Geological Survey dismissed the theory of 
two bombs, and Cash's source, 
geophysicist Raymon T. Brown of the 
Oklahoma Geological Survey, said his 
initial finding of a second event was 
wrong. And federal officials, though 
admitting that some firearms and 
ammunition had been stored in the 
building, insisted that the blast was caused 
by a single truck bomb and that none of 
the stored materials fed the explosion. 

But the Gazette continued to report that 
witnesses saw explosives - including a 
TOW anti-tank missile, hand grenades and 
cases of ammunition - being removed 
from the building after the blast. 

In addition to the Wilburiis - who gave 
him entree to the victims' relatives and 
some eyewitnesses to the blast - Cash fell 
into favor with Richard Reyna, a private 
investigator from Conroe, Texas, who was 
working for McVeigh's lawyer, Stephen 
Jones. 

Cash, who had sold a couple of his 
early stories to Jubilee, a far-right 
publication of the Christian Identity 
movement, and Reyna became good pals 
and often traveled together to various neo- 
Nazi centers, including Elohim City in 
eastern Oklahoma. 

Because of his articles in Jubilee - and 
his address to a Christian Identity 
conference in Lake Tahoe, Calif. - the 
militants of Elohim (a Hebrew word for 
God) welcomed Cash and his friend with 
open arms. "They thought I was a Nazi 

Page 455 

because I was working for Jubilee," said 
Cash. 

From his visit and information he 
picked up from confidential government 
records came a series of articles about 
Elohim City and what Cash believes was 
its involvement in the bombing. 

He said Elohim City's leader, the Rev. 
Robert G. Millar, a former Mennonite who 
brought his flock to the armed, all-white 
enclave 24 years ago, told him that 
McVeigh used to come (here to use the 
gun range. Cash said that a number of the 
separatists fled Elohim City shortly after 
the bombing because they feared McVeigh 
was talking. Millar has told reporters in the 
past that he has had no connection with the 
bombing. 

At one point, Millar offered to make 
Cash the president of Elohim City's all- 
white university, which has yet to be built. 
"At the time I thought, that is a crazy idea, 
they don't have the money for that," he 
said with a laugh. "But now I know they 
were just one armored-car robbery away 
from having the endowment." 

"He has taken some real chances, and I 
have a real concern for him" said Gazette 
publisher Willingham. "He is working on 
another story about Elohim City now and I 
am afraid might get him killed. I don't 
want to have to write his obituary. There 
are some real crazy people involved." 

His competitors on the bombing story 
are somewhat skeptical. "J.D. has picked 
up on the more bizarre theories in the 
case," said an Oklahoma City reporter who 
did not want to be identified. "Anyone who 
sees his stuff sees that it is far afield. But 
the problem is he mixes some wheat with 
the chaff." 

"He's always been a mystery to me," 
said a Tulsa reporter who refuses to be , 
identified. "He says he is not the 
alternative press but that he is not guided 
by the same restraints as the mainstream 
press. He is on target a lot of the time, but 
there are a few instances where he is not. 
When he has the documents, which he has 
extraordinary access to, those articles are 
credible. But I have parted ways with him 
and I get nervous about his 'prior 
knowledge of the ATF' material. 

"Obviously he has some good law- 
enforcement sources, because he has gotten 
documents that are pretty good," the 
reporter added. "But he will run you down 
a lot of rabbit holes. I always listen to him, 
but I would never use his stuff. I must 
admit, however, that he has given me 
tremendous guidance." 

Not everyone in Idabel - population 
7,000 and named for two Choctaw sisters 
whose father once owned the land - has 
embraced Cadi's theories. 

"I read his stories and I look the other 
way," said City Councilman Jack (Bull 
Dog) Griffin, who farms a large tract of 
bottom land near the Red River. "I don't 
have time to worry about these neo-Nazis 
and Skinheads he writes about. My feet are 
planted in the bottom, and all I worry 
about is the good Lord lifting me out of 
this mud." 

As for his critics, Cash - sipping on a 
Bloody Mary at Tooties â€” said 
(paraphrasing) that they can take a flying 
leap to the moon. 

"The only thing I have done is just work 
on one story," he said. "And if anybody 
else had worked on only one story for 22 
months, they would have had this thing 
bagged a year ago, I guarantee you. It has 
taken me probably twice as long s what it 

Page 456 

would have taken for somebody who is 
really good at this stuff. It is just that I 
have been given the luxury of working on 
nothing else but this one deal." 

Cash, who writes his stories on a 
computer in his log cabin, said most of his 
focus has been on witnesses. "I don't really 
care what [McVeigh attorney] Stephen 
Jones tells me, and I don't really care what 
the U.S. attorney's office tells me. I am 
strictly interested in what witnesses and so 
forth tell me. 

"I don't have ... an agenda," he said. "A 
lot of my stuff has held Jones, and if the 
FBI gave a damn about arresting anybody, 
it would help them, too. 

As for those who charge that Cash has 
gotten too cozy with sources such as the 
Wilburns, Cash said, "I sleep in a room [at 
the Wilburns' home] with dead babies' 
pictures on the wall. If that doesn't sway 
you, nothing will. I am touched to the very 
bottom of my heart. What I am doing is 
for those babies and everyone else who has 
been hurt by this bombing. 

Willingham said he has no problems 
with Cash's close relationship with the 
Wilburns or his tactics. "He is conducting a 
champagne investigation on a beer budget, 
and he says with the Wilburns," he said. 
"Sure, they use each other. But the 
Wilburns are the reasons he has been able 
to get a lot of his interviews." 

He also praised Cash, whom he 
described as a "maverick," for his well- 
documented reporting and resourcefulness. 
"He has brought the paper a lot of 
recognition, both good and bad. But he 
carried these stories because no one else 
would." 

As Cash was being interviewed last 
Tuesday by ABC's Shoreen Maghame for 

"Good Morning America," Joyce 
Mastrobuoni of DeQueen, Ark., walked 
into the Gazette building on South Central 
Street with a pot of tulips and announced: 
"We just brought this to J.D. Cash. We just 
wanted to show our appreciation." She said 
she had heard about Cash on "Geraldo." 

Mastrobuoni, accompanied by her niece 
and two toddlers, called Cash a "patriotic 
rarity." Receptionist Brenda Sorrels said if 
Mastrobuoni would wait a minute, she 
could see Cash in person. When he 
appeared, Mastrobuoni said: "If you ever 
need any patriotic help, call me." Thanking 
her for the tulips â€” "you're the first lady to 
bring me flowers" - Cash said, "That's our 
job, to watch the government." 

The next day, Cash invited a reporter to 
his mountain hideaway on the condition 
that its exact location be kept secret for 
"security reasons." It sits in the midst of 
the Ouachita National Forest and 
McCurtain County Wilderness Area. 

Cash's cabin is nestled among some 
pine trees several miles from Battiest â€” 
which is only a store, a school and post 
office â€” ' and is surrounded by grazing 
cattle from a neighboring farm. "I let them 
in here to keep my grass down," he 
explained. 

The two-room cabin, which Cash said 
he built by following the directions of a 
how-to book, is decorated with several 
deer heads, a stuffed wild turkey and a 
wild boar's head. Four pairs of cowboy 
boots sit inside the front door, along with a 
holstered six-shooter and a rifle. On the 
dining room table â€” a foot from his bed â€” 
are his word processor, printer and files. 
Over his bed hangs a double-barreled 
shotgun. 

Page 457 

After showing the visitor dozens of 
loose-leaf binders filled with government 
documents, phone records and court 
deppsitions and a locked security box 
containing hundreds of microcassettes of 
his interviews, Cash freely discussed his 
methods of fact-gathering. 

"In my dealings with the people I think 
are involved in the bombing, I've used 
hidden wires. I have played to their beliefs. 
I have used the contacts I have in the neo- 
Nazi movement. And, short of actually 
torture, I have probably used every method 
conceivable in order to get at the truth. 
Clearly, when you are dealing with people 
at Elohim City, which is almost a mind- 
control atmosphere under the Millar 
family, it is excruciating. Often times I go 
out there and spend eight hours and get 

one sentence of what I thought was the 
truth." 

Several attempts to reach Millar for a 
comment were unsuccessful. 

Actually, Cash does not go to Elohim 
City anyniore. After several of his articles 
appeared, his cover was blown. But he 
remains in pursuit of this story. 

"When you thing about the mass murder 
on this scale, if there was ever anything 
that was worth the effort, it is this one," he 
said. "This isn't a used car dealer we are 
setting up. These people can bomb again." 

On seeing the visitor out, Cash summed 
up his thoughts on his work as a roving 
reporter for the Gazette. "I just hope that 
when this is all over I am right," he said 
with a nervous laugh. "At least on the 
major things." 

***** 

Strassmeir Helped Fortify, Arm Elohim City Bunkers 
Prosecutor's Claim He Wasn't Suspect Doesn't Square 
With Documents 

Sunday, April 13, 1997 -McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

Who is "Andy the German"? 

More than a year has passed since that 
question was first raised by this newspaper, 
and the answer remains as murky as the 
Rhine River in spring. 

Believed to be living in seclusion now 
at his family's fashionable home in 
Nassauische Street in the elegant 
Wilmersdorf section of Berlin, Andreas 
Carl Strassmeir, 37, remains the epitome of 

the Churchilllian epigram - "a riddle, 
wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." 

Linked by the media to neo-Nazi 
elements in the U.S., this is an unfamiliar 
and embarrassing situation for the eldest 
son of one of Germany's most respected 
and politically influential families. 

"Andy the German's" father is Guenther 
Strassmeir, an experienced politician who ( 

Page 458 

escaped from communist-occupied East 
Germany after World War n and made his 
way to the top rungs of West Germany's 
mainstream, CDU political party. 

Recently retired from official posts, the 
elder Strassmeir served 23 years in the 
parliament, but is best remembered as the 
architect of the reunification of the divided 
Germanies. It was a tedious and historic 
process he oversaw while serving as 
Parliamentary Secretary of State 'to the 
chancellor in Berlin. 

Another well-known member of the 
family is Andreas' younger brother, 
Alexander, who currently serves as a 
representative on Berlin's elected council. 

But a recent barrage of negative 
publicity in the German fttedia has caused 
an uproar in Berlin that now threatens the 
family's good name. 

With unusual ferocity, the media is 
focusing on the eldest son of the 
Strassmeir clan, raising serious questions 
about rumors that "Andy the German" is a 
neo-Nazi - an accusation that carried a 
particular taint in modem Germany. 

After years of slinking in the shadows 
of the borderless terrorist underground, 
Andreas Strassmeir has suddenly come 
under the bright media spotlight 
surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing 
trial of Timothy McVeigh. 

The uproar is partly the result of 
documents being released that reflect 
statements made by gpvernmeht informant 
Carol Howe â€” who claims that Strassmeir 
and flamboyant American revolutionary 
Dennis Mahon promoted and planned the 
Oklahoma City bombing but somehow 
walked away unscathed. 

Then there are all the witnesses in 
Kansas and Oklahoma who have placed 
Strassmeir with McVeigh in the years and 

days leading up to America's most 
devastating act of terrorism. 

And if those allegations aren't 
tantalizing enough, it gets more exotic. 

The politically $tout Strassmeir dynasty 
is now having to deal with yet another 
emerging scandal. 

That latest involves the eldest son's stint 
at a very strange place called Elohim City 
in far eastern Oklahoma near the Arkansas 
state line. It was there that members of a 
ragtag band of neo-Nazi bank robbers, 
dubbed the Aryan Republican Army, 
bunked with this son of Germany's power 
elite. 

The Machiavellian picture includes such 
oddball figures as "Commander Pedro," a 
self-styled revolutionary and cross-dressing 
pre-operative transsexual whom "special 
friends" call Donna. 

Leaving lifestyle behind, Commander 
Pedro managed to lead a tiny army of 
societal misfits on a two-year crime binge, 
successfully looting over $250,000 from 
some 22 banks in seven Midwestern states 
without a single crime scene arrest or 
fatality. And the scheme was as perverse 
as its leadership â€” finance the overthrow 
of the federal establishment and create an 
Aryan paradise of Third Reich vintage. 

Certain to add to the Strassmeir family 
horrors are FBI documents obtained by die 
media, spelling out "Andy the German's" 
direct involvement in training the far-right 
group. 

Add to this bizarre picture (which even 
the National Enquirer would find hard to 
embellish) documents reviewed by the 
Gazette clearly establish that, in spite of 
the Aryan Republican Army's connections 
to Andreas Strassmeir, he has thus far been 
"untouchable" by the FBI. 

Page 459 

A source close to the turmoil describes 
Strassmeir's Justice Department file as "a 
white-hot skillet." 

So is Strassmeir somebody's undercover 
agent, perhaps someone who is part of an 
elaborate sting operation that included a 
string of bank robberies to finance a 
terrorist operation that eventually resulted 
in 168 murders in Oklahoma City? 

Or, is Andy the German just a run-amok 
rebel from a wealthy and power family 
whose political stroke is so potent that it 
can blunt the force of the U.S. Justice 
Department? 

Or .. is he both? 

ieJcic 

On Feb. 4, 1996, the Gazette wrote a 
detailed account enlisting phone records 
associated with Timothy McVeigh and 
Terry Nichols. 

In that exclusive story the Gazette 
revealed that it was Strassmeir, Elohim 
City's security adviser, that Oklahoma City 
bombing defendant Timothy McVeigh 
made a phone call to only seconds after 
calling a Ryder truck rental agency in 
Arizona. 

The person who took the call for 
Strassmeir later told the FBI that 
McVeigh's message was simply, "Tell 
Andy, I'll be visiting soon." 

In subsequent stories, the newspaper 
presented eyewitness accounts linking the 
mysterious German tourist to Timothy 
McVeigh and a whole host of figures who 
are part of a violent fringe element made 
up of Aryan Nation and White Aryan 
Resistance members. 

Identified as a person suspected in 
engaging in terrorism, State Department 
documents obtained by the Gazette reflect 

that Andreas Carl Strassmeir has been 
banned from the United States. 

Other documents show that, before the 
bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal 
building, Strassmeir was under 
investigation for various illegal activities - 
including firearms and explosives 
violations. 

Such evidence is contained in 
government documents outlining plans in 
February of 1995 for Strassmeir's imminent 
arrest by agents of the Tulsa office of the 
BATF. 

For reasons yet to be explained, that 
arrest -planned for two months before the 
Oklahoma City bombing â€” was postponed, 
and in the wake of the bombing, 
apparently scrubbed. 

The Gazette has also located evidence 
that Strassmeir was immediately fingered 
as a suspect in the Oklahoma City 
bombing case, but was inexplicably 
allowed to live in this country illegally for 
nine months following the tragedy, without 
being interviewed by the FBI. 

Adding to this suspicious picture, the 
Gazette has found that authorities only 
notified Immigration and Naturalization 
Service (INS) agents that Strassmeir was 
wanted for questioning in the Oklahoma 
City bombing after the subject had slipped 
into Mexico and made his way back to 
Berlin. 

This newspaper also obtained a letter 
from Strassmeir's attorney, where he says 
his client's sudden departure from the U.S. 
was aided by members of Germany's elite 
counterterrorism unit, GSG-9. 

Equally difficult to fathom are 
documents indicating that officials at the 
INS quickly cancelled the FBI's notice to 
detain Strassmeir, once the INS determined 
that the subject was back in Berlin. 

Page 460 

And if this picture is not strange 
enough, sources indicate that the U.S. 
Department of State will not help FBI 
agents get Germany's cooperation sd they 
can question Strassmeir about members of 
the Aryan Republican Army bank robbery 
gang that operated out of his residence in 
Oklahoma. 

Coming to America 

While an officer in the Bundeswehr 
(German army), assigned to the Panzer 
Greadiers, Lt. Strassmeir began making a 
series of visits to the United States. 

From Jun 18, 1988 until May 2, 1991, 
the Non-immigrant Information System 
(NIIS) maintained by the INS in Dallas, 
reflects he made a total of five visits to the 
U.S. 

Making entries through Boston, Mass. 
(6/88), Washington, D.C. (4/89), Laredo, 
Texas (4/90), and New York City (1/90 
and 5/91), NHS computers indicate that 
Strassmeir's initial visits are as a "tourist." 

Strassmeir's attorney, Kirk Lyons, said 
in a Jan. 22, 1996 interview that Strassmeir 
began visiting the U.S. as a tourist in order 
to participate in various civil war re- 
enactments. 

Lyons said that the multi-lingual 
Strassmeir received advanced training at a 
military officer's school in Hamburg, 
Germany, but got fed up with the 
regimented atmosphere of the military and 
ended his seven years of service to the 
Bundeswehr in 1989. 

While Lyons believes his client received 
little or no intelligence training in the 
service, he also said that Strassmeir's real 
interests in being in the U.S. was so he 
could meet American girls and eventually 
settle down. 

But those statements do not jibe with 
excerpts from interviews appearing in the 

May 19, 1996 edition of the London 
Sunday Telegraph. 

Ambrose Evans-Prichard wrote, 
"Strassmeir says that he has received 
military intelligence training. Part of his 
work was to detect infiltration by Warsaw 
Pact agents, he explained, and then feed 
them disinformation." 

Referring to his goals in the United 
States, the Telegraph quotes Strassmeir: "I 
discussed a job while I was in Washington, 
D.C. I was hoping to work for the 
operations section of the DEA ... It never 
worked out." 

Indeed, on Feb. 28, 1992, Strassmeir 
was stopped by the Oklahoma Highway 
Patrol and a subsequent inventory of a 
briefcase found in the vehicle disclosed a 
variety of government documents in 
English and German. 

Among the documents catalogued by 
the suspicious troopers were government 
forms Strassmeir had filled out, applying 
for work at the INS and DEA. 

In an interview with Kirk Lyons on 
May 3, 1996, the lawyer first commented 
on a question regarding Strassmeir's 
possible role as an undercover agent, 
saying, "I think it's kinda silly that anyone 
would think that Andy would work with 
the feds in the first place." 

After telling Lyons that this newspaper 
was aware of the documents found in 
Strassmeir's vehicle, the lawyer reversed 
himself and conceded that he and a retired 
Air Force intelligence specialist, Col. 
Vincent Petruskie, tried to get Strassmeir 
jobs with federal law-enforcement in 1989. 

"They just weren't looking for members 
of Germany armed forces to work at DEA 
or INS," Lyons said. "Col. Petruskie 
couldn't do anything with him or for him... 
Strassmeir had no green card (work 

Page 461 

permit). So, Andy decided to finish up his 
toiir in the army. And so he came to 
Houston and I took him in." 

Green card or not, according to Dallas 
INS records, when Strassmeir's visas were 
issued for his last two known entries to the 
United States, his classification was listed 
as a person approved to perform work in 
the U.S. 

Also in the Telegraph interview, 
Strassmeir says he settled in Texas in 1991 
and began working as a computer 
salesman. 

And according to a pair of former 
members of a group called the Texas Light 
Infantry (TLI) ~ a mish-mash of civil war 
reenactors and survivalists - Strassmeir '. 
may have landed that government job, after , 
all. 

Interviewed independently, both men 
told similar stories about their recollections 
of Strassmeir. 

Speaking oil the condition of anonymity, 
they vividly recalled Strassmeir attending 
their meetings and soon the members 
began to suspect something unusual. 

Excerpts from a tape-recorded interview 
with one of the men was published by the 
Gazette on July 14, 1996. 

"Strassmeir set me up and ruined my 
life," said the former member. Explaining, 
"Andy had been coming to our meetings 
and by July of '91, my life and freedom 
were in danger because of Strassmeir!" 

Detailing concerns about the German, 
he said, "Some of the members followed 
Strassmeir at night. We were suspicious of 
him and who he really was...He told us he 
was wanted by the Immigration Service 
because he said he was here 
illegally...Once we followed him to a 
federal building and watched him enter at 
night using a coded key pad...That f s when 

we knew he was some kind of government 
agent." 

Quickly the information was circulated 
to other members of the group. Strassmeir 
was told to stop coming to the meetings. 

"After that," the man explained, "all hell 
broke loose. The ATF set me up on two 
occasions. And some of the other guys 
were set up, too. Finally, I took off." 

Kirk Lyons says that Strassmeir's next 
stop was Elohim City. 

"I'm the reason that Andy was at 
Elohim City. I put him there," said Lyons. 
"So if there was a plan...I guess I'm part of 
it" 

Lyons said that since Strassmeir had no 
work permit, the attorney "had to find a 
place for Andy where he could live off the 
land." 

"We asked Millar to take him in," Lyons 
recalls. "They had an agriculturally based 
economy community out there. And there 
would be a way for Andy to live and 
prosper without violating any immigration 
laws. That's why we put Andy out there." 

But Zara Patterson HI, one of the elders 
at Elohim City, summed up Strassmeir's 
intentions differently. &gt; 

"From the moment Andy got here, (mid- 
August 1991) all he wanted us to do was 
illegal stuff. I had to keep telling Andy 
that we were defensive here,...not 
offensive. I had to keep telling him that we 
didn't want any trouble with the feds." 

Rev. Millar also recalled the problems 
with Strassmeir. 

"Andy wanted us to get into the illegal 
gun business, and when I found out about 
it, I put a stop to is." 

Really? 

Doin' The Oklahoma Goosestep 

Page 462 

In February of 1992, state troopers set 
up a roadblock near the entrance to Elohim 
City. The purpose was to check for 
required documents such as drivers' 
licenses, tags and proofs of insurance. 
Strassmeir was among those stopped. 

But interviewed later* one of the 
troopers said Strassmeir fooled hira. 

"There were two men in the vehicle. 
The driver as it turns out was Strassmeir, 
but he gave me his buddy's name, Pete 
Ward. And that is how I wrote him up." 

Cited for not displaying an Oklahoma 
tag, and failing to carry a valid driver's 
license, the ticket indicates it was issued to 
Peter Nelson Leslie Ward Jr., with a date 
of birth, 2/18/68. 

But Ward's Oklahoma driver's license 
shows his date of birth as 12/30/68. * 

Another tell-tale clue of the apparent 
forgery is reflected on the signature line of 
the citation where "Jr." preceded Ward. 

While Strassmeir was apparently able to 
fool the troopers as to his true identity for 
a time, still his car was impounded 
pending a resolution of the charges. And 
inside the vehicle was a briefcase that had 
caught the trooper's attention. 

Wrecker driver Kenny Pence of 
Muldrow remembers the event vividly. 

"That guy was some kind of weird 
cookie," said Pence. "I tell ya the next day 
- after I locked his car up in my yard - I 
started gettin' calls from all over the 
place." 

Pense recounted the series of events, 
"Some high-powered lawyer in Houston 
called. Some general or major or somethin' 
in the Carolinas called. The governor's 
office called. The district office for the 
Highway Patrol called. And then someone 
at the State Department called." 

It seemed that whoever owned the faded 
red '83 Chevrolet wagon was important. 
"You bet," said Pence. "Everyone was 
telling me to turn that car back and give 
those papers back to that boy and don't 
charge him nothin'. They all kept telling 
me this was the big-big boo-boo. And the 
guy at the State Department said this boy 
had immunity or something. You know, he 
was some kinda diplomat. 

"That general in the Carolinas wanted to 
know about the briefcase. Heck, you 
know... those troopers inventoried it all... but 
those folks were sure worried about what 
was in there." 

Pence added sardonically, "Man I 
couldn't get that car out of here fast 
enough. And when that nut showed up to 
pick up his car, he got real upset when he 
saw that the briefcase had been gone 
through. He settled down in a while and 
said, 'Well, no one will be able to 
understand what these are, anyway.'" 

After the incident, Strassmeir apparently 
decided he needed a valid driver's license. 
But the problem was, he was now 
considered an illegal alien because he had 
overstayed his visa. 

How the problem was skirted is 
unknown. But in 1992, Strassmeir was able 
to obtain a valid Social Security number. 

Then on August 28, 1992, he was 
issued a driver's license from Tennessee, 
complete with photo, accurate physical 
description and date of birth. 

Armed with legitimate identification, 
Strassmeir began traveling the gun show 
circuit, buying fatigues, firearms and 
assorted types of survivalist gear. 

Elohim City residents interviewed by 
the Gazette say he also set into motion a 
strict training regimen for the natives. 

Page 463 

"I never saw anyone so eaten up with 
the military stuff as Andy was," recalled 

Zara Patterson HI. "I was in the marines, 
but Andy was like nothing I ever saw 
before. He said he wanted to take over 
security and training here at EC, and I said 
fine. It was one less headache for me." 

According to an FBI intelligence report, 
Strassmeir's years at Elohim City were 
spent setting up and operating a terrorist 
training facility. 

A May 10, 1995 FBI investigative 
report says: 

"Strassmeir is alleged to be a German 
citizen whose father was a former member 
of the German parliament. Strassmeir was 
a member of the German military and 
according to sources the principal militia 
trainer at Elohim City. 

"Strassmeir has an outstanding federal 
warrant issued by the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service (INS) since failing 
to leave this country in 1991. 

"Strassmeir is alleged to train platoon- 
sized groups consisting of approximately 
30 to 40 individuals approximately every 
three months at the Elohim City facility. 
These individuals are comprised of 
members of various militia groups 
throughout the United States. 

"Additional documents reveal that at 
one time Strassmeir was attempting to 
purchase a 747 aircraft from Luthansa; 
however, the reason for the purchase is not 
reflected in the documents. 

"Sources have advised that in 1992 
Elohim City had approximately 122 truck 
loads of concrete transported from a local 
concrete company. Sources have indicated 
the existence of 'bunkers' and weapon 
storage facilities at Elohim City." 

In a Jan. 2, 1996 interview, Strassmeir 
admits to upgrading the Elohim City 
arsenal. ' 

"They're pretty fully equipped over 
there (Elohim City) and I can take credit 
for that," he said. "They never even had 
any real weapons there until after Waco 
(1993). The whole response was to 
Waco... they thought they were going to be 
targeted. 

Strassmeir said young men at the 
compound approached him, and he 
suggested they replace with lever-action 
Winchesters with automatic, magazine-type 
weapons. 

Carol Howe's statements following the 
Oklahoma City bombing seem to bolster 
the reports that the arsenal was fortified. 
She told BATF agents that Elohim City 
was an impenetrable camp by that time. 

Reflected in government insert No. 427 
and dated April 21, 1995, Howe recapped 
her earlier reports to Special Agents 
Angela Finley and James R. Blanchard, 
reminding them that Elohim City had 308 
rifles, including fully automatic weapons 
such as MAC-90s. 

But months prior to the bombing, 
allegations involving Strassmeir's 
reputation for converting legal semi- 
automatic firearms into fully automatic 
machine-guns, and his expertise with 
explosives, had already corns to the 
attention of the Tulsa office of the BATF. 

During interviews this newspaper 
conducted with Howe, she said Strassmeir 
was a principal target of the Tulsa BATF 
office. 

"All Andy ever wanted to do was blow 
up federal buildings," she said. 

Recalling her work for SA Finley, 
which included the use of a hidden camera 
the agent had help Ms. Howe set up in her 

Page 464 

apartment, Carol said "Finley wanted me to 
get Strassmeir on film handling grenades. I 
invited him over and he brought two other 
guys...It was in the fall of 1994. In no time 
I had them all painting hand grenades in 
front of the camera. Later I turned the film 
over to Angie." 

The BATF's plans for a pre-bombing 
arrest of Strassmeir is further evidenced in 
a memo signed by an investigative agent 
for the Dallas INS office. 

"SA Angela Finley, ATF from Tulsa 
called regarding the attached individual. 
They have an on-going investigation on 
him which she described as 'sensitive' for 
an unknown reason. He's buying guns but 
that's all she said. I found the non- 
immigrant record on him but no LPR 
status. She said he lives out in the boonies 
in eastern Oklahoma. They plan to charge 
him with 922(g) but needed evidence that 
he is here illegally. I have ordered a 
certificate of non-existence of lawful 
permanent residence from HQ which will 
take 6-8 weeks. I had it sent to Dallas and 
I'll forward it to you when I get it. Angela 
also wanted to know if an INS agent could 
go with them when they arrest him. I told 
her to contact you." 

Responding to the memo, on Feb. 16, 
1995, the Chief Records Operations officer 
with the INS said there was no evidence 
Strassmeir had been lawfully admitted to 
the country as an immigrant (his status at 
this time was an illegal non-immigrant who 
had overstayed his visa). 

Immediately after the certificate was 
issued to the authorities, Finley contacted 
the Highway Patrol and put them on alert 
to pick up Strassmeir, saying the ATF 
would handle the matter once he was in 
custody. 

The reason for the BATF's failure to 
arrest Strassmeir before the Oklahoma City 
bombing is not known and the agency 
declines comment. 

However, in the hours after the 
bombing, Howe was debriefed by the 
agency and eventually agreed to return to 
Elohim City and locate Strassmeir and his 
friend, Dennis Mahon. 

During this same time, an agent for the 
Diplomatic Security Service of the State 
Department began making inquiries into 
the subject, as well. 

In a State Department cable dated April 
28, 1995 sent to the Secretary of State in 
Washington, D.C. from the U.S. Embassy 
in Bonn, Germany, Strassmeir is referred 
to as a "subject of investigation" in the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Contained within that priority cable are 
statements by a foreign attache 
acknowledging a request for information 
received the day prior, from Special Agent 
Hudspeth in Oklahoma City. 

That April 28 cable provided 
information from several German law 
enforcement data bases concerning 
Strassmeir's travels and history and 
promised to obtain and transmit the 
subject's military records when they were 
received. 

This evidence that Strassmeir was a 
subject of investigation in the bombing is 
clearly at odds with numerous statements 
made by a special prosecutor in the 
McVeigh case. 

Beth Wilkerson has consistently told the 
court that Strassmeir and Mahon have 
never been subjects of investigation in the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

This is important because, for well over 
a year, McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, 
has been asking Judge Matsch to get the 

Page 465 

Justice Department to turn over 
information on Strassmeir and Mahon 
which he alleges could help clear 
McVeigh. 

Under federal rules in a criminal case, 
the government is responsible for handing 
over to the defense any evidence it has 
which might tend to prove the innocence 
or mitigate the guilt of the defendant. 

Should evidence be discovered after a 
conviction of the defendant that Strassmeir 
or Mahon were government informants 
monitoring the conspiracy, or were 
involved in the bombing, then a new trial 
might be ordered as a result of such 
information being withheld. 

In McVeigh's case, such a ruling could 
amount to millions of dollars in expense to 
the taxpayers and added misery to the large 
number of survivors and victims of the 
bombing that are seeking closure in the 
tragedy. 

Indicating concern with such an 
eventuality, Jones sought a stay in the trial 
until the government produces evidence 
that he believes is being hidden. 

In that document, Jones alleges that 
Carol Howe, a BATF informant, warned 
that "Strassmeir talked frequently about 
direct action against the U.S. government, 
he trained in weaponry, and he discussed 
assassinations, bombings and mass 
shootings." 

Jones claims that based on that and 
other evidence, "The defense has made a 
sufficient showing thqt there is a high 
probability, certainly at least a high 
possibility that Mahojt and Strassmeir are 
part of a conspiracy that planned to bomb 
federal buildings, and may in fact been 
part of the conspiracy to bomb the Murrah 
Building." 

Calling allegations that there could be 
others involved in the bombing outrageous 

and unsupportable, Special Prosecutor, 
Beth Wilkerson, defended Strassmeir and 
even described the man listed by the State 
Department as an armed and dangerous 
terrorist as "A mere wisp of wind." 

Wilkerson also told Judge Matsch that 
Howe's information about Strassmeir was 
"unreliable" and that she had to be fired by 
the BATF because she was "mentally 
unstable." 

However, a May '95 BATF report is 
clearly at odds with Wilkerson's 
statements. 

The Big Secret 

A May 31, 1995 BATF status report 
marked "SENSITIVE", TERRORIST - 
EXTREMISTS, prepared for the Special 
Agent in charge of the Dallas field 
division, refers to an ongoing probe into 
firearms and explosives violations by a 
group called White Aryan Resistance 
(W.A.R.), (Mahon heads the group in 
Oklahoma, which Strassmeir trained at 
ElohimCity). 

The body of the BATF status report 
focuses on Howe's progress in the bombing 
investigation. 

"Confidential Informant (CI) and Mahon 
met on April 29th and discussed alibis for 
April 19, 1995 and the components of the 
explosives." 

"CI says that Mahon said a man familiar 
with explosives was in Illinois. Mahon 
mentions the man's name as Pierson. 
However, the CI says Mahon was not sure 
â€” he has trouble remembering names and 
that Mahon could have been referring to 
Paulson (A person whose name was on a 
business* card in McVeigh's possession 
when he was arrested)." 

Referring to a May 3 debriefing of 
Howe, the report states: 

Page 466 

"CI stated that while she was inside 
Elohim City for three days (immediately 
prior to debriefing) she spoke with an 
individual who said, "There is a big secret 
out here.' 

"CI described meetings she had with 
persons at Elohim City and said they were 
'supportive of the bombing." 1 

Noted in the report is a subsequent 
meeting with Howe on May 13, where 
agent Finley asks Howe to return to 
Elohim City to find out "What the big 
secret is and determine the identity of 
Suspect No. 2." 

However, on May 22, Howe contacted 
Finley and said she had just been warned 
by a subject, "That she had better not 
return to Elohim City, again." 

"On May 24, this agent was informed 
by RAC David Roberts (Tulsa BATF 
office supervisor) that Rev. Millar 
suspected CI of being a confidential 
informant. It was determined that CI would 
not be sent to Elohim City at this time or 
in the future. 

There's No Place Like Home 

By May 24, 1995, Strassmeir had 
returned to Elohim City and was caught on 
film by television crews. 

The press had descended in mass 
because of a leak that the FBI had learned 
of a phone call made by McVeigh to 
Elohim City â€” just days before the 
bombing. 

In a fantastic defense of his ignorance 
of the whole situation, Rev. Millar 
promised the world that McVeigh had 
never called the compound. And certainly 
no one at the compound knew Tim 
McVeigh. 

With a shrug, the press wandered away 
satisfied. 

Later, Millar told the Gazette and the 
FBI that certain folks' memories began to 
improve once an investigator working for 
McVeigh showed up at Elohim City, in 
August of 1995. 

And it was also about this time that the 
population of the compound began to 
shrink. 

Noted in a confidential FBI report, a 
law-enforcement source told the Bureau 
that on or about August 27, 1995, 
Strassmeir and his sidekick, Pete Ward, 
took off for southwest Missouri. 

The government also alleges in a federal 
indictment that three other ARA members 
from Elohim City - Kevin McCarthy and 
Michael Brescia, Mark Stedeford â€” made a 
foray up to Madison, Wis. and robbed a 
bank there on Aug. 30, 1995. 

Shortly afterwards, McCarthy and 
Stedeford moved to Pennsylvania and 
Brescia followed after a brief stay with a 
friend near Ft. Smith, Ark. 

In December 1995, an investigator { 
working for the McVeigh defense team 
contacted Kirk Lyons at his North Carolina 
law office and set up an interview with his 
client. 

During the interview, Strassmeir said 
only that he had met McVeigh once at a 
gun show in Tulsa, in 1993. He couldn't 
explain why McVeigh might have called 
looking for him two years later. 

Strassmeir did admit though that he had 
McVeigh's Desert Storm uniforms, but had 
torn the name tags off and shredded them 
after learning of the bombing suspect's 
arrest. ' 

"I traded a navy knife for them," 
claimed Strassmeir. 

Freelance reporter Richard Sherrow was 
the next person to catch up with Strassmeir 
and establish an interview. 

Page 467 

The date was Jan. 2, and Strassmeir had 
traveled with an employee of Kirk Lyons 
to Houston. 

After a brief tape-recorded session, the 
pair told Sherrow that they were preparing 
to leave the United States. 

On January 11, 1 996, FBI Special 
Agent, John Hippard issued the following 
alert to the INS. 

"Strassmeir, Andreas Carl. Subject is 
wanted for questioning by FBI, Oklahoma 
City. DETAIN AND NOTIFY FBI 
AGENT JOHN R. HIPPARD OR 
SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT 
RICHARD BAKER AT ... AND REFER 
TO FBI CASE NO. 174A-OC-56120 
(OKC BOMBING). Subject is possibly 
armed and dangerous." 

Immediately, INS placed Strassmeir on 
their Lookout Update. 

After listing his physical description and 
passport number in the system, border 
agents were notified that Strassmeir was 
wanted for questioning in Oklahoma City 
by the FBI and further warned, "subject 
may be armed and dangerous ... Detail 
until arrival of FBI team." 

But it was too late. Strassmeir had 
already vanished across the border. 

On Feb. 4, 1996 the Gazette broke a 
story it had been holding ..foe several 
weeks. 

The central figure was, of course, the 
mysterious German tourist that McVeigh 
was trying to reach by telephone at Elohim 
City. The story detailed Strassmeir's unique 
family and the evidence that led to 
speculation that the former German officer 
might have been a government agent 
working in cooperation with top Justice 
Department officials. 

Shortly after the newspaper hit the 
stands, an FBI agent from Oklahoma City 
arrived and asked for any back issues the 

Gazette had published on the bombing. 
Once those were received, he paid cash for 
a subscription, then left. 

That same week, the INS was notified 
by an FBI agent in Oklahoma City to 
cancel Strassmeir' s detention notice. 

Recording the discussion in a Feb. 8 
memorandum, the INS supervisory agent 
noted that he had been informed that SA 
Hippard was no longer the point of contact 
on Strassmeir's case and that the subject 
was now out of the country and recently 
spotted in Berlin. 

The INS official then noted for his 
supervisors, "We inquired about whether 
the INS lookout should remain active and 
. (Special Agent) Sandstrom indicated that 
the INS lookout should be cancelled." 

Following that first story on Strassmeir, 
Lyons responded to media inquiries and his 
supporters in a letter. 

"Strassmeir had to be spirited out of the 
country (through Mexico) before Jones 
(attorney for McVeigh) and company could 
get their hands on him," Lyons wrote. 
"Also, there was some danger that the FBI 
might take Jones seriously and it would be 
much easier to defend Strassmeir from 
Germany." 

Adding, "At one point, the Kriminal 
Polizei and GSG-9 were involved because 
of death threats against Strassmeir and his 
family, passed to them through Interpol by 
the FBI." 

Shortly after Strassmeir's departure, a 
special intelligence bulletin was issued by 
the Diplomatic Security Division, Counter 
Terrorism Unit of the Department of State. 

After noting that Strassmeir had been 
the principal "militia trainer" for a group 
called W.A.R. the March 18, 1996 cable 
says, "He (Strassmeir) has been the subject 
of several investigations for purchasing 

Page 468 

weapons and making the weapons fire on 
full automatic. Strassmeir should not be 
allowed to return to the U.S." 

Gone, But Not Forgotten 

On Jan. 30, 1997, the government filed 
indictments in Philadelphia against several 
men - including Strassmeir's former 
Elohim City roommate Michael Brescia - 
that a grand jury found were involved in a 
plot to rob banks on behalf of the Aryan 
Republican Army. 

Sprinkled throughout the 21 -page 
indictment are references to Elohim City 
and its crucial role as a gathering place for 
the ARA. 

Three of the men indicted actually lived 
at Elohim City, forming a band called, 
"The Iron Cross." 

The person who provided a home, 
terrorist training and who traveled 

extensively with these men was "Andy the 
German." 

With the bank robbery trial expected to 
begin in Philadelphia later this year, 
naturally the FBI now wants to interview 
Strassmeir about his potential knowledge 
of the ARA's criminal activities. But there 
has been a snag: the State Department has 
been unwilling or unable to obtain 
permission from German authorities to 
allow the FBI to interview Strassmeir. 

Despite a whole host of international 
treaties and conventions establishing 
procedures for transatlantic cooperation 
between the two governments in criminal 
investigations, once again it seems 
Strassmeir is immune to such 
inconveniences. 

The BATF's own informant, Carol 
Howe, may have said it best: "There's 
something wrong about Andy." 

***** 

OKC Bombing Victims File Over 500 Claims as Deadline 
Nears 

Sunday, April 20, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By Jeff Holladay 

Alleging the federal government had 
"prior knowledge" of the April 19, 1995, 
tombing of the Murrah federal building in 
Oklahoma City and that workers in the 
building were used as "bait" to try to snare 
the bombers, an Oklahoma City law firm 
filed more that 500 tort claims Friday on 
behalf of the victims and their families. 

The law firm of Merritt &amp; Rooney also 
alleged that federal agencies illegally 

stored explosives in the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building. 

Filed in Oklahoma County district court 
on the final day before the statute of 
limitations expired for civil action, the 
federal tort claims filed Friday seek 
financial redress for wrongful death and 
injury. 

Damages being sought were expressed 
at this point in the filed forms only as 

Page 469 

being "in excess of $10,000" for each 
claim. 

But the lawsuit filed by Merritt &amp; 
Rooney of Oklahoma City - and another 
representing five families by the Los 
Angeles law firm of Baum, Hedlund, 
Aristei, Guilford &amp; Downey ~ have also 
invoked so-called "Bivens claims" in an 
apparent effort to get massive punitive 
damages. 

Bivens claims allege federal agents 
acted "under color of law" in violating the 
constitutional rights of victims. 

Merritt &amp; Rooney's lawsuit claims the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 
(BATF) and other federal agencies who are 
defendants "acted maliciously, 
intentionally, with gross negligence, with 
deliberate indifference" and "with reckless 
disregard" in failing to take precautions on 
behalf of workers in the Murrah federal 
building on the day of the bombing. 

The lawsuit charged that defendants 
"should have known that their conduct, 
actions and/or omissions, and the 
consequences thereof, were a threat to 
Plaintiffs' decedents' safety and lives..." 

It alleged the actions of the defendants 
were a violation of due process rights 
under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution. 

The Merritt &amp; Rooney lawsuit lists 293 
plaintiffs who suffered physical, emotional 
and/or psychological injuries, with an 
additional 227 claims being from families 
of survivors and their estates. 

The 1995 explosion killed 168 people 
and injured more than 500 others. 

In a telephone interview Friday, attorney 
John Merritt of the Merritt &amp; Rooney firm 
in Oklahoma City credited the revelations 
of an investigation by the McCurtain Daily 
Gazette for providing much of the 

information that served as reasons in the 
wrongful death lawsuits. 

(This newspaper, for example, has been 
the only news media in the nation to report 
on explosives being stored in the Murrah 
building - something the Gazette revealed 
in June 1995. Now a national news 
organization says it has evidence 
specifically supporting that claim, and may 
report on it nationally in the near future. 
This newspaper was also the first news 
media anywhere to report that the bombing 
was possibly the result of a BATF "sting 
operation" gone awry.) 

Merritt said that as a result of 
undercover Carol Howe's reports to BATF 
agent Angela Finley in Tulsa even before 
the bombing, "it should have put them on 
notice that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
Building was being cased for potential 
bombing." 

Other lawsuits were filed Friday in 
Oklahoma City against ICI Explosives, 
claiming it was negligent in manufacturing 
ammonium nitrate, which prosecutors say 
was used in the truck bomb that destroyed 
the Murrah building. 

Earlier, in late March, 34 victims of the 
Oklahoma City bombing filed separate 
claims totaling a whopping $850 million 
against federal agencies â€” also claiming 
the government had prior knowledge of the 
bombing but failed to stop it or to protect 
workers. 

The first to file a civil lawsuit was Edye 
Ann Smith, who lost two young children in 
the bombing. She filed a wrongful death 
lawsuit in January 1996 asking for $30 
million, with her attorneys also saying they 
intended to prove the government had prior 
knowledge of the bombing. 

***** 

Page 470 

Oklahoma City Bombing Trial Will Start Thursday 

Wednesday, April 23, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

One day after Timothy McVeigh's 29th 
birthday, opening arguments are scheduled 
to begin in his trial here Thursday. He is 
accused of the worst act of terrorism in 
U.S. history, of taking 168 lives and 
injuring more than 500 others. . 

The first installment of this heinous 
mass murder case pits a former Nixon 
protege against Hillary Clinton's 
handpicked team of prosecutors. 

Ironically, it was a quarter-century ago 
when Hillary Rodham, fresh out of Yale 
Law School, joined with other Democrats 
on the Watergate Committee to drive then- 
President Richard Nixon from office. 

For McVeigh lead attorney Stephen 
Jones, this is an irony not overlooked by 
the complex and self-educated historian of 
government intrigues. 

As a young man, Jones worked for 
Nixon's New York law firm. He still 
reveres the late president. 

Certainly no stranger to uphill political 
struggles, Jones a few years ago dabbled in 
statewide politics when he mounted an 
unsuccessful Republican bid for the U.S. 
Senate against formidable Democratic 
incumbent David Boren. 

But today â€” matched against a Clinton- 
appointed prosecution team that has vowed 
to convict and kill his client â€” Jones 
himself appears the one prepared to don 
the executioner's hood on the government's 
case. 

McVeigh's attorney has made no secret 
that he has evidence of government 
misconduct. 

"This is so serious, Americans will 
never view their government in the same 
way again," Jones had said earlier. 

Indeed, Jones plans to attack the 
prosecution head-on - putting the Justice 
Department itself on trial. 

Such an attack might involve a showing 
of evidence of explosives illegally stored in 
the Murrah building. Convincing the jury 
of that would not absolve McVeigh of 
guilt, but it could mitigate the defendant's 
sentence to life in prison. 

Another of Jones' theories is that an 
international conspiracy involving Terry 
Nichols actually committed the crime and 
set up his client. 

Yet an additional weapon in the defense 
arsenal is evidence that the government 
possessed advance knowledge of the 
bombing because they had an agent 
provocateur inside the conspiracy who, 
Jones says, goaded the real bombers into 
action. 

To prove much of this, Stephen Jones 
appears to be counting on the testimony of 
former BATF informant Carol E. Howe to 
cast strong suspicion on the government's 
theory, that McVeigh was a mastermind in 
the Oklahoma City bombing. 

As reported earlier by the McCurtain 
Gazette, Howe was paid by the government 
to infiltrate a far right-wing religious 
compound in eastern Oklahoma called 
Elohim City. 

Howe told her handlers before and after 
the bombing that persons at Elohim City 
were promoting and planning the bombing 
of three federal targets. One of those 

Page 471 

targets was the Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
Building on Oklahoma City. 

Also clearly central to the defense case 
is planting doubt in the jury's mind that 
McVeigh was at the crime scene in 
Oklahoma City on the morning of the 
bombing...that he played a role in building 
the bomb the government claims destroyed 
the Murrah building... or that he rented the 
truck used in the bombing. 

To reinforce this doubt, Jones may seek 
to substitute other persons in these roles, 
including a regular reminder that the 
elusive John Doe No. 2 was once the 
government most-sought-after accomplice 
in the bombing. 

But while attempting to raise all these 
confusing issues, the prosecution will 
surely issue a strong line of objections, 
saying that such evidence has no basis in 
fact but that it is only designed to mislead 
the jury. 

Aiding the prosecution's effort to keep a 
jury from hearing any of this is the legal 
precedent that provides federal judges with 
authority over what type of evidence a jury 
is allowed to consider. 

Such power has been confirmed by the 
Supreme Court, It ruled that the trial judge 
must balance the defendant's right to put 
on an effective defense vs. the risk a jury 
will be unfairly misled by unsupportable 
notions presented by creative defense 
attorneys. 

Among the 21,000 witness statements 
turned over to the defense are numerous 
contradictory eyewitness accounts, the 
Gazette has learned, 

And such contradictory accounts, legal 
analysts say, "are 'nuggets of gold' defense 
attorneys search for as a means to weaken 
the prosecution's case by planting 
reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury." 

Proving equally advantageous is that 
Judge Matsch has given investigators for 
McVeigh and Nichols a virtual blank 
check. It has allowed them the luxury of a 
globe-trotting investigation that will total 
millions of dollars. 

The defense was also aided by the very 
fact that the trial was moved to Denver. 
This decision by Matsch offered the 
defense two advantages: 

Not only has the Colorado citizenry 
been exposed to far less news coverage 
about the bombing but legal experts agree 
the likelihood of a death-penalty conviction 
there is greatly reduced. 

According to studies, Colorado juries 
have only sent five killers to death row 
since the state's current death penalty 
statute came into effect in the early 1980s. 

In contrast, Oklahoma County District 
Attorney Robert Macy has sent 61 people 
to death row during his 16-year tenure in 
office. 

***** 

Even Reporters Are Reduced to Tears 

Sunday, April 27, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

Page 472 

Choking back emotions and with tears 
welling in reddened eyes, a veteran 
reporter of 22 years said, "In 22 years of 
covering trials that was the most powerful 
testimony I've ever heard." 

Most in attendance agreed. 

In what had already been a somber day 
of testimony at the trial of Timothy ) 
McVeigh, by mid-afternoon Friday 
spectators were finally being pushed over 
an emotional cliff by a young woman who 
described frantic efforts to locate her child 
- trapped in the smoldering remains of the 
gutted Murrah federal building. 

Helena Garrett's story gripped the 
courtroom and undoubtedly will not be 
forgotten when jurors, months from now, 
consider the fate of the 29-year-old 
defendant whom the prosecution intends to 
paint as a soulless baby killer. 

Sitting emotionless throughout the 
nightmare-filled first day of testimony, 
McVeigh only stared blankly at witnesses 
and occasionally made notes for his 
attorneys. 

But across the room a brilliant display 
of legal strategy was occurring as 
prosecutors put both rescue workers and 
bombing survivors on the stand. 

In an unrelenting wave, witness after 
witness gave personal accounts of a clear 
spring morning that turned into hell on 
earth when a truck bomb devastated 
downtown Oklahoma City. 

Starting with a tape recording made 
during a hearing at the Oklahoma water 
Resources building - only 100 feet away 
from where the Ryder truck exploded - 
prosecutors introduced jurors to eight 
seconds of incredible rumblings mixed 
with victims' screams. 

Next came a former fighter pilot once 
assigned to the Marine Corps recruiting 
station in Stillwater. On April 19, 1995, 

Michael Norfleet had made a rare personal 
trip to report to his superiors in Oklahoma 
City. 

Recalling that he was surprised to find a 
vacant parking spot, squarely in front of 
the Murrah building, Norfleet's testimony 
showed that he cheated death by only a 
few minutes. 

Making his way to the front doors, 
Norfleet had walked within a few feet of 
an abandoned yellow truck filled with 
thousands of pounds of explosives. In the 
cab floor of the rental truck, two fuses had 
already been set. 

Now blind in one eye and forced out of 
the Corps with a 50 percent disability, 
Norfleet has since had to find a new career 
and is no longer able to fly. His bitter 
testimony showed the anger of a young 
man whose life had been forever marred 
by a senseless act. 

A photo-journalist for an Oklahoma 
City TV station took the stand next. 

Displaying for the first time the state-of- 
the-art technology installed in this freshly 
refurbished courtroom, Bill Monahan 
narrated a film that took the jury back to 
the appalling first hours of the carnage. 
Although his time on the stand lasted only 
27 minutes, Monahan's edited film 
captured much of the gore and hysteria 
associated with the bombing and will likely 
have a lasting impression on the jury. 

The day's most compelling testimony 
came when a sparkling young lady took 
the witness stand. 

Helena Garrett explained to jurors that 
she was employed at the Journal-Record 
building on the day of the bombing. That 
morning, she had followed her normal 
schedule and dropped off her son, Teven, 
at a daycare center located on the second 
floor of the Murrah building. 

Page 473 

After waving good-bye to the toddler, 
she headed to work, which was only 230 
paces north of the Murrah building. An 
hour later, at 9:01 a.m., a terrific blast 
spared her life, but forever changed it. 

Minutes later, she was trying to get 
back inside the building and screaming for 
help. 

"I wanted someone to help me find my 
baby," she explained. 

She told of seeing rescuers frantically 
scrambling to bring phildren out of the 
smoldering structure and laying them down 
on sheets all around her. , 

At one point in her testimony, U.S. 
Attorney Patrick Ryan placed photos of the 
15 murdered children on an easel and 
asked if she knew them. 

With a forced smile, she easily recalled 
their names and the happy moments she 
had shared with the children who once 
played with her own son at America's Kids 
Day Care. 

Finally, she came to the last two 
pictures, those of Chase and Colton Smith. 
It was then she broke down for the first 
time. 

Recovering somewhat, she told jurors 
that while she was awaiting news of her 
own six-month-old son Teven, she saw a 
man emerge from the building, holding 
Colton's limp body. 

"He set Colton down on a bench by 
me," she said. Beginning to choke back 
tears and shake again, she struggled to get 
out the words. 

"He was hurt so badly! His stomach was 
torn open ... Oh, God!" she wailed. 

Her testimony suspended briefly, she 
sipped some water and tried to continue. 

"His face was bloody. Icouldn't leave 
him, so I sat there on the bench. There was 
glaiss everywhere they were setting the 
babies and I cried out to the men to clean 
up the glass. I said, 'Don't lay these babies 
on the glass." 1 

Looking squarely at Judge Richard 
Matsch, she explained, "I didn't know 'til 
later they were all dead babies." 

At this point, Ms. Garrett slumped 
forward, her head buried in her hands, and 
sobbed uncontrollably. Even Judge Matsch, 
whose several years ago lost his own 
daughter died in a hiking accident, seemed 
to be fighting back tears. 

Obviously as moved as the rest of the 
courtroom, the prosecutor asked the court 
to dismiss Ms. Garrett after one final 
question about the fate of her own son. 

Teven's severely damaged body, she 
ansWered, was not recovered until days 
after the bombing. He was buried after a 
closed casket service. 

Testimony resumes Monday. 

***** 

Lori Fortier's Testimony Draws Strong Reaction from 
Victims 

Tuesday, April 29, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

Page 474 

Following 3-1/2 days of devastating 
testimony, the Timothy McVeigh 
prosecution team on Tuesday presented key 
witness Lori Fortier ~ but how much 
weight jurors put on the star witness's 
credibility is anything but certain. 

She did make a huge impact on victims, 
however - but not a positive one. 

Shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday, the 
government put on the stand the witness 
who is considered crucial to the case. But 
by the time Judge Matsch adjourned for 
the day, it appeared the response to Ms. 
Fortier's testimony was fiery even before 
the defense began its cross-examination 
today. 

Two women who had buried family 
members summed up their feelings outside 
the courthouse. 

"I want the (expletive) to die," said one. 

Another victim, who also asked that her 
name not be used, wasn't pleased that 
Fortier had been granted immunity in 
exchange for her testimony. 

"She is guilty of murder! I want her 
(expletive) hung!" 

Ms. Fortier, an admitted heavy drug 
user who says she had lied tothe FBI on 
several occasions to save her own hide* 
struck the immunity deal just hours before 
she took the stand to testify for the 
government. 

In a hushed Courtroom that was 
sprinkled with victims of the Oklahoma 
City bombing, she alienated many listeners 
when she admitted that she had ignored her 
legal and moral duty to simply make a 
report to authorities after her house guest, 
McVeigh, sat on her kitchen floor, 
carefully arranging soup cans in an effort 
to explain how he would later arrange 
barrels full of explosives in a Ryder rental 
truck and blow up a federal building. 

To the shock of victims in the 
courtroom, she also admitted on the stand 
that she and her husband helped McVeigh 
use Christmas wrappings to disguise 
blasting caps which may have been used in 
the bombing. 

Then, without emotion, the young lady 
also said that she had helped fence stolen 
property the government claims financed 
this nation's most deadly act of terrorism. 

Incredibly, Fortier even admitted on the 
stand that when she saw the horrible 
results of the bombing on television, she 
only thought of her own involvement and 
balanced it against her zealous desire to 
escape punishment. 

Thus, she told the jury, "I had to lie to 
protect my family." 

The tragic twist of fate which brought 
the Kingman, Ariz, native to the Denver 
courtroom centers around her high school 
sweetheart, who entered the U.S. Army on 
the same day and on the same base as 
McVeigh. 

She had become a close friend of 
McVeigh's, she explained, through is 
relationship with her current husband, 
Michael Fortier. He is currently in prison 
awaiting his turn to testify, having made a 
plea bargain a few months after the 
bombing. 

Michael Fortier also made an 1 lth-hour 
deal with the government after saying that 
he, too, had initially lied to agents about 
the bombing. He now faces prison time for 
failing to warn authorities of the bombing, 
and for taking stolen firearms across state 
lines, firearms that were used to finance 
the bombing. 

While he could face a maximum of 24 
years in prison, sources tell the Gazette he 
will likely get as few as three years in 
exchange for his testimony, expected to be 
some of the most devastating of the trial. 

Page 475 

Sporting a different hair color and style 
- along with an expensive new outfit - 
jurors saw a completely remodeled Lori 
Fortier than the frumpy blond in cutoffs 
and sweatshirts the national media chased 
in the wake of the bombing. 

On Tuesday, Fortier maintained she had 
initially lied because, "I wanted to distance 
myself from McVeigh, because he did it" 

Key to making the government's case 
against McVeigh is establishing elements 
such as motive, opportunity and means. 
Fortier supplied all those, but in a manner 
that surprised many in the courtroom. 

Under questioning by the government's 
lead counsel, Joseph Hartzler, she 
consistently answered questions put to her 
before Hartzler could even finish asking 
the questions. 

Highlights of the seemingly rehearsed 
testimony were statements that McVeigh 
was: "Very upset about Waco ... he said it 
was wrong ... he thought the government 
had murdered those people." 

Fortier said her husband had told her of 
a letter he received from McVeigh before 
the bombing, saying "he wanted to take 
action against the government." 

She recalled that in September 1994 she 
and her husband met with McVeigh in 
Kingman, and he told them, "He was going 
to blow up a federal building. He did not 
specify time or place, but he appeared 
serious." 

But later in her testimony, Fortier 
seemed to refute her earlier comments, 
saying, "I didn't know he was serious until 
he did it" 

In the fall of 1994, Fortier said she and 
her husband helped McVeigh locate a 
storage shed in Kingman to store 
explosives for the bombing. She said two 
days later, McVeigh told her he had finally 
decided on the federal building in 
Oklahoma City for a target. He even drew 
a diagram of what the truck bomb would 
look like, adding that it would be filled 
with fertilizer and racing fuel. 

Throughout Fortier's testimony, 
McVeigh seldom took his eyes off his 
accuser. His glare was cold and disturbing. 

Fortier also told of McVeigh's efforts to 
make a false driver's license. 

He wanted to use her iron to laminate it, 
but Fortier, worried that he would ruin her 
iron, offered to do it or him. The fake 
license had McVeigh's picture and the 
name of Bob Kling on it 

"I kidded him about the Star Trek movie 
... you know, the Klingons." 

But in a statement the defense will 
likely revisit today, Fortier said she had 
seen the blank document on her husband's 
desk earlier. 

Fortier said her husband refused to 
assist McVeigh in building the bomb after 
McVeigh told her Terry Nichols had 
backed out. 

She claimed that the reason she didn't 
alert authorities was because, "I was under 
the impression that the plan was off ... 
because no one would help him" 

Twice during her testimony, Fortier 
seemed to be holding back tears when she 
told jurors, "I blame myself for not telling 
anyone what he was planning." 

***** 

Page 476 

Tim McVeigh's New Friends 

May 1997 - George Magazine 

On the last day of February, Stephen 
Jones, the head of Timothy McVeigh's 
defense team, convened a hurried press 
conference, outside the federal courthouse 
in Denver, Colorado. It was snowing 
when the lawyer came out to answer 
reporters' questions, though the weather 
was the last thing on his mind that 
evening. The next day the Dallas Morning 
News was planning to publish a sensational 
revelation about the Oklahoma City 
bombing. (In anticipation of the media 
frenzy, the paper had already posted the 
story on its Web site.) Accordingly to 
documents received by Pete Slover of the 
Morning News, McVeigh had allegedly 
confessed to his lawyers that he had 
committed the crime, hi one of the more 
gruesome passages, McVeigh supposedly 
said that he wanted to blow up the Alfred 
P. Murrah Federal Building in the daytime 
to assure a "body count." 

More than any other story that had yet 
appeared about the trial preparations, the 
Dallas paper's revelation seemed to refute 
McVeigh's plea of innocence. Moreover, it 
called into question a key defense team 
strategy to save McVeigh from the 
execution chamber should he be found 
guilty by the court; arguing that its client 
was just one member of a grand 
conspiracy. No wonder Jones seemed so 
flustered as he tried to answer questions. 
How had such a sensitive document been 
leaked? Who was responsible? Wouldn't 
the alleged confession wreck McVeigh's 
chances in the forthcoming trial? The 
document wasn't true, Jones explained, his 
exposed head now lightly covered with 
snow: His client had never really said any 

such thing. Then, appearing to contradict 
himself, Jones went on to say that the 
document had been stolen. He added, 
somewhat cryptically, that the story might 
have been planted by some "pseudo 
journalist." 

On March 3, Jones changed his story. 
The "confession" had allegedly been 
written at least a year earlier as part of an 
elaborate defense team ploy to get close to 
an important source. The press later 
claimed that the target was far-right leader 
Louis Beam. But the central mystery 
remained: How had the fake confession 
gotten into the hands of the Morning 
News'! 

These reports were just the next bizarre 
twist in a case that has, over the past two 
years, turned ever stranger. To appreciate 
its full weirdness, many factors have to be 
taken into account. It's a story about red 
herrings, half-truths, farce, and the 
netherworld of the American far right. It's 
also a story about Jones' deliberate use of 
the media to further the goals of the 
defense. In particular, it's about a 45-year- 
old businessman turned journalist named 
John D. Gash. And it begins in the 
immediate aftermath of the bombing of the 
Murrah building on April 19, 1995, in 
which 168 people were killed. 

Shortly after that crime, Jones â€” a 
former Nixon aide, onetime lawyer for 
Abbie Hoffman, and seasoned death-row 
attorney - got a call from a federal judge 
and was asked if he would like to represent 
McVeigh. Jones, well used to high-profile 
cases, accepted on May 8. 

From the outset, Jones telegraphed his 
intentions fairly blatantly. A key part of his 

Page 477 

strategy to save McVeigh from the death 
penalty, so it seemed, was to make it hard 
to select a jury that didn't enter the 
courtroom with certain assumptions about 
the accused. To realize this aid, Jones 
required the press. If the press could plant 
the vital seed of doubt in the jury pool - 
the idea that McVeigh was just a guileless 
foot soldier in a far larger plot, not the 
mastermind of the worst act of terrorism 
committed on American soil in recent 
history - then McVeigh might escape the 
death penalty. With a great deal of luck, he 
might even get off altogether. 

Jones would leave no stone unturned in 
his "search" for the greater conspiracy. He 
traveled to England to get the lowdown on 
IRA bombing techniques, followed up tips 
on the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, 
dropped hints about a plot in the 
Philippines, approached a historian to 
discuss a link to Cuba, and, incredibly, 
even attempted to connect it all to Iraq. In 
the United States, too, he enthusiastically 
pursued the notion of a sprawling, violent, 
anti-government conspiracy carried out by 
the many factions of the far right. 

It's hard to tell how much Jones and his 
team believed in these far-flung 
associations, but then, finding the truth 
wasn't really the mandate they set for 
themselves. The goal was to find enough 
plausible evidence of conspiracy and, 
further, to get the media to report on Jones' 
adventures as well as the conspiracy 
theories he was trying to weave. 

Encouraging the mainstream press to 
report on the defense team's activities 
wasn't easy. Those news outlets were more 
likely to be suspicious of Jones' motives 
and would see through the more far- 
fetched theories, such as links to Iraq, the 
Philippines, or Cuba. To get their 

allegations disseminated across the country, 
what Jones and his defense team needed 
was a guide or a conduit into the world of 
the far right, a world that few journalists in 
the maintstream press could say they knew 
much about. 

Enter J.D. Cash. Bom in 1952, Cash 
went to the University of Tulsa, where he 
received an undergraduate degree in 
economics. After working at a Tulsa 
savings and loan and later in his family's 
real-estate business, Cash acquired a 
property 40 miles north of Idabel, a small 
town in southeastern Oklahoma, in 1992. 
He built a log cabin there and settled down 
to work on a novel about the disappearance 
of Nazi gold at the end of World War EL 
Then the bomb went off; 

Cash was outraged by the crime (he lost 
a friend in the blast). Seven days later he 
walked into the offices of the McCurtain 
Daily Gazette (circulation: 6,500) in Idabel 
and told the editor and publisher, Bruce 
Willingham, that he had some information. 
Federal authorities, Cash claimed, had used 
the Murrah building illegally as storage 
space for explosives. "I didn't know the 
guy from Adam," Willingham told Judy 
Thomas of the Kansas City Star earlier this 
year. "But then I got [the story] confirmed 
from a reliable law-enforcement source that 
explosives really had been carried out of 
the building after the bombing.'' On May 4, 
1995, the Gazette ran Cash's story. It 
would win a prize for investigative 
reporting, and thus began one of the more 
unlikely journalistic careers. 

As of mid-March this year, the 
McCurtain Daily Gazette has published 
about 60 of Cash's stories. They are all 
written in a conservative tone, and 
throughout he takes an evenhanded view of 
some far-right groups, such as Christian 

Page 478 

Identity, a religious sect that is part of the 
white-power movement. (Christian Identity 
maintains that Aryans are the true 
descendants of Adam and that Jews and 
people of color are subhuman "mud 
people.") 

Yet, it's too simple to categorize Cash 
as a rightward-leaning conspiracy theorist. 
Despite the tone of his writing, Cash has 
not advocated one political point of view 
over another. Furthermore, as the 
Washington Post pointed out in early 
March, some of Cash's journalism has held 
up. Don Thrasher, a producer at ABCs 
20/20 who has followed the case closely, 
says of Cash, "He's been out there by 
himself. Mostly, he provided leads for 
others, and [he has] proven to be pretty 
damn close to the truth. Most of what he 
has done proves to have some merit to it." 
Even The New Yorker has feted Cash in a 
Talk of the Town item. 

Neither Stephen Jones nor J.D. Cash has 
recounted the circumstances of their first 
meeting, but it seems to have taken place 
not long after Jones was appointed 
McVeigh's lawyer. Presumably, Jones 
recognized the usefulness of Cash's 
reporting in furthering the defense team's 
cause, since the man from Idabel had a 
knack for finding information that was 
beyond the resources of so many other 
journalists. As Jones began to work with 
Cash, he even granted him one of the first 
interviews with McVeigh (though Cash 
would not write about this meeting). 

Jones, to this day, remains cagey about 
his relationship with Cash. "It's true that 
J.D. on two occasions has assisted the 
defense. J.D. has access and entree to a 
number of people that might be described 
as being in this Aryan Nations, white 
supremacist/separatist movement. But 

we've never paid him, and we made it 
clear that he was not a defense 
investigator." 

Since the start of his life as a reporter, 
Cash has become a close acquaintance of 
Glenn and Kathy Wilburn, the grandparents 
of two children killed in the blast. Glenn 
Wilburn is an Oklahoma City accountant. 
At the time of the bombing, his wife and 
stepdaughter, Edye Smith, worked for the 
Internal Revenue Service, just down the 
street from the Murrah building. The 
family had dropped off the two children, 
Chase and Colton, shortly before the 
bombing. 

Together, Cash and the Wilburns have 
criss-crossed the region over the past two 
years. "We're good friend," Cash says of 
the Wilburns. "They bought me a cemetery 
plot...near Chase and Colton's." The team 
interviewed witnesses who say they saw a 
Ryder truck on the morning of the 
bombing and people who say they knew 
McVeigh or his friends. As Cash and the 
Wilburns went about their inquiries, they 
surmised that McVeigh was part of a cell 
of six to eight people who could be traced 
to Elohim City â€” a rural enclave in the 
Ozarks, close to the Arkansas border, 
where Christian Identity has its 
headquarters. 

As they continued their work, Cash and 
the Wilburns came to believe they were 
compiling evidence that the FBI and other 
investigators had found but had chosen to 
ignore. They even believe that the 
government may have had prior knowledge 
of the bombing â€” that it happened as the 
result of a sting operation gone wrong. 

With witnesses who, in the opinion of 
Cash and Wilburns, hadn't been 
forthcoming with the FBI, the team would 
let Kathy Wilburn do the talking. "We 

Page 479 

have a right to know who did this to our 
babies," she would say, looking straight at 
a balking witness. 

Cash's reporting for the McCurtain 
Daily Gazette could have remained entirely 
obscure, unknown to the mainstream 
media. But Cash found an important ally in 
Mike Vanderboegh, a warehouse manager 
in Birmingham, Alabama, who runs a kind 
of clearinghouse for reports on the 
Oklahoma City bombing. "Talk about the 
little engine that could," Vanderboegh says. 
"That's the McCurtain Daily Gazette. They 
were there early and against tremendous 
negative feedback from the Oklahoma 
neighbors. They've been called many, 
many names. Oklahoma Associated Press 
refused to carry their stuff. Yet now they 
call J.D. up for sources to duplicate his 
stories." 

Vanderboegh puts out the John Doe 
Times which he distributes via e-mail to 
more than 200 subscribers, about a quarter 
of whom are journalists â€” TV producers, 
reporters, editors, and researchers at, for 
example, the Washington Post, the Kansas 
City Star, the Columbus Dispatch, and the 
Philadelphia Inquirer, at ABC, NBC, and 
CBS and overseas news outlets. 
Vanderboegh makes sure the FBI sees his 
publication. (He expresses derision for the 
special agent in charge of Oklahoma, who, 
he claims, sings in the choir at Elohim 
City to ingratiate himself with its leader, 
the Reverend Robert Millar.) 

Amateur journalism is only one of 
Vanderboegh's activities, however. He is 
also a colonel and commanding officer of 
the First Alabama Cavalry Regiment, a 
Birmingham-based militia with about 75 
members. "The First Alabama Cavalry is a 
loose association, a small group of folks 

who have organized over the past three 
years," Vanderboegh explains, "most of our 
membership is white-collar professional 
types who, were their participation in the 
militia movement known, would probably 
suffer economically." But he makes a 
strong distinction between militiamen like 
himself and the members of racist far-right 
groups like the Aryan Nations. Part of 
Vanderboegh's mission as a self-styled 
publisher is to set the record straight about 
the militia movement, which he claims has 
gotten a bad rap. 

Likewise, Vanderboegh says that crucial 
information on the Oklahoma City 
bombing is ignored because it often comes 
from non-mainstream sources associated 
with the far right. "While we help J.D. and 
Glenn gather information, the fact of the 
matter is...no one in the world would 
believe us," and so a major part of the job, 
he says, is to inform reporters about the 
work of people such as J.D. Cash. 

Cash's first big scoop â€” the one that 
caught the eye of many other journalists 
covering the case â€” was published in 
February 1996 and revealed that McVeigh 
had allegedly placed a telephone call to 
Elohim City two weeks before the 
bombing. As Cash reported it, McVeigh 
was supposedly trying to reach one 
Andreas Strassmeir, a former German army 
lieutenant who was rumored to be a neo- 
Nazi. Strassmeir was acquainted with 
Dennis Mahon, a former Ku Klux Klan 
leader in Tulsa and a longtime figure in the 
white-power movement both in America 
and in Europe. As the story spun out, 
Strassmeir became the link between the 
bombing and an international terrorist 
conspiracy, and this interpretation was 
made more plausible when Strassmeir 

Page 480 

admitted meeting McVeigh at a gun show 
in Tulsa in 1994. 

Laura Frank of the Tennessean followed 
up on the Strassmeir story in June 1996. 
According to Frank, "at least three 
eyewitnesses say they saw Strassmeir in 
the tiny Kansas town where prosecutors 
allege McVeigh and Terry Nichols bought 
and stockpiled the ingredients of a bomb 
and where McVeigh is charged with 
renting the Ryder truck." Strassmeir, 
however, has insisted that he's never been 
to Kansas. But he did tell the Tennessean 
that although he didn't "know this 
McVeigh guy," he did come across him at 
the gun show. "We talked for five 
minutes." Since making these comments, 
Strassmeir has returned to Germany. 

By spring 1996, Cash's stories were 
appearing not only in the McCurtain Daily 
Gazette. They were also published in 
Media Bypass â€” a small anti-government 
magazine that made a name for itself by 
running a lengthy and complimentary 
interview with McVeigh in March 1996 â€” 
and in Jubilee, a Christian Identity paper, 
which is the main organ of the militant 
wing of the white resistance movement and 
is best known for its roving correspondent 
Louis Beam. 

For many years, Beam was the hard J 
man of the far-right movement and its 
unquestioned leader. (Recent reports say 
that he's stepping down in order to spend 
more time with his wife and family.) Beam 
started out as a chopper-door gunner in 
Vietnam and then returned to Texas. By 
1980, he had become the leader of the Ku 
Klux Klan in that state â€” the grand 
dragon, as the position is known. 

At some point during the '80s, Beam 
also became an ambassador-at-large to the 
Aryan Nations and helped that group set 

up a computerized bulletin board targeting 
its enemies. Then, in 1988, Beam was tried 
for his part in a 1983 plot to overthrow the 
federal government and establish an all- 
white nation in the Pacific Northwest, but 
he was acquitted. 

It was Beam who came up with the 
concept of the leaderless resistance cell to 
replace the so-called Order. Founded in the 
early '80s by Bob Mathews, the Order was 
essentially one large organized gang whose 
objective was to destroy the obstacles that 
prevented the creation of a white homeland 
in the Northwest. But it proved to be easy 
for the FBI to target the Order's members. 
To foil the tenacity of the federal 
authorities, Beam thought up the idea of a 
leaderless resistance â€” amorphous cells 
that would operate independently of one 
another and strike targets of opportunity 
across the country to advance the goals of 
the far-right revolution. That might mean 
knocking out a federal building one day or 
shooting a government official on another. 
It's not difficult to comprehend why 
Beam's leaderless resistance would interest 
Cash or the defense team. Perhaps it would 
suggest there were other culprits in the 
bombing or at least a wider plot. 

A shadowy and seldom-seen figure, 
Beam was introduced to Cash at Jubilee's 
Lake Tahoe, California, gathering in April 
1996 â€” imaginatively christened the 
Jubilation Celebration. Cash brought up the 
planned meeting with Beam in a talk with 
McVeigh. "I told Tim McVeigh I was 
going to be visiting with Mr. Beam," Cash 
said in an interview sometime after the 
event. "Suddenly, when I mentioned the 
name Louis Beam, [McVeigh's] mouth was 
like â€” he leaned forward and he froze. It 
was like somebody put a clamp on his lips. 

Page 481 

He wouldn't go into anything about 
him...He was frozen. He just stared at me." 

According to Cash, Richard Reyna, a 
top investigator for the McVeigh defense 
team, accompanied the reporter to 
Jubilation, where Cash, then a contributor 
to Jubilee, was scheduled to address the 
meeting. "I have never met a young man 
that I have such positive feelings for as I 
did for Tim McVeigh," Cash declared to 
the assembly. And "Tim McVeigh was a 
fine soldier...one of the most highly 
respected enlisted men." Cash added that 
McVeigh "believes he is fighting a war 
today." Reyna, Cash says, talked privately 
with Beam for more that three hours. 
However, Jones has hinted that the trip to 
Lake Tahoe proved to be worthless. 

As 1996 wore on, Cash cut himself off 
from the Media Bypass and Jubilee. Later, 
to distance himself from the Jubilee crowd 
still further, Cash said that he made the 
remarks at Jubilation only to ingratiate 
himself with Beam. 

At the end of July 1996, Cash returned 
to reporting on the Strassmeir connection: 
The former German lieutenant was a 
government agent of some sort, Cash told 

readers of the Gazette. Claiming that he 
had learned this information "from the 
FBI," Cash said that Strassmeir was the 
subject of a BOLO (be on the lookout) 
bulletin by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms (ATF), which was seeking 
his arrest prior to the bombing in 
Oklahoma City on grounds that he was an 
illegal alien in possession of an unlicensed 
firearm. Cash farther claimed that FBI 
records show Strassmeir was a suspect 
after the bombing. So why, Cash 
wondered, was Strassmeir not questioned 
or detained? "Was Strassmeir, then, an 
undercover agent for a federal agency?" 
Cash wrote. "As reported recently by the 
Gazette, a high level official at the FBI 
said the classified computer records of the 
ATF contain evidence that Strassmeir was 
indeed a key component in the agency's 
espionage operation at Elohim City near 
Muldrow, Oklahoma, and [among] several 
neo-Nazi groups around the country." 

Although there is no concrete evidence 
to support Cash's claim that Strassmeir was 
an agent, federal investigators did bring 
Strassmeir in for questioning soon after the 
bombing. No charges were ever filed. 

***** 

Defense Grills Lori Fortier on Cross-Examination 

Thursday, May 1, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
ByJ.D. Cash 

When the Gazette reported Wednesday 
that testimony provided by the 
government's star witness, Lori Fortier, 
seemed "well-rehearsed," her cross- 

examination later Wednesday established 
that it most certainly was. 

Under cross-examination by Stephen 
Jones, Fortier admitted that she had met 

Page 482 

with the prosecution team some 10 times 
to go over her important testimony before 
her actual appearance in the McVeigh 
mass-murder trial. 

As an example, Fortier said that just 
since last Friday, she had spent some 30 
hour preparing for her time on the stand 
with representatives of the FBI and U.S. 
Attorney's office. 

Fortier also testified that often those 
rehearsals took place in mock courtroom 
settings where the prosecution would ask 
her questions they planned to use, then 
they would change gears and pretend they 
were the defense and ask tough questions 
that the government anticipated Stephen 
Jones would raise. 

After Ms. Fortier explained this 
Wednesday, Jones turned to the 
prosecution table with a broad smile and 
asked, "Well, I'm curious ... who played 
me?" 

"Joe did," answered Fortier, referring to 
U.S. Attorney Joseph Hartzler. 

Turning back to the witness, Jones 
queried, "Oh, it's Joe now ... you mean Mr. 
Hartzler?" 

Somewhat embarrassed, Ms. Fortier 
said, "Yes, I mean Mr. Hartzler." 

However, during her four hours of 
cross-examination, Ms. Fortier did say that 
none of the members of the prosecution 
team or FBI agents told her what her 
answers should be. 

Ms. Fortier and her husband Mike are 
considered to be key witnesses in the 
government's case against Timothy 
McVeigh. This is because, for some two 
years before the bombing of the Oklahoma 
City federal building, McVeigh frequented 
the Fortier's modest trailer home in 
Kingman, Ariz. 

Another issue the defense dwelled on 
were the "deals" the Fortiers had made in 
exchange for their testimony. 

Just hours before the August 1995 
indictments of McVeigh and Terry 
Nichols, ex-Army buddy Michael Fortier 
pleaded guilty to several charges related to 
the Oklahoma City bombing and agreed to 
testify for the government in exchange for 
the plea bargain. 

At the same time Fortier's plea bargain 
was made, his wife had received immunity 
for her 1995 testimony in front of the 
grand jury in Oklahoma City investigating 
the bombing. 

Under cross-examination Wednesday, 
Fortier admitted that just before she went 
on the stand Tuesday, she again made a 
deal. This time it was blanket immunity 
from both federal and state charges related 
to the bombing. 

Admitting that she had no fear of 
reprisal now, Fortier told of her own role 
in helping with preparations for the 
bombing, such as assisting McVeigh in 
wrapping packages filled with blasting 
caps. 

Critical to the government's case, she 
also told the jury that McVeigh often used 
a pre-paid phone card that the government 
contends was linked to McVeigh and 
Nichols. 

Purchased under the alias Daryl Bridges, 
records of the calling card indicate several 
calls made in the fall of 1994 to 
establishments which sell ingredients the 
government believes were used to construct 
the bomb detonated in the terrorist attack. 

Such testimony is critical at this stage 
of the proceedings because the prosecution 
wants to convince the jury that McVeigh 
also used the alias "Robert Kling." 

Records obtained from a Ryder truck 
franchise in Junction City, Kan., indicate 

Page 483 

that it was a person named Robert Kling 
who rented the truck used in the bombing 
of the federal building. 

Witnesses at the rental establishment are 
expected to testify later that it was 
McVeigh who presented identification at 
Elliott's Body Shop showing his name was 
Robert Kling â€” but all three witnesses at 
the business describe the person who 
rented the truck as 5 foot, 10 inches tall 
and 185 pounds. 

McVeigh is 6-foot-2 and weighed 160 
pounds at the time of his arrest on April 
21, 1995. 

Under intense cross-examination, Fortier 
admitted that she had initially lied to the 
FBI on several occasions regarding her 
occasional housemates' activities. 

Also in the days after the bombing, 
Fortier admitted that she lied to her family 
and the news media about McVeigh's 
involvement. 

The standard answer Fortier gave when 
her earlier statements to the FBI and others 
were at odds with those given at the trial 
in Denver was simply, "I lied." 

She also conceded Wednesday that her 
drug use was heavy during the time 
leading up to the bombing. 

"Did you snort speed?" Jones asked. 

"Yes," admitted Fortier. 

"Did you use drugs at home and work?" 
he continued. 

"Yes." 

During cross-examination, Fortier also 
had problems explaining why she told the 
court on Tuesday that she and her husband 
had a falling out with McVeigh because he 

(Michael Fortier) wouldn't help in the 
bombing, and that they feared McVeigh 
would kill them because they knew too 
much. 

On Tuesday, she testified that She and 
her husband feared for their lives when 
they saw McVeigh at a Kingman motel 
just two weeks before the bombing and 
went to his room with a gun. 

"Well, then why did you come to his 
defense after the bombing? He couldn't kill 
you while he was in jail," said Jones. 

"We were lying to everyone," Fortier 
responded. 

Another point raised by the defense 
came from the government's own 
transcripts of a "bug" planted in the 
Fortiers' home after the bombing. 
. "Did you not tell your friends you 
planned on making money, later, on the 
story?" asked Jones. 

"I don't know what you mean," she said. 

"What I mean," said Jones: "Didn't the 
government record your husband saying to 
a friend, 'We're gonna make a cool mil off 
this story after the bombing trial is over?'" 

"We may have said that to my mother," 
Fortier responded. "I don't know what my 
husband may have said to others." 

"Well," Jones asked, "do you expect to 
sell your story?" 

"No," she said. &lt; 

Testimony today is expected to center 
on the type of ingredients the government 
believes was used in the bombing. 

***** 

Page 484 

Jennifer McVeigh's Testimony 
Could Doom Her Brother Tim 

Sunday, May 4, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

Timothy McVeigh's sister, Jennifer, is 
expected to take the witness stand Monday, 
and if her testimony matches some of her 
pre-trial statements she has made to the 
FBI, the man accused of the nation's worst 
act of terrorism may see his own future 
darkened. 

So far, with the first full week of 
testimony complete in the McVeigh mass- 
murder trial, the government's tactics are , : 
clear but the defense's strategy remains 
murky. 

In rapid fire order the prosecution team, 
led by U.S. Attorney Joseph Hartzler, 
presented witnesses and evidence 
calculated to establish that defendant 
Timothy McVeigh had the motive, 
opportunity and means to carry out the 
bombing that killed 168 and injured more 
than 500. 

On the other side of the courtroom, 
Stephen Jones directed the defense efforts 
when its turn came to cross-examine the t 
government's witnesses and cast doubt on . 
the evidence presented. 

By week's end, Jones' team had 
achieved a mixed bag of successes. But 
most certainly, whatever Jones' ultitnate 
defense strategy will be for his client, that 
is still unclear - assuming he has selected ;. 
a strategy. 

Beginning the week with a review of 
McVeigh's alleged anti-government 
passions, prosecutors spent considerable 
time putting into evidence documents 
found in McVeigh's automobile at the time 
of his arrest. 

Those documents represented a 
collection of clippings from, a fictional 
account contained in a violent ^nd racist- 
oriented paperback book, as well as 
photocopies of articles from a wide variety 
of magazines and newsletters - commonly 
referred to as "patriot-oriented 
publications." 

The picture of McVeigh the prosecution 
was clearly attempting to paint for. the jury 
was that of a very angry and paranoid 
young man, who decided to detonate a 
power truck bomb in front of a federal 
building out of revenge for the 
government's role in the Waco disaster. 

Lacking a single witness on the 
prosecution's list who will place the 
defendant at the crime scene, the 
government instead relied upon a former 
friend to establish that McVeigh had 
specifically expressed a desire to bomb the 
Oklahoma City federal building. 

Lori Fortier, the 24-year-old wife of 
McVeigh's ex-Army buddy, Michael 
Fortier, told the court that before the 
bombing the defendant had accumulated 
key ingredients to carry out an attack. 
Later she testified that by February 1995 
McVeigh said he had chosen as his target a 
federal building in downtown Oklahoma 
City. 

"He chose it, because he said it would 
be easy," Fortier told the packed 
courtroom. 

The latter part of the week went 
smoother for the prosecution, while raising 

Page 485 

questions about the defense's overall 
strategy in the case. 

Beginning Thursday, the government 
presented a string of FBI agents, actual 
witnesses and explosives experts who, 
piece by piece, developed a scenario of 
McVeigh as a man in active pursuit of 
bomb-making components the months prior 
to the bombing. 

On cross-examination, a half-dozen 
different defense lawyers alternated at the 
podium, attempting to sow doubt in the 
minds of the jury as to each of the 
witnesses' credibility or memories. 

Throughout the effort, only Jones 
seemed to know where he was heading 
with his cross-examination strategy, while 
other members of the team sometimes 
struggled with the witnesses, scoring very 
few points at the podium. 

Monday is expected to be critical for. 
both sides when McVeigh's sister is 
expected to take the stand. 

Unlike Lori Fortier, Jennifer McVeigh, 
23, soon after the bombing told the 
authorities many incriminating things about 
her brother's troubled mind-set and his 
possible direct involvement. 

Since the, Ms. McVeigh has largely 
steered clear of the press, but the Gazette 
has obtained copies of several of her 
statements regarding the bombing. 

Contained within those statements is 
damning information that could effectively 
nail the coffin shut on her brother if she, 
like Fortier, doesn't present an entirely 
different picture at trial than what she 
initially told authorities. 

The prosecution is expected to 
encourage Ms. McVeigh to testify that her 
brother came back from the Gulf War a 
bitter and paranoid man, bent on starting a 
revolution in this country. 

^Letters seized from her will be 
introduced by the prosecution showing that 
Timothy McVeigh was growing more 
militant as the date of the bombing 
approached. 

Along with those letters, and expected 
testimony from his sister that she burned 
other letters that were also incriminating, 
the government is also expected to dwell 
on statements Ms. McVeigh reportedly 
made to friends at a wild and drunken orgy 
of drugs and sex. 

That party occurred during the 
Christmas holidays prior to the bombing. 

The Gazette has learned that witnesses 
attending that party told the FBI they 
overheard Ms. McVeigh predicting 
something major occurring in April 1995 â€” 
something in which her brother would play 
a role. 

Critical to surviving this evidence and 
rehabilitating Jennifer McVeigh's earlier 
statement to the FBI, the defense will be 
forced to walk a highwire. 

It is expected the defense will employ at 
least two tactics to blunt Ms. McVeigh's 
earlier statements. 

First, the defense will likely use 
evidence claiming there was a widespread 
rumor floating around the country that the 
government was planning an April Waco- 
style raid on some right-wing groups â€” and 
it was this, not the Oklahoma City 
bombing, to which Tim McVeigh referred. 

Next, during cross-examination, Jones 
will have to paint a different picture of his 
client, while at the same time not placing 
his client's sister at risk of prison time for 
perjury. 

The likely strategy will be to explain 
away Tim McVeigh's past incriminating 
letters and statements to his sister by 
portraying the defendant as a troubled and 
drifting youth, captured in a make-believe. 

Page 486 

world â€” a world where he regularly made 
up fantastic stories for his sister's benefit' Â« 
in order to impress her. 

By painting Tim McVeigh as someone 
with a bizarre imagination, envisioning 1 

himself as some kind of bank robber or 
secret agent involved in various plots that 
never existed, the Jones team may be able 
to diminish an otherwise devastating 
situation for both brother and sister. 

icicrkicic 

Prosecution Questions McVeigh on Her Brother's Role 

Tuesday, May 6, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
ByJ.D.Cash 

A series of FBI agents and lab 
technicians dominated most of Monday's 
testimony at the McVeigh bombing trial 
here, but with only one hour and 15 , 

minutes remaining in the court's day, a 
witness everyone had been waiting for , , 
finally took the stand. 

In what is likely to be one of the most ; 
stirring and important events of the entire 
trial, Jennifer McVeigh â€” the 23-year-old t 
sister of the man charged in the most 
violent crime of modern 20th century - 
began her testimony filled with confidence 
and smiles. 

Sporting a smart new hair style, Ms. ( ' 
McVeigh took (he stand wearing an 
expensive blue pantsuit and white 
turtleneck sweater. Then, in a demeanor 
that seemed to belie the fact that her 
brother's life hanged in the balance, Ms. ; 
McVeigh spoke almost casually as she . , 
responded to questions from prosecutors. 

Across the courtroom, a sullen Timothy 
McVeigh slouched in his chair and seemed 
despondent at times, obviously ill at ease 
during his sister's testimony, which is 
expected to last through today. 

While Jennifer McVeigh easily 
answered the prosecution's critical and 
potent questions without hesitation, the 
New York State College student and part- 
time bartender at first did seem eager to 
cooperate with the government team that 
has vowed to seek the death penalty if her 
only brother is convicted. 

Called by the prosecution under a grant 
of immunity, her testimony is expected to 
center on a number of incriminating 
factors. Among them are letters and 
conversations with her brother in the 
months and days before the bombing of the 
Oklahoma City federal building. 

Also important to the prosecution is the 
testimony they hope to get from McVeigh's 
sister which portrays her brother as a 
vagabond with a secretive and deviant 
lifestyle following his stint with the U.S. 
Army. 

As well, the government intends to 
show that McVeigh grew from a person 
appalled by the bloody events of the Waco 
and Ruby Ridge incidents into a madman 
who, with circulating design, decided to 
take out his violent revenge against a 
government office building filled with 

Page 487 

those he perceived to be responsible for the 
actions he despised. 

As reported in February by the Gazette, 
Ms. McVeigh told the FBI that her brother 
said he was involved with a far-flung 
group that was made up of members with a 
military background and were intent on the 
overthrow of the government. 

Following an intense series of 
interviews with the authorities, on May 2, 
1995, Ms. McVeigh executed an affidavit 
containing a number of admissions 
involving her brother's statements and 
activities. 

She told the FBI that in late November, 
or early December 1994, her brother had a 
stack of $100 bills which he said came 
from a bank robbery that he helped plan. 

Ms. McVeigh admitted that die took 
three of those $100 bills and exchanged 
them for money of her own. As well, Ms. 
McVeigh told the BI that she put the bank 
robbery money in her own bank account. 

Also, she told officials that a letter from 
her brother in late 1993 said, "Persons who 
rob banks may not be criminals at all." 
Adding,. "He implied Jews are running the 
country and a large degree of control is 
exercised by the Free Masons. Banks are 
the real thieves and the income tax is 
illegal." 

During testimony Monday, the 
government began laying the groundwork 
for introducing a number of those letters. 
And for a half-hour, U.S. Attorney Beth 
Wilkinson handed Ms. McVeigh a series of 
documents and asked if she recognized the 
handwriting. 

"Yes, that's Tim's," was Ms. McVeigh's 
standard answer. 

But as the first details of the letters and 
conversations were brought before the jury, 
McVeigh became vague. 

s In what is likely to be a prelude to a 
heated battle of wits, the defendant's little 
sister seemed to have a memory lapse 
regarding statements he allegedly made 
about explosives he had been hauling when 
a serious automobile accident was narrowly 
averted. 

In earlier conversations with the FBI, 
the Gazette has learned Ms. McVeigh told 
them that in the fall of 1994, Tim 
McVeigh had been carrying some 1,000 
pounds of explosives in a caravan 
involving an associate. 
* But at this point, the witness could not 
seem to remember whether there was 
inother vehicle following her brother, or 
many of the other details concerning her 
earlier interviews with the FBI regarding 
the matter. 

i Clearly prepared for this feigned lapse 
of memory, Beth Wilkinson grabbed a file 
from the prosecution's table and returned to 
the podium and scolded her witness in a 
defiant tone. 

' "Well, in your 302 (FBI interview) 
didn't you say your brother was traveling 
in a caravan with another vehicle while he 
was carrying 1,000 pounds of explosives?" 

Suddenly confronted with her own 
sworn statement, McVeigh recanted and 
quickly agreed that was how she 
remembered the situation. 

Earlier in the day, the prosecution 
presented a series of witnesses that testified 
about evidence designed to link McVeigh 
and co-defendant Terry Nichols with a 
number of critical elements in the bombing 
conspiracy. 

Important to the government's case is 
evidence that McVeigh and Nichols used a 
prepaid phone card to gather materials to 
bomb the Murrah Federal Building. 

Page 488 

Piece by piece, the prosecution put on 
evidence Monday designed to provide 
those links for the jury. 

A lawyer working with FBI's Omaha* 
Neb., office testified that she headed an 
evidence-gathering team when a search of 
the Nichols residence was performed 
shortly after the bombing. 

Mary Jasnowski said agents under her 
supervision located four 55 gallon drums at 
the Nichols residence that are believed to 
be similar to those used in the truck 
bombing. 

Also, Jasnowski said a pre-paid phone 
card was found at the Nichols home. This 
is a card authorities have said was used by 
Nichols and McVeigh to contact retailers 
of fertilizer and racing fuel.. 

Subsequent testimony from an expert at 
the FBI crime lab indicated that a drill bit 
discovered in the Nichols home matched' 
grooves in a lock drilled out during a heist 
of a Marion, Kan., explosives locker that 
the government asserts contained 
detonators McVeigh likely used to set off 
the truck bomb used in the Murrah 
building attack. 

Another FBI agent presented 
photographs and testified that a detonator 
cord identical to those stolen from the 
Marion explosives locker was found in the 
basement of the Nichols home. 

However, on cross-examination, Stephen 
Jones was able to get that FBI agent to 
admit that there was no evidence that the 
bomb used in Oklahoma City had any such 
blasting cap mechanism attached. 

Also, the defense team scored points 
when an enhanced photograph was shown 
the jury that appeared to indicate that the 
FBI lab's comparison between the grooves 
in the drilled-out lock from the Marion 
bunker and the grooves made in a clay 
model did not match. 

More questions about the FBI crime 
lab's reliability and capabilities are sure to 
be central to the McVeigh bombing case as 
it progresses. 

In other testimony Monday, an FBI 
fingerprint expert told the jury that a 
receipt for 2,000 pounds of fertilizer, 
seized from the Nichols property, had 
Timothy McVeigh's fingerprints on it. 

***** 

Jennifer McVeigh Breaks Down; ATF Agent Describes 
Ordeal 

Wednesday, May 7, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

Jennifer McVeigh's testimony Tuesday 
focussed on letters her brother had mailed 
her before the Oklahoma City bombing. It 
never touched on the several other criminal 

acts she swore out in an affidavit after 
Timothy McVeigh's arrest. 

Clearly attempting to avoid any hint that 
others could have been involved with 

Page 489 

McVeigh or co-defendant Terry Nichols, 
who is scheduled to be tried later, 
prosecutors sidestepped important evidence 
that might later play info defense 
strategies. 

Although they had Jennifer McVeigh's 
May 2, 1995 affidavit detailing several 
criminal acts concerning her brother, 
prosecutors never brought up any of 
Timothy McVeigh's statements and actions 
concerning the bank robbery he helped 
plan, an assassination of the government 
official he was working on, or the far-flung 
group of revolutionaries he told his sister 
he was involved with. 

And, fearing a similar backlash from 
outraged victims after Lori Fortier testified 
with a grant of immunity that she had prior 
knowledge of the bombing and failed to 
notify authorities - a felony - the 
government avoided any similar testimony 
from Jennifer McVeigh about a 1994 
Christmas party where she told friends that 
her brother was part of a group planning to 
overthrow the government, 

Instead, prosecutors spent only 37 
minutes with Ms. McVeigh on Tuesday 
morning, eliciting more testimony about 
some letters she had received from her 
brother and evidence of another that was 
stored on her computer. 

Ms. McVeigh said before she left for 
college spring break on April 8, 1995, she 
gave a friend some letters her brother had 
written to her. 

But one letter that she did not give her 
friend that she had received from her 
brother several weeks before the bombing 
said, "Something big is going to happen in 
the month of the bull." 

That letter, which her brother advised 
should be burned, also suggested she stay a 
little longer on her two-week Florida 
vacation. 

Prosecutors then put an astrology charge 
into evidence showing that the astrological 
month of the bull begins April 20. 

A subsequent letter from Tim McVeigh 
warned her not to send correspondence 
after April 1, because, "G-men may get it 
out of your box and implicate you." 

Probably the most damaging piece of 
evidence the government put on Tuesday 
was a document retrieved from Ms. 
McVeigh's computer, which the witness 
said her brother apparently typed when he 
was staying with her in late 1994. 

[ Titled, "ATF READ," the letter referred 
to the ATF as tyrants for their actions at 
Waco and said, "Die you spineless 
cowardice bastards." 

Ms. McVeigh said she discovered the 
letter on her hard drive. Later she said she 
spoke with her brother on the phone and 
asked if she shouldn't erase it. 

"He told me to leave it on there," she 
testified. 

Ms. McVeigh said that while in Florida 
on April 21, she was listening to the radio 
and heard her brother's name mentioned in 
connection with the bombing and 
immediately drove to her friend's home 
where she found the last letter she 
received. 

In that envelope, Jennifer McVeigh said, 
were three clippings her brother had sent 
her from the racist paperback "The Turner 
Diaries." She testified that she burned them 
"because I was afraid the FBI would find 

***** " 

me. 

During cross-examination, Jennifer 
McVeigh said the FBI had threatened her 
if she didn't talk and had even made up 
wanted posters using a high school 
photograph of her. 

Trying to describe the interrogation, Ms. 
McVeigh broke down as she explained the 

Page 490 

FBI agents showed her a federal statute 
regarding treason that they were 
threatening to charge her with. 

"They said I would get the death penalty 
and that my brother was going to fry." 

Defense counsel Rob Nigh pointed out 
that the death penalty for treason only 
applied during a time of war. 

Also, she testified that during her eight 
days of straight intense questioning, the 
FBI asked her to act as informant for the 
bureau and go see her brother. 

"But later they came in and had me sign 
^ a letter that said they never asked me to do 
that," she testified. 

Next to testify was an ATF agent who 
has long claimed to have been on the ninth 
floor of the Murrah building at the time of 
the blast. 

BATF agent Luke Franey's appearance 
on the stand had been rumored for over a 
week. 

Considered a preemptive strike by the 
prosecutors, Franey's testimony appears to 
be in anticipation that the defense will try 
to convince the jury that the bombing 
conspiracy was part of a "sting operation* 
by the government and that there were no 
ATF agents in the building at the time 
because they knew of the risks that day. 

After swearing that the other nine 
federal agents assigned to the Oklahoma 
City BATF office were working on 
different assignments that morning, Fran6y 
said he was the only field agent on the 
ninth floor when the blast occurred. 

Describing walls and ceiling falling in 
on him, Franey said he found himself 
blown into a hallway then, after regaining 
his senses, he said he realized that he was 
trapped in the southeast comer of the 
building. 

Drawing on a floor plan of the building, 
Franey showed the jury that the blast had 
cut out a huge portion of the building 
where his only exit appeared to be 
blocked. 

With his voice cracking at times, Franey 
said that he made his way to a window 
overlooking the south side of the building 
and used a radio to talk to his missing 
ATF comrades below, who had suddenly 
arrived at the scene. 

"I found some cardboard and put a sign 
up for others to see," said Franey. 

Prosecutors then showed the courtroom 
a photograph originally obtained by the 
Gazette where Franey was displaying a 
sign which read "ATF Trapped." 

Without a speck of dust on his person 
or clothes, Franey is clearly shown in the 
photograph wearing an ATF raid jacket 
and ATF cap while speaking from the 
window sill on a portable telephone. Also 
in the photograph is a fireproof box Franey 
is holding outside the window for those 
below to see. 

Next, agent Franey testified that around 
10:30 a.m. he learned that there could be 
another bomb in the building and he 
decided he had to evacuate the building. 

At this point the prosecution put a 
picture of the entire south side of the 
building on the screen. 

Franey said that he crawled up on the 
ledge of the 9th floor of the building, then 
walked a third of the way across the 
structure, eventually re-entering the 
building near a staircase and made his way 
downstairs. 

Highlighting the adventure, agent 
Franey even used a marker to trace the 
sky-walk from the southeast comer to 
nearly the center of the building - all the 
time remaining on the outside ledge of a 
building, 100 feet above ground level. 

Page 491 

Obviously the prosecution did not know 
that defense counsel Stephen Jones had 
been waiting a long time for Ftaney to tell 
his story in open court. * 

Taking his turn at the podium, Jones 
methodically took the agent back through 
earlier testimony where he had told the 
jury that he eventually made his escape 
from the ninth floor by walking along a 
window ledge some 36 feet before finding 
a portion of the building where he could 
crawl back inside, then make his was to a 
stairway. 

After placing a photograph on a screen 
for the jury, Jones asked: "Mr. Franey, isn't 
that ledge you walked on a 45-degree 
angle?" 

Franey mumbled, "Ah, yes." 

"And you did this while walking around 
these three concrete fire walls â€” jutting out 
past the ledge?" 

It was a question Franey obviously 
hadn't considered. 

In the photograph shown the jury, 
columns of concrete blocked the alleged 
escape route every 12 feet - crossing them 
would obviously be impossible. 

"Oh, well, I crawled back inside and 
kicked out the walls on the inside of the 
building when I came to those," Franey 
said. 

"Oh, you did?" Jones replied. 

Next, Jones placed into evidence 
photographs of the interior of the area 
where Franey claimed to have been 
trapped. 

Depicted in the series of photographs 
are walkways which would allow a person 
to come or go from the area Franey 
claimed to have been trapped, without 
resorting to the skywalk. 

Today's testimony is expected to focus 
on records from a pre-paid phone card the 
government says is critical to proving Tim 
McVeigh and Terry Nichols were 
searching for ingredients to build a bomb 
and reserved a Ryder truck used to deliver 
it. 

***** 

Prosecutors Try to Tie McVeigh to Pre-Paid Phone Card 

Thursday, May 8, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

The government's case against Timothy 
McVeigh focused Wednesday on record 
associated with a pre-paid phone card that 
prosecutors allege McVeigh and ex-Army 
buddy Terry Nichols used in the months 
leading up to the Oklahoma City bombing. 

In order to introduce the records of calls 
made on the card, prosecutors plan to call 
over 20 representatives of telephone 
companies in an attempt to convince jurors 
that the records are accurate and relevant. 

Page 492 

The problem the government first has is 
that the card in question was purchased ' 
with a possible alias, Daryl Bridges, 

Prosecutors allege that McVeigh and 
Nichols used the alias to disguise their 
criminal activities. 

Two elements which have come to light 
make one wonder how hard the pair really 
tried to accomplish this or how smart they 
really were. 

Authorities first linked the card to the 
bombing when they discovered the calling 
card during a search of the Nichols' 
Herington, Kan., home. 

Purchased from the ultra-right 
newspaper, Spotlight, the card confiscated 
had Bridges' name on it and several 
notations showing when payments were 
made to purchase more minutes of use. 
Also noted on the receipts the FBI 
subpoenaed from Spotlight is an address 
for Terry Nichols' brother's farm in 
Decker, Mich. 

Another problem prosecutors face is 
convincing the court that technical factors 
unique to a pre-paid phone card do not 
render the phone card records unreliable 
and thus, as the defense asserts, they 
should not be considered as evidence at 
trial. 

The long and tedious battle being fought 
in the courtroom revolves around the fact 
that the long distance carrier who designed 
the phone service charged only a flat rate 
per minute of use, no matter where the call 

originated. Therefore, computers tracking 
the calls for the carrier were not 
programmed to show the precise origin of 
calls. 

Apparently, FBI agents have spent some 
2,000 hours trying to nail down where the 
calls came from in order to prove McVeigh 
and Nichols could have made them. 

In McVeigh's trial, establishing that he 
made certain calls is critical because the 
government' case is largely circumstantial. 

At the subsequent trial of co-defendant 
Terry Nichols, the same issues are likely to 
be raised by his attorneys. 

Because the government is presenting 
no witnesses that saw McVeigh actually 
make the bomb, and no witnesses that saw 
him at the site of the bombing, elements of 
the conspiracy must be supported by 
evidence that McVeigh and Nichols used 
the card to locate explosives and reserve 
the Ryder truck used. 

Inaccuracies which have surfaced thus 
far indicate that the records from the 
carrier are far from perfect, unlike those 
normally associated with a household or 
business telephone records. 

As a result, the government is 
presenting a string of telephone company 
records experts in an attempt to persuade 
jurors that the records are reliable. 

It is expected that the government will 
wrap up this portion of its case today and 
begin calling witnesses who knew 
McVeigh. 

â€¢kiekick 

Page 493 

McVeigh Jurors Watch Blistering Cross-Examination 

Friday, May 9, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

Under the most blistering cross- 
examination so far in this trial, indications 
that the government may have successfully 
pressured a witness into changing his 
testimony came into focus Thursday. 

Eric McGown, 19, was first questioned 
on the stand by U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan 
and said that he saw Timothy McVeigh on 
three occasions while the bombing 
defendant was a guest at the Dreamland 
Motel in Junction City, Kan. 

Young McGown, whose mother owns 
the motel, said he turned 17 on April 14, 
the same day a tall-slim drifter showed up 
at the roadside motel. 

Early in his testimony, Eric McGown 
said his first recollections of McVeigh was 
when he noticed a yellow sedan with 
Arizona plates parked in front of room 25 
at the Dreamland. 

"I saw the tag on the car and went up to 
him and commented about the weather 
being much warmer there than we were 
having," McGown told the packed 
courtroom. 

In subsequent testimony, the witness 
said the Mercury disappeared from the 
Dreamland and next he saw McVeigh with 
a Ryder rental truck. 

"He pulled in one day with a truck and 
my mother didn't like where he parked it," 
McGown said. Explaining further, "He 
parked the truck at the far end of the 
complex â€” blocking room 34's parking 
spot. My mother told me to go out and tell 
Mr. McVeigh to move the truck." 

After telling the court that McVeigh 
politely complied and moved the vehicle to 
the front of the motel, the prosecutor asked 

about another occasion McGown noticed 
McVeigh. 

"I was watching Mr. McVeigh from the 
office," said McGown. "He was having 
trouble closing the latch on the rear cargo 
door of the truck." 

At several points, McGown was asked if 
he could recall the dates he saw. McVeigh 
with the Ryder truck and each time he said 
he just couldn't recall. 

Finally, Ryan asked the witness about a 
photo spread of different styles of Ryder 
trucks McGown had been shown by agents 
of the FBI shortly after the bombing. 

From those pictures, McGown said he 
was able to choose the one the government 
says was used in the bombing. 

Thus, aside from the problem with 
recalling an exact date for seeing McVeigh 
with a yellow moving truck, Eric 
McGown's testimony at first blush seemed 
to tie up many loose ends for the 
government's case. 

Prdsecutors had earlier introduced 
evidence that McVeigh was a guest at the 
Dreamland from April 14 through April 
18. 

Critical to their case is evidence that the 
defendant was seen at the '60s era roadside 
inn with a Ryder truck of the kind used to 
deliver a bomb to the Oklahoma City 
federal building. 

As the Gazette first reported, and other 
news outlets have since, several witnesses, 
including Eric McGown and his mother, 
Lea, told the FBI that McVeigh was seen 
parking a yellow moving van at the 
Dreamland on Sunday, April 16. 

Page 494 

However, records obtained by the 
government indicate the truck used to 
bomb the Murrah building was not rented 
in Junction City until the following day at 
4:20 p.m. 

Lea McGown had also told the FBI that 
in the pre-dawn hours of the 18th, she 
looked outside her office to see McVeigh 
sitting in a different truck that he had been 
in on Sunday, and when she checked an 
hour later, he was gone. 

Red-faced with anger that Eric McGown 
was not pretending to be vague about the 
date he saw McVeigh with a moving van, 
defense attorney Stephen Jones took the 
podium and began the most blistering 
cross-examination of the trial to date. 

"Mr. McGown, you didn't tell the FBI 
on April 21 this story, did you?" 

"Tell them what?" asked McGown. 

"That you couldn't remember what day 
you saw Mr. McVeigh with a Ryder truck 
... you told them you saw it on Sunday, the 
16th, didn't you?" asked Jones. 

"I don't remember what I told them. 
That was two years ago." 

Thus began an exchange where Jones 
read from various interviews to the press, 
where both McGown and his mother said 
they saw McVeigh with a truck on Easter 
Sunday before the government says the 
bomb truck was rented. 

"I've always said I wasn't sure," was 
McGown's reply. 

"Well, you are sure that there is a $2 
million reward in this case, aren't you?" 

"Yes," said McGown. 

"And it's the government who will 
decide if you get that money?" 

"Yes," admitted the witness. 

"And where is your mother? Isn't she 
supposed to testify here?" 

"I don't know" 

"You don't know she has been 
subpoenaed?" grilled Jones. 

"I'm not sure ... well, I guess she has," 
stuttered McGown, "but her story ... is her 
story." 

After going through a number of facts 
concerning Eric McGown's changed 
testimony, Jones noted that the youthful 
witness had just spent his last few days in 
an exclusive hotel with FBI agents and 
prosecutors. 

Riled by these assertions that the 
government had gotten the witness to lie, 
suddenly U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan broke 
in and began making comments that were 
barely audible to reporters. 

Shocked by the conduct, Judge Matsch 
scolded the prosecutor. "If you have an 
objection, state it, Mr. Ryan!" 

With the day drawing to a close, Jones 
finished his cross-examination of the 
witness but told the judge he would want 
him made available for future recall. 

Crestfallen by the interrogation, 
McGown said, "I want to go home." 

Judge Matsch seemed as suspicious of 
the witness' testimony as some in the 
audience, and warned McGown: "You can 
go home for now, but do not discuss your 
testimony with your mother â€” not a word. 
Do you understand me?" 

"Yes," replied McGown. 

Earlier in the day, an old friend of 
McVeigh's took the stand and said that he 
recalled two Christmas packages the 
defendant had around January 1995. 

Inside those packages, Kevin Nicholas 
testified, McVeigh said were blasting caps 
- caps that Nicholas later said McVeigh 
sold to a gun dealer in Illinois. 

But the most interesting part of 
Nicholas' testimony referred to a letter he 

Page 495 

had been shown by a friend after the 
bombing. 

Introduced by the government, the Feb. 
10, 1995, letter written by McVeigh to a 
female said he had given up distributing 
right-wing literature and "had more militant 
talents that were in short supply." 

Signed, "The Desert Rat," the letter also 
said, "Rip the bastards' heads off and 
(expletive) down their necks and I'll show 
you how with a simple picket knife." 

Although the focus of the threat was 
never cleair, the government has tried to 
convince the jury with a series of such 
letters that the defendant had become 
extremely violent prior to the bombing. 

***** 

Prosecution's Case Nearing Conclusion in McVeigh Trial 

Sunday, May 11, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

With two full weeks of testimony, the 
government's case against Timothy 
McVeigh is drawing to a close. Yet, the 
prosecution has still not placed McVeigh at 
the crime scene in Oklahoma City on April 
19, 1995. 

Instead, the government is relying on a 
presentation of circumstantial evidence 
while trying to avoid mentioning evidence 
of other unidentified suspects in the 
bombing. 

The tactic, and its shortcomings, were 
illustrated Friday when the prosecution put 
on witnesses and evidence from four 
different Junction City, Kan., businesses - 
who may have hurt more than they helped 
the prosecution's theory that McVeigh was 
the Robert Kling character who, single- 
handedly, purportedly rented the truck that 
carried the bomb to Oklahoma City. 

Leading off the day's testimony was the 
co-owner of a Chinese carry-out restaurant 
who said her records showed an order for 

food was sent to room 25 at the Dreamland 
Motel on Saturday, April 15, 1995. 

Yuhuh Bai said her records also 
indicated that the order was placed by a 
man named Kling and delivered by 
employee Jeff Davis. 

Earlier, the prosecution introduced room 
records from the Dreamland establishing 
that McVeigh - using his own name - 
rented room 25 for that night. 

But the McCurtain Daily Gazette has 
learned that the defense will soon call the 
deliveryman, Jeff Davis, who is expected 
to testify that he is positive that he did not 
give the order to McVeigh. 

Davis had earlier told this newspaper 
and ABC News that he never saw 
McVeigh the evening he made the "Kling" 
delivery to the Dreamland. 

Instead, Davis clearly recalled the 
person who took the food at room 25 was 
several inches shorter than the defendant. . 

Page 496 

Moreover, Davis had earlier told the 
press that he had been pressured by FBI 
agents to change his testimony and say it 
was McVeigh. 

In April 1996, Davis even went so far 
as to appear on ABC News to provide 
details of the suspect he saw in room 25 â– â€” . 
reiterating that the Bob Kling order was 
taken by someone other than McVeigh and 
saying no one else was in the room. 

Davis was assisted in the program by a 
renowned sketch artist provided by ABC, 
who produced a rendering the network 
dubbed "John Doe No. 3" and televised 
nationally. 

Other testimony Friday came from the 
owner of a cab company in Junction City, 
Kan., who said her company received a 
telephone call for a fare on Monday, April 
17, around 3 p.m. 

Ann Pruett said her records show the 
fare was picked up at a location about one- 
half mile from the Dreamland and dropped 
off at a nearby McDonald's restaurant. 

And .while no name appeared on the cab 
company's records, the prosecution says 
the person dropped at the McDonald's was 
Timothy McVeigh. 

Continuing this timeline of events, the 
government called the former manager of . 
McDonald's, David D'Albini. His 
testimony was used to introduce a series of 
still photos taken by security cameras 
inside the McDonald's on April 17, 1995, 
which showed McVeigh alone and in str&lt;eet 
clothes. 

D'Albini said the time shown on the 
final photo taken of McVeigh on the 
security camera was 3:57 p.m. 

The last businessman to take the stand 
was Eldon Elliott, owner of a body shop 
that also has the Ryder truck rental 

franchise 1.5 miles away from the 
McDonald's restaurant. 

Elliott said the first time he ever saw 
McVeigh was when he showed up on 
Saturday morning, April 15 ~ a day the 
proprietor said he was working alone. 

"He put down a deposit on a truck that 
had been reserved the previous day under 
the name Kling," Elliott said. 

Prosecutors then put into evidence a 
document showing that a person with the 
n^me Robert Kling had indeed reserved a 
truck during a telephone call to the shop 
on April 14. 

Elliptt then identified one of his 
business forms with the name Robert 
Kling, then was asked if the person was in 
the courtroom - at which time Elliott 
pointed at McVeigh. 

"Right over there. Blue shirt," he said. 

Elliott said he was working in the back 
of his business on April 17 when 
summoned by his secretary when two men 
arrived after 4 p.m. to pick up the moving 
van. 

The prosecution asked Elliott if the 
person was present who rented the truck, 
and he identified McVeigh, the 6-2 
defendant, who stared at him pokerfaced. 

Finally, the prosecutor entered a 
computer date and time-stamped lease 
agreement for the Ryder truck bearing the 
signature of Robert Kling and showing the 
time of 4:19 p.m. - only 23 minutes after 
the defendant was caught on film at the 
McDonald's restaurant. 

Then it was the turn of the defense to 
maul the prosecutipn testimony on 
numerous discrepancies. 

Having long prepared for this important 
cross-examination, Stephen Jones took the 
podium. For the next 90 minutes he grilled 
the witness about different statements and 
descriptions he had earlier given the FBI 

Page 497 

and a grand jury that investigated the 
bombing. 

"Didn't you tell FBI agent Crabtree on 
April 20th that this Kling fellow as 5-10?" 
asked Jones. 

"Yes, but ... well, he was leaning on the 
counter when I talked to him on that 
Saturday," Elliott explained. 

"Oh! He was leaning?" Jones exclaimed. 
"You never told that to the FBI. Ydti said 
you were face-to-face with Kling. There is 
nothing in any of your interviews with the&lt; 
FBI or the grand jury where you said 
Kling was leaning on the counter." 

"No, I guess not," Elliott finally "' 
admitted. 

Elliott, under cross-examiiiation, also 
recalled that the person who rented the 
truck was wearing a military-style ty 

camouflage shirt and had a scar on his 
chin. 

"What do you recall about the second 
man in the shop on that Monday 
afternoon?" Jones asked. 

"Nothing, I just glanced at him" Elliott 
said. 

Presenting problems with the 
government's case is evidence that 
immediately after the bombing, Elliott and 
a pair of his employees told the FBI that 
two men had appeared at the rental place 
on Monday afternoon, April 17, and left 
with the truck used in the bombing. 

As a result of the descriptions they 
provided, a worldwide manhunt was began 
for the white male subjects, both in their 
20s. ' 

Authorities later canceled the warrant 
for the second subject. They claimed 

employees at the rental agency had been 
"confused" about there being a second 
person with McVeigh. 

What is significant is that all three of 
those persons from Elliott's told the FBI 
and the grand jury investigating the 
bombing that the person who appeared 
Monday, April 17, with a driver's license 
bearing the name of Robert Kling was 5-10 
to 5-11, weight about 185 and was wearing 
camouflage military clothing. 

In contract to that description of the 
truck renter, McVeigh is slightly more than 
6-2 and weighs 160 pounds, as his arrest 
record on an unrelated traffic charge near 
Perry, Okla. - which the defense is 
expected to introduce into testimony here 
later - will reveal. 

Nearing the end of his cross- 
examination, Jones asked sarcastically: 

"Was Mr. McVeigh wearing gloves 
when he signed for the truck?" 

Perplexed, Elliott said, "Well, no, ahh ... 
I don't remember that." 

Jones smiled, "Well, you know the FBI 
couldn't find his fingerprints on the lease 
form - Don't you?" 

The government objection was sustained 
before the witness could answer. 

After Friday's testimony, one survivor 
of the bombing had this comment: 

"For McVeigh to have done all this by 
himself , he would have had to run a mile 
and a half while changing clothes, shrink 
four inches and rent the truck - all in a 
span of 20 minutes." 

The government is expected to rest its 
case by the end of next week. 

***** 

Page 498 

Fortier's Testimony Most Damaging Yet to McVeigh 

Tuesday, May 13, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
ByJ.D. Cash 

"Tim's the one who did it!" Mike Fortier 
exclaimed in court on Monday. 

Those are also the exact words he said 
to his neighbor and close friend, Patricia 
Edward on April 21, 1995, after watching 
the coverage of the terrorist attack on a 
television set in Kingman, Ariz. 

But that's one of the few things the 
government's star witness has been 
consistent about during these last two 
years. 

The transformation of Fortier, 28, was 
startling from the moment he walked into 
the Denver courtroom to give his long- 
anticipated testimony. 

Appearing in an expensive suit and tie, 
Fortier's hair was neatly styled and his 
demeanor so professional that anyone 
could have guessed him to be a banker or 
accountant. 

He was a far cry from the dope- 
hustling, methamphetamine-snorting, long- 
hair with a goatee who appeared on the 
nation's television sets outside his 
Kingman, Ariz., trailer house after his two 
longtime friends and occasional house 
guests, Timothy McVeigh and Terry 
Nichols, had been arrested for the bombing 
of the Oklahoma City federal building. 

During the course of Monday morning's 
testimony, Special U.S. Attorney Joseph 
Hartzler skillfully guided his star witness 
through some 150 questions concerning 
Fortier's plea bargain with the government 
in return for information about his 
relationship with McVeigh and Nichols, 

and their roles in the bombing which left 
168 people dead. 

In matter-of-fact terms, Fortier admitted 
that in August 1995 he made a deal with 
the government in which he faces a 
maximum of 23 years for charges 
involving the transportation and selling of 
stolen firearms, lying to the FBI about his 
knowledge of the bombing, and failing to 
warn authorities that the terrorist attack 
was imminent. 

Also acknowledged was Fortier's belief 
that he might get a reduction in his 
sentence if he fully cooperates with the 
authorities in this case and that of Terry 
Nichols, which is expected to begin within 
60 to 90 days after the conclusion of the 
McVeigh trial. 

Once the jury was made aware of the 
circumstances surrounding Fortier's federal 
incarceration, the prosecution launched into 
some 2-1/2 hours of questions regarding 
McVeigh's anti-government mind set, his 
association with co-defendant Nichols, and 
most devastating, a long litany of details 
McVeigh provided regarding his plans to 
bomb the Oklahoma City federal building. 

Fortier easily related how his ex-Army 
buddy had been consumed by the Waco 
incident and later frequented the Kingman 
area, only occasionally hold a job. 

Recalling, McVeigh's reading material, 
the prosecution used Fortier to reinforce to 
the jury that McVeigh was a regular 
subscriber to various publications that have 
been presented as extremist oriented. 

Some of that extremism may have 
rubbed off. Fortier told the court that 

Page 499 

McVeigh even began wearing a ball cap 
with bullet holes in it. The cap's insignia 
bore the letters, "ATF." 

Fortier also told the court that McVeigh 
became obsessed with the iclea that the 
United Nations was part of a grand plan by 
the New World Order to take over the 
United States after American citizens' guns 
were confiscated. 

Evidencing the pair's concerns with this 
eventuality, Fortier told the court that he 
had joined with McVeigh in climbing a 
fence at a Kingman National Guard 
Armory where the two were looking for 
evidence that some newly arrived vehicles 
might bÂ£ connected to a UN invasion. 

Unable to find any such evidence, 
Fortier said they stole some equipment 
such as picks and shovels from the 
vehicles and left. 

Fortier also said that in the fall of 1994, 
he and his wife joined McVeigh on a trip 
to the desert where McVeigh detonated 
some pipe bombs he had brought along. 

Fortier also recalled receiving a letter 
from McVeigh in the fall of 1994. In that 
letter, McVeigh said that he and Nichols 
had decided to take "direct action" against * 
the government and wanted Fortier's help. 

Fortier said he responded to McVeigh in 
a letter where, "I told him I was curious 
what he was talking about." 

Hartzler queried, "You did not turn him 
down at that time?" 

"No, I wrote him back and asked what 
he meant." 

Fortier then said McVeigh showed up 
again and said that he and Nichols were 
planning to blow up a federal building. 

To this, Fortier said: "I told him I would 
never consider doing this unless there was 
a UN tank in my front yard." 

In later testimony, Fortier said that 
McVeigh told him that he and Nichols had 
chosen a federal building in Oklahoma 
City and that Nichols would either drive a 
get-away car or help him drop his own car 
off before the bombing. 

The most critical part of Fortier's 
testimony centered on activities he 
undertook with McVeigh in mid-December 
1994. 

McVeigh had asked him if he wanted to 
make $10,000. Fortier said his $200 per 
week job Sat the local hardware store was 
barely making ends meet; he told McVeigh 
he would be interested. 

McVeigh had earlier told him that 
Nichols had robbed a gun dealer in 
Arkansas by the name of Bob. Also, 
Fortier said, McVeigh wanted him to travel 
to Kansas with him to pick up some of the 
guns taken in the robbery and sell them in 
Arizona. 

During the trip to Kansas, Fortier said 
that he and McVeigh "cased" the Murrah 
building and showed him where McVeigh 
intended to park a moving van filled with 
explosives. 

' Fortier also told the court that McVeigh 
even showed him where he might park a 
get-away car. 

Later, up in Kansas, Fortier said 
McVeigh took him around to various 
storage buildings that the government 
contends were rented by the defendants, 
using aliases. 

Fortier even testified McVeigh took him 
to Geary Lake, where the government 
claims the bomb was mixed and finally, 
Fortier said McVeigh loaded up a rental 
car with firearms. Prosecutors contend 
Nichols and McVeigh caused the firearms 
to be stolen to finance the bombing and 
that they sent Fortier back to Kingman to 
sell them at gun shows. 

Page 500 

In one part of the testimony, Fortier said 
that in the spring of 1995 he had ordered 
false identification documents using an 
alias alleged to have been McVeigh's. 

The prosecution then presented an order 
form received by a company that 
advertised in Soldier of Fortune magazine. 

Fortier admitted that it was actually his 
handwriting on the order form, but said 
that he had later given the blank birth 
certificate, Social Security card and driver's 
license to McVeigh, who he felt had some 
illegal credit card scam planned. Fortier 
believed the documents would play a key 
role in that scam. 

In earlier testimony, Fortier's wife, Lori, 
said that McVeigh borrowed her* typewriter 
and used it to complete the phony South 
Dakota driver's license. And, said Lori 
Fortier, the name McVeigh put on the 
license was Robert Kling. 

Finally, Mike Fortier testified that in 
February 1995, his relationship with 
McVeigh soured when the drifter returned 
to Kingman and told him Nichols had 
backed out of the conspiracy. 

"He wanted me to help ... but I wouldn't 
and that made him upset with me," said 
Fortier. 

Near the conclusion of his testimony, 
Fortier also said that McVeigh began 
staying in various motels in the Kingman 
area during late March and early April 
1995. 

Recalling three trips to visit McVeigh at 
those motels, Fortier said he was very 
concerned that McVeigh was upset with 
him because he wouldn't help in the 
bombing. Fortier told jurors he carried a 
gun for his protection on these visits. 

Taking the podium after the lunch 
break, defense attorney Stephen Jones 

began a very methodical cross-examination 
of the government's star witness. 

"Mr. Fortier, you met with the FBI 
regularly for days and weeks after the 
bombing and never told them these things, 
did you?" 

"No, sir." 

"You told your family that Tim 
McVeigh was innocent?" 

"Yes, I lied to protect my family," said 
Fortier. 

So it went for the rest of the afternoon, 
with Fortier acknowledging at every turn 
that until he made a deal with the 
government concerning his involvement 
with the bombing, he had consistently lied 
about every facet of the allegations 
regarding McVeigh. 

Following three hours of testimony 
regarding Fortier's prior inconsistent 
statements, drug use and dealings with 
prosecutors, Jones brought up an issue that 
surprised everyone in the courtroom. 

"Your attorney has recently been asking 
questions of the prosecutors regarding 
whether the guns allegedly stolen in 
Arkansas were indeed really stolen 
firearms, isn't he?" 

Fortier seemed surprised that Jones 
knew this. "Ahh, yes, he is, but I'm 
convinced they're stolen." 

"Oh, you are? Well, why isn't your 
lawyer?" 

"Well," said Fortier, "he is just &gt; 
concerned." 

Jones was incredulous. "But you're not 
concerned about whether those guns you 
sold were stolen?" 

"No ... I'm sure they were stolen." 

"But asking questions about that could 
be interpreted as not being cooperative ... 

Page 501 

isn't that right? And you could be 
jeopardizing your deal!" 

Fidgeting, Fortier stumbled, "I think my 
lawyer is just concerned ... I'm not." 
Fortier's testimony resumes today. 

ieirtcicic 

Prosecution's Case Against McVeigh Cpuld End Thursday 

Wednesday, May 14, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
ByJ.D. Cash 

Churning their way towards an* expected 
Thursday afternoon conclusion, government 
prosecutors are heaping a menagerie of 
witnesses and evidence on the jury 
deciding the fate of Timothy McVeigh. 

Winding up the cross-examination of 
McVeigh's ex-Army buddy, Mike Fortier, 
defense attorney Stephen Jones on Tuesday 
was able to get the government's star 
witness to admit to two more felonies he 
committed, yet failed to tell prosecutors 
about when he entered a previous plea 
deal. 

Jones introduced documents Fortier had 
executed when he purchased firearms 
before the bombing. 

In both federal forms required with the 
purchase of a handgun, the admitted drug 
abuser had checked boxes indicating that 
he did not use drugs. 

"You lied to the authorities when ydu 
purchased those guns, didn't you, and did 
so under penalty of federal law for 
knowingly making false statements?" Jones 
charged. 

"Yes, I did," said Fortier. 

"And you didn't tell the prosecutors 
about those crimes, did you?" 

"No," said a sullen Fortier, "I stand 
corrected." 

Jones spent the better part of five hours 
cross-examining the man who has, thus far, 
provided the government's most compelling 
evidence that McVeigh and Terry Nichols 
plotted and participated in the bombing of 
the Murrah Federal Building. 

Nichols is scheduled to stand trial after 
the McVeigh trial is completed. 

In an eleventh hour plea agreement, 
Michael Fortier accepted a deal to testify 
for the government against his two Mends. 

Fortier faces up to 23 years for 
transporting stolen firearms, lying to the 
FBI and failing to notify authorities of the 
plot to bomb the building. 

Jones has focused on Fortier's motives 
for testifying, pointing out that the 28-year- 
old is expected to get a lighter sentence as 
a result of his cooperation with authorities. 

Following Fortier's testimony, the 
government called two FBI employees who 
began laying groundwork for the 
prosecution's biggest event of the day - 
the introduction of the "pristine key." 

Part of the government's claim is that 
McVeigh, alone, delivered a Ryder rental 

Page 502 

truck to the front of the Murrah building, 
then ran to the northeast - into an alley 
alongside the YMCA, and that he used thlat 
building to protect himself from the blast. 

A photographer who works for the FBI 
said on April 22 she was summoned to the 
alleyway running along the north side of 
the YMCA, where she was asked to take a 
picture of a key. 

Later in the day, prosecutors would 
introduce a man who works for a company 
that contracted to manufacture keys and 
locks for the Ford Motor Company, but not 
before other witnesses took the stand. 

As a sign that prosecutors are not going 
to allow the jury to lose sight of why this 
case is so important, two survivors of the ' 
bombing were put on the stand to reinforce 
the picture of the carnage of that terrible 
day. 

Throughout the trial prosecutors have 
alternated testimony of survivors with ] 
evidence against McVeigh to keep the 
horror of the bombing fresh in jurors' 
minds. 

Marine Corps recruiter Matthew Cooper 
and an employee of the Social Security 
Administration, Eric McKissick, testified 
about their friends who were murdered 
when the explosion tore through the f 

Murrah building. 

Using family photographs, both 
witnesses brought into the courtroom real- 
life descriptions of the incredible human 
losses suffered as a result of the senseless â€¢ 
and brutal act. 

Throughout their testimony, the defense 
table remained quiet, their client McVeigh 
only making notes and occasionally 
looking up. 

Heading down the stretch, the afternoon 
session saw a Kingman, Ariz., real estate 
agent who rented a storage building to 
McVeigh. 

The government contends that McVeigh 
may have used the unit to store explosives, 
however, tests done at the unit were 
inconclusive. 

A motel owner and manager from 
Kingman, Ariz, also took the stand and 
said that they recalled seeing McVeigh on 
one or two occasions when he paid rent at 
the Imperial Motel. 

Records from the motel indicate 
McVeigh paid rent for a room there from 
March 31 until April 12, 1995. 

Prosecutors then introduced phone 
records showing that the room rented to 
McVeigh had several calls made from it. 

Among those calls is one to a Ryder 
truck rental establishment in Arizona. 

Mr. Hofer, the owner of the 
establishment, could not place McVeigh at 
the motel on one or two occasions during 
that time period. 

"He came in once, on April 7, and paid 
for five extra days," is all Hofer could 
recall. 

The Gazette reported earlier that on 
April 5, a critical phone call was made to 
Elohim City from his motel and that later, 
McVeigh disappeared from the Imperial for 
several days. Five witnesses from a Tulsa 
strip club told the Gazette that McVeigh 
and two residents of Elohim City were in 
Lady Godiva's the night of April 8, 
bragging about a huge upcoming event that 
would make McVeigh famous. , 

But continuing to ignore any eyewitness 
accounts or evidence that implicates 
McVeigh with anyone other than his 
indicated coconspirator Terry Nichols, 
prosecutors did not mention the call to 
Elohim City, nor do they intend to call the 
women who worked at the Tulsa night 
spot. Instead, photographs of tire prints and 
the "pristine key" rounded out the day. 

Page 503 

An FBI expert from the crime lab in 
Washington, D.C. said that it was likely 
that tire prints located outside a Herington, 
Kan., mini-storage came from a truck 
similar to the one used in the bombing. 

Believed to have been rented by 
Nichols, using the alias Shawn Rivers, a 
storage building in Herington, Kan., has 
been brought up in court as the likely place 
explosives used in the bombing may have 
been stored for a time. 

FBI lab expert William Bodziak 
testified that his analysis showed that tire 
tracks found outside unit 2 were possibly 
the same type which could have been made 
by a truck similar to the one used in the 
bombing. 

Under cross-examination, Bodziak 
admitted that a rain storm which occurred 
before his team arrived at the mini-storage 
on April 22 destroyed any evidence that 
would have allowed them to gather 
detailed impressions of the ruts. 

Late in the afternoon, a photograph 
comparison expert from the FBI introduced 
still photos and a film showing a blue 
pickup truck that passed the Regency 
Tower apartments twkie on April 16, 1995. 

The government alleges that it was on 
Easter Sunday, April 16, that Nichols 
drove his blue 1994 GMC pickup to the 
Murrah building to pick up McVeigh. 

Also, prosecutors have indicated that 
they hope to convince the jury that 
McVeigh left his car that day in Oklahoma 
City in order for it to be used on the 19th 
as his get-away vehicle. 

The poor quality pictures were taken 
from a security camera inside the lobby of 
the Regency, and under cross-examination, 
the FBrs expert admitted that there were 

some 500,000 such GMC vehicles 
manufactured that could match the one in 
thfe photo. 

Later, the government is expected to 
show the jury photos of a yellow moving 
van that appears in photos taken from that 
same security camera on the morning of 
the bombing. 

Like the photos of the pickup on the 
16th, the security camera video taken of 
the yellow moving van on the 19th does 
not show any identifiable human features. 

Finally, a lock and key expert from a 
manufacturing plant in Tennessee provided 
important testimony as the afternoon wore 
to a close. 

Charles Edwards told the court that he 
was asked by the FBI to identify the 
"pristine key" found in the alleyway of the 
YMCA on April 22, 1995. 

After describing his work for a 
company that makes the locks for Ford 
Motor Company, Edwards explained the 
intricacies of how a car ignition switch and 
door lock works. 

Finally, Edwards took a key from the 
prosecutor and identified it as one that 
"likely" was made by his company under a 
contract that includes vehicles sold to 
Ryder International. 

After examining the key and a 
photograph taken of a similar one found in 
the alleyway next to the YMCA, Edwards 
told the court that it could be the type of 
key used in a Ford product the government 
says was used in the bombing. 

Under cross-examination, the lock 
designer admitted that a third of the keys 
used in that type of truck are keyed 
identically. 

***** 

Page 504 

McVeigh Trial Testimony Fast-Paced, Extensive 

Thursday, May /5, 1997 - McCurtain baily Gazette 
ByJ.D. Cash l 

Often on the stand for only five 
minutes, about 25 witnesses testified 
Wednesday about the events surrounding 
the bombing of the Murrah building. 

The prosecution team in the Timothy, 
McVeigh case showed that they could 
perform quickly under the rigors of the 
strict guidelines of the federal rules of 
evidence and did so flawlessly. 

The focus of the prosecution Tuesday, 
was three-fold â€” to establish that a Ryder 
truck was at the crime scene on April 19, 
1995; that it exploded, killing federal law- 
enforcement personnel; and that remains 
from the truck indicate it came from a 
rental establishment in Junction City, Kali. 

A maintenance worker appeared early 
that morning and introduced a dramatic fc 
series of still photographs taken from a 
security camera mounted in the lobby of an 
apartment project located only 100 yards 
west of the ill-fated Murrah building. 

Those photographs, taken just minutes' 
before a terrific blast erupted in downtown 
Oklahoma City, show a Ryder track parked 
for only a few minutes on the opposite silie 
of the street. 

Describing the harrowing event, Richard 
Nichols said that his wife and nephew hald 
arrived a few minutes before 9 a.m. and &gt; 
were waiting for him outside in a small r&amp;d 
automobile. 

Running behind schedule, Nichols 
explained, "My wife had walked inside the 
building looking for me and we then 
walked outside to the car where my â€¢ 
nephew was." 

In a still photograph shown on a 
courtroom television set, the couple can be 

seen exiting the building - the Ryder truck 
had already pulled away. 

"Just as we reached our car, there was a 
blast ... It lasted for along time," said 
Nichols. 

"Often choking back tears, Nichols said 
that his wife was trying to get to their 
nephew when they heard a whirring sound. 

"The next thing I knew, something hit 
our car." 

Subsequent photographs introduced by 
the government showed the incredible 
damage done to he couple's red Festiva 
compact when a six-foot section of the 
Ryder truck's rear axle crashed into the 
vehicle, head on. 

Incredibly, none of the family members 
were injured in the ordeal. 

Next, prosecutors brought in agents 
from the Secret Service and DEA to 
introduce evidence related to the eight 
federal agents who lost their lives in the 
bombing. 

Eight of the 1 1 federal counts against 
McVeigh regard the murders of federal 
agents who were performing work on the 
day of the attack. 

Under a new 1994 federal statue, 
McVeigh can receive the death penalty if it 
is proven he participated in a conspiracy to 
kill those federal agents. 

Tuesday's testimony by co-workers 
established that the law enforcement agents 
were in the building and performing their 
duties when the truck bomb exploded at 
9:02 a.m. 

While 160 other persons died as a result 
of the bombing, no federal death penalty 
statute is available for them. 

Page 505 

Oklahoma County attorney Robert Macy 
has long promised that he will later bring 
state murder charges relating to the half- 
dozen persons killed outside federal 
property. 

Later in the day, the government began 
the monotonous task of introducing key 
pieces of evidence recovered from the 
crime scene - evidence that obviously 
came from a vehicle. 

By the end of the afternoon, pieces as 
small as a water pump, and as large as a 
crankshaft, littered the courtroom. 

Often twisted and barely identifiable, 
the automotive parts are believed to have 
come from a bomb-laden 1993 Ford truck 
operated by the Ryder rental fleet. 

Using an elaborate model of the 
downtown Oklahoma City area where the 
Murrah building once stood, agent after 

agent from various FBI and ATF offices 
iaround the U.S. described their work on 
special evidence gathering teams which 
descended on the heartland in the hours 
and days following the tragedy. 

With these parts placed into evidence 
now, presumably the government will next 
bring in experts who will attempt to link 
those twisted parts to the same make and 
year of the truck prosecutors allege 
Timothy McVeigh rented in Junction City, 
Kan., using the alias, Bob Kling. 

While the government was successful in 
presenting a huge amount of evidence, it 
how appears its case will not wind up until 
next week. Then it will be up to Stephen 
Jones and company to present McVeigh's 
long-anticipated defense. 

***** 

Prosecution's Case Has Setback 

Friday, May 16, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash ' i 

The government's extremely potent case 
against mass-murder defendant Timothy 
McVeigh suffered a setback Thursday 
when an FBI fingerprint expert admitted 
that important evidence in the case did not 
bear McVeigh's fingerprints. 

The government alleges that McVeigh 
rented a Ryder truck in Junction City, 
Kan., on April 17, 1995, using the name 
Bob Kling. 

Since the government does not intend to 
call any witnesses who can place McVeigh 

in downtown Oklahoma City in the 
minutes before the blast, the prosecution's 
i case hinges on circumstantial evidence that 
McVeigh planned the bombing, that he 
rented the truck used in the bombing and 
bought materials for making the bomb. 

While prosecutors have presented lots of 
; evidence supporting that chain of evidence, 
supporting that chain of events, testimony 
from Louis Hupp weakened the links when 
the expert admitted that the bureau failed 
to find a single print of McVeigh's on the 

Page 506 

truck rental form, on a Ryder track key 
found at the crime scene or at the premises 
where the truck was rented. 

There are other ties, however. Several 
days ago, the owner of the establishment 
that rented the truck used in the bombing 
testified that McVeigh and another man 
were present when the vehicle was rented. 
On cross-examination, however, Eldon 
Elliott admitted that he and two other 
employees told the FBI it wasn't McVeigh 
who signed the rental agreement but the 
other man â€” described as 5-foot-10 and 
wearing Army fatigues. 

McVeigh is 6-foot-2, and a photograph 
from a security film at a McDonald's 
restaurant taken 19 minutes before the 
rental at Elliott's â€” and 1.5 miles away - 
clearly shows McVeigh wearing street 
clothes. 

The government contends McVeigh took 
a cab to that McDonald's, then walked the 
rest of the way to Elliott's where he rented 
the truck. 

Supporting that theory, an FBI agent 
testified Thursday that he and another 
agent were able to walk the distance in 17 
minutes. 

Much of Thursday's testimony came 
from an automotive manufacturing expert 
who said he examined pieces of a truck 
near the Murrah building and there were 
indeed remains of a 1993 Ford truck 
purchased by Ryder International. 

Edward Paddock concluded that the 
twisted remains of various auto parts 
introduced earlier by the prosecution came 
from the Ryder truck rented at Elliott's on 
April 17 to Bob Kling. 

A victory for the prosecution came late 
in the day when U.S. District Judge 
Richard Matsch allowed the government to 
enter into evidence clothing worn by 
McVeigh when he was arrested about 70 
minutes after the bombing. 

No court is being held today because a 
juror is scheduled to attend her son's 
college graduation ceremonies. 

â€¢kickick 

Prosecutors Expect to Rest Case 

Tuesday, May 20, 1997 
By J.D. Cash 

Federal prosecutors are expected to rest 
their case against accused Oklahoma City 
bomber Timothy McVeigh today or 
Wednesday, following four weeks of 
testimony. 

Thus far, what prosecutors have clearly 
established is largely what almost anyone 
with access to newspaper, radio or 
television already knew: 

That Timothy McVeigh was arrested on 
traffic and firearms charges north of 
Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, after a 
Ryder truck â€” rented from a business in 
Junction City, Kan., â€” carried a bomb of 
some kind that exploded in front of the 
federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 
168 men, women and children in one of 
the nation's most costly act of domestic 
terrorism. 

Page 507 

Boiled down, the government's entire 
case depends upon the jury of five women 
and seven men accepting the assertions 
made by two former friends of the 
defendant, ex-Army pal Michael Fortier 
and his wife, Lori - testimony tainted, 
some observers feel, by the deal they made 
with the prosecution to save their own 
skins. 

Now, it is the turn of the defense to 
present its case, something that is expected 
to take only six to eight days. 

Defense attorney Stephen Jones, who 
may use as many as 30 witnesses, has 
several options open. 

Clearly, his preference is to bring in 
evidence of other possible conspirators that 
he can claim his client was not involved 
with. 

Such a case could be painted by 
testimony from BATF informant Carol 
Howe, who has been summoned by the 
McVeigh defense. 

In an exclusive report, she had earlier 
told the McCurtain Gazette of a plot at 
Elohim City to bomb the Oklahoma City 
federal building ... but in which McVeigh 
is not known as a principal. 

Another tactic of the defense is 
expected to be an attack upon the 
government's picture of McVeigh as being 
uniquely consumed by the events of Waco, 
which the prosecution believes is the 
proximate cause of the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Jones is expected to question a radio 
talk show host to establish that, in fact, 
millions of Americans were and still are 
outraged at the Waco disaster ~ while 
remaining law-abiding citizens. 

Jones is also expected to call witnesses 
who were at the Dreamland Motel in 
Junction City, Kan., to cast doubt on the 
prosecution's case. (Those witnesses, 

including the Dreamland's owner, had 
earlier told the Gazette that McVeigh had a 
yellow truck the day before the bomb truck 
was rented.) 

The defense is also expected to call the 
FBI's own leading lab expert, Frederick 
Whitehurst, who is expected to testify that 
sloppy techniques used by the FBI should 
make the agency's conclusions suspect. 

Another key witness for Jones is 
expected to by Dayna Bradley, the only 
person to be sworn in at the trial who will 
claim to have seen the person that actually 
left the bomb truck in front of the Murrah 
building. 

(As reported earlier by the Gazette, Ms. 
Bradley was inside the Murrah building 
when the bomb exploded. But the key 
element in her testimony will be what she 
told the FBI earlier - that she was just a 
few feet from where the truck pulled up 
that morning - and that a young man 
about 5-8 tall with dark hair exited the 
passenger dopr and walked quickly to the 
east two minutes before the blast.) 

Also very critical to the defense's case 
will be Jeff Davis, a deliveryman for a 
Chinese food carry-out restaurant. 

Earlier, the government put Davis' 
former boss on the stand, who told the 
court that her restaurant received an order 
from a man named Kling. She said he 
ordered food to be taken to room 25 at the 
Dreamland Motel. 

But that attempt by prosecutors to tie 
the room rented by McVeigh, under his 
real name, to that of the name "Robert 
Kling" may backfire when Davis testifies. 

Davis had earlier told the Gazette that 
he never saw McVeigh when he delivered 
the food. 

Instead, Davis said it was a person with 
the same physical description as that given 

Page 508 

by Elliott's body shop where the Ryder 
truck was rented (a man much shorter than 
McVeigh, and stockier)/ 

Davis is also expected to testify that the 
FBI pressured him to change his story and 
. say it was McVeigh he gave the food to. 

Courtroom observers believe these 
witnesses â€” and whatever other surprises 
the defense has tucked away â€” will likely 
make a final verdict a bit more suspenseful 
than some in Denver are predicting. 

The Prosecution Case 

What jurors have gleaned from the 
conveyor-belt line of testimony from the 
prosecution during the past four weeks 
must, of course, await their verdict. 

But several armchair experts, plus the 
unusual assortment of "talking head" 
experts on TV, most of them unfamiliar 
with the defense case, have already 
announced the government has "sown up" 
its case against McVeigh. 

The government's case, however, hinges 
on a couple of suspect government 

witnesses and "evidence" that may be 
turned topsy-turvy by the defense. 

Michael and Lori Fortier have been the 
figurative "glue" of the prosecution case, 
but whether their testimony can hold 
together the government's case must await 
the verdict of the jury. 

What is known is that neither is 
particularly compelling. 

Fortier faces up to 23 years in prison 
for transporting and selling stolen firearms, 
for lying to the FBI and failing to tell 
authorities about McVeigh and Nichols' 
alleged plan to bomb the Murrah building. 
He told the jury he made a deal with the 
government to testify in hopes of getting a 
lighter sentence. 

Together with his wife, Lori, who 
testified with a grant of total immunity, the 
couple were the only witnesses who could 
paint a complete picture of McVeigh and 
Nichols that agreed with the government's 
overall case theory. 

***** 

Brescia Pleads Guilty, Agrees to Testify 

Wednesday, May 21, 1997 -McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By ID. Cash 

Michael Brescia, a former Elohim City 
roommate of Andreas Strassmeir - and 
who in this newspaper was first linked to a 
string of bank robberies a full six months 
before federal agents indicted him on those 
charges â€”has become the third white 
supremacist to plead guilty and to agree to 

testify against a gang of criminals accused 
in 22 robberies in seven Midwestern states. 
Brescia, 24, of Philadelphia, changed his 
plea to guilty Tuesday on charges of 
conspiracy and armed robbery in a 1995 
Wisconsin bank heist. He faces a 
maximum 30 years in prison. 

Page 509 

Authorities say Brescia was part of the 
gang known as the Midwestern Bank 
Bandits of the Aryan Republican Army, 
which wanted to overthrow the 
government. 

Brescia was one of five men charged in 
federal court in Philadelphia. Two others 
have pleaded guilty to reduce their 
sentences. 

In February, Mark W. Thomas, 46, of 
Macungie, former leader of the Aryan 
Nations of Pennsylvania, changed his plea 
to guilty. A few days later, Thomas- 
protege Kevin W. McCarthy, 19, of 
Philadelphia, followed suit. 

The other two men indicted in 
Philadelphia - Peter K. Langan, 38, and 
Scott A. Stedeford, 28 â– - pleaded innocent 
in March to one count each of conspiracy 
to commit bank robbery. Both have been 
convicted in other states of bank robberies. 

Members of the Bandits group have 
been linked to the 1,000-acre compound 
Elohim City in eastern Oklahoma, where 
they reportedly visited often. 

McCarthy's testimony helped convict 
Langan, of Columbus, Ohio, in two Ohio 
robberies and Stedeford in an Iowa 
robbery. 

A second trial for Langan is pending in 
Columbus related to a January 1996 
shootout with authorities when he was 
arrested. 

The 18-page Philadelphia indictment 
issued in January details seven robberies 
attributed to the Aryan Republican Army 
from Oct 25, 1994, to Dec. 19, 1995. It 
tells how gang members obtained fake 
drivers licenses, bought used cars for 
getaways and stashed goods in storage 
areas and safehouses from Pennsylvania to 
southeast Kansas. 

Another gang member, Richard L. 
Guthrie, Jr., 38, pleaded guilty in July 
1996 to 19 bank robberies but was found 
hanged in his jail cell nine days later â€” an 
apparent suicide. 

Brescia pleaded guilty Tuesday for his 
involvement in an Aug. 30, 1996, robbery 
in Madison, Wis. Authorities said Brescia 
threw a smoke bomb into a bucket filled 
with gun powder and nails in the bank 
lobby to cover his escape with two other 
robbers. 

In his plea agreement, Brescia 
implicated Langan, Guthrie, McCarthy and 
Stedeford in the Wisconsin robbery. 

IckicJeie 

Prosecution Ends With Horrors of OKC Bombing 

Thursday, May 22, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
ByJ.D.Cash 

The prosecution wound up its case 
Wednesday much as it began - by 
presenting vivid testimony centering on the 
horrors of April 19, 1995. 

Oklahoma County- s chief medical 
examiner told the court that his staff had to 
set up cold storage lockers at the scene to 

Page 510 

be able to handle the unprecedented death 
toll. 

Fred Jordan said his department 
processed 163 men, women and children 
whose remains were eventually located 
inside the Murrah building and five other 
killed off the premises. 

Earlier, Assistant Fire Chief Mike 
Shannon described his own desperate 
search for victims in the minutes and days 
following the bombing. 

"It was like looking for needles in a 
haystack." 

Illustrating the incredible obstacles 
facing rescuers, the prosecution introduced 
a series of photographs of Shannon as he 
crawled on top of nine collapsed floors of 
debris in a desperate search for persons 
who might still be alive. 

In other photographs, the jurors saw the 
nearly impossible circumstances rescue 
workers had to work in for five weeks 
while bodies were methodically recovered. 

Describing the pancaking of nine floors 
in the southeast comer of the Murrah 
building, Shannon held up his hand to 
demonstrate the width between those 
collapsed floors. 

"Everything and everyone on those 
floors was compressed within a 12 inch 
space," he told the jury. 

At several points in his testimony, 
Shannon described the problem rescuers 
faced because of body fluids seeping on 
them. 

"It became a health threat to the workers 
who had to build bridges over the seeping 
fluids." 

During this vivid description, one of the 
jurors held a hand in front of his mouth â€” 
horrified and apparently on the verge of 
becoming physically overwhelmed. 

Another witness, the manager of a 
credit union once located in the Murrah 
building, said she was holding a meeting 
on the third floor when "the building began 
blowing up." Then, as she watched in 
horror, several of her co-workers 
disappeared into the bottom of the 
building. 

In the aftermath of the blast, Florence 
Rogers said her desk teetered over the 
crevasse and she could see blue sky where 
the employees had been sitting. 

The death toll at the credit union was 
18 out of a total of 28 employees who 
were present that morning. 

The defense is presenting its evidence 
and witnesses today. 

One of the first to take the stand was 
expected to be Dayna Bradley â€” a victim 
of the tragedy who says that she saw a 
man exit the bomb-laden Ryder truck two 
minutes before, the blast and it was not 
Timothy McVeigh. 

Other testimony today is expected to 
center on witnesses from Elliott's Body 
Shop in Junction City, Kan., who told the 
FBI that the person who rented the Ryder 
truck was much shorter than McVeigh. 

Another area the defense is expected to 
capitalize on are witnesses from the 
Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kan., 
who say McVeigh had a yellow moving 
van there the day before the one used in 
the bombing was even rented. 

Some of those witnesses also recall 
seeing McVeigh's yellow Mercury April 17 
and 18 at the Dreamland. 

The government says tjiat McVeigh, 
with the aid of Terry Nichols, dropped off 
the Mercury in Oklahoma City on April 
16. 

Earlier, Mike Fortier testified that 
McVeigh told him that before the bombing 
he would leave his car in the vicinity of 

Page 511 

the Murrah building so that it could be 
used as a get-away car. 

Discrediting Mike Fortier's testimony is 
expected to become an important element 

in the defense's strategy while also 
showing that the government ignored 
evidence of a wider conspiracy. 

***** 

Mysterious John Doe 2 is Apparent Defense Cornerstone 

Friday, May 23, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

The defense of Timothy McVeigh began 
Thursday, and attorneys representing the 
defendant in this country's most brutal act 
of domestic terrorism quickly made a 
portion of their strategy known: 

- There are more persons involved in 
the bombing. 

- One of those persons may have 
perished in the blast. 

- There is a second yellow truck 
involved. 

- And, McVeigh isn't Robert Kling. 
Moving deftly, with the same precision 

exhibited by the prosecution when they put 
on their case, attorneys Stephen Jones and 
Rob Nigh put nine witnesses on the stand 
before the court adjourned for the day. 

Morning courtroom drama included 
Gretta King, who told the court that she 
visited the Dreamland Motel in Junction 
City, Kan., on Easter Sunday, April 16, 
1995. 

While dropping off an Easter basket for 
her son, who was staying at the Sixties-era 
roadside inn, King said she noticed a large 
yellow moving van parked in the lot. Her 
story, under cross-examination, was 
unshakable. 

Corroborating King, another witness 
took the stand and also said there was such 
a truck parked in the same place at the 
motel on Easter Sunday. 

However, neither person said they say 
anyone around the vehicle. Later, the 
defense is expected to call witnesses that 
will say they actually saw McVeigh in and 
around that heretofore unidentified yellow 
truck on Sunday - a full day before the 
government told the jury that McVeigh, 
using an alias, rented a similar Ryder truck 
that blew up the Murrah building. 

The defense's strategy is designed to 
lead the jury to the conclusion that 
McVeigh has been wrongly accused 
because of confusion surrounding this 
second, possibly innocent truck. 

Grizzly Unexplained Leg 

Evidence involving the mysteries 
surrounding the grizzly remains of an 
errant body part consumed the remainder 
of the morning. 

Taking the stand just before lunch, a 
forensic pathologist from northern Ireland, 
Dr. Thomas Marshall, said he had 
examined photographs and documents 

Page 512 

provided by the medical examiner's office 
in Oklahoma and determined that a leg 
recovered from the rubble after the federal 
building was torn down represented a 
"169th person." 

The government has thus far accounted 
for and identified 168 persons killed in the 
bombing. 

Attorney Jones, though, has long 
asserted that this unexplained leg part may 
well be all that remains of a member of the 
bombing conspiracy and not from one of 
the identified 168 innocent victims. 

The medical examiner for the state of 
Oklahoma took the stand and admitted that 
his office could not match the leg with any 
of the 168 identified victims. 

But Dr. Marshall, an expert hired by 
Jones, offered to explain the phenomenon. 
He said that someone quite close to the 
truck when it exploded could literally have 
"been blown to bits ... while a portion of 
the body survived." ... "bits that," Marshall 
explained, "may have been too small to 
identify, except for the possibility that the 
person's body may have been partially 
shielded when the blast occurred." 

Such a finding, Marshall said, could 
explain why only a 16-inch portion of the 
leg could have survived the terrific blast, 
and no other body part did. 

On cross-examination, the expert 
admitted he had never actually taken 
possession of the leg but had worked from 
records and photographs provided by the 
Oklahoma Medical Examiner's office in 
arriving at his opinion. 

However, it was pointed out undbr 
Jones' questioning that the expert had seen 
a similar phenomenon where a person was 
largely obliterated by a bomb, with only a 
single body part surviving. 

Recalling an investigation into a 
bombing in northern Ireland, Dr. Marshall 
said that he had seen such a scenario 
where a single body part was all that 
remained when a bomb was detonated 
inside a room where it was first believed 
eight persons had died. 

Marshall recalled that once all the errant 
body parts found inside the room were 
tallied, he came up with a surprising find. 

"There was a ninth person killed in the 
blast," he said. 

That finding surfaced when an extra 
penis was located. 

"And that penis," Marshall explained, 
"was all that remained of victim number 
nine." 

Thus, the leg discovered in Oklahoma 
City was, Marshall surmised, an identical 
situation and represented the remains of 
someone quite close to the truck when it 
exploded - a 169th person killed in the 
blast. 

The remains of number 169, Jones has 
alleged, could be the person who rented 
the truck used in the bombing, Robert 
Kling. 

During the afternoon two more critical 
witnesses took the stand. 

Jeff Davis, a deliveryman for a Chinese 
restaurant at the time of the bombing, said 
eh took an order to room 25 at the 
Dreamland Motel on April 15. 

In earlier testimony, his employer said 
an order was placed from room 25 at the 
Dreamland and it was in the name of 
"Kling." 

Records at the motel show that 
McVeigh rented room 25 at the Dreamland 
Motel, using his real name. 

Under stifling cross-examination from 
the government attorney, Davis would not 
change his story. He said McVeigh was not 

Page 513 

the person who paid for the food at room 
25 and said he did not see anyone else 
there. 

The prosecution's case is dependent 
upon establishing that McVeigh used the 
alias Robert Kling and employed a fake 
driver's license to rent the truck at Elliott's 
Body Shop. 

In earlier testimony, a friend of 
McVeigh's, Lori Fortier, said she had 
helped the defendant make a fake driver's 
license ,with McVeigh's picture and the 
name Robert Kling. 

Doesn't Remember McVeigh 

At the end of the day, an employee at 
Elliott's, Vicki Beemer, appeared in court. 

Jones elicited critical testimony from the 
rental agent, who maintained she could not 
identify McVeigh as the person who rented 
the truck using the name Robert Kling. 

Equally damaging to the government's 
case, Beemer cast doubt on her employer's 
critical eyewitness testimony earlier. 

Only two weeks ago, Eldon Elliott said 
it was indeed McVeigh who rented the 
truck. 

But under questioning by Jones, Beemer 
admitted that Elliott had asked her if the 
person who rented the truck had a beard. 

McVeigh was photographed at a 
McDonald's restaurant 18 minutes before 
the truck was rented â€” and a series of 
photographs introduced showed McVeigh 
was clean shaven. 

Beemer also testified that she told the 
FBI the person who rented the truck was 
5-feet, 10-inches tall. 

McVeigh is slightly over 6-2. 

And there was one other thing Beemer 
was clear about in her testimony Thursday: 

"There were two men present who came 
in that afternoon to rent the truck." 

Clearly, the issue of a mysterious John 
Doe No. 2 will loom large throughout the 
defense case. 

***** 

Witness Changes Testimony, Says Memory Faulty 

Sunday, May 25, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

It was dramatic. It was excruciating. 
And it may have long-term implications far 
beyond this trial. 

Dana Bradley had the courtroom 
buzzing shortly after U.S. Attorney Patrick 
Ryan stood before her to begin his cross- 
examination and the witness covered her 

face briefly, then dropped her hands and 
said softly, "I want to talk to my lawyer." 

At first, most observers had little idea 
of the import of the words. 

But those who had carefully followed 
Bradley's incredible two-year saga knew 
the 21 -year-old just couldn't go through 

Page 514 

with it â€” and the government knew it, too. 
She wasn't going to tell the "big" lie. 

This young woman who had given up 
one of her legs in exchange for her life, 
had reached yet another crossroads. 

Ms. Bradley had told the FBI, her 
friends, the media and investigators for the 
defense that she saw the man who bombed 
the Murrah building â€” and that it wasn't 
Timothy McVeigh. 

She had been positive of that for two 
years until she came to Denver a week ago 
and met with representatives for the 
prosecution. Then Ms. Bradley's story 
began to change. 

Ms. Bradley lost her mother and two 
young children in the bombing. The family 
had gone to the Murrah building for an 
appointment with representatives of the 
Social Security Administration. Then, at 
9:02 a.m., the bombing sent eight floors 
down on them. 

Hours after the blast, doctors had to 
amputate a leg that had Bradley hopelessly 
trapped under a concrete beam. 

Days later, when Ms. Bradley could talk 
to nurses, she told them that she 
remembered the yellow Ryder truck pulling 
up in front of the Murrah building. 

Subsequently, she met with the FBI 
several times and said a young stocky 
male, fitting the description of the sketch 
of John Doe No. 2, had emerged from the 
passenger side of the truck and left the 
scene in a hurry - just moments before the 
blast. 

Bradley also remembered that the man 
had dark hair and was tanned. 

"He seemed very nervous, almost 
confused," she told a media representative 
after the bombing. 

She also said the bomber she saw was 
definitely not McVeigh. Whether there was 
a second man in the truck, Bradley had 

told investigators, she was not able to tell 
from her vantage point. 

Investigators knew that from where 
Bradley was standing on the first floor of 
the Murrah building â€” about four feet 
below street level â– â– â€” her view would have 
been blocked if there was a second person 
in the truck. 

Thus, Bradley was a boon to the 
defense â€” or so defense attorneys had 
hoped. 

But after she arrived in Denver, word 
slipped out that Bradley was again meeting 
with authorities and that her story was 
changing. 

Electing to roll the dice, the defense 
called her anyway. 

Cheryl Ramsey of the Jones' law firm 
handled the questioning, and Bradley 
admitted to several interviews she had with 
the FBI after the bombing. She also 
admitted she had consistently told 
authorities before that the person she saw 
leaving the truck was not McVeigh. 
However, she added nervously, her 
memory had changed, somewhat. 

Now, Bradley recalled that she saw a 
second man exit the truck â€” a man that she 
could not say was McVeigh but couldn't 
say for sure wasn't, either. 

Ramsey's examination focused on this 
fact: That only since Ms. Bradley arrived 
in Denver and met with the government 
had her story taken on this new element. 

To this, Bradley agreed. 

Next, when U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan 
took the podium for his cross-examination, 
Bradley covered her face for several 
moments as the hushed courtroom sat in 
wonder. 

Finally, Bradley lowered her hands and 
said, "I want to speak to my lawyer." 

Judge Matsch immediately suspended 
the proceedings. Reporters poured into the 

Page 515 

hallway, speculating on the dramatic 
events. 

When court reconvened, Bradley chose 
her words carefully but they crisscrossed 
the spectrum. She was clearly caught up 
between two great forces. 

In confused and halting statements, Ms. 
Bradley was prompted by Ryan to say she 
had been in psychiatric care for much of 
her life. She also said her memory was 
poor. 

But she told Ryan that she could clearly 
remember the darker man. 

What she added was that she now 
believed there was another lighter-skinned 
individual who left the truck from the other 
door and headed north. 

"And that man," Bradley said, "could 
have been someone that was tall with a 
baby face. 

"Was it McVeigh?" asked Ryan. 

Bradley could not say. 

The whole affair finally took on the air 
of the ridiculous when the U.S. attorney 
prodded the witness to say the Ryder truck 
was pointed in the wrong direction - on a 
one-way street. It was a statement Bradley 
had also never made before. 

Next, Ryan played on the confused 
situation and got Bradley to say that she 
needed more psychological help, 

After this, she left the stand. The jury 
was left to ponder what they had seen and 
heard. 

The defense had no other big surprises 
the rest of the day as other witnesses 
testified about critical elements in the case. 

The prosecution contends that McVeigh 
made a phone call from a bus station pay 
phone to Elliott's Body Shop to reserve the 
truck used in the bombing. 

However, the defense found a mechanic 
from a Junction City tire store (which was 
across the street from the pay phone in 

question) who said the defendant stood 
near him while a car McVeigh had traded 
for was being serviced. 

Another witness, Nancy Kindle, said she 
recalled seeing McVeigh in Junction City 
at a time the prosecution says he was in 
Herington, Kan., 30 miles away, preparing 
to leave for Oklahoma City with Terry 
Nichols on Sunday, April 16, 1995. 

The government has alleged that the trip 
to Oklahoma City was made so McVeigh 
could drop off his car near the Murrah 
building, then return with the bombing 
truck on the 19th. 

Sowing more confusion for the jury, the 
defense put on two men who were in the 
Army at the time of the bombing. 

Todd Bunting, whom the government 
says is the man identified as John Doe No. 
2, and Michael Hertig took the stand. They 
testified the had gone to Elliott's Body 
Shop on April 18 and rented a Ryder 
truck. ^ 

The defense contends that extraordinary 
facial similarities between McVeigh and 
Hertig created confusion in witnesses at the 
body shop when the FBI and a sketch artist 
showed up later. 

The government has since somewhat 
agreed about an element of confusion at 
the body shop, saying employees were 
mixed up about a second subject being 
with McVeigh. 

The warrant for John Doe 2 was 
dropped after the Justice Department 
announced that it was Bunting, an innocent 
Army private, they were thinking of when 
they gave the description to the FBI's 
sketch artist of John Doe 2. 

Bunting joked on the stand about the 
similarities in his likeness to the widely 
circulated sketch. 

Page 516 

"I told my friends in the bafracks that 

for that $2 million reward, I'd turn myself 

in." 

***** 

Defense Could Wrap Up This Week in OKC Bombing 
Case 

Tuesday, May 27, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 

Stung by testimony from their own star 
witness, defense lawyers hoped to rebound 
by attacking the credibility of two 
government witnesses who have linked 
Timothy McVeigh to the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Defense attorneys were expected to 
present videotapes and wiretapped 
conversations of Michael and Lori Fortier 
to show the couple lied repeatedly â€” and 
that Michael Fortier bragged that he was 
going to make money by cooking up 
"fables" about the bombing. 

The Fortiers and alleged contamination 
of evidence by the FBI lab were to be 
center stage as the defense begins to wrap 
up its case this week. Lawyers for 
McVeigh had planned to call up to 40 
witnesses and take up to 10 days, but got 
through 19 witnesses in just two days last 
week. 

The trial was to resume today after a 
three-day break. 

The defense has asked U.S. District 
Judge Richard Matsch to admit a Justice 
Department report heavily criticizing the 
FBI lab and how it handled evidence in the 
bombing. The request was pending. The 
Forties, meanwhile, are already familiar to 
jurors. 

While testifying for the prosecution, 
they said McVeigh told them of his plans 
to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
Building months before 168 people were 
killed and 500 injured when it was 
shattered by a massive explosion on April 
19, 1995. 

It was the worst act of terrorism on U.S. 
soil and McVeigh could face the death 
penalty if convicted of murder and 
conspiracy charges. 

The Fortiers told jurors that McVeigh 
had cased the building four months before 
the blast, that he was enraged because of 
the 1993 government siege of the Branch 
Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, and 
that he hoped the bombing would spark a 
"general uprising." 

Mrs. Fortier recalled McVeigh's use of 
soup cans to demonstrate how barrels of 
explosive fertilizer would be stacked. 

But jurors have also been told of the 
Fortiers' drug use. The defense was 
expected to imply â€” as attorney Stephen 
Jones did during cross-examination â€” that 
Michael Fortier's testimony was slanted to 
secure a lenient sentence for lesser charges 
associated with the bombing. 

Page 517 

Fortier has pleaded guilty to several 
charges, including failure to report the 
bomb plot to authorities. He faces up to 23 
years in prison, but likely will get less 
because of his testimony. 

On Friday, the defense called a woman 
who was expected to testify that she saw 
someone who didn't fit the description of 
McVeigh get out of a Ryder truck minutes 
before it exploded in front of the Murrah 
building. 

Instead, Dana Bradley told jurors that 
she saw two men get out of the truck. One 
man had an olive complexion, she said, but 
the other was a white man - and she 
couldn't say it was not McVeigh. 

Ms. Bradley, who lost two children, her 
mother and one of her legs in the blast, 
also testified that she had spent years in 
mental institutions and has a poor memory. 

"You can tell me one thing one week 
and I would forget the next week," she 
said. 

But the defense was helped by another 
witness, Nancy Kindle. The waitress at a 
Denny's in Junction City, Kan., said 
McVeigh and two other men ate there the 
afternoon of Easter Sunday in April 1995. 

Prosecutors have suggested that 
McVeigh and a co-defendant, Terry 
Nichols, were traveling to Oklahoma City 
that afternoon to drop off a getaway car. 

***** 

Defense Rests After Scoring Big Win, But Also a Big 
Defeat 

Wednesday, May 28, 1997 
By J.D. Cash 

The defense may have experienced both 
its biggest win and its worst defeat 
Monday in the trial of Timothy McVeigh. 

The win came in testimony that casts 
serious doubts on the credibility of the FBI 
crime lab. 

The defeat was U.S. District Judge 
Richard Matsch's ruling that former ATF 
informant Carol Howe will not be allowed 
to testify. 

In a closed-door session that reportedly 
lasted some 50 minutes, lawyers for the 
Justice Department and for McVeigh 
argued the legal intricacies of putting the 
government's own informant on the stand. 

At the same time the pre-trial 
conference was taking place, a Lear jet 
was winging its way to an airstrip outside 
of Denver with the former beauty queen 
and BATF undercover informant, guarded 
by a contingent of United States Marshalls. 

But by the time the jet landed, Judge 
Matsch had made his decision. He barred 
Howe's testimony from the ears of the jury 
selected to decide the case. 

Howe's attorney, Clark Brewster, had 
arrived in Denver several days ago, and 
when he learned of the decision, he held a 
press conference outside the courthouse. 

Page 518 

Under sunny skies, Brewster told 
reporters that had his client been allowed 
to testify, she was prepared to tell the court 
that there were several persons involved in 
the planning of a bombing of a federal 
building in Oklahoma City. 

Those persons, Brewster said, were 
residents of Elohim City - a far-right 
religious cult that Howe had infiltrated for 
the BATE 

Although no reason was given to the 
public on how Judge Matsch arrived at his 
ruling to bar Howe's testimony, Brewster 
told reporters that he suspected the judge 
may have been convinced her testimony 
"might have confused the jury." 

Attorneys in the courtroom who learned 
of Matsch's decision told the Gazette 
privately that they were appalled. 

One reason the experts were surprised 
was that in earlier testimony, the 
government put Michael and Lori Fortier 
on the stand. 

The Fortiers, admitted former drug 
addicts, told the jury that they had lied to 
the government consistently for weeks 
about their knowledge of the bombing until 
they entered into plea deals with the 
government. 

After being given immunity, the two 
changed their stories and implicated their 
old friend and house guest, Timothy 
McVeigh. 

While Lori Fortier escaped any prison 
time in her deal with authorities, her 
husband faces 23 years for his role in 
transporting stolen firearms, lying to the 
FBI and failing to tell authorities about the 
plot to bomb the federal building. 

Michael Fortier could receive a 
substantial reduction in prison time though, 
in return for his testimony. 

In contrast to that treatment of the 
prosecution witnesses. Ms. Howe had not 

sought or received immunity from the 
government and was willing to testify 
about meetings she had with members of 
the White Aryan Resistant - a neo-Nazi 
group which Howe was paid to infiltrate. 

During the fall of 1994 and spring of 
1995, Howe told her handler, Angela 
Findley of the BATF, that members of the 
group were planning to bomb federal 
buildings in Oklahoma. 

Later, Howe told the government that 
the Oklahoma City federal building was 
one of the targets chosen by the group's 
leaders, Andreas Strassmeir and Dennis 
Mahon. 

But barring Howe's reports and 
testimony from the jury may provide 
ammunition for an appeal if the jury 
convicts McVeigh, defense attorneys 
believe. 

In other matters Tuesday, testimony was 
received from Supervisory Special Agent 
Frederic Whitehurst about the sloppy 
conditions at the FBI's explosive lab at the 
time of the Oklahoma City bombing. 

Under questioning by the defense, 
Whitehurst pointed out that procedures at 
the crime lab at the time of the bombing 
were lax, unwritten and in his opinion 
sloppy. 

Whitehurst's allegations led to an 
investigation into the FBI laboratory's 
conduct and set into motion several major 
changes. 

After Whitehurst's allegations were 
investigated, the government removed 
several FBI employees who had worked on 
the Oklahoma City bombing case. 

Whitehurst himself was suspended in 
the aftermath of the investigation. 

That suspension has since become the 
focus of Senate investigators who believe 

Page 519 

the FBI retaliated improperly against the 
"whistleblower." 

Whitehurst told the court that 
McVeigh's clothing was shipped 
improperly and could have been exposed to 
contamination which he believed was 
present in the lab. 

Whitehurst also said that conclusions 
regarding explosives residues found on 
McVeigh's clothing could have come from 
sources such as pharmaceutical medicines 
or ammunition purchased in retail outlets. 

In earlier testimony, the government put 
on co-workers of Whitehurst who said that 
the residues could only come from an 
explosive component they believed was 
used in the bomb. 

While careful to protect the integrity of 
one of those co-workers, Whitehurst told 
the court that a critical piece of evidence 

found at the crime scene had crystals of &lt; 
ammonium nitrate that should have been 
there under such conditions. 

That critical evidence â€” a piece of the 
Ryder truck located at the scene - 
supposedly showed signs of crystallized 
ammonium nitrate. 

However, Whitehurst said that it was a 
mystery to him how such a piece of 
evidence could have been found. 

Whitehurst said weather conditions in 
Oklahoma City would have turned the 
crystals to water in minutes and never 
survived long enough for his lab partner to 
discover them days after the bombing. 

Under cross-examination, Whitehurst 
would not go so far as to say he believed 
the evidence had been faked by someone 
in the lab. 

The defense rested its case today. 

***** 

Defense Rests In Trial After Ruling Cuts Key Testimony 

Thursday, May 29, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

"Your honor, the defense rests," and 
with those softly spoken words, Stephen 
Jones signaled an important watershed 
event in the 25-month saga involving 
Timothy James McVeigh. 

Blocked by a judge's decision from 
putting on what they considered key 
evidence, the defense Wednesday 
concluded its case for the 29-year-old 
Desert Storm veteran charged with one of 
this nation's bloodiest mass murders. 

The defense was dealt a crippling blow 
Tuesday when Judge Richard Matsch made 
a decision to keep McVeigh's star witness, 
Carol Howe, off the stand. 

But it was a decision which may prove 
a disaster for the judge's otherwise sterling 
reputation/ 

Legal analysts around the country were 
quoted in the aftermath of the shocking 
decision, calling Matsch's ruling totally 
wrong and saying it likely laid the 

Page 520 

foundation for a new trial should McVeigh 
be convicted. 

Howe came to Denver prepared to 
testify that Andreas Strassmeir, Dennis 
Mahon, Pete and Tony Ward and Michael 
Brescia were the men who planned three 
possible bombings of Oklahoma federal 
buildings. 

Howe told the McCurtain Daily Gazette 
in an exclusive report early this year that 
she warned the government of those plans 
before the April 19, 1995, terrorist attack 
which left 168 persons dead. 

Howe worked undercover for the BATF 
and had infiltrated Elohim City before the 
bombing. Her regular reports to her 
handler, Angela Findley of the Tulsa office 
of the BATF, backed up her claims that 
persons at Elohim City planned the 
bombing. 

Matsch's ruling left Jones without a 
pivotal part of his defense on day 41 of the 
overall trial. 

As a result, he was forced to focus on 
the lack of credibility of the government's 
most potent pair of witnesses against his 
client, Mike and Lori Fortier. 

Formerly two of McVeigh's closest 
friends, Fortier and his wife were the only 
witnesses called by the government who 
could paint a complete picture of McVeigh 
as a centerpiece in the crime. 

They told jurors that McVeigh was 
motivated to strike against the government 
because of his hatred for the mishandling 
of the Waco standoff which culminated in 
the fiery deaths of the Branch Davidians 
on April 19, 1993. 

The Fortiers also said McVeigh had the 
means to carry out the attack in the spring 
of 1995 because of the explosives he and 
indicted co-defendant Terry Nichols had 
been accumulating since September 1994. 

Finally, the prosecution had elicited 
testimony from the Kingman, Ariz., couple 
that their former houseguest had the 
opportunity to carry out the attack on April 
19, 1995, when the drifter disappeared 
from a motel room in the dusty Arizona 
town - days before the bombing. 

Lori Fortier also testified that she even 
helped McVeigh make a fake driver's 
license using die name Robert Kling. 

The government contends Kling was an 
alias McVeigh adopted when he rented the 
Ryder truck used in the bombing. 

And Mike Fortier had told the court that 
his old pal even drove him by the ill-fated 
Murrah building and told him that it was to 
be the target because he quoted McVeigh 
as saying, "It would be easy!" 

With crucial evidence disallowed by 
Matsch, Jones spent the last day of his 
defense tearing at the credibility of his 
client's chief accusers. 

First, Jones called Deborah Brown, a 
young woman who once owned a tanning 
salon in Kingman that employed Lori 
Fortier. 

Brown said Mrs. Fortier was almost a 
daily user of crystal methamphetamine â€” a 
drug that the witness admitted to using 
herself and even occasionally purchasing 
from Mike Fortier. 

Brown also recalled that the Fortiers 
were financially destitute and out of work 
at the time of the bombing. 

Next, Jones took advantage jof tape 
recordings made by the FBI when it placed 
a tap on the Fortiers' phone - just days 
after the bombing. 

Four of those tapes were played for the 
jury. 

And on each of them the courtroom 

listened to Mike Fortier's foul, graphic 
language slurred by drugs or alcohol. 

Page 521 

In several portions of the tapes, Mike 
Fortier told people he hoped to make a lot 
of money off the bombing tragedy. 

"I'm the key to this," he told a friend, 
Lonnie Hubbard, adding: "There will be 
book and movie deals for me because of 
what I know." 

Speaking to his brother, John, Fortier 
said, 'Til 'do some talk shows because I 
can tell a tale ... I've found my calling 
'cause I can tell a story," Fortier could be 
heard saying on the tape. 

After Jones rested his case, the 
government called a few rebuttal witnesses 
who focused on the possible purchases of 
diesel fuel by Terry Nichols and problems 
brought up in the FBI crime lab. 

When that phase ended after less than 
an hour, Jones opted to ignore that limited 
testimony. 

Today, final arguments are to be 
presented. Then, the judge will give 
members of the jury their instructions on 
the law and how to apply it in their 
deliberations, 

Matsch could ask the jury to contpue 
its deliberations through the weekend, if 
necessary. 

Should a verdict of guilty be rendered, 
it will be followed by the penalty phase. 
Both sides will try to convince the jury 
what an appropriate form of punishment 
should be - death or a long prison terni. 

***** 

Jury Begins Its Deliberations in McVeigh Trial 

Friday, May 30, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

Closing arguments in the McVeigh 
mass-murder trial pitted two articulate 
lawyers against one another. And the 
spectators in the courtroom won. 

For those in attendance, it was a historic 
moment that none will likely forget. 

The government's summation began and 
ended with prosecutor Larry A. Mackey at 
the podium. 

Ih a smooth and measured delivery, 
Mackey capsuled the prosecution's case in 
three hours and 10 minutes. 

Mackey â€” whose chiseled, rough-hewn 
features are reminiscent of a middle-aged 
battlefield commander â€” assaulted 

Timothy McVeigh's sparse defense for the 
duration of his closing arguments while 
highlighting the government's weighty yet 
circumstantial evidence against McVeigh. 

Using bluht terms, Mackey squared off 
in front of the jury and said, "Tim 
McVeigh did it (the bombing) in concert 
with Terry Nichols," adding: 

"He educated himself on how to build 
bombs...He recruited Nichols and tried to 
recruit Mike Fortier. He got explosives. He 
got a truck and he built the bomb. He 
drove it to Oklahoma City and blew up the 
building. That's the government's case." 

Page 522 

Using lafrge cardboard props, Mackey 
illustrated for the jury what the elements of 
the conspiracy case against McVeigh and 
Nichols were and how the jury will likely 
be instructed by Judge Matsch on how to 
apply the law to those elerilents. 

Terry Nichols, McVeigh's ex-Army 
buddy and business partner, will be tried 
separately several weeks from now on the 
same charges. 

Reminding the jury that McVeigh's 
"tjeef" with the government centered 
around an inordinate degree of hatred 
because of the catastrophic events at Waco, 
Mackey also spent time reviewing a racist 
paperback book that McVeigh read and 
latter sold at gun shows. 

Discussing a package of anti- 
government documents found in the 
defendant's car when he was arrested, 
Mackey held up a T-shirt worn by 
McVeigh when an Oklahoma Highway 
patrolman pulled him over some 70 
minutes and 75 miles north of Oklahoma 
City after the blast. 

On the front of that shirt was a picture 
of Abraham Lincoln. On the back was a 
tree with blood dripping from the leaves. 
Underneath the stark pictorial were the 
words, "The tree of liberty must be 
renewed from time to time by the blood of 
patriots and tyrants." 

All of this, Mackey said, added up to a 
hatred that turned into a vendetta against 
the government. 

Using the elaborate audiovisual 
equipment installed for this trial, various 
phone calls made with a pre-aid calling 
card were again shown the jury. 

Evidence from these phone records, 
linked to McVeigh and co-defendant Terry 
Nichols, contained a number of calls made 

to establishments that sell nitromethane, 
Mackey said. 

And, he added, nitre-methane was a 
component of the bomb- 

Mackey also highlighted the alleged 
conspiracy involving McVeigh and Nichols 
by reminding the jury of evidence about 
several storage lockers rented by the pair 
while using aliases. 

The government believes these storage 
lockers, located in central Kansas and 
northwest Arizona, were used to store 
explosives and stolen firearms. 

Regularly interspersed during this 
symmary of evidence was graphic 
testimony from the government's star 
witnesses, Michael and Lori Fortier. It 
continued to play a key part in the 
prosecution's overall picture of McVeigh as 
the bomber who had motive, opportunity 
and the means to carry out act. 

Following a late noon recess, the 
defense took its turn at the podium. 

Lead attorney Stephen Jones explained 
that he was going to shaf e time with two 
other members qf the defense, Robert Nigh 
ancl Chris TOtico. 

In what will likely become the most 
studied delivery provided by a defense 
attorney in modem times, Stephen Jones 
surprised only the uninitiated with his 
opening statement: 

"I sought the aid of a book for a theme 
for my closing argument," Jones said. 

"That book, 'By Love, Possessed,' 
represents the very core of all human 
judgement â€” emotion and logical facts," he 
said. 

Undaunted by the presence of families 
of victims who perished in this nation's 
most vile act of brutal human destruction, 
Jones struck headlong into a chilling and 
bold challenge to jurors that it should be 

Page 523 

"logical considerations, and not 
excruciating emotions, that provides the 
wisdom to come to a final verdict in this 
case." 

"Tim McVeigh was convicted at the 
time of this arrest," Jones asserted, "and 
years later it continues to be recycled." 

"The government said they were not that 
important to their case, so I ask you to 
forget them." 

Again reminding the jury of various 
stories told by the couple, Jones rehashed 
the deals the two had made with the 
government in exchange for their 
testimony. 

"They are like Tarzan and Jane,: Jones 
said. "They swing from tree to tree tying 
the government's case together." 

Jones also asked the jury to understand 
that the gun robbery in Arkansas, which 
the government said had financed the 
bombing, "never happened." 

And if it did, he rhetorically asked, 
"Why didn't the government produce the 
victim, Roger Moore?" 

Next, co-council Rob Nigh took the 
podium and brought out all the problems in 
critical eyewitness accounts the prosecution 
relied upon. 

Eldon Elliott, the owner of the body 
shop in Junction City, had said it was 
McVeigh who rented the truck used in the 
bombing. But Nigh reminded the jury that 
the witness first told the FBI that the 
person who rented the truck was 5-foot, 
10-inches tall â€” while McVeigh is more 
than 6-2 in height. 

Another member of the defense team, 
Chris Tritico, told the jury that he had 
spent a lot of time brushing up on 
chemistry and that experts from the FBI 
crime lab had failed to meet the same 

standards that experts called by the defense 
had. 

The standards Tritico alluded to 
involved evidence-gathering procedures 
and the lack of safeguards agaiiist alleged 
contamination of that same evidence. 

Severe criticism of the FBI crime lab 
has led to widespread suspension and 
transfers a the once-heralded Washington, 
D.C. lab since the Oklahoma , City 
bombing. 

Capitalizing on this scandal, the defense 
called whistle blower Frederick Whitehurst, 
who questioned many elements of the 
government's case against McVeigh. 

Most hotly disputed were findings that 
explosives residues was on certain 
clothing, discovered days after the 
bombing. 

Tritico also hammered away at other 
findings, including the government's 
contention that certain storage lockers used 
by McVeigh and Nichols were used to hide 
explosives. 

But thbse same lockers, Tritico said, 
had absolutely no signs of explosives in 
them when tested. 

Nor, Tritico told the jury, did lab 
experts say thfey fdund any explosives 
residue inside Timothy McVeigh's 
automobile. 

When Stephen Jones resumed the final 
arguments at 4:20 p.m. Thursday, he again 
appealed to jurors to resist emotion in their 
judgment and to use what he called the 
most basic of all instincts â€” "common 
sense." 

"Why," rhetorically queried Jones, 
"would Timothy McVeigh rent a room a 
the Dreamland Motel using his real name 
and then go down the street and rent the 
truck used in the bombing using an alias, 
Robert Kling?" 

Page 524 

The obvious discrepancies in such logic 
have long dogged those who have studied 
the evidence, and Jones obviously struck a 
nerve in the jury with it as well. 

"Why would McVeigh order food using 
the alias 'Kling' and have it delivered to 
his room he rented using his real name?" 
Jones again asked jurors rhetorically, again 
suggesting it simply made no sense. 

Finally, Jones summed up his opinion of 
who blew up the building. 

"The medical examiner's office in 
Oklahoma found a leg that it cannot match 
up with anyone," he said. "And that leg 
must belong to the real bomber who was 
killed in the blast." 

Jurors received their final instructions 
from Judge Matsch this morning, then 
retired to consider a verdict. 

***** 

McVeigh Found Guilty; Jones Pins Hopes on Judge's 
Error 

Tuesday, June 3, 1997 
ByJ.D.Cash 

Former government informant Carol 
Howe says that Timothy McVeigh had the 
reputation while at Elohim City of being a 
"good Soldier." 

And that described how McVeigh 
reacted after his conviction Monday for the 
worst act of terrorism ever committed in 
this nation: he took it like a good soldier. 

Timothy James McVeigh's day of 
reckoning with the very system he despised 
so greatly had come at last â€” and with it, 
the harsh reality of sweet justice. 

The 29-year-old was found guilty of all 
11 counts stemming from his role in 
bombing the Murrah building in Oklahoma 
City. 

As has been his custom, when McVeigh 
entered the Denver courtroom at 1:23 p.m. 
Monday to hear the jury verdict, he 
seemed more like a basketball star than a 

man accused of murdering 168 men, 
women and children. 

Walking up ;to each member of his 
defense team, the decorated Desert Storm 
veteran smiled nonchalantly and shook 
hands with attorneys before taking a seat to 
learn his fate. 

Only 45 minutes earlier, Judge Richard 
Matsch had been notified that a verdict had 
been reached. The word spread quickly to 
reporters and family members of victims 
who had gathered in Denver. 

Dressed in khaki slacks and a deep blue 
long-sleeve shirt, McVeigh sported a light- 
hearted demeanor on what should have 
been the most important day of his life. It 
surprised even the most experienced 
reporters. 

NBC's Roger O'Neil turned and 
whispered, "Can you believe this guy?" 

Page 525 

McVeigh's horoscope for the day also 
was being passed around in the courtroom, 
and it added an ironic note. 

Astrologer Jacqueline Bigar had 
predicted: "What seemed like a wonderful 
idea could explode in your face." 

It had. 

With the courtroom in hushed 
anticipation, Judge Matsch appeared at 
1:30 p.m., then asked for the jury. 

Moments later, they began filling inside. 

Without giving a clue, some jury 
members looked squarely a the defense 
table. 

Once the five-woman, seven-man jury 
had taken their seats, McVeigh, smile 
missing now, stared back â€” his hands 
folded in front of his lips. 

From the spectators' section, four sketch 
artists craned their heads toward the 
defendant, intent oh capturing the moment 
for the evening newscasts. 

Matsch first warned the courtroom that, 
"Anyone who makes a commotion when I 
read the verdict will be removed by a 
marshal." 

Next, Matsch asked the jury foreman for 
the verdict. 

After receiving the folded pages, 
Matsch read the verdicts out loud. 

"Count one, conspiracy to use a weapon 
of mass destruction against property of the 
United States. Guilty. 

"Count two, use of a weapon of mass 
destruction against persons within the 
United States, resulting in death. Guilty. 

"Count three, use of a weapon of mass 
destruction against real property owned by 
the United States. Guilty. 

Then, reading the names of the eight 
federal agents killed in the blast. Matsch 
firmly announced after eadi name, 
"Guilty." 

With these resounding verdicts came 
tears and muffled sobs from the families of 
victims in the courtroom. 

McVeigh, however, sat ramrod straight 
in his chair, expressionless â€” not even the 
color of his complexion gave any hint that 
his death warrant was one giant step closer 
to reality. 

After Judge Matsch polled each of the 
jury members, he turned to the convicted 
mass-murderer. And for the first time since 
the protracted process had begun, the jurist 
addressed America's most hated man in a 
tone that was seething with distaste, 
"Marshals remove Mr. McVeigh from the 
courtroom." 

With that, the jury was advised that the 
next phase of the trial would begin on 
Wednesday morning. 

That phase will finally determine 
whether the convicted killer will be 
sentenced to death or receive a lesser 
punishment. 

When court was adjourned, reporters 
shoved their way outside where hundreds 
of onlookers were waiting for the news. 

Greeted with applause, the jury's 
decision w?s clearly popular. 

Minutes later, the prosecution team 
came out of the courthouse to a tumultuous 
greeting. 

Next, victims and family members 
emerged â€” most still shaken but relieved 
that the four-day wait for a verdict was 
over. 

Janie Coverdale lost two grandsons in 
the April 19, 1995 bombing and she called 
the conviction, "A good beginning, but not 
the end of the long nightmare." 

In Oklahoma City, other victims, who 
could not be present in Denver, were 
gathered at the FA A center where the 
proceedings had been broadcast and they 

Page 526 

too expressed similar gratitude that then- 
long wait for a judgement against McVeigh 
was over. 

Wednesday morning, the prosecution 
will begin putting family members of those 
killed on the stand who will offer stark 
testimony regarding the impact the murders 
had on them. 

The victim's impact stage is an attempt 
by prosecutors to persuade the jury to give 
McVeigh the maximum penalty â€” death by 
lethal injection. 

The defense is expected to call 
witnesses such as members of McVeigh's 
family and his friends, who will plead for 
the convicted murderer's life. 

McVeigh himself could take the stand, 
but that possibility seems unlikely: Stephen 
Jones believes that the entire verdict will 
be reversed later because of Matsch's 
earlier decision to bar the defense's star 
witness, Carol Howe, from testifying. 

The sentencing phase could last over a 
week before the jury again retires to finish 
up its work. 

***** 

Government Pushes for Death in McVeigh Penalty Phase 

Thursday, June 5, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

The government's case against convicted 
mass-murderer timothy McVeigh entered 
its second and most lethal phase 
Wednesday. 

U.S. Attorneys are seeking the death 
penalty under a new federal statute from a 
Colorado jury pool that historically seldom 
renders such a verdict in state murder 
cases. 

But prosecutors argued forcefully that 
McVeigh "coldly calculated to kill law 
enforcement officers and everyone else that 
stood between them and a truck bomb he 
parked in front of the Murrah federal 
building on April 19, 1995." 

In his opening statement, U.S. Attorney 
Patrick Ryan also told the jury that 
McVeigh's actions "were already 
proven.. .And no\y it is up to you, the jury, 

to act as the moral conscience of the 
community." 

Taking the stand in an emotion-charged 
courtroom, parents and widows and 
widowers poured out their hearts as they 
choke back tears and told of the personal 
horrors of losing a loved one. 

Rescuers also played on thp emotions of 
jurors by recounting the nightmare of the 
Patriot's Day massacre as they sifted 
through debris in a frantic search for 
victims. 

y 

The government must convince each of 
the jurors that McVeigh's actions were so 
calculating and cold-blooded that no other 
penalty but death is fitting. 

Under the 1994 federal statute 
McVeigh's is charged under, jurors are 
required to balance factors such as the 

Page 527 

degree of premeditation and the relative 
helplessness of the victims against 
mitigating factors â€” which the defense is 
expected to raise regarding the killer's 
motivations and degree of overall 
culpability. 

David Klaus told the jury that his 
daughter, Kimberly, had married a member 
of the Air Force and moved to the 
Oklahoma City area in 1993. 

Klaus and daughter had taken a job at 
the credit union located on the third floor 
of the Murrah building. 

He testified that on April 19 he learned 
while watching TV of the devastation of 
the entire credit union in which his 29- 
year-old daughter worked. 

April 19 was also the grieving father's 
wedding anniversary. And since the blast, 
Klaus told jurors, he has lost 25 pounds 
and has had to be treated for depression. 

"It's been physically and emotionally 
devastating," Klaus said as he wept, 
adding, "There is a huge hole in my heart 
that will never be filled again." 

Throughout the day's testimony, jurors 
could be seen crying. And even Judge 
Matsch appeared to be breathing heavily. 

Just before lunch, the widowed wife of 
veteran Secret Service Agent Donald 
Leonard told the jury that her husband had 
protected seven presidents during his 24 
years of service. 

Leonard said her husband's work placed 
him in constant danger. But, she added, 
"the time I felt sure Donald was safe was 
when he was at this office." 

Alluding to the cowardice of the act, 
Leonard told the courtroom that "had 
Donald any opportunity to defend himself, 
he would have.: 

Throughout the day's testimony, 
Timothy McVeigh stared at the witnesses 

without visible emotion â€” a factor which 
jurors may take into consideration latter. 

Oklahoma City police officer Alan 
Prokop said he entered the building shortly 
after the blast, joining others in a desperate 
race against time to save lives. 

Describing the horrific scene of the 
gutted federal building, Prokop said the 
windowless structure emitted groans and 
screams from victims trapped under walls 
and concrete beams. 

"Smoke was still rising when I arrived," 
Prokop testified. "There was a strange 
quiet...except for the moans." 

Prokop said he recovered some bodies 
and carried them to the south side of the 
building, where a temporary morgue had 
been set up. 

The shaken officer said that upon 
returning to the building on one occasion, 
he spotted a hand gently moving â€” only 
inches above a pile of debris. 

"It was waving back and forth," Prokop 
said. "It was coming up from some rubble 
and I went over and held it... it was a 
woman's hand." 

Three minutes later, the police officer 
said, "The hand went limp and began to 
get cold...there was no pulse." 

During the afternoon, a day care worker 
who had called in sick on April 19, took 
the stand and went through the names of 
children and co-workers from the 
America's Kids Day Care who were killed 
or injured in the bombing. 

She used a group picture of children 
and teachers from the pre-school to bring 
to the jury's attention one of the most 
callous events of the tragedy â€” the 
bombing of a building with a day care 
center. 

Page 528 

In the back row of the courtroom, Janie 
Coverdale â€” grandmother of two of those 
children killed â€” wept quietly. 

A victim who was unable to be in 
Denver, Edye Stone (formerly Smith) â€” 
mother of two other children killed in the 
bombing â€” announced Tuesday she was 
pregnant. 

Describing the event on national 
television, Ms. Stone said "Tim (McVeigh) 
won't get this one." 

Edy Stone's eldest son, Chase Smith, 
would have been six years Wednesday. His 
little brother, Colton, was two at the time 
of the blast. 

A total of 17 children were killed inside 
the Murrah building when the bomb went 
off. 

Testimony from victims is expected to last 
through much of today. 

Then, on Friday, Stephen Jones will 
give his opening statement to the jury. 

The defense is expected to call about 
two dozen persons, hoping to convince at 
least one juror that McVeigh should not be 
executed. 

Federal death penalty cases provide 
jurors with the option of sentencing a 
convicted killer to life in prison without 
parole. 

Only one juror's vote is necessary to 
save Timothy McVeigh from death by 
lethal injection. 

Pointing up Colorado juries' reluctance 
to execute killers â€” since that state's voters 
enacted a modem state death-penalty law 
nearly 20 years ago â€” only five persons 
have been sentenced to die. 

Should Timothy McVeigh be sentenced 
to death, he will become the 13th person 
waiting execution in the federal system. 

"*"*"*"*'* 

Jurors Hear Litany of Horrors 

Friday, June 6, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
by J. D. Cash 

Blood, Gore. Death. Destruction. And a 
litany of horrors. 

Witnesses took the stand here Thursday 
to provide vivid descriptions of the blood- 
drenched crime scene and the loss of loved 
ones who became victims of the Patriot's 
Day murders for which Timothy McVeigh 
has been convicted. 

Testimony ranged from the doctor who 
had to perform the amputation of a leg 
while lying on top of his unanesthetized 
and screaming patient to the many widows, 

widowers, parents, brothers and sisters 
whose bitterness of loss is thinly veiled. 

The prosecution is trying to convince 
the same jury that found McVeigh guilty 
of all 1 1 counts in the Oklahoma City 
bombing that he deserves to die for the 
crime. 

The law allows the government to 
present what is called "victim impact 
statements" at the sentencing phase of the 
federal trial. 

Page 529 

Such victims include those injured in 
the blast. But it also includes family 
members of those killed and rescue 
workers who suffered psychological 
damage. 

U.S. district Judge Richard P. Matsch 
has warned prosecutors not to put on any 
crime scene photos of dead people. 

"I don't want to turn this into a 
lynching," he said. 

But Matsch allowed wide-ranging 
testimony from a broad selection of people 
who provided family photos of their lost 
loved ones â€” and even allowed a photo of 
a woman trapped under a concrete beam 
before her leg was amputated. 

During the testimony of Dr. Randy 
Sullivan, a photograph taken just minutes 
before Dana Bradley's leg was amputated, 
was shown to the jury. 

Trapped inside the social security 
waiting area, which was located on the 
first floor of the Murrah building, 
Bradley's face was covered by dust. Her 
right leg was clearly shown to be 
hopelessly crushed by a large beam of 
concrete. 

Sullivan said he had been contacted at 
mid-day and asked to come to the bombed- 
out structure. 

Sullivan was told that his expertise as 
an orthopedic surgeon was required. They 
told him a woman had been located deep 
inside a crevice and was expected to die if 
her leg was not removed. 

Sullivan said he had to crawl through a 
tunnel in the collapsed building until he 
found Bradley. He described her as 
conscious but in shock. 

After assessing the situation, Sullivan 
determined he would have to remove 
Bradley's leg at the kneecap. He explained 
the need for the procedure to her, and 

Bradley, at first refused to, allow him to do 
it. 

"I told her that I would have to leave 
her there," Sullivan said. 

Then, as they were prepared for the 
surgery, Sullivan and others at the scene 
were told they had to evacuate because 
explosives had been found. 

"She screamed for me to stay, but we 
all had to leave for 45 minutes," explained 
the doctor. 

Sullivan returned 45 minutes later. But 
the area he had to work in was so 
restricted that he had to crawl on top of 
Bradley to perform the surgery, he said. 

Sullivan said the situation was further 
complicated because he decided not to use 
anesthesia. He feared the patient's lungs 
were too damaged for the drugs to be used 
safely. 

Bradley survived the procedure. But her 
mother and two daughters were killed by 
the initial collapse of the building. 

Two weeks ago, Bradley was able to 
come to Denver and testify for the defense 
that she saw two people get out of the 
Ryder truck just minutes before the blast. 

The rest of the day was filled with 
personal accounts of lives forever changed 
by the bombing murders of loved ones. 

Michael Lenz Jr. told the court that he 
and his wife had gone to the pediatrician 
on the day before the bombing. There they 
learned that their first child was going to 
be a boy. 

"We had already named him Michael 
Lenz Jr.," the widower said. 

Admitting that he had turned to liquor 
in his despair after the murder of his 
childhood sweetheart, Lenz said he even 
went so far as to put the barrel of a gun in 
his mouth. He changed his mind at the last 
moment. 

Page 530 

About to leave the stand, Lenz looked 
squarely at McVeigh and promised, "There 
is nothing more dangerous than a man who 
has nothing to live for." 

The threat evidently fell on deaf ears. 
McVeigh remained stone-faced as he has 
throughout the trial. 

Rescue worker Melissa Webster took 
the stand in the afternoon. She explained 
how she and other employees of Oklahoma 
City's Emergency Management staff 
descended on the crime scene in minutes. 

After assessing the extraordinary extent 
of the disaster, Webster established a triage 
station a block from the building. 

She explained to the jury that triage 
places a priority on treatment. It is a 
procedure designed to provide life-saving 
treatment only to those most in danger of 
death, she said. 

One patient who arrived was considered 
to beyond medical help by most of the 
emergency personnel, Webster said. But 
Webster said she refused to give up on the 
young woman. 

"I could tell she had a strong pulse, but 
she was not breathing," she said. 

"The trauma to the girl's face was so 
bad that she could not breath," she said. 
"And under the rules we use, I had to 
pronounce her dead and move on to others 
who had a chance to survive." 

Webster said she kept going to other 
workers and asking their opinion. They 
each agreed that the woman pulled from 
the nearby Journal-Record building should 
be declared dead. 

It was a decision the EMSA worker said 
she just could not agree with. 

"I kept feeling her pulse, and it was as 
strong as mine. I decided to have her taken 
to the hospital." 

And miraculously, Webster said, the 
victim did survive. 

It was one of the few happy endings in 
the day's testimony in Denver. 

Today, defense attorney Stephen Jones 
is expected to begin putting on witnesses 
who will try to get at least one member of 
the jury to abstain from voting for the 
death penalty. 

McVeigh cannot be sentenced to death 
under newly-enacted federal statutes unless 
all 12 jurors vote in favor of it. 

***** 

Experts: OKC Blast Couldn't Have Been Done by Truck 
Bomb Alone 

Sunday, June 8, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette News 
By Jeff Holladay 

Fact? Or fiction? 

A Ryder track loaded with 4,000 to 
4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate and 

fuel oil caused the massive destruction of 
the Murrah building in Oklahoma City on 

Page 531 

April 19, 1995, killing 168 people and 
wounding hundreds of others. 

Endlessly repeated as "truth" by federal 
prosecutors and most media reporters, it is 
an assertion questioned almost from the 
beginning by the McCurtain Daily Gazette 
and a handful of other newspapers and 
magazines* 

Now comes additional evidence to 
buttress those earlier claims made by a 
retired Air Force general that a truck bomb 
could not have caused all the damage done 
to the Murrah building. 

The Gazette learned just days before the 
bomb-wracked building was to be 
demolished on May 23, 1995, that Gen. 
Benton K. Partin had petitioned members 
of Oklahoma's congressional delegation to 
delay the destruction to preserve key 
evidence. 

Despite attempts of Oklahoma's 
metropolitan newspapers to paint him as 
some right-wing nut and conspiracy 
theorist, Partin has impressive credentials. 
He is former director of the Air force 
Armament Technology Laboratory and 
considered one of the world's top 
authorities on military ordinance, weapons 
systems and explosives. 

In letters hand-carried to members of 
Congress on May 17, Partin begged them 
to delay the demolition of the building to 
preserve evidence that he said would soon 
be "forever destroyed" â€” to no avail. 

Then he asserted that the destruction 
could not have been caused by a single 
truck bomb. 

"From all the evidence I have seen in 
published material, I can say, with a high 
level of confidence, that the damaged 
pattern on the reinforced concrete 
superstructure could not possibly have 
been attained from the single tryck bomb 

without supplementing demolition charges 
at some of the reinforced column bases" 

Partin's contentions brought swift 
agreement from the late Ed Jones of 
Idabel, a former Army demolition expert. 
He said there was simply noway that a 
truck loaded with explosives could have 
caused the pattern of damages that hit the 
Murrah building. 

He said there either had to have been 
bombs or other explosives in the basement 
or lower portion of the building. 

He speculated that tfte damage may 
have been caused by illegally stored C-4 or 
"plastique" explosives in the basement of 
the building. 

Normally, despite being illegal, there 
would be no danger from such C-4 
explosive, he said. It required a fuse to set 
if off. 

But there was one other way it could be 
triggered â€” and that was 3,500 pounds of 
pressure per square inch. And the 
collapsing building could have supplied 
that pressure, he speculated. 

Experts Agree with Partin 

Now, the June 9 edition of "New 
American" magazine said it had 
interviewed architects, engineers, scientists 
and demolition expert who agree with 
Partin's contentions that the Ryder truck 
bomb could not have caused the damage. 

"One of the strongest statements of 
support comes from Dr. Sam T. Cohen, the 
inventor of the neutron bomb and one of 
our nation's foremost nuclear weapons 
analysts, who says: 'I believe that 
demolition charges in the building, placed 
at certain key concrete columns, did the 
primary damage to the Murrah Federal 
Building. It would have been absolutely 
impossible and against the laws of nature 

Page 532 

for a truck full of fertilizer and oil â€” no 
matter how much was used â€” to bring the 
building down/" 

The government's truck bomb story, he 
said, just "doesn't work." 

Further adding doubt to the 
government's truck bomb theory is an 
investigation of the FBI crime lab, the 
magazine said. 

Coming in for severe censure by the 
Department of Justice's Inspector General 
was FBI explosive analyst Dave Williams. 
He was criticized for the unscientific â€” 
some would say "fraudulent" â€” methods by 
which he concluded that the Ryder truck 
used in the Oklahoma City bombing had 
contained a 4,000-pounds bomb of 
ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. 

Curiously, the conservative magazine 
reports, the IG's report did not question the 
FBI's lone truck bomb thesis per se. 

But it might as well have, since it found 
that Williams' conclusions about the weight 
and composition of the explosive device, 
its velocity of detonation, the type of 
detonators used and the type of containers 
were all pronounced "flawed," "without a 
scientific basis" and appeared "to tailor the 
opinion to evidence associated with the 
defendants." 

FEMA Report Dismissed 

The magazine also contends that 
General Partin's contentions are unwittingly 
given support by the analysis of the 
bombing conducted by engineers for the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency 
(FEMA) and the American Society of Civil 
Engineers (ASCE). 

Extrapolating from the bomb crater size, 
FEMA/ASCE said the blast was 

"equivalent to the detonation of 4,000 
pounds of TNT." 

But experts say 4,000 pounds of TNT 
would be roughly four times more powerful 
than the ammonium nitrate-racing (ANFO)) 
fuel bomb. 

That would make the alleged Ryder 
truck bomb tip the scales at around 15,000 
pounds â€” a weight the experts seriously 
doubt the Ryder truck was carrying. 

So how do federal prosecutors try to 
explain away this obvious discrepancy? 

They contend that McVeigh used nitre- 
methane racing fuel or hydrazine rocket 
fuel to "juice up" the truck bomb's 
explosive power. 

The "New American" magazine 
contacted experts who said such 
accelerants could significantly boost the 
explosive power of the ammonium nitrate- 
fuel oil bomb â€” but not any where near the 
equivalent of 4,000 pounds of TNT. 

Moreover, the demolition experts 
contacted by the magazine say even 4,000 
pounds of TNT would fail to take out the 
massive columns of the Murrah building 
by "brisance," or a shattering effect, as 
claimed by FEMA/ASCE. 

What is so patently absurd about the 
FEMA/ASCE report, the magazine 
reported its engineers and demolition 
experts as saying, is the assertion that blast 
pressure waves would pass up a nearer 
column and destroy one farther away. 

The only way the damage to the Murrah 
building could have been done, they all 
agree, would be internal bomb charges. 

General Partin minced no words in 
saying the FEMA/ASCE report was phony 
as a $3 bill â€” and plainly suggested it was 
further evidence of a government coverup. 

"Now even if that column were 
damaged sufficiently by brisance to cause 

Page 533 

it to fail, it would still be there â€” perhaps 
severely shattered and damaged, but the 
large steel re-bar and much of the concrete 
would still be there," he told the magazine. 

"Yet FEMA says it couldn't be found. 
Something that massive doesn't just 
disappear. 

"But an even bigger problem is this: 
They say the column was destroyed by 

brisance, but the concrete transfer beam 
which was at the same location and 
subjected to the very same brisance shows 
no evidence of spoliation. 

"Now you can't have it both ways; you 
can't have brisance utterly destroying the 
column and not even scratching the beam. 
It doesn't work that way. 

***** 

Jury Hears Humanizing Testimony 

Tuesday, June 10, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

Something clearly went wrong in 
Timothy McVeigh life after he was 
discharged from the military. 

The decorated Desert Storm hero has 
been convicted by a federal grand jury of 
the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred 
P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma 
City. 

Now the jury in the punishment phase 
has heard two full days of testimony that 
painted this picture: 

A near-perfect teen who became an 
extraordinary soldier â€” before he began to 
change. 

That picture stands in stark contrast to 
the one portrayed by the prosecution of 
unspeakable horrors inflicted on victims, 
those injured and their loved ones in the 
bombing. 

The defense strategy is to develop a 
humanizing portrait of McVeigh that may 

persuade just one juror to spare his life. 
With a lone dissenting vote on the death 
penalty, McVeigh would get life 
imprisonment. 

More than a dozen witnesses took the 
stand to offer more pieces in the strange 
puzzle of Timothy McVeigh's Transition 
from likeable kid and All- American soldier 
to convicted mass murderer. 

Testimony revealed it was a transition 
from a reliable neighborhood kid, who was 
always smiling and joking, to the dedicated 
Bradley turret gunner who outscored 
everyone in his Army outfit. 

He was awarded the "Top Gun" trophy, 
which hung at his Fort Riley, Kan.., 
battalion headquarters. And examples of 
McVeigh's sterling accomplishments were 
brought out by a dozen or so ex-Army 
buddies who testified. 

Page 534 

But hints of disillusionment came when 
McVeigh failed to qualify for a position in 
the Army's elite "Special forces," witnesses 
said. 

Another sign of disillusionment was 
noted. An ex-Army comrade said shortly 
before McVeigh left the Army, he became 
a fan of the racist novel "The Turner 
Diaries." 

Later, after dropping out of the 
competition to become a member of the 
Special forces, McVeigh quit the Army 
and returned to Buffalo, N.Y. 

There, he worked for less than a year as 
a security guard before beginning a three- 
year odyssey in the mysterious underworld 
of the neo-Nazi movement â€” culminating 
with McVeigh's arrest 70 miles north of 
Oklahoma City just minutes after the 
bombing left 168 dead and hundreds 
wounded. 

The defense is expected to wrap up its 
case today with evidence focusing on 
timothy McVeigh's passionate denunciation 
of the -government's role in the fiery 
carnage which swept through the Branch 
Davidian compound at Waco, Texas, just 
exactly a year before the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

It was a watershed event in McVeigh's 
attitude about the government. 

McVeigh's father is also expected to 
take the stand and describe his son's 
childhood and youth. He may even asked 
the jury to spare the 29-year-old's life. 

McVeigh himself has the option of 
taking the stand. But sources say it is more 
likely he will allow a statement of his to 
be read to the jury. 

The jury's life or death sentence is 
expected by the weekend. 

***** 

Branch Davidian Events a Watershed for McVeigh 

Wednesday, June 11, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

The defense rested its case this morning 
in the death penalty phase of Timothy 
McVeigh â€” found guilty earlier by a jury 
of the Oklahoma City bombing. 

Earlier, the Waco phase in the life and 
times of Timothy McVeigh featured 
witnesses attempting to explain how the 
tragedy affected the former military hero. 
Though still denying the convicted 
mass-murderer's guilt during the critical 
penalty phase of the trial on Tuesday, 

defense attorney Stephen Jones' strategy is 
clearly to portray his client as someone 
whose views about the incineration of 
Branch Davidians was intense. 

So intense, in fact, that the defense 
appears to be suggesting that it was a 
catalytic event â€” and an explanation of 
why McVeigh would take extreme action 
against the federal government. 

While this appears to be a delicate and 
dangerous strategy to avoid the death 

Page 535 

penalty, it is a response to the 
prosecution's litany about McVeigh's anti- 
government writings and statements. 

In short, the defense seems to he trying 
to explain how those feelings were 
developed. 

To illustrate the intensity of McVeigh's 
feelings, defense attorneys introduced 
video tapes and articles from magazines 
that McVeigh saw and read â€” all casting a 
poor light on the government's handling of 
events at the Mount Karmal standoff in 
Waco, Texas. 

James Pate, a well-known authority and 
writer for "Soldier of Fortune* magazine, 
told the court that large numbers of 
persons who consider themselves part of 
the "Patriot Movement" were appalled by 
the events at Waco. 

Next, a young reporter told the jury she 
traveled to the scene of the Waco standoff 
for a story while on spring break from 
college. 

Just a half-mile from the checkpoint, 
manned by agents of the Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), 
reporter Michelle Rauch said she spotted 
some people selling items along the 
roadside. 

"My gut instinct told me that was where 
the story was", Rauch said. 

She recalled falling into a conversation 
with a particularly interesting fellow sitting 
on his car hood and selling bumper 
stickers. 

The tall, skinny, youthful figure that 
Michelle Rauch photographed, and later 
published a story about in the Southern 
Methodist University student newspaper, 
turned out to be the subject every network 
today is fighting for an interview with â€” 
Timothy McVeigh. 

One of the bumper stickers on 
McVeigh's car hood carried this slogan: 
"Fear the government that fears your guns." 

Rauch's story, published in the March 
30, 1993, edition of the SMU newspaper, 
quoted McVeigh as saying he had come to 
Waco to show his support for thoise inside 
the compound. McVeigh also said he 
thought the local sheriff could have 
handled the situation far better than the 
ATF. 

Next, the jury was shown a film about 
Waco that McVeigh had watched before 
the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah 
Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 

That film, "Day 51, The True Story of 
Waco," concluded that the government 
acted improperly in their handling of the 
initial raid and final assault on the Branch 
Davidian compound. 

Interestingly, one of the persons 
featured prominently in the film as an 
investigator, Ron Cole, was arrested only 
weeks ago by the ATF for firearms and 
explosives violations. 

Cole had held a demonstration in 
support of McVeigh at the Denver federal 
courthouse in the early days of the trial. 

Also testifying late in the day was Dick 
Revis, an investigator for the defense and 
author of "The Ashes of Waco," published 
by Simon and Shuster, one of the nation's 
most prestigious publishing houses. 

Revis said many of the films about 
Waco were often misleading â€” but highly 
popular among enthusiasts interested in the 
disaster. 

Revis concluded, however, that the ATF 
was most to blame in starting the bloody 
standoff. He said the FBI only made the 
situation worse when it took over from the 
beleaguered agency. 

Page 536 

Later, under lively cross-examination by 
U. S. Attorney Patrick Ryan, Revis' Texas 
wit consistency drew laughs from reporters 
as Ryan flailed about, obviously 
unprepared for the witnesses. 

Ryan, for example, said, "You haven't 
ever worked for a major newspaper, have 
you Mr. Revis?" 

"Well, I don't know," the spunky Texan 
drawled. Tve written for the New York 
Times: 1 

"Well," retorted Ryan, "If someone 
wanted an authoritative source of 
information on Waco, they wouldn't watch 
these Waco videos, would they?" 

"Where could they get authoritative 
information on Waco?" 

With a big smile, Revis shot back: Td 
say they should buy my book." 

Testimony today from Timothy 
McVeigh's father capped the defense's 
portion of the penalty phase of the trial. 

Both sides will deliver closing 
statements before the jury when it 
reconvenes Thursday to consider 
McVeigh's punishment â€” life in prison or 
death by lethal injection. 

The defense is hoping to find at least 
one juror opposed to the death penalty for 
McVeigh, automatically downgrading his 
sentence to life in a federal prison. 

***** 

McVeigh Hears Parents' Testimony as Trial Draws to a 
Close 

Thursday, June 12, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

If finally happened. A tear crossed 
Timothy McVeigh's right cheek as his 
mother appealed to the jury to spare his 
life. 

For two years, the Desert Storm veteran 
has mystified spectators with his causal 
courtroom mannerisms, easy-going smiles 
and apparent lack of concern with his role 
in the Oklahoma City bombing. 

But the stirring testimony from Mickey 
Frazier finally got to McVeigh, and also 
touched many others in the courtroom, 
when the school bus driver apologized for 
all of the pain and agony the victims in 
Oklahoma City had suffered. 

In a particularly poignant moment, 
McVeigh's mother even tried to reason 
with the jury, saying, "I still can't believe 
he's responsible for this. There are too 
many unanswered questions." 

Reading from a prepared statement, 
Frazier's voice quivered, "I am pleading for 
my son's life. He is a human being. You 
must make a decision on my son's life. I 
hope god can help give you guidance." 

Mickey Frazier also told the packed 
courtroom that she had divorced her 
husband, Bill McVeigh, when her three 

Page 537 

children were in school. Tim McVeigh, 29, 
was the middle child, Frazier said. 

McVeigh has one older and one younger 
sister. 

The younger sister, Jennifer McVeigh, 
23, had been sitting on the front row of the 
courtroom these last few days â€” 
occasionally exchanging smiles with her 
brother as the death penalty phase of the 
trial grinds toward a conclusion. 
^ The last witness to take the stand was 
Bill McVeigh. 

A 32-year auto worker, Bill McVeigh 
appeared distant and unemotional as he 
explained photographs of his son taken 
during various family holidays. 

"He was always good-natured and fun," 
he explained. "Always in a good mood." 

A film was shown to the jury that the 
defense had professionally edited which 
Bill McVeigh said was a composite of 
several movie reels and photographs from 
the family album. 

Appearing in the film, McVeigh talked 
about his son's perfect attendance while in 
high school, the award he received for not 
missing a single day of class in those four 
years, and the scholarship his son received 
from a community college. 

During Bill McVeigh's time on the 
stand, his son sat with his hands folded in 
front of his face. 

Near the conclusion of McVeigh's 
testimony, attorney Dick Burr asked, "Do 
you want to see you son live?" 

Without a hint of emotion, Bill 
McVeigh replied, "Yes, I do." 

With that, the defense rested and Judge 
Richard R Matsch told the jury that 
lawyers for both sides would present their 
final arguments on Thursday. 

After those arguments, the judge said 
jurors would be given their final 
instructions from the bench before they 
retired to decide Timothy McVeigh's 
punishment â€” death or life in prison 
without parole. 

Following the dramatic close of 
testimony, the courtroom began emptying 
out while lawyers for McVeigh surrounded 
their client and solemnly shook hands. 

Absent his usual smile, the convicted 
mass murderer spoke briefly with each 
member of the defense team and then was 
escorted by U. S. Marshals to his 
temporary cell, located in the basement of 
the federal courthouse. 

The jury reconvened at 8:30 a.m. today, 
and will likely be asked to work through 
much of the weekend, if it is necessary. 

ickickic 

Attorneys Hope to Sway Jurors With Closing Statements 

Friday, June 13, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

"It's time for justice," Special United 
States Attorney Beth Wilkinson told the 

seven-man, five-woman jury that is now 
deciding the fate of Timothy McVeigh. 

Page 538 

Final arguments by the government 
began early Thursday morning in the 
sentencing phase of the Oklahoma City 
bombing trial. 

Timothy McVeigh faces 1 1 murder 
counts that each carry the maximum 
punishment of death by lethal injection. 

During Wilkinson's 36-minute plea for 
the jury to execute Timothy McVeigh, she 
focused on the convicted mass murderer's 
transition from good soldier to, in her 
words, "a good killer." 

At one point, she turned and looked 
squarely at McVeigh and said, "He's a 
coward and a traitor." 

McVeigh stared back emotionless 
during the prosecutor's entire summation. 

Cognizant of Colorado juries' historic 
reluctance to sentence killers to death, 
Wilkinson asked, "If killing 168 persons is 
not enough to get the death penalty, then 
what is?" 

Colorado has sent only five people to 
death row in the last 20 years. None have 
been executed. 

McVeigh was found guilty under a 
federal statute that has yet to be tested in 
the Supreme Court. 

No one has been executed in the United 
States under a federal death penalty statute 
since 1963. 

Next it was the defense's turn to try to 
find just one juror who could hold out for 
a life sentence for their client. 

Dick Burr, a death penalty specialist 
hired by the defense, shortly after taking 
McVeigh's case, took the podium first 

"We do not dispute the enormity of the 
crime," Burr said. "And, yes, the attack 
was planned against the government. Those 
facts are not in dispute." 

Burr then told the jury that his appeal 
was to their compassion. 

"Tim McVeigh is not evil. He is a 
young man who loved his country and put 
his life on the line when they asked him 
to." 

To deliver the defense's final appeal, 
lead attorney Stephen Jones stood before 
the jury and began a lengthy and 
straightforward statement. And, during the 
appeal, Jones accepted the panel's guilty 
verdict but offered various reasons why 
McVeigh should be spared execution. * 

"Tim McVeigh is going to die in jail, 
there's no doubt about it. The only 
question is whether it is sooner or later," 
Jones said. 

Then he added in cryptic language, 
"Something happened here. Tim McVeigh 
did not come to hold these views about 
Waco and Ruby Ridge in a vacuum, and 
Tim is not alone in his beliefs." 

Asserting that the grand jury that 
indicted McVeigh found that there were 
others unknown also involved, Jones said, 
"The government is not the only ones who 
want McVeigh to die. Remember, dead 
men tell no tales. There were others 
involved who want him dead. Don't close 
the book on Oklahoma City." 

Referring to the failure of the 
government to investigate fully the alleged 
wrongdoing by federal agents at Waco and 
ruby Ridge, he said, "It is time for this 
madness to end. We could have avoided 
Oklahoma City had Waco and Ruby Ridge 
been investigated. We must restore 
domestic tranquility and Oklahoma City 
started something. There must be a full 
accounting." 

Pointing out that Michelle Fortier had 
entered a plea bargain with the government 
and Lori Fortier testified with immunity, 
Jones said, "I promise you those two were 
involved and they aren't facing the penalty 

Page 539 

of death. Is it right for them to walk and 

Tim McVeigh to die?" 

U. S. District Judge Richard Matsch 
read the instruction to the jury and shortly 

after lunch on Thursday, sent them 
deliberate McVeigh's fate. 

By the end of the day, the jury was 
brought back into the courtroom and told 
to return this morning and begin again. 

***** 

Friday the 13th Lived Up to Its Reputation for McVeigh 

Sunday, June 15, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

Friday the 13th lived up to its reputation 
â€” at least for Timothy McVeigh. 

After 13 hours of deliberations, a 
federal jury â€” which had earlier found 
McVeigh guilty in the Oklahoma City 
bombing â€” returned a unanimous death- 
penalty verdict. 

The 12-member jury notified U. S. 
District Judge Richard Matsch of its 
decision as lighting bolts outside the 
courtroom sent television crews scurrying 
for safety. 

At 3:20 p.m., McVeigh was escorted 
into the jammed courtroom, his ever- 
present smile on display. 

Nodding to his mother, father and sister, 
McVeigh shook hands with his attorneys 
and then took a seat to await the sentence. 

Minutes later, Judge Matsch read the 
jury's binding decision â€” death. 

His chin resting on folded hands, 
McVeigh accepted the death penalty just as 
he did his 1 1-count conviction days ago â€” 
a dead part stare. 

But as he was led from the courtroom 
later, McVeigh turned to members of his 
weeping family and offered consolation, 
mouthing the expression, "It's OK." 

Then he looked to the jury members. 
And with an expression of understanding, 
he raised his right hand slightly and waved 
as he walked from the courtroom. 

Outside, McVeigh's lead defense 
attorney, Stephen Jones, told reporters that 
McVeigh had prepared himself for the 
sentence. 

"He was not surprised," Jones said. 

In contrast to the jubilant atmosphere 
which prevailed after the jury found 
McVeigh guilty, family members present 
in Denver for the sentencing were more 
subdued. 

Said Jannie Coverdale, who lost her two 
grandsons in the bombing: 

"I'm sad. I'm sorry someone else is 
going to have to die. Nothing is going to 
bring back Aaron and Elijah." 

The two were among 168 killed when a 
blast ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah 
Building on April 19, 1995. 

Judge Matsch said he will formally 
sentence McVeigh later. He did not set a 
date. 

*** 

Page 540 

The defense will now prepare legal 
motions due July 7 as the first step of 
several in a federal death-penalty appeals 
process. 

That first step is an appeal on the 
conviction and sentence to the 10th U. S. 
Circuit Court of Appeals. 

(Where the defense hopes to obtain a 
reversal based on Judge's Matsch's ruling 
that ATF informant Carol Howe's 
testimony wasn't germane and wouldn't be 
allowed. Howe said the ATF knew in 
advance that the Oklahoma City federal 
building was the target of a bomb. But she 
didn't recognize McVeigh as one of the 
planners.) 

Third step is possible appeal to the U. 
S. Supreme Court. Few such death penalty 
appeals hearings are granted. Few such 
death penalty appeals hearings are granted. 

Then there are the habeas corpus 
appeals. 

In these, attorneys for inmates can argue 
that prosecutors withheld information that 
should have disclosed to the defense â€” an 
element that could very well have a 
bearing in the McVeigh case. 

But perhaps a more important factor 
will be appeal of the 1994 federal death 
statute. 

Richard Wintory, an assistant state 
attorney general, says he expects the 
federal death statute to be challenged â€” as 
do others. 

McVeigh is the 13th man to be 
sentenced to death under that new federal 
statute. 

Assuming the statute is not overturned, 
it would still take several years for 
McVeigh's appeals process to be 
completed. 

*** 

Prosecutors in the case played heavily 
upon the emotions of jurors, apparently 
overriding some striking gaps of credibility 
that in a less-emotional case might have 
triggered more "reasonable doubt" 
skepticism. 

Michael and Lori Fortier, who turned 
state's evidence, were the only significant 
link the prosecution could establish 
between McVeigh and the rental of a 
Ryder truck used in the bombing. She 
claimed to have made a fake driver's 
license for McVeigh using the name 
"Kling." 

The truck was rented under the name of 
"Kling" in Junction City, Kan.., where 
Timothy McVeigh had rented a room at 
the Dreamland Motel in his own name. 

And prosecutors put on a witness at the 
truck rental place who identified McVeigh 
as "Kling." 

But defense attorney Stephen Jones 
showed the witness a report he'd made 
earlier to an FBI agent that the man who 
rented the truck was 5-10 and stocky â€” 
McVeigh is 6-2 and slender â€” and was 
wearing military-type fatigues. 

Prosecutors showed the stamp for the 
truck's lease as 4:19 p.m. â€” then attempted 
to tie McVeigh to the truck rental by 
showing a security-camera recording of 
McVeigh just 23 minutes earlier in a 
McDonald's restaurant. (He was not 
wearing military fatigues.) 

There were also no finger prints found 
on the rental truck form. 

All of these inconsistencies in the 
federal government's case prompted this 
remark from one survivor of the bombing: 

"For McVeigh to have done all this by 
himself, he would have had to run a mile 
and a half while changing clothes, shrink 

Page 541 

four inches and rent the truck â€” all in a 
span of 20 minutes. 

Other observers familiar with the 
evidence have speculated that McVeigh 
was a "patsy" for other co-conspirators. 

Moreover, demolition experts have 
questioned the government's contention 
that the truck bomb could have caused the 
structural damage to the Murrah building. 

*** 

Meanwhile, more than 500 tort claims 
have been filed in civil court in Oklahoma 
city on behalf of bombing victims. 

They allege the government had prior 
knowledge of the April 19,1995, bombing 
of the Murrah building â€” and accuse the 
government of using workers in that 
building as "bait" to try to snare the 
bombers. 

***** 

Grand Jury to Start Probe Monday; Jones Predicts 
Continued Cover-up 

Sunday, June 29, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette News 
By J. D. Cash 

A grand jury which was 21 months in 
the making will begin work Monday in 
Oklahoma City. Its duty: To answer the 
myriad of questions surrounding the 
bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
Building. 

Petitioners Glenn Wilburn and state 
Rep. Charles Key of Oklahoma City began 
the process in late 1995 after concluding 
that local District Attorney Robert Macy 
was allowing the federal government to 
spirit the investigation away from what is 
historically a state matter â€” first degree 
murder. 

A total of 168 men, women and 
children perished in the April 19, 1995, 
bombing. Five hundred more innocents 
wee injured and over $100 million in 
property damage was done when a truck 
bomb ripped through the Oklahoma City 
downtown area. 

A federal grand jury was empaneled 
after the blast, and on August 10, 1995, it 

indicted Tiinothy James McVeigh and 
Terry Lynn Nichols, along with "others 
unknown," for the heinous act. 

However, evidence later suggested that 
federal prosecutors did not present key 
witnesses who might have been able to 
identify those "others unknown." Nor did 
they delve into evidence that suggested 
federal officials knew there was a risk of a 
bombing that tragic day, yet failed to warn 
all the occupants of the building. 

Also ignored by the federal grand jury 
was substantial evidence that explosives 
used by federal law enforcement were 
being illegally stored in special evidence 
vaults inside the federal building. 

Photographs and other evidence 
suggests that some of those explosives may 
have been secondarily detonated seconds 
after the truck bomb destroyed the facade 
of the Murrah building, adding to the 
heavy death toll that morning. 

Page 542 

Thus, Key and Wilburn spearheaded a 
drive for an independent investigation by a 
local grand jury that, in theory, would 
operate outside the control of federal 
prosecutors who focused their investigation 
on just two men â€” McVeigh. and Nichols 
â€” while completely ignoring the other 
issues. 

For their part, federal prosecutors 
promised that eyewitnesses in Oklahoma 
City would be called at the McVeigh 
murder trial in Denver, and all other 
questions would be answered, as well. 

However, the government did not call 
any witness who saw McVeigh with others 
in downtown Oklahoma City, Instead, 
prosecutors relied on circumstantial 
evidence and the testimony of two 
admitted liars and dope addicts, Michael 
and Lori Fortier. 

That couple testified against McVeigh, 
their former friend and houseguest, after 
Macy agreed to a special plea bargain with 
the Justice Department in return for 
Michael Fortier's testimony in the fedetal 
trial in Denver. 

Also getting a deal, Lori Fortier was 
granted immunity from federal prosecution 
for a variety of criminal acts which 
supported the bombing conspiracy. 

Thus, it is not surprising that recent 
USA Today and other national polls show 
that three out of four Americans surveyed 
do not believe the federal government's 
theory that McVeigh and Nichols acted 
alone. 

It was just such public support for a 
state investigation into the mass murder 
that allowed the petitioners to gain nearly 
three times the necessary signatures to 
empanel a new grand jury. 

But the long road to gathering those 
petition signatures was made all the more 
difficult when a local judge that Macy 

represented tried to block Key and 
Wilburn's efforts at every turn. 

Eventually the pair had to take their 
argument to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, 
which quickly agreed with an appeals 
court's unanimous decision that the pair 
had the right to take up the signatures. 

But what appeared to be a storybook 
ending to a long and protracted battle to 
get at the truth surrounding this nation's 
most costly act of domestic terrorism may 
well be headed for disaster. 

Tragically, during this long battle to 
bring to justice all those responsible for the 
massacre of innocents in the bombing, 
Wilburn was stricken by cancer. His firm 
hand and meticulous eye to facts and 
details have been side-lined during the 
fight. 

Having lost two grandchildren, Chase 
and Colton Smith, ages 3 and 2 years, 
Wilburn had set out and done his own 
investigation in the bombing. 

Crisscrossing the nation and burning up 
the phone liens, he and his wife, Kathy, 
interviewed literally hundreds of sources 
looking for answers to why their only 
grandchildren were murdered. 

Rep. Key took a different course. 

Surrounded by what the state's two 
largest newspapers have described as 
"nuts," Charles Key and his crowd 
promoted unsupportable theories of the 
bombing, some so ludicrous that many 
onetime supporters finally walked away 
from them in disgust. 

Flaunting the message that the 
government itself blew up the federal 
building in order to pass legislation that 
was bottled up in Congress , Hoppy 
Heidelberg, the renegade grand juror who 
was booted from the federal panel that 
indicted McVeigh and Nichols, appeared 

Page 543 

with Key on countless radio programs and 
at "survivalist meetings." 

Key, for his part, spent two years trying 
to establish that a Middle Eastern 
businessman was the real mastermind in 
the bombing. But the problem with that 
theory was proving that the man had faked 
his death, because he otherwise would have 
had to have worked out the scheme from 
his grave site, as he was buried years 
before the bombing. 

Adding to the investigation's 
"meltdown," Key and his cronies now face 
possible criminal indictment or fines from 
a statewide grand jury looking into 
allegations that monies were illegally 
raised for a bombing investigation. 

Virtually unprepared now to submit a 
list of credible witnesses and evidence of 
his own for the grand jury to consider, Key 
will likely not be able to count on any 
leadership from county government in the 
investigation, because he opted to leave the 
grand jury under the supervision of any 
aide to his longtime adversary, Macy. 

Explaining the incredible decision, Key 
admitted to the Gazette last week that he 
had opted to leave the grand jury probe in 
the hands of Macy's office because, "I 
doubted that I could get anyone better if I 
asked for them to be removed." 

Normally, an independent prosecutor is 
appointed by the attorney general's office 
when a citizen's grand jury probe begins. 
By their very nature, such grand juries are 
often formed because petitioners believe 
the local district attorney is not 
aggressively pursuing certain criminal 
matters. 

Key's decision also baffled attorney 
Stephen Jones. 

The lawyer for convicted mass-murderer 
McVeigh has been telling the media that 
there are others involved in the bombing. 
But, Jones told this paper only last week 
that "There is little or no hope that Macy's 
office is going to unravel a cover-up of 
this magnitude." 

Jones had earlier pointed out that 
evidence of members of the county bomb 
squad â€” who were reportedly seen with 
bomb sniffing dogs near the Murrah 
building before the last â€” will certainly not 
be exposed if Macy's office retains control 
of the grand jury. 

Other attorneys have also pointed this 
out, saying that as legal counsel for 
Oklahoma County in lawsuits against that 
entity, Macy has a conflict of interest 
representing a grand jury that could create 
a huge financial liability for his client. 

The obvious conflict is that, should a 
grand jury find that Oklahoma County is 
liable for failure of a duty to warn the 
inhabitants of the federal building of an 
increased risk of danger of April 19, 1995, 
then such a finding could eventually 
expose county taxpayers to hundreds of 
millions of dollars in civil damages. 

Plus, should there be any evidence of a 
resulting cover-up of the facts surrounding 
the disaster, that evidence could send some 
county officials to prison, as well. 

So, with all this at stake, it is not 
surprising that many persons â€” who once 
cheered the idea of an independent grand 
jury â€” are now bracing for a report similar 
to what the federal grand jury issued. Thus 
for a while longer, the "others unknown" 
may remain unindicted and free to act 
again. 

***** 

Page 544 

The Rev. Robert Millar Identified as FBI Informant 

Tuesday, July 1, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
ByJ.D.Cash 

Near pandemonium broke out in a 
federal courtroom here Monday when a 
senior agent of the Federal bureau of 
Investigation shocked observers by telling 
the court that the spiritual leader of Elohim 
City, the Rev. Robert Millar, was a 
confidential informant for the FBI. 

The McCurtain Daily Gazette has long 
been reporting that Elohim City is a 
religious and paramilitary compound in 
east central Oklahoma that is frequented by 
some of the most dangerous members of 
the neo-Nazi underground in the United 
States and Canada. 

Although residents of the cult have 
continued to deny it publicly, the Gazette 
has reported that its sources believe one of 
those shadowy figures was Timothy 
McVeigh. 

Stories published in this newspaper have 
also exposed Elohim City as the center of 
a wide-ranging conspiracy to overthrow the 
federal government by members of a group 
called the Aryan Republican Army. 

Several of those members have since 
been arrested on the charges related to a 
string of bank robberies across the mid- 
western United States. 

The incredible revelation that the leader 
of Elohim City himself was part of a 
government intelligence operation came 
during a pre-trial hearing associated with 
the upcoming trial of another confidential 
informant and frequenter of the compound, 
Carol E. Howe. 

Howe, a former Tulsa beauty queen, 
debutante and one-time paid undercover 
informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms, is scheduled to 
stand trial later this month for conspiracy 

charges associated with making bomb 
threats and possession of bomb-making 
components. 

Howe was indicted shortly after the 
Gazette reported that she intended to be a 
key witness in the trial of Timothy 
McVeigh. 

U. S. District Judge Richard Matsch, 
who presided over the McVeigh trial, 
refused to let Howe testify in Denver â€” 
ruling that her information that Elohim 
City was the center of the bombing 
conspiracy "might confuse the jury." 

Under questioning Monday by Howe 
attorney Clark Brewster of Tulsa, Special 
Agent Peter Rickel stunned everyone when 
he reluctantly admitted that the man 
Elohim City cult members call "Grandpa" 
is really a cooperating source for the FBI. 

Millar's status as a confidential 
informant began in the fall of 1994. The 
FBI admitted in court that Millar was a 
paid confidential informant, although the 
amount of his paycheck was not revealed. 

When Rickel disclosed this startling 
information, a senior FBI agent present and 
several U. S. Attorneys bolted from the 
courtroom in an agitated state. 

Millar's encampment was heretofore 
considered by experts in domestic terrorism 
to be the "Switzerland" of the neo-Nazi 
movement in the United States. 

Elohim City, a 1,000-acre area of 
rolling timberland, is the residence of some 
80 followers. But more importantly, it has 
played host to some of this nation's most 
notable subversives. 

Page 545 

Thus Millar's position as a mole for the 
FBI could explain why the compound has 
never been raided. 

Despite its use as a hideout for 
gunrunners, drug dealers, bank robbers and 
suspected members of the conspiracy that 
bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
building in Oklahoma City, Elohim City 
has enjoyed a reputation as place fugitives 
can live without fear of arrest. 

In the weeks before the Oklahoma City 
bombing, BATF agent Angela Findley had 
planned to raid the compound and arrest its 
security advisor, Andreas Carl Strassmeir. 

Strassmeir, an illegal alien who 
migrated to Elohim City from Germany, 
was suspected by Findley of converting 
semi-automatic weapons to machine guns 
as well as plotting with other Elohim City 
residents and visitors to bomb federal 
installations. 

Carol Howe reported to Findley during 
the time she worked for the BATF. 

Howe told Findley that Strassmeir was 
the ringleader in the plot to bomb the 
Oklahoma City federal building and that 
Millar was preaching twice a day to his 
flock that the group had to act by April 19, 
1995, or they would end up like the branch 
Davidians in Waco. 

The arrest of Strassmeir was scrubbed 
after senior members of the BATF, the FBI 
and the U. S. Attorney's office met in 
February 1995 and discussed Findley's 
plan. 

Sources have told the Gazette that 
Strassmeir was also an important source of 
intelligence for the U. S. Government. 

In January 1996, shortly after it was 
discovered that it was Strassmeir that 
Timothy McVeigh had called for in the 
days before the bombing, the German 
national fled to his native Berlin with the 
aid of German intelligence officers. 

With Millar now exposed, the loss of 
Elohim City as a virtual nest of spies for 
the U. S. Intelligence community is almost 
assured. 

But such a loss could have consequence 
far beyond the obvious. 

If Millar was reporting a wider 
conspiracy to bomb the Oklahoma City 
federal building, and those reports were not 
subsequently turned over to Timothy 
McVeigh's defense team, then the 
withholding of such critical information by 
the FBI could get McVeigh a new trial. 

Those reports, as well as Howe's will 
likely be sought by the defense teams for 
both McVeigh and Terry Nichols and may 
also be subpoenaed by the grand jury 
convened in Oklahoma City to investigate 
the bombing. 

Also those reports could prove 
important in several civil suits that are 
pending against the government for its 
alleged failure to notify the occupants of 
the Murrah building that there was a 
heightened risk of danger on April 19, 
1995. And Congress is also looking into 
the government's intelligence roll in the 
bombing. 

Calls to the compound to get Millar's 
comments about the situation were not 
returned. 

ickiekic 

Page 546 

Millar Takes Issue With Being Called FBI 'Informant' 

Wednesday, July 2, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

In a statement released to the Tulsa 
World Tuesday night, the Rev. Robert 
Millar, spiritual leader of Elohim City, 
admitted that he has long been providing 
information to the FBI, but the Christian 
Identity guru disputed the term "informant" 
that has been used to describe his 
relationship with authorities. 

During a pre-trial hearing Monday 
involving the upcoming federal trials of 
Carol E. Howe and James Viefhaus, Jr., 
FBI agent Pete Rickel disclosed that Millar 
had been providing the bureau with 
information. 

Howe and Viefhaus were indicted 
earlier for conspiracy to make a bomb 
threat and possession of a non-registered 
destructive device. 

Carol Howe was a paid confidential 
informant for the BATF assigned to 
Elohim City before and after the bombing 
of the Murrah federal building. 

Interviewed by the Gazette, Howe said 
she warned the BATF that residents and 
visitors at Elohim City were plotting to 
bomb federal installations and that the Rev. 
Millar was preaching twice a day that they 
had to act before April 19, 1995 or they 
would end up like the Branch Davidians in 
Waco. 

Millar says he objects to the term 
"informant" because it implies that he "runs 
to law enforcement authorities to tell them 
things." 

I do not initiate talks with law 
enforcement officers, but I do co-operate if 
they contact me." Millar told the World. 

Millar's statements are at odds with 
what he has earlier told this newspaper and 
the Muskogee Phoenix. 

During a series of interviews with the 
Gazette in 1995 and 1996, Millar admitted 
initiating contacts with the BATF about a 
person they were interested in 
apprehending â€” Elohim City's security 
advisor, Andreas Carol Strassmeir. 

Also, Millar appeared in the offices of 
the Muskogee Phoenix only weeks before 
the Oklahoma City bombing and told 
reporter Donna Hales that he had learned 
of a situation involving the federal 
government and the white separatist 
movement, and felt he should report it to 
the FBI. 

Hales wrote after the bombing that she 
made the appointment for Millar to visit 
with agents of the FBI in Muskogee 
concerning this information. 

Millar's status as a "confidential 
informant" and whether he was paid for his 
information remains unclear. 

Two sources who were present in court 
Monday told the Gazette that Rickel 
confirmed that Millar was a "paid, 
confidential informant." 

However, later others present claimed it 
was unclear whether the FBI agent used 
that term to describe the bureau's 
relationship with Millar or whether agents 
were getting the information without cash 
payments to the Elohim City leader. 

A transcript of Rickel's's statements 
should be available later today, and may 
clear up Millar's precise status with the 
bureau. 

Page 547 

In any event, attorneys for Timothy 
McVeigh said Tuesday that they will be 
looking carefully at this recent revelation 
concerning Millar's relationship with the 
FBI. 

"This is the first public indication that 
we're aware of that Robert Millar was an 
informant for the FBI," said Robert Nigh, 
an attorney for McVeigh. 

Nigh is helping to prepare a motion for 
a new trial for McVeigh, who was 
convicted last month on murder charges 
involving the conspiracy to bomb the 
Oklahoma City federal building. 

Information from Millar that may have 
implicated others in the plot could be 
grounds for a new trial if it was withheld 
from the McVeigh defense team. 

"kiekick 

Grand Jury Witness Saw McVeigh With Mahon 
on Day of Bombing 

Tuesday, July 15, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
by J. D. Cash 

Oklahoma County grand jurors heard 
from two eyewitnesses Monday that recall 
seeing timothy McVeigh with others in 
downtown Oklahoma City on the morning 
of the bombing of the Murrah federal 
building on April 19, 1995. 

And one of those witnesses, David 
Snider, a Bricktown warehouse worker at 
the time of the event, even told the grand 
jury who one of the persons was with 
McVeigh â€” Dennis Mahon of Tulsa. 

The grand jury is investigating 
allegations of a larger conspiracy and a 
government cover-up in the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Meanwhile, the McCurtain Gazette has 
learned that congressional hearings on the 
ATF and FBI's handling of the Oklahoma 
City bombing case could be held after the 
trial of Terry Nichols later in Denver. 

Snider said that on the day of the 
bombing he was waiting for a pair of 

deliverymen to stop by his place of 
employment to pick up some equipment in 
the Bricktown section, just blocks east of 
the ill-fated Murrah federal building. 

The grand jury witness had made 
virtually the same remarks to the 
McCurtain Daily Gazette last year, saying 
the events he witnessed happened about a 
half-hour before the bomb blast went off. 

"They were creeping along," Snider 
said, "and I thought they were looking for 
my warehouse. I pointed at our sign and 
yelled to them, but they just drove by 
staring back while I waved." 

The man on the passenger side of the 
truck was timothy McVeigh, Snider told 
this newspaper. 

And the driver was Dennis Mahon, a 
White Aryan Resistance leader from Tulsa. 

The Gazette has learned that Snider told 
the same story Monday to the grand jury â€” 

Page 548 

and even provided the original sketch he 
made after the bombing showing a man 
with a sharp, pointed chin, wearing sun 
glasses and a dark wig. 

Mahon, who has such an unusual chin, 
also claims to be a disguise artist, he had 
told this newspaper in earlier interviews. 

Snider turned over a videotape of a 
television program to the grand jury where 
Mahon tells the audience that his dream is 
to take a nuclear device to Washington, 
D.C., and detonate it. 

Another person likely to be called by 
the grand jury, former ATF informant 
Carol E. Howe, has named Mahon and an 
associate, Andreas Strassmeir, as 
ringleaders in the plot to bomb the 
Oklahoma City federal* building. 

Howe provided that information to 
authorities weeks before the bombing, and 
even after it. 

But her undercover work did not 
become known to the public until a year 
after Snider picked Mahon out as one of 
the conspirators riding in the truck that 
morning. It was first revealed in the 
McCurtain Gazette earlier this year. 

Another witness called Monday was 
Broken Arrow banker Kyle Hunt. 

Hunt told grand jury co-petitioner Glenn 
Wilburn after the bombing in a tape- 
recorded interview that he saw McVeigh at 
about that same time on April 19, 1995, 
driving toward Bricktown. 

Hunt told the FBI that there were two 
men with McVeigh in an old sedan, 
followed by a Ryder rental truck. 

Expected to testify later this week is the 
other grand jury co-petitioner, state Rep. 
Charles Key of Oklahoma City. 

Key will provide the grand jury his 
ideas about the broader conspiracy and 
evidence that federal officials knew there 
was a risk of danger on April 19, 1995 â€” 

yet failed to warn the occupants of the 
Murrah federal building. 

ATF Elevator Lies 

Also expected to testify is Oscar 
Johnson, general manager of the 
Midwestern Elevator Co., who had told the 
Gazette two years ago that the ATFs story 
about a supervisor free-falling in an 
elevator after the bomb went off was a lie. 

Johnson had three employees across the 
street when the bomb tore through the 
Murrah building. They immediately 
inspected the elevators in the Murrah 
building â€” and found them empty. 

Johnson said the story told by ATF 
supervisor agent Alex McCauley that an 
agent fell five floors in an elevator was 
fiction. He said the elevator was 
discovered between floors with the doors 
sealed and empty. 

Witness Pressured by FBI? 

Another potential witness, Gary Lewis, 
was quoted in today's edition of the Daily 
Oklahoman as saying he was expecting to 
testify but had now changed his story and 
claims he saw nothing important. 

But in the summer of 1995, Lewis told 
Glenn and Kathy Wilburn on tape that he 
saw McVeigh and another man leave the 
Oklahoma Journal-Record parking lot only 
moments before the blast that killed 168 
person. 

Lewis, a pressman at the business 
newspaper at. the time of the bombing, was 
outside on a smoke break when the vehicle 
sped through the parking lot, narrowing 
missing him, he said. 

Lewis also appeared on a local 
television news program and told the 
interviewer the same story, noting the 
license plate on the big yellow Mercury 

Page 549 

auto was hanging by one screw when it 
left the scene. 

Despite hours of; interviews Lewis aid 
he gave the U. S. Attorney's office and the 
FBI, telling them what he told this 
newspaper â€” Lewis now says he made a 
mistake. 

According to the Daily Oldahoman, 
Lewis said the FBI got him to understand 
that he saw a different yellow Mercury that 
was not McVeigh's. 

"It was real similar to it," Lewis told the 
newspaper. "It was real close but it wasn't 

.it" 

The newspaper, which has consistently 
pooh-poohed any information not 
consistent with what federal prosecutors 
have given them, also quoted Lewis as 
saying the Wilburn's exaggerated his story. 

To this, Kathy Wilburn, widow of 
Glenn Wilburn following his death about 
5:30 a.m. today, said, "We have Mr.. 
Lewis on tape and so does K-FOR 
(Channel 4 TV). 

"He told us he was afraid of the 'bad 
guys at the FBI,' so I guess they finally got 
to him." 

Moreover, witnesses interviewed a the 
Journal-Record said Lewis made the 
statements about nearly being run over by 
the big, yellow car almost as soon as he 
walked back into the pressroom from his 
smoking break. 

Interestingly, Lewis' observation of the 
tag hanging by just one screw on the 
vehicle as it passed within inches of him 
just prior to the blast, matches the same 
description given by a person in Kansas 
who is sure it was McVeigh's car she saw. 

Lea McGown, owner manager of the 
Dreamland Motel, told the Gazette last 
year that McVeigh's car tag was hanging 
by one bolt or screw while he was staying 
at the motel just days before the bombing. 

Congressional Hearings Slated? 

Curiously, Lewis is just one of a 
number of witnesses who have admitted to 
changing their earlier sworn statements 
after repeated visits by agents of the FBI. 

It has been learned by the Gazette that 
members of Congress intend to hold 
hearings on the ATF and FBI's handling of 
the Oklahoma City bombing â€” probably 
after the trial of Terry Nichols. 

Witness tampering could become the 
focus of that investigation, along with 
evidence that certain suspects named in 
FBI and ATF reports were not interviewed 
in a timely fashion â€” or at all â€” following 
the bombing. 

Moreover, the issue of whether the 
government knew, or should have known, 
there was heightened risk of a bombing in 
downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 
1995, is expected to be an issue. 

JcJcJcJcic 

Glenn Wilburn, Catalyst for Grand Jury 
Probing OKC Bombing, Dies 

Tuesday, July IS, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

Page 550 

Oklahoma City accountant Glenn 
Wilburn, whose dogged investigation into 
the Oklahoma City bombing that killed his 
two grandchildren was the catalyst for an 
investigation by the McCurtain Daily 
Gazette, died today after a lengthy battle 
with pancreatic cancer. 

Wilburn's death came as an Oklahoma 
City grancj jury began investigating 
allegations of a larger conspiracy and a 
government cover-up in the April 19, 1995, 
bombing of the Murrah federal building in 
Oklahoma City. 

Wilburn and state Rep. Charles Key of 
Oklahoma City had long pressed for the 
state grand jury probe, alleging that agents 
of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms had prior knowledge of a 
bombing plot â€” and that the federal 
government was covering it up. 

Ironically, the grand jury in Oklahoma 
City is finally hearing accounts that, 
through Wilburn's effort, were aired during 
the past two years in the McCurtain 
Gazette but were virtually ignored by the 
state's two largest metro newspapers and 
the Associated Press. 

The New York Times once described 
him as "an unlikely Lone Ranger, with 
ordinary looks" â€” a comparison his wife, 
Kathy, enjoyed teasing the 46 year-old 
certified public accountant about. 

Glenn Wilburn could accept the jibes 
with good nature because, in the space of a 
little more than a year, he had become 
internationally recognized for his 
unrelenting investigative efforts to uncover 
and expose the many unresolved questions 
surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing 
tragedy. 

It was a tragedy that claimed 168 lives, 
including Wilburn's only two grandsons, 
Chase, 3 and Colton, 2. 

Leaving behind a legacy recorded in 
hundreds of radio, television and 
newspaper stories, Wilburn's self-financed 
investigation stampeded federal and county 
prosecutors to courthouses in an attempt to 
derail his investigation. 

Oklahoma county District Attorney Bob 
Macy, for example, asked the Oklahoma 
Supreme Court to quash a citizen's petition 
shortly after Wilburn and Key filed a 
request to empanel a grand jury to 
investigate the Oklahoma City bombing. 

Likewise, when Wilburn's stepdaughter, 
Edye Smith, filed a wrongful death suit 
against Timothy McVeigh and others, 
federal prosecutors quickly filed motions 
with a cpurt in Denver. They asked the 
trial judge assigned the McVeigh-Nichols 
criminal trials to halt discovery in the civil 
suit, claiming that it might interfere with 
the government's own investigation. 

Newspapers, television networks and 
radio talk shows around the country 
followed the unfolding efforts of the 
Wilburn family with keen interest. They 
often re-interviewed the modem-day Don 
Quixote to update the country on the latest 
tidbits the investigation had uncovered. 

Over time, the Wilburn's fashionable 
northwest Oklahoma City home became a 
command center for news people from 
around the nation and Europe, seeking 
information from the self-taught 
investigator's extensive collection of 
government documents and tape-recorded 
interviews about the bombing. 

Apparently equally interested in 
Wilburn's activities was the FBI. The 
federal agency established periodic 
surveillance operations near the family's 
home â€” often coinciding with visits from 
important sources of information and 
national news agency representatives. 

Page 551 

Such surveillance caused many amusing 
incidents to Wilburn and his supporters. He 
regularly spotted the sleuths and, armed 
only with a camera and a wide smile, 
Wilburn would casually cross the street to 
ask what the FBI was so interested in â€” 
causing the agents, usually, to flee. 

Wilburn was no stranger to controversy 
himself, having raised questions that many 
Oklahoma citizens and metro newspapers 
did not want asked. 

When the much-published $30 million 
civil lawsuit against McVeigh and others 
was filed, the Daily Oklahoman newspaper 
quoted some bombing victims who claimed 
Wilburn was "cozying up" to McVeigh's 
lawyer, Stephen Jones. 

Wilburn's critics parroted the 
government line that the suit also opened 
up the door for Jones to depose witnesses 
that he might not otherwise be able to 
under the less-stringent rules of civil 
procedure. 

Undaunted by the criticism, Wilburn 
continued to conduct clandestine 
communications with the defense team, 
even dining regularly with one of his 
court-appointed investigators. 

It was an arrangement that baffled 
many. But as Wilburn explained, he and 
Stephen Jones had "a common interest in 
this matter...It's called finding the truth. 
The truth benefits both of us in our distinct 
and clearly separate endeavors." 

In an atmosphere in which convicted 
bomber Timothy McVeigh was relentlessly 
portrayed as guilty in both state and 
national news media, there was often 
misunderstanding* about Wilburn's 
motivations. 

He clarified those feelings several 
months before he learned he was afflicted 
with cancer, say, "Tim McVeigh will 

eventually be executed for what he has 
done. And on that glorious night, I am 
going to buy a bottle of champagne, a very 
fine cigar and enjoy that evening with 
perfect pleasure." 

But Wilburn could never convince some 
skeptics of his belief that the Oklahoma 
City bombing had conspirators besides 
McVeigh and Nichols, the only two 
charged. 

He believed at least one of those 
involving in the Oklahoma City bombing 
conspiracy was a government agent or 
informant who was part of an operation by 
the ATF to entrap members of various 
white supremacist organizations. 

"There is much more involved here than 
executing McVeigh," he said. 

"There is the matter of bringing to 
justice all of those involved who have yet 
to be indicted. 

"And then there is the matter of those in 
government who must answer for why they 
used by grandkids and 500 other persons 
as bait for a foolhardy sting operation. 

"So at some point, I hope, the facts 
about all of this will come out. And when 
my goals are better understood, then 
maybe people will better appreciate my 
methods..." 

While he did not live to see McVeigh's 
execution or that of others who will likely 
be discovered because of his tireless 
efforts, Wilburn did live long enough to 
see his quest to empanel a county grand 
jury achieved. 

But more important to the determined 
CPA was that more than 170 survivors 
finally agreed he was right â€” joining with 
his family in a civil suit against various 
federal agencies for prior knowledge of the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Page 552 

Those were only a few of Glenn 
Wilburn's accomplishments in life. 

He was the best and bravest friend this 
reporter ever had â€” and without his efforts, 
few of this newspaper's stories on the 
Oklahoma City bombing would have been 
possible. 

A quiet-spoken man, Wilburn, 46, had 
led a simple yet successful life. He was 
bom in Olustee in southwestern Oklahoma, 
attending Southwestern Oklahoma State 
University, and later established his 
accounting practice in Oklahoma City. 

His quiet but successful life was 
changed forever when the Oklahoma City 
bombing took away his two grandchildren, 
who were in the Murrah federal building's 
day care center. 

As he stood in front of the smoldering 
ruins of the federal building after the 
bombing, Glenn Wilburn's fate was 
changed forever, as would be thousands of 
others. 

Unable to simply grieve and accept 
promises that all of those responsible 
would be brought to justice, he launched 
his own search for the truth. 

And before he died, he found it, though 
the cost was his health, and finally his life. 

Wilburn might truthfully be called 
victim No. 169 of the Oklahoma City 
bombing, but his family takes solace that 
he now walks in a beautiful place with two 
little boys at his side. 

Thomas Gilcrease one said that "Every 
man must leave a track," alluding to 
accomplishments. 

Glenn Wilburn did, and his memory 
should be honored by finishing what he 

was unable to â€” getting to the truth of the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

***** 

Glenn Wilburn 

Tuesday y July 15, 1997 - McCurtain Daily 
Gazette 

Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. 
Thursday at Citychurch, 136 NW 10 in 
Oklahoma City, for Glenn Wilburn, 46, a 
certified public accountant whose 
investigation into the Oklahoma City 
bombing that killed his two grandchildren 
triggered this newspaper's investigative 
series. 

Larry Jones, founder of Feed the 
Children and a close friend, will conduct 
the services. Services are under the 
direction of Hahn-Cook/Street &amp; Draper 
funeral home. Burial will be in Rose Hill 
Burial Park near his two grandson, Colton 
Smith, 2, and Chase Smith, 3, who were 
killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. 

A memorial fund has been set up in 
memory of Glenn Wilburn at the Federal 
Employees Credit Union, P. O. Box 188, 
Bethany, OK 73008. 

Wilburn's window, Kathy, said the 
funeral would not be typical. She said it 
would be about the bombing "and what 
Glenn spent the last two years doing." The 
procession will go by the bomb site 
downtown. 

'k'k'k'k'k 

Page 553 

Mahon Takes 5th; Fortiers' Culpability in OKC Bombing 
Touted 

Thursday, July 17, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

They were separate and unrelated 
events, yet there was a common link 
between both - the April 19, 1995, 
bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal 
Building in Oklahoma City. 

In Tulsa, at a pre-trail hearing for Carol 
e. Howe, former ATF informant, her 
attorney revealed Wednesday that the 
federal government failed to heed warnings 
of plans by Elohim City residents to bomb 
a federal building in Oklahoma or Texas. 

For readers of the McCurtain Gazette, it 
was deja vu, for the newspaper had 
revealed the same information in an 
exclusive, copyrighted story on Feb. 11 â€” 
including information that implicated 
Dennis Mahon of Tulsa and German 
national Andreas Strassmeir. 

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City on 
Wednesday, the white separatist leader 
Mahon told reporters that he wants 
immunity from federal and state charges 
before he tells what he knows about the 
Oklahoma city bombing. 

Mahon, appearing before the Oklahoma 
City grand jury investigating allegations of 
prior knowledge and a cover-up by federal 
officials of the terrorist bombing, would 
only tell his name. He refused to talk 
further, claiming the 5th Amendment 
privilege against self-incrimination. 

Both before and after the Oklahoma 
City bombing, Howe had named Mahon 
and his sidekick, Strassmeir, as the 
ringleaders in the bombing conspiracy. 

Strassmeir had fled the United States 
with the aid of his North Carolina attorney, 
Kirk Lyons, after it was discovered that 

convicted OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh 
was calling Strassmeir at Elohim City 
some two weeks before the bombing (see 
related story on Strassmeir 's presence in 
Dublin, Ireland). 

Howe's report to tjie Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) also stated 
that Mahon tested a 500-pound ammonia- 
nitrate and fuel-oil bomb in Michigan 
several weeks prior to the Oklahoma City 
attack. 

Despite Howe's information, neither 
Strassmeir nor Mahon was interviewed by 
authorities in the aftermath of the bombing. 

Now, Mahon is refusing to talk to the 
Oklahoma city grand jury without a 
promise of immunity from state and federal 
charges. 

Earlier, grand jury witness David Snider 
testified that he was convinced it was 
Mahon he saw with McVeigh in a Ryder 
truck a few minutes before the 9:02 a.m. 
terrorist assault. 

And Wednesday, Snidefs half-sister, 
Kay Clarke, told the grand jury she had 
prepared a sketch of the man David Snider 
described as the second subject in the truck 
â€” a sketch that showed a man with a 
pointed chin like Mahon's. 

Fortiers To Be Implicated? 

Meanwhile, in a related development, 
the former lead investigator for Timothy 
McVeigh said he would enjoy the 
opportunity to appear before the grand jury 
and tell them who he believes the other 
conspirators in the bomb are. 

Page 554 

Richard Reyna of Conroe, Texas, is in 
Oklahoma City today for the funeral of 
Glenn Wilburn, the accountant who was 
the initial co-petitioner for the grand jury, 
along with state Rep. Charles Key of 
Oklahoma City. 

In the past, Reyna's work focused on 
members of the white separatist movement 
at Elohim City and in Arizona arid Kansas. 

Reyna said he cannot discuss what role 
his former client may have had, but the 
nationally known investigator said he feels 
obliged to tell the grand jury who the 
others are that bombed the federal 
building. 

Here's what he told the McCurtain 
Gazette that the grand jury should do: 

"Take a long, hard look at Michael and 
Lori Fortier." 

The Fortiers, of course, were one of the 
cornerstones of the U. S. Government 
prosecutors' case against Timothy McVeigh 
â€” Fortier getting a lessened federal 
sentence on conspiracy for turning state's 
evidence and his wife going scot-free. 

That plea agreement of Fortier's was 
approved and signed by Oklahoma County 
District Attorney Robert Macy, but it can 
be revoked if evidence surfaces that Fortier 
had a direct role in the bombing 
conspiracy. 

Armed with his evidence, Reyna said 
the district attorney "should have no 
trouble convincing a grand jury to indict 
both Lori and Michael Fortier for their 
roles in the conspiracy." 

The grand jury is expected to suspend 
work this week, then reconvene in about a 
month. 

***** 

Strassmeir Associating With Irish Terrorists, 
Newspaper Says 

Thursday, July 17, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 

By Tom Cordon and Helen Curtin - Dublin Sunday Times 

Editor's Note: The following story 
about Andreas Strassmeir ran in the 
Sunday, July 13 issue of a newspaper in 
Ireland, the Dublin Sunday Times, where 
the German national was found 
associating with an arm of the Irish 
Republican Army. Strassmeir has been 
named, along with Dennis Mahon of 
Tulsa, as a ringleader in the plot to 
bomb the Oklahoma City building by 
ATF informant Carol E. Howe, who is 

expected to testify before an Oklahoma 
City grand jury. Strassmeir fled 
Oklahoma for his native Germany after 
the McCurtain Daily Gazette first linked 
him to convicted bomber timothy 
McVeigh and suggested he was a 
government undercover agent The Irish 
paper's reference to Sinn Fein is to the 
political wing of the Irish Republican 
Army, which used violent action to seek 

Page 555 

Northern Ireland's freedom from British 
rule. 

A German national who has been 
questioned in relation to the Oklahoma 
bombing is living in Dublin and socializing 
in Sinn Fein circles. 

Andreas Strassmeir, 38, is an alleged 
associate Timothy McVeigh, the terrorist 
convicted recently for the April 1995 
bombing which killed 168 people. He is 
also linked to other far-right American 
extremists and has been barred from 
America by the State Department. 

Strassmeir moved to Dublin last 
February and is living in an apartment in 
the city owned by George Maybury, 
general secretary of the Association of 
Garda Sergeants and Inspectors. He has 
been working on construction sites and has 
attended Sinn Fein meetings and social 
events. 

Last weekend he attended a republican 
function celebrating the recent election to 
the Daily (Irish National Assembly) of 
Sinn Fein's Caoimhghin O'Caulain, where 
he worked as a "roadie" for a ballad group. 
He claims to have spoken to the new 
(member of the assembly). O'Caulain was 
not available to comment. 

"I don't have many Mends," Strassmeir 
said in an interview with The Sunday 
Times. "Some people I drink with, they 
could be Sinn Fein. I don't exclude the 
possibility." 

It is believed that special branch (the 
police) has questioned him about his 
presence in Dublin. 

Strassmeir denies allegations of being 
either a terrorist conspirator or a secret 
agent for the American government. He 
says he left American at the end of 1995 

and after a year in Germany moved to 
Dublin. 

Strassmeir has been the subject of 
intense speculation in the American and 
German media since it emerged that 
McVeigh placed a call to him two weeks 
before blowing up the Alfred Murrah 
federal building in Oklahoma City. He 
denies any knowledge of the bombing and 
says he met McVeigh once â€” about two 
years earlier at a gun fair in Tulsa, 
Oklahoma. 

His denials have failed to suppress 
mounting curiosity about his role on the 
American far right with some theories 
identifying him as an alleged co- 
conspirator with McVeigh and others, 
while an alterative theory â€” proposed by 
journalists and some victims' relatives â€” 
argues that Strassmeir was an undercover 
agent hired by the American government to 
infiltrate the extreme fringes of the anti- 
government Christian right. 

Maybury said yesterday (Saturday, July 
12) that the lease on the two-bedroom 
apartment in which Strassmeir is living 
was with another tenant who made his own 
arrangements regarding the letting of the 
other room. He said he had no knowledge 
of Strassmeir. 

Strassmeir revealed yesterday (Saturday, 
July 12) that he intended to remain in the 
republic (Ireland) for the moment but 
hoped to return to America. 

The State Department, however, has 
barred him from the country because of 
firearms violations and it lists him as a 
terrorist suspect. 

It is alleged he was engaged in 
converting semi-automatic weapons into 
full automatic machine guns while resident 
iri a fundamentalist Christian commune 
known as Elohim City. 

Page 556 

He spent almost four years at Elohim in 
the backwoods of eastern Oklahoma where 
the community, which has strong white 
supremacist and anti-govefnment 
tendencies, lives in seclusion. He denies 
reports that he was director of security 
operations at Elohim. 

However, Michael Brescia, him room- 
mate in the commune, is in jail in 
Philadelphia, having pleaded guilty to 
conspiring to rob banks. Brescia was a 
member of a neo-Nazi group who called 
themselves the Aryan Republican Army. In 
a recruitment tape seized by authorities, a 
member claims they modeled themselves 
on the IRA. Brescia is said to be 
cooperating with authorities investigating 
other conspirators in the ARA. 

Asked about his association with 
Brescia, Strassmeir confirmed they were 
room-mates at Elohim City but refused to 
elaborate. "I consider him a friend and I'm 
not making any statements," he said. 

Another associate and frequent visitor to 
Elohim City was Dennis Mahon, a former 
imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and a 
leader of the more militant White Aryan 
Resistance. "He stopped by Elohim City a 
few times and I talked to him," said 
Strassmeir, "and &gt;yhen I used to go to 
Tulsa I looked him up." 

Brescia shared the virulent anti- 
government sentiments at the commune. 

"We saw tendencies within the 
government." explains Strassmeir. "We 
figured it was going the wrong direction 

and our theory was that, eventually, we 
might reach a point, like before in 1776, 
when it came to a boiling point and people 
just saw that the only way in defending 
their independence was a revolutionary 
war." 

Members of the commune were 
horrified, he said, by the events at Waco, 
Texas, in April 1993 in which 80 members 
of the Branch Davidians, led by David 
Koresh, died after a siege lasting 51 days. 
Elohim City was about 500 miles away 
and they felt that they might be next. 

"I definitely see parallels with Bloody 
Sunday," said Strassmeir, "where 
demonstrators, unarmed people, apparently 
got gunned down by a paratroop regiment 
and there was never anybody actually 
punished for that. I think the same 
principle applies to Waco, where innocent 
people were gunned down by government 
forces. 

"When the government investigates the 
government, the result is that everything is 
okay." 

He feels like he has been on the run 
"not form the authorities but from the 
media" since the Oklahoma City bombing. 

"I was hoping the trial would bring out 
who did it and it would all be over, but 
apparently not. I haven't done anything 
illegal or bad but I've got to live with this 
stigma for the rest of my life, with the 
label that I'm associated with a convicted 
terrorist," he said. 

***** 

Page 557 

Unsealed Documents Raise Questions About Bombing 

Tuesday, July 22, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

Documents recently unsealed in a 
federal criminal case here involving former 
Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco and Firearms 
"paid informant" Carol E. Howe raise more 
serious questions about the government's 
investigation of the April 19, 1995, 
bombing of the Oklahoma City federal 
building. 

They suggest the federal agency had 
advance warning of an impending attack 
on a federal building in Oklahoma City. 

Those explosive remarks are contained 
in a recently unsealed 70-page transcript 
from an April 24 pre-trial hearing on the 
upcoming trials of Howe and James 
Dodson Viefhaus, Howe's former Tulsa 
housemate. 

Howe and Viefhaus face charges of 
placing a message on their answering 
machine last December alleged to contain a 
bomb threat. 

The couple are charged with possessing 
components that could be used to build a 
bomb. 

At the hearing on April 24, Howe 
attorney Clark Brewster was seeking an 
order from Federal District Judge Michael 
Burrage to release Howe's BATF reports 
and other investigative materials related to 
her undercover work for the government. 

At that late April closed session, which 
occurrecl just as the Denver trial of 
Timothy McVeigh was beginning, Brewster 
questioned Howe's BATF "handler" Angela 
Graham (formerly Finley). 

He focused not only on Howe's work 
for the agency but her undercover project 
involving Andreas Strassmeir, Dennis 
Mahon and Elohim City. 

"Now, you were interested in knowing 
as much as you could about Mr. 
Strassmeir, weren't you?" asked Brewster. 

"Yes," replied Graham. 

"What kind of guns he had?" 

"Yes." 

"And," Brewster asjced, "the kind of 
threats he made about â€” to blow up 
federal buildings? You were interested in 
that, weren't you?" 

"I was interested in anything I could 
find out about any violation," Graham 
responded. 

"And Ms. Howe told you about Mr. 
Strassmeir's threats to blow up federal 
buildings, didn't she?" 

"In general, Yes." 

"And that was before the Oklahoma 
City bombing. 

"Yes." 

*** 

Public suspicions of a connection 
between Elohim City and the Oklahoma 
City bombing first surfaced in late May 
1995, when the national media descended 
on the l*000-acre compound soon after it 
was learned that Timothy McVeigh had 
made a call there only two weeks prior to 
the attack on the federal building. 

Initially, the cult's religious leader said 
he had no knowledge of such a call and 
did not know anything about McVeigh 
before his arrest. 

Later, the Gazette disclosed that the call 
was made to Timothy McVeigh and that 

Page 558 

the call was to Elohim City's "security 
advisor," Andreas Strassmeir. 

The Gazette also reported that the call 
to Elohim city was made only seconds 
after the same phone records show a call 
made to a Ryder truck rental establishment 
in Arizona. 

A resident of Elohim City, Joan Millar, 
subsequently admitted to the FBI that the 
call was, indeed for Andreas Strassmeir. 
Millar told an investigator for McVeigh 
that the caller said, "Tell 'Andy' I'll be 
visiting soon." 

Strassmeir subsequently denied he ever 
got the call. He denied knowing why 
McVeigh would call him. 

On Dec. 13, 1996, Howe-Dodson 
residence was raided by the FBI and 
Viefhaus was charged. Months later, after 
several news organizations followed up on 
a Gazette story that Howe was a BATF 
informant and had warned of a plan to 
bomb federal buildings by residents and 
visitors to Elohim City, she was also 
charge with Viefhaus. 

*** 

Not only was Carol Howe an 
undercover agent for the ATF at Elohim 
City, providing information about talk of 
bombing federal buildings, but she also 
took a trip to Oklahoma City, the April 23 
pre-trial hearing transcript discloses. 

Brewster pursued this angle with 
Graham, Howe's ATF handler. 

"She called you before and said, 'These 
folks from Elohim City want to go over 
and look at Oklahoma City.'" 

Graham's response? "She had specific 
places they were going. It did not include 
the federal building." 

Brewster, apparently dissatisfied with 
Graham's response, later hammered at the 
ATF handler with this line of questioning: 

"And this was the place that Mr. 
Strassmeir was living, Elohim City?" 

"Yes." 

"And this is the gentleman that she told 
you about that had intentions to blow up 
federal buildings?" 

Graham tried to downplay the line of 
questioning, claiming it was common 
militia rhetoric. 

"Everyone out there is saying that same 
thing." 

But Graham was forced to acknowledge 
that Tulsa Dennis Mahon, a White Aryan 
Resistance (WAR) leader, had been a focal 
point in the BATF investigation at Elohim 
City. 

"What were the nature of the offenses 
you were investigating?" Brewster asked. 

"Anything from explosives to illegal 
firearms." 

"How long did that investigation go 
on?" 

Graham replied, "I believe I closed my 
investigation â€” it began around August 
1994 and I think it went through â€” 
technically to say â€” when the property of 
the investigation actually stopped, we 
stopped doing anything with that after I 
had her deactivated as an informant." 
(Three weeks before the Oklahoma City 
bombing). 

The timing of the BATF's investigation 
into WAR and Elohim City coincides with 
the date the federal grand jury investigating 
the Oklahoma City bombing said the 
conspiracy began â€” Sept. 13, 1994. 

The Gazette had previously reported 
McVeigh checked into a motel room in 
Vian on the evening of September 12. 

Page 559 

Vian is approximately a 30-minute drive 
west of Elohim City. 

*** 

Immediately after the April 19, 1995, 
Oklahoma city bombing, Graham said she 
reactivated Howe and sent her back to 
Elohim City. 

But first the Tulsa BATF agent asked 
her to Find Dennis Mahon, the transcript 
shows. 

"First of all," Brewster asked, "you had 
her come to the Tulsa office and call 
Dennis Mahon and tape it, didn't you?" 

Graham told the court, "I think we 
called from Oklahoma City." 

Queried Brewster: "That's because you 
immediately suspected that Mr. Mahon had 
involvement in the Oklahoma City 
bombing, didn't you?" 

"We wanted to see where he was, and 
that's all based on what the FBI wanted to 
do with her," Graham. said. 

Referring to the racist novel The Turner 
Diaries that McVeigh sold at gun shows 
and that prosecutors repeatedly told the 
Denver jury was the blueprint for the 
Oklahoma City bombing, Brewster 
questioned agent Graham on the book as a 
vehicle of warning to the feds. 

Graham conceded Howe brought her a 
copy of the novel and said, "Make sure 
you read this." 

*** 

Curiously, despite the evidence and 
statements to the BATF and FBI, neither 
Mahon nor Strassmeir was ever picked up 
for questioning in connection with the 
bombing. 

And, as the April 24 transcript reflects, 
every attempt was made to keep such 
information secret prior to the Denver trial 
of McVeigh. 

At the end of the April hearing, for 
example, Judge Burrage said to Brewster 
that a "lot of this makes for good 
conversation... and it makes for 
sensationalism" but t that he didn't think "it 
really has anything to do with the 
Oklahoma City bombing..." 

"With that McVeigh trial going on, I 
don't want anything getting out of here that 
would compromise that trial in any way," 
the federal judge said, sealing the 
transcript. 

"What do you mean by compromise?" 
Brewster asked. "Do you mean share with 
the McVeigh defense?" 

"Yes," replied Burrage, "or something 
that would come up â€” you know, we have 
got evidence that the ATF took a trip with 
somebody that said buildings were going to 
be blown up in Oklahoma City before it 
was blown up or something of that nature 
and try to connect it to McVeigh in some 
way or something." 

Eventually, of course, Carol Howe's 
testimony at the McVeigh trial was 
blocked by the Denver trial judge, Richard 
P. Matsch. 

And that decision has since become the 
focus of McVeigh's appeal for a new trial. 

*** 

James Veifhaus' trial begins today and 
is expected to finish by the weekend. 

Next week, the long-anticipated trial of 
Carol Howe is scheduled to begin. 

It is expected the government will argue 
to keep anything regarding the Oklahoma 

Page 560 

City bombing from coming up in that trial, 
as well. 

Evidencing this, last week, prosecutors 
asked Judge Burrage to block Howe's 
attorneys from calling Agent Graham or 
her supervisor to the stand, claiming 
"Treasury Department employees are 
prohibited by law from testifying or 
otherwise furnishing information obtained 
as a result of their official capacities." 

The trial judge has yet to rule on the 
motion. But Burrage has indicated a 
reluctance to allow evidence Howe 
collected in the Oklahoma City bombing 
investigation into her upcoming trial. 

However, sources close to the grand 
jury in Oklahoma City say they will 
subpoena Howe after her trial in Tulsa is 
over. 

***** 

Government's Case Howe, Viefhaus Begins in Earnest 

Wednesday, July 23, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

The government's hyphenated case 
against Carol E. Howe and James Dodson 
Viefhaus began in earnest Tuesday with 
evidence presented that the defendants 
placed racist, neo-Nazi speeches on their 
answering machine at home. 

It is just such evidence the prosecutors 
seem to be relying upon to persuade jurors 
that the couple's political and social beliefs 
provided motive for statements later placed 
on that same "hotline" which the 
government contends constituted a bomb 
threat. 

On Dec. 13, 1996, the FBI raided the 
pair's home after calling and listening to 
statements on their answering machine. 

Initially, Viefhaus was the only one 
indicted for making the alleged bomb 
threat. 

The government says the pair set up a 
special phone line at their home and 

formed a group called the National 
Socialist Alliance of Oklahoma. 

FBI agents have said publicly that 
Howe and Viefhaus were the only two 
known members of the group. 

A large amount of media attention 
focused on the incident after the Gazette's 
initial story about Carol Howe and her role 
as an undercover BATF informant. 

Howe told the Gazette that she warned 
her supervisor of a plot to blow up federal 
buildings before the Oklahoma city 
tragedy. 

The former debutante was subsequently 
indicted after news accounts said she was 
going to be a star witness in the McVeigh 
trial in Denver. 

According to the government's own 
documents, the undercover informant told 
her handler, Angela Graham, that men at 
Elohim City were plotting to bomb federal 
buildings in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. 

Page 561 

Howe's trial has been severed from her 
former housemate's at the request of 
federal prosecutors and is likely to begin 
next week. 

During Monday's opening arguments in 
the Viefhaus trial, Assistant U. S. Attorney 
Neal Kirkpatrick said, "The threats made 
were no joke." 

The portion of the message that a grand 
jury found constituted a threat said, "A 
letter has been received from a high- 
ranking revolutionary commander stating 
that bombs would be activated in 15 U. S. 
Cities, unless 'white warriors' take action 
against the federal government by Dec. 
15." 

Recovered at the couple's home during 
the raid was a sealed box containing a 6 to 
8 inch piece of threaded steel pipe with 
two end caps attached. 

Nothing was inside the pipe, but the 
FBI found a can of smokeless black 
powder and some cannon fuse at the home. 

The indictment lists these as bomb- 
making components. Also, books on 
weapons and bomb making were found, as 
well. 

The defense has said that during Howe's 
work for the BATF, she acquired these 
items at the request of her supervisor. 

During court on Tuesday, the head of 
the FBI's Counter Terrorism Division 
testified that, in December, he had listened 
to the couple's answering machine message 
and became concerned and reported the 
situation to agents in Oklahoma City. 

Next to take the stand, FBI agent Pete 
Rickel introduced other audio tapes the 
couple had allegedly placed on their 
answering machine on different days. 

For more than an hour the jury listened 
to these 3 to 5 minute speeches by 
Viefhaus or Howe as they described recent 
articles of interest in the news and their 
political views on the issues presented 
often ending the monologues with words, 
"Heil, Hitler," and offering to send bumper 
stickers to listeners who contributed $2 to 
the organization. 

Many courtroom observers grew 
increasingly bored with the rhetoric as the 
tapes droned on with what is clearly 
constitutionally protected free speech. 

The 7 woman, 5 man, all white jury 
also appeared to be losing interest as the 
day wore on. 

Legal experts familiar with the case 
believe the government will have an uphill 
battle convincing a jury that the message 
on the couple's answering machine 
constituted a serious bomb threat or that 
the otherwise legally obtained products 
found in the home would constitute an 
offense. 

The defense believes the indictments are 
an attempt to discredit Howe, who they 
have said possesses embarrassing 
information about the Oklahoma City 
bombing and was only continuing to work 
in an undercover capacity for the BATF 
when her home was raided. 

At a pre-trial hearing in April, an agent 
for the BATF admitted that Howe was 
listed as one of its informants because the 
Oklahoma City bombing case was still 
under active investigation. Special agent 
Angela Graham also admitted that some of 
the items listed in the indictment she 
catalogued and returned to Howe after she 
turned them over to the BATF. 

"kjckick 

Page 562 

Government's Case Against Viefhaus Questionable, Says 
His Attorney 

Thursday, July 24, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

The government's case against a man 
accused of making a threat to bomb 15 
U.S. cities focused Wednesday on items 
found in the home he shared with his 
accused co-conspirator, Carol Howe. 

The couple was also indicted for having 
an unregistered destructive device in their 
house. 

A series of FBI agents and employees 
testified about items found at the couple's 
house, which the government claims could 
have been used to construct a pipe bomb, 
plus a list of potential targets for such a 
bombing. 

Howe, whose trial is not scheduled until 
next week, has said through her attorney 
that the items found at her home were 
acquired for the BATF. 

Both defendants' attorneys have denied 
there is any evidence of a threat to bomb 
anything. 

The government contends a message 
placed on the couple's answering machine 
â€” set up as a hot line for persons to call in 
and receive information on â€” constituted a 
threat to bomb 15 cities by Dec. 15, 1997. 

Viefhaus' attorney, Craig Bryant says 
his client was simply reporting what he 
saw in a letter from convicted bomb 
conspirator Willie Ray Lampley. 

Lampley is expected to be called to 
testify for the defense. He has been 
transferred to Tulsa from an Illinois prison. 

FBI agents that took the stand 
Wednesday described a variety of items 
they found in the raid. Those included a 

short piece of steel pipe with two end caps. 
Agents admitted that the pipe was empty. 

An agent who once worked in the FBI 
explosives lab testified that he examined 
the piece of pipe and determined that it 
could be used to make a pipe bomb. He 
said it could be called a destructive device 
because someone had screwed the end caps 
on it. 

But FBI agent Robert Heckman himself 
came under fire. He admitted his work a 
the lab came under scrutiny of the Office 
of the Inspector General when one of his 
peers, Frederic Whitehurst, accused 
Heckman and others of shoddy work. 

Heckman also admitted that Whitehurst 
had singled him out. He was accused of 
changing Whitehurst's own reports and 
testifying at trials where he was not 
qualified to give an opinion because he is 
not considered a scientist. 

Proof of that became obvious when 
Heckman told the court that smokeless 
powder is so unstable and dangerous that, 
had it been place inside the piece of pipe 
and then dropped, it could have exploded 
â€” even where there was no detonator in 
place. 

Smokeless powder is sold nationwide in 
tine cans for reloading ammunition and is 
transported in cardboard boxes via semi- 
trailer tractors. 

While Heckman was transferred from 
the FBI explosives lab as a result of the 
investigation, he has been allowed to 
testify in this case because he was the 
examiner at the time. 

Page 563 

Other items catalogued by agents at the 
Howe-Viefhaus home included firearms, 

cannon fuse, photos of federal buildings 
and a handwritten list of federal buildings. 

***** 

Federal Jury Convicts Viefhaus; Howe Trial Starts 
Monday 

Sunday, July 27, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

A U. S. District Court jury found James 
Dodson Viefhaus, Jr. guilty of conspiring 
to willfully make a bomb threat and 
possession of a non-registered destructive 
device after deliberating until nearly 
midnight Friday. 

The charges against the 28-year-old 
Viefhaus stemmed from a message he put 
on his "hotline/ 1 

It said, in part, "A letter from a high- 
ranking revolutionary commander has been 
written and received demanding that action 
be taken againstthe government by all 
white warriors by Dec. 15. And if this 
action is not taken, bombs will be activated 
in 15 pre-selected major cities. In other 
words, this war is going to start with or 
without you." 

Carol E. Howe, a former Bureau of 
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) 
informant who was later charged in a 
superseding indictment with Viefhaus, was 
the only witness called by the defendant's 
court-appointed attorney. 

Howe testified she and her boyfriend, 
Viefhaus, began placing messages on their 
answering machine in the fell of 1996. 

Those various messages, played in court 
last week, were nothing more than 

statements regarding current news items 
the couple selected from newspapers and 
periodicals. 

The Dec. 8 message that is the subject 
of the charges came about after visiting the 
home of former Klan leader Dennis 
Mahon, Hose told the court. 

She said Mahon told them he had just 
received a letter from convicted bombing 
conspirator Willie Ray Lampley â€” and she 
said Mahon made the statements on their 
hotline. 

According to testimony by the unit chief 
of the FBI's domestic counter-terrorism 
division in Washington, D.C., he learned of 
the message from a Seattle, Wash., 
newspaper reporter. He said the reporter 
had called the Howe-Viefhaus home and 
become concerned about the message. 

The FBI also said it found items in a 
storage box during a raid on the couple's 
east Tulsa home that could be used to 
construct a pipe bomb. 

Those items consisted of a piece of 6 to 
8 inch plumber's steel pipe with two end 
caps attached, three partially-filled 
containers of gunpowder, cannon fuse and 
hexamine tablets. 

Page 564 

A former lab technician testified that all 
wee ingredients necessary to make a 
powerful pipe bomb. 

Aside from this flimsy evidence, much 
of the focus of the prosecution's case 
against Viefhaus focused on allegations 
that Viefhaus and Howe were involved in 
the neo-Nazi movement. 

Reams of racist literature, plus photos of 
Howe and Viefhaus in Nazi attire, were 
placed into evidence at the trial. 

Racist Views Convict? 

An alternate juror, interviewed after he 
was released from his duties, said such 
evidence caused him to want to vote to 
convict Viefhaus because of his political 
leanings. 

The juror said he did not think the 
couple really intended to bomb any cities, 
as the message predicted. 

But he felt the couple were a danger to 
the community. 

Howe testified she had sympathy for 
racist views during a relatively brief period 
after she was accosted by black men at a 
concert in Tulsa. 

And as a result of two broken heels 
suffered from the assault, Howe said she 
contacted a racist hotline in Tulsa operated 
by former Klan leader Dennis Mahon. 

During interviews with the McCurtain 
Gazette, Mahon said he was immediately 
"taken" with the 5-foot, 98-pound blonde, 
asking her to join a group he was the 
organizer for in Oklahoma, the White 
Aryan Resistance (WAR). 

WAR is a nationwide group led by 
another former Klansman, Tom Metzger. It 
is considered to be one of the most violent 
of the nation's hate groups. Its members 
have been linked with numerous beatings 
and killings of minorities. 

But Howe, a former debutante, later fled 
Mahon's group after being raped by him, 
according to interviews with this 
newspaper earlier this year. 

As a result of the assault, she had 
sought a protective order in Tulsa court 
against Mahon. 

It was that protective order, Howe 
testified in the Viefhaus trial, that 
prompted the BATF to contact her and hire 
her to do undercover work for the agency. 

She said Dennis Mahon and those he 
associated with were the primary targets of 
BATF. 

Howe said she met Viefhaus while also 
investigating a skin-head group he was 
associated with. 

The former college student said she 
later used that association with Viefhaus to 
"go deeper in the movement." 

That was after she got word from her 
BATF handler, Angela Finley Graham, that 
the FBI had given a document to the 
McVeigh defense team that effectively 
"compromised" her identity and the work 
she did investigating Mahon and persons 
who lived or frequented Elohim City prior 
to the Oklahoma City bombing. 

Howe also said she did not hold racist 
or anti-government views after the assault 
by Mahon. And she said she'd passed a 
BATF controlled lie-detector test that 
proved her allegiance to the agency. 

That's how she obtained the items she 
and Viefhaus were charged in connection 
with, Howe said. 

Moreover, Howe said the reams of 
racist literature and books on making 
bombs came from Mahon â€” and that they 
had been turned into Graham for review. 

On the last day of the trial, Graham, 
Howe's former BATF handler, took the 
stand and testified that Howe had indeed 

Page 565 

worked on investigations of these race- 
based groups â€” and in particular Dennis 
Mahon â€” from August 1994 until shortly 
after the bombing. 

In June 1995, Graham said she and 
Howe met, with Howe expressing a desire 
to leave the agency and return to college. 

Graham also said in the weeks prior to 
the Oklahoma City bombing, Howe had 
become mentally unstable and was dropped 
from the agency. 

But after the Oklahoma City bombing, 
Graham said the BATF reactivated Howe. 
She was sent back to Elohim City of find 
the elusive "John Doe No. 2." 

In line with the government's attempts 
to discredit Howe, however, Graham 
repeatedly said Howe never turned up 
anything of merit and said she was 
considered "flaky." 

On cross-examination, however, Graham 
was forced to make an admission that 
largely negated her denigration of Howe â€” 
admitting that at the time of the raid, 
Howe was still listed as an active 
informant. 

Moreover, other reports prepared by 
Graham noted that she had requested 
Howe's reinstatement, and that it was 
based on a finding that Howe was fit and 
capable of performing her duties. 

Figuratively hoisted by her own petard, 
Graham would later admit she was not 
competent to assess anyone' mental state. 

Graham also admitted she was unable to 
remove Howe from active status because 
the Oklahoma City bombing case was 
ongoing â€” and that the Dallas area BATF 
office would not allow Howe to be 
removed from active status. 

U. S. Attorney Neal Kirkpatrick, during 
closing arguments, further sought to 
discredit Howe, ignoring the testimony of 
Graham that Howe was officially still 
listed as working undercover at the time of 
the raid on her house. 

Kirkpatrick characterized Howe's 
testimony that she was continuing to work 
undercover â€” and that the items found in 
her house were fruits of her undercover 
investigation â€” "a bald-faced lie." 

Howe's Trial Next 

On Monday, the trial for Carol Howe 
herself begins. 

Many observers expect a far more 
vigorous defense to be presented that what 
they saw for Viefhaus. 

Clark Brewster, Howe's attorney, has 
said previously that he has more than 
enough information in his client's BATF 
files â€” plus other evidence â€” to establish 
that Howe was indeed working for the 
BATF when she obtained the items she is 
now being charged with. 

And before Judge Burrage placed a gag 
order on him, Brewster had said that since 
it was Viefhaus' voice on the "hotline," the 
jury will have a hard time finding Howe 
"guilty of conspiring to make the 
statements that purportedly set this whole 
investigation into motion." 

Brewster has said in the past that he 
feels the government's sole interest in 
arresting and charging Howe was this: 

To discredit the information she gave 
the BATF that warned the government of 
plans to bomb the Oklahoma City federal 
building â€” before it actually happened. 

â€¢kic-kick 

Page 566 

Trial Brings Former BATF Informant Carol Howe Into 
Spotlight 

Friday, July 25, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

After months of suspense, the lithesome 
Carol Elizabeth Howe appeared in a 
courtroom and provided tantalizing but 
limited testimony about her role as a 
Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco, and Firearms 
undercover informant. 

It wasn't Timothy McVeigh's trial, 
though, but that of the former housemate 
that finally brought Howe out into the 
spotlight. 

Howe's work in the radical "white 
power" movement and the information she 
provided the government about the 
Oklahoma City bombing has resulted in 
widespread interest in the 26 years old 
blond since the Gazette did a series of 
interviews with her in late 1995 and early 
1996. 

In those interviews, Howe told the 
Gazette she had warned the BATF before 
the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City that 
persons at Elohim City, a religious cult in 
southeastern Oklahoma, were speaking 
about just such a plot. 

The Gazette had earlier reported that 
Timothy McVeigh called Elohim City only 
seconds after calling a Ryder Truck rental 
establishment in Arizona. 

Subsequent stories identified McVeigh 
on April 8, 1995 bragging in a Tulsa strip 
club about something that would make him 
famous on April 19. Several witnesses 
there that night identified two others with 
McVeigh, Andreas Strassmeir and Michael 
Brescia. . 

Still other Gazette stories linked 
McVeigh with Elohim City and a bank 
robbery scheme by a group called the 

Aryan Republican Army that also involved 
some residents and visitors of Elohim City. 

In a story this February the Gazette also 
disclosed that McVeigh's sister had given a 
sworn affidavit to the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation stating that she had laundered 
some money from a bank robbery she said 
her brother admitted he helped plan. 

Subsequently Howe's information about 
Elohim City residents became the focus of 
intense interest, and she was expected to e 
McVeigh's star witness in Denver because 
defense attorney Stephen Jones believed 
her information might diminish his client's 
role in the bombing or even exonerate him. 

However, on the morning that Howe 
was scheduled to take the stand in Denver, 
U. S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch 
ruled her testimony irrelevant. 

Howe was prepared to present her 
BATF reports and testify that key Elohim 
City figures Andreas Strassmeir, Dennis 
Mahon, the Rev. Robert Millar, Pete and 
Tony Ward and Michael Brescia were 
important components in the plan to bomb 
the Oklahoma City federal building. 

After several news organizations 
reported that Howe would likely be 
testifying in that trial, the government 
sought a superseding indictment and named 
her as a conspirator in a plot to make what 
they say, was a threat to bomb 15 cities. 

Also during a raid of the residence 
Howe shared with Viefhaus in Tulsa, the 
FBI said they found items, which if 
combined, could make a pipe bomb. 

Viefhaus' trial began early this week 
and Thursday, after the government rested 

Page 567 

its case against him, the defense called 
only one witness: Carol Howe. 

Taking the stand at 11:00 a.m., Howe's 
two and an half-hour testimony described 
her work for the BATF, the reason she 
joined the agency and her work in general. 

Howe said she began working for the 
BATF after they learned she had sought a 
protective order in Tulsa County. 

The object of that order was to keep 
former Klan leader Dennis Mahon from 
threatening her. 

In August of 1994, Howe signed on 
with the BATF and her targets for 
investigation were Mahon and his 
associates at Elohim City. 

During trips she took to Elohim City 
with Mahon and others, Howe learned of a 
plot to bomb federal installations in Tulsa 
and Oklahoma City, she had told the 
Gazette. 

In court Thursday, Howe said she went 
with Mahon to Elohim City with a 
rucksack of hand-grenades that he had 
activated and they exploded them at the 
religious compound. 

According to Howe's investigative 
reports, she recovered some of the shrapnel 
from those grenades and turned them over 
to her supervisor but nothing was done 
with that information. 

In an evidentiary hearing Thursday 
morning, Special Agent Angela Graham 
(formerly Finley) was questioned about 
Howe's employment for the agency. The 
Tulsa agent admitted Howe worked for 
them but said after the bombiiig she had 
little contact with her anymore. 

"No cases ever resulted from anything 
she did for us." Graham testified. 

While Howe was on the stand she told 
the court that she obtained numerous items 
of evidence from Dennis Mahon and 

turned them over to Graham but she never 
did anything about them. 

Howe told the court that Graham looked 
at the items such as pipe, bomb fuse and 
gun powder and said they were not illegal 
to possess unless put together in the form 
of a bomb. 

After reviewing the evidence, the 
government seized from her own residence, 
Howe said it was primarily what she had 
taken to Graham in connection with the 
investigation of Mahon and was returned to 
her. 

Referring tp the taped message on the 
couple's answering machine, Howe said 
she remembered meeting with Mahon in 
December 1996 and overhearing him tell 
Viefhaus about a letter predicting a race 
war he had received from convicted 
bombing conspirator, Willie Ray Lampley. 

Lampley's letter, Howe told the court, 
predicted that 15 cities would be bombed 
by Dec. 15, 1996 if "white warriors" did 
not rise up. 

Howe said that Viefhaus put the 
information on their "hotline" on dec. 8, 
1996. 

Under intense questions by Assistant U. 
D. Attorney Neal Kirkpatrick, Howe 
admitted that in the spring of 1994 she 
became involved with the racist movement 
after being pushed from a platform by 
some black men during a music concert in 
Tulsa. 

Injuries Howe received from the two- 
story fall subsequently required her to 
undergo numerous surgeries for two broken 
heels. 

As for stories involving the informant's 
alleged firing by the BATF for mental 
instability, Howe said she went to 
Parkview Hospital for a period of four 
hours and later underwent private 
counseling because of the stress and 

Page 568 

depression she was suffering as a result of 
her work for the BATF. 

The BATF admits now that Howe was 
reactivated a few weeks later and her 
reports show that she was deemed fit and 
able to work for the agency. 

Describing her undercover role since the 
bombing, Howe said she was contacted in 
the spring of 1996, and was told the 
McVeigh defense team had received a 
document from the FBI which Special 
Agent graham told Howe, "compromised" 
her. 

Fearing for her life as a result of the 
disclosure, Howe said she went even 
deeper into the movement to appear 
legitimate after she sought protection from 
the FBI and BATF and was refused help. 

Also Howe said she met Viefhaus when 
he became a subject of another 
investigation by the BATF into some Tulsa 
"skin-heads." 

Howe told the courtroom that Viefhaus 
knew of her former contacts with the 
agency but believed she was a double 
agent. 

Regarding her handwriting on a piece of 
paper referring to several different Jewish, 
American Indian and Islamic facilities, 
Howe said she had put together the list 
because she felt they were potential targets 
that she believed might be bombed in the 
fall of 1996 after she heard discussions 

concerning another Oklahoma City-type 
attack. 

When grilled about the list during cross- 
examination, Howe said she never passed 
the list on to the BATF because she forgot 
about it. 

Also during the prosecutor's 
questioning, Howe said she told the FBI on 
April 12 that the subjects in the sketches 
the FBI showed her in the aftermath of the 
bombing were Elohim City residents Pete 
or Tony Ward and Michael Brescia. 

Brescia has since been arrested for his 
participation in robbing banks in the 
Midwest by a group calling themselves the 
Aryan Republican Army. 

Recently, Dennis Mahon refused to 
answer questions from an Oklahoma 
County grand jury regarding his role in the 
Oklahoma City bombing and reportedly 
has asked authorities for immunity from 
prosecution. 

Andreas Strassmeir has since fled the 
United States and, according to the Dublin 
Sunday Times, has moved to Ireland and is 
under investigation there for his contacts 
with Sinn Fein â€” the political wing of the 
terrorist organization, the Irish Republican 
Army. 

Final arguments in the Viefhaus case 
are expected today, and Howe's trial is 
scheduled to begin the day following a 
verdict in that case. 

***** 

Howe Says Tulsa Bombing Sensed 

Friday, July 25, 1997 - Tulsa World 
By David Harper 

Page 569 

Former federal informant Carol Howe 
testified Thursday that she sensed a 
"powerful murmur" within the white 
separatist community late in 1995 that 
suggested that Tulsa could be targeted for 
a bombing similar to the one that killed 
168 people in Oklahoma City. 

Howe testified as the only witness 
called by the defense in the federal trial of 
Tulsa James Dodson Viefhaus, Jr. Viefhaus 
is accused of conspiracy, willfully making 
a bomb threat and possession of a non- 
registered destructive device. 

Howe was named in-the same March 
indictment as Viefhaus. Her trial, also in 
the Tulsa courtroom of U. S. District Judge 
Michael Burrage, is scheduled to begin 
after a verdict is reached in the Viefhaus 
case. 

Howe admitted that she personally 
wrote down 18 sites in the Tulsa 
metropolitan area that she feared might be 
targeted by bombers in 1996, probably in 
the spring. Howe said she did so out of 
concern for family, Mends and neighbors 
whose lives might be jeopardized if the 
"murmur" turned into something more. 

However, under cross-examination by 
Assistant U. S. Attorney Neal Kirkpatrick, 
Howe said she never turned over the list to 
authorities despite having conversations in 
1996 with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms agent Angela Graham and FBI 
agent Pete Rickel. 

"I forgot," Howe said. Howe did say she 
left messages in 1995 intending to talk 
about the list but the calls weren't returned. 

That list is one of the items that federal 
agents found when they executed a search 
warrant Dec. 13 at the residence Howe 
shared with Viefhaus. The government also 
believes it found items which could have 

been converted into a pipe bomb if 
properly assembled and "initiated." 

Viefhaus and Howe fell under suspicion 
after the FBI was tipped to an answering 
machine message emanating from the east 
Tulsa home the couple shared. 

The Dec. 8 message threatened that 
bombs would be activated in 15 U. S. 
Cities on Dec. 15, 1996, unless action was 
taken by "white warriors" against the 
federal government by that date. Viefhaus' 
attorney, Craig Bryant, admitted to the jury 
during opening arguments that Viefhaus 1 
voice was the one on the tape. 

Rickel testified Tuesday that he believes 
a "communication" from convicted bomb 
conspirator Willie Ray Lampley served as 
the basis for the alleged threat. But Rickel 
said the Viefhaus message differs sharply 
from what Lampley relayed, which 
apparently involved the Russians. 

The prosecution maintains the message 
voiced by Viefhaus is a bomb threat and 
that Howe should also be held culpable for 
it under an "aiding and abetting" theory. 

Howe testified Thursday that the threat 
was from Lampley and that she first heard 
it when she and Viefhaus visited Tulsa 
white separatist Dennis Mahon. Howe said 
Mahon was paraphrasing it from a letter 
written by Lampley. 

Howe said she no longer holds racist 
beliefs, but was serious about such views 
for "about six weeks" in 1994. Serious 
enough, in fact, to get a swastika tattoo. 
This despite the fact that Howe later 
Thursday testified that she has a "great 
deal" of Jewish friends. 

Howe said her prejudice was the 
product of an incident in Chandler Park in 
March 1994. Howe said her (then) husband 
and a friend of his left her alone in the 
park. Howe claimed she was approached 

Page 570 

by "some black people" who made sexually 
explicit comments and suggestions and 
then, after she rebuffed them, she was 
pushed off a ledge and "broke both my 
Heels." 

Howe has occasionally used crutches in 
getting to court dates and her lack of 
mobility was cited by the prosecution in 
justifying why she was allowed to be out 
on bond at her father's house while waiting 
for trial. Viefhaus has been jailed since 
Dec. 13. 

On a Nov. 3, 1996, hot line message, 
Viefhaus had blasted a caller who 
criticized Howe's involvement with the 
National Socialist Alliance of Oklahoma, 
the organization the couple had co- 
founded. 

"She got an IQ of 165 and tolerates 
more pain than any man I've ever known," 
Viefhaus said. 

Howe claimed she met Viefhaus while 
on an alleged ATF assignment in early 
1995 in which she was supposed to 
associate with Skinheads. She 
acknowledged that she and Viefhaus were 
romantically involved and said they were 
engaged for more than a year before his 
arrest. She denied ever being romantically 
linked with Mahon. 

Howe said Viefhaus knew that at one 
time she was supposed to be monitoring 
Viefhaus for the government. Howe said 
she believes that Viefhaus viewed her as a 
"double agent" and that he didn't realize 
the "extent" or "degree" of her involvement 
with federal authorities. 

The level of Howe's involvement with 
the FBI and ATF is hotly disputed. The 
government claims that Howe was never 
used as an informant after the middle of 
1995 and was only contacted by Graham in 
March 1996 so that Graham could tell 

Howe that Howe's informant status had 
been accidentally leaked to the defense 
team of now convicted Oklahoma City 
bomber Timothy McVeigh. 

Graham said she and Howe reached a 
mutual agreement in June 1995 that Howe 
would do no more informant work for the 
government. Howe testified that she did 
not remember any such agreement. She 
also testified she was never informed of 
any "deactivation" in March 1995 which 
the government says was briefly lifted so 
Howe could go to Elohim City in May 
1995 in a failed attempt to look for "John 
Doe No. 2." 

Graham acknowledged that ATF records 
may show Howe was an informant through 
1996, but said that's because her superiors 
would not allow her to officially "close 
out" Howe because there was a desire in 
the agency not to destroy any records that 
related to the Oklahoma City investigation. 

Kirkpatrick told the court that he thinks 
it "tragic" that the government's decision to 
meticulously preserve its records of the 
Oklahoma City investigation is now being 
used by Howe in her effort to justify her 
conduct with Viefhaus in 1996. 

Howe insisted however, that she thought' 
she was acting as an informant in 1996. 
She said when the ATF and FBI 
supposedly refused to provide for her 
safety after her name had been leaked as 
an informant that she had no choice but to 
go deeper underground within the white 
separatist movement. 

Howe testified that during her ATF 
duties before the Oklahoma City blast, 
some residents of the far eastern Oklahoma 
"religious, racial community" known as 
Elohim City regarded her as suspicious. 
Thus, she said in 1996 after her cover was 
blown, she was determined to pass herself 

Page 571 

off convincingly as a bonafide member of 
the "movement." 

Howe, too, has had problems with 
depression. Under cross-examination by 
Kirkpatrick, Howe admitted that she called 
police in February 1995 and that she was 
taken to a local mental health facility 
where she said she stayed for four hours. 
Howe denied that cuts she had on hef Txxly 
were self-inflicted (as a Tulsa Police report 
indicates.) Howe said she subsequently got 
therapy for depression she said was 
brought on by pressure from the ATF and 
the death of a child she knew in a house 
fire. 

The prosecution also introduced 
evidence of a bizarre incident in March 
1995 in which Howe allegedly reported 
that she was "pistol-whipped" by a black 
man, According to a law enforcement 
report cited by prosecutors, this apparently 
happened while Howe was decked out in 
camouflage (apparently complete with face 
paint) in a "night reconnaissance" mission 
with unspecified others in north Tulsa. 

Howe was vague about the incident 
when asked about it during cross- 
examination Thursday. 

Graham had testified earlier Thursday 
that the above two incidents, a disturbing 
report from Howe's landlord, and a 
suspicion that Howe was starting to 

associate with Skinheads led to her 
emergency request to deactivate Howe for 
instability. 

"I felt like she was no longer loyal or 
competent enough to serve as an 
informant," he said. 

Graham said Howe's reactivation right 
after the Oklahoma City bombing merely 
reflected how desperately the government 
wanted to catch those responsible for the 
bombing. 

Graham said the government would 
have used anybody to "solve that crime." 

Graham said Howe's reactivation was 
the only time during her career with the 
ATF that someone "so unstable" had been 
pressed back into duty. 

Howe apparently was not able to bring 
back any credible evidence about who the 
supposed John Doe No. 2 is. Howe said, 
based on sketches released right after the 
bombing, she thought it might be either 
Michael Brescia or two brothers named 
Ward who reportedly frequented Elohim 
City. 

As promised, Bryant did not get into 
Howe's warnings of threats against federal 
buildings coming from German national 
Andreas Strassmeir or her trip to 
Oklahoma City with Elohim City residents 
in February 1995. 

â€¢kickick 

Tracking the Truth 

Sunday, July 27, 1997 - Rocky Mountain News 
By Kevin Flynn 

Page 572 

Timothy McVeigh is the second man to 
land on death row after plotting to destroy 
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. 

The first, Richard Wayne Snell, was 
executed in Arkansas for murdering a state 
trooper. His crime spree also included a 
1983 conspiracy to bring down the 
Oklahoma City building. 

The date he was put to death â€” was the 
day McVeigh's bomb went off. Four days 
earlier, Snell predicted there would be an 
explosion the day he died. 

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols 
conspired with "others unknown' to destroy 
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 
Oklahoma City, according to their grand 
jury indictment. 

Carol Howe believes she knows 
something about those "others unknown." 

But she can't tell. 

The 26-year-old former government 
informant is the witness McVeigh's 
lawyers weren't allowed to call during his 
Denver trial. 

She would have given "compelling" 
evidence that other "had not only the intent 
to bomb buildings but also the means to 
cany it out," according to her layer,, Clark 
Brewster. 

But U. S. District Judge Richard Matsch 
ruled her testimony to be irrelevant. At 
least, that's what he was reported to have 
ruled. His official ruling isn't known 
because it is still under seal. 

Howe now fatfes trial herself in Tulsa, 
Okla., on charges of making a bomb threat 
and illegally possessing a destructive 
device. 

Prosecutors have asked a judge to order 
her not to tell what she knows about the 
Oklahoma City case should she take the 
stand in her own defense. 

But the Rocky Mountain News has 
pieced her story together through research 
and interviews. 

Here is what jurors â€” and the rest of 
the nation â€” weren't allowed to hear: 

On Sept. 2, 1994, an attractive 24-year- 
old blond woman drove alone up a seven- 
mile Oklahoma dirt road into a secluded 
encampment of white separatists called 
ElohimCity. 

A former Tulsa debutante, Carol Howe 
now sported a swastika tattoo on her left 
shoulder. 

A few days earlier, she had signed a 
contract with the Federal bureau of 
Alcohol, tobacco and Firearms to inform 
on the White Aryan resistance group in 
Tulsa headed by former Ku Klux Klan 
leader Dennis Mahon. 

The daughter of the wealthy president 
of oil drilling and pipeline giant MAPCO 
Inc., Howe was now earning $120 a week 
as a government spy on the extremist 
fringe. 

She already was a committed racist. 

She had first joined Mahon's group 
shortly after a confrontation with three 
black men in a Tulsa park in February 
1994. They pushed her off a two-story 
building, crushing her heels, Howe told 
police. 

She still walks with difficulty, and bums 
with anger. By August of that year, she 
was angry with Mahon, Too. 

He had raped her and threatened her 
over the phone, she told law officers. On 
Aug. 23, 1994, she filed for a restraining 
order against him in a Tulsa court. 

Tulsa police noticed the filing and 
tipped off the ATF, where agent Angela 
Finley was assigned to investigate white 
supremacy groups. She immediately 
contacted Howe and asked if she would 

Page 573 

like to get revenge on Mahon by becoming 
an informant. 

Howe agreed and briefed Finley on 
what she already knew of Mahon's group. 

Finley wrote six reports from August 
1994 through February 1995 summarizing 
what Howe told her. Information in this 
article comes from those ATF documents. 

Howe told Finley that Mahon was 
preparing for a race war and she believed 
his group was stockpiling weapons. She 
said Mahon told her he knew how to make 
bombs and bragged about exploding a 500- 
pound ammonium nitrate bomb under truck 
in Michigan five years earlier. 

He also told her about Elohim City, 120 
miles southeast of Tulsa. A few days after 
the first interview with Finley, Howe drove 
there alone. 

There she met Andreas Strassmeir, a 
German citizen living illegally in the 
United States. 

Strassmeir had lived at Elohim City 
since 1991 and helped with security. His 
tourist visa had expired, but he wanted to 
stay in the country. 

Howe reported that Strassmeir said he 
knew black-market munitions dealers from 
whom he could get grenades, plastic 
explosives and more. 

He also told Howe that a long- 
anticipated race war would begin in 1995 
on the hottest day of the year. Mahon, too, 
talked about bombing power lines into 
Oklahoma City on a hot summer day in 
hope of instigating riots. 

Finley asked Howe to try to get Mahon, 
Strassmeir and others from Elohim City to 
make explosives at Howe's Tulsa home so 
they could be arrested. On Sept. 27, 1994, 
the ATF placed a surveillance camera in 
her home. 

But the most Howe could do was get 
some of them to paint inert hand grenades 
to look like Halloween pumpkins. 

However, during another visit to Elohim 
city on Nov. 3, 1994, Howe said 
Strassmeir told her his plans were to take 
"direct actions and operations such as 
assassinations, bombings and mass 
shootings" to try to forcibly destroy the 
government. 

In Finley's report No. 4, dated Nov. 29, 
1994, she underlined the work "bombings." 
It was less than five months before the 
Murrah building was destroyed. 

By December, the ATF had begun 
planning to raid Elohim City and arrest 
Strassmeir on weapons charges. 

That month, Howe said, the camp began 
to get more militant. She told Finley about 
a speech the leader of Elohim City, Rev. 
Robert Millar, gave that month. 

"During the Sabbath meeting," reads 
Finley's fifth report dated Jan. 1, 1995, 
against the United States government. He 
brought forth his soldiers and instructed 
them to take whatever actions necessary 
against the United States government." 

Millar told Howe "they were prepared to 
fight a war against the government." They 
considered themselves kindred folk with 
the 80 Branch Davidians killed in the 
confrontation with the government near 
Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993. 

Elohim City would be the next; Waco, 
they thought, and some talked about 
making the first strike, she said. 

Howe gave Finley a copy of the racist 
novel, The Turner Diaries, telling her to 
"make sure you read this," Finley testified 
later in a pre-trial hearing in Howe's case. 

The book by William Pierce, leader of 
the neo-Nazi National Alliance, depicts a 
racist takeover of the United States. Its 

Page 574 

scenes include a massive track bombing of 
FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

Howe told authorities that The Turner 
Diaries â€” which federal prosecutors said 
was McVeigh's "blueprint" for the 
Oklahoma bombing â€” was required 
reading at Elohim City, along with Adolf 
Hitler's Mein Kampf. 

About this same time, Howe heard 
Mahon and Strassmeir discuss someone 
named "Tim Tuttle." The name meant 
nothing to her then, but prosecutors later 
said it was an alias used by McVeigh. 

In her last summary report before the 
bombing, dated Feb. 28, 1995, Finley 
wrote that Howe took a trip to Oklahoma 
City on Jan. 19, 1995, with several people 
from Elohim City. 

The FBI questioned Howe about this 
trip two days after the bombing, and she 
told agents that Mahon and Strassmeir 
made a total of three trips to Oklahoma 
City, including the time Howe went. 

But, she said, she "heard of no specific 
plans" to strike against the government. 

In a later FBI interview, she told agent 
she was "fairly certain that Mahon is not 
directly involved in violent acts." 

Mahon and Strassmeir strongly deny 
any involvement in the Oklahoma City 
bombing. Strassmeir fled to Germany after 
his name surfaced publicly in January 
1996. He says that on the day of the 
bombing, he was fixing fences near Elohim 
City. 

Mahon remains in Tulsa and last week 
took the fifth Amendment before the 
special Oklahoma grand jury re-examining 
the bombing case. He calls Howe a 
pathological liar. 

The only concrete link between 
McVeigh and Elohim City is a phone call. 

The FBI's reconstruction of telephone 
records shows McVeigh used a calling card 
to telephone Elohim City from the Imperial 
Motel in Kingman, Ariz., on April 5, 1995, 
two weeks before the bombing. The call 
came immediately after he called a Ryder 
truck rental agency. 

During the call, which lasted one minute 
and 56 seconds, McVeigh asked to speak 
with "Andi," but Strassmeir wasn't around 
to take the call, said residents of Elohim 
City. 

\While federal authorities once regarded 
Strassmeir as a subject in the bombing 
investigation, they now don't believe he 
was involved. 

They have, however, arrested 
Strassmeir's one-time roommate at Elohim 
City, a former Philadelphia college student 
named Mike Brescia, as a member of a 
bank robbery gang called the Aryan 
Republican Army. 

In the days after the bombing, the FBI 
investigated whether a series of 
Midwestern bank robberies were related. 

Federal grand juries later indicted six 
men, including Brescia, as members of the 
gag suspected of up to 19 bank robberies 
in seven states. 

Four of the six lived at or frequently 
visited Elohim City. 

But the FBI found no connection to the 
Oklahoma City bombing, despite 
McVeigh's phone call. 

Many conspiracy theorists and even 
mainstream anti-militia groups such as 
Morris Dees' Klanwatch in Montgomery, 
Ala., claim that McVeigh was a frequent 
visitor to Elohim City. 

But there's no evidence McVeigh was 
ever there at all. 

The only documented meeting McVeigh 
had with a resident of Elohim City came 

Page 575 

when he and Strassmeir met at the April 
1993 Tulsa Gun Show, two years before 
the bombing. McVeigh was selling military 
clothing there, Strassmeir recalled in an 
affidavit. 

Strassmeir sold McVeigh a U. S. Navy 
combat knife and sheath and later returned 
to buy a shirt, trousers and leather gloves 
from him. They discussed the ongoing 
Branch Davidian siege at Waco, which 
hadn't yet culminated in the fatal fire. 

Strassmeir said he may have given 
McVeigh an Elohim City business card 
containing his first name and the 
compound's phone number. 

The Elohim City leader, Millar, 
dismisses talk of links between his group 
and the bombing. To him, Strassmeir was 
nothing but a lazy mooch who "cost me 
every week he was here," Millar wrote in a 
letter detailing Strassmeir's stays there. 

He told the News that Strassmeir and 
Brescia were more militant than he liked. 
Several months after the bombing, they 
were asked to leave Elohim city. Brescia 
returned to his parent's home in 
Philadelphia, went back to classes at La 

Salle University and married one of 
Millar's granddaughters. 

He was indicted in January on the bank 
robbery charges pleaded guilty in May and 
is awaiting sentencing. He is named as a 
defendant in a civil lawsuit brought by 
some bombing victims who believe he was 
involved. 

Strassmeir's attorney, Kirk Lyons of 
Black Mountain, N.C., says the fuss is 
nothing but smoke and mirrors. He says 
Strassmeir was an American history buff 
who came to the United States in 1988, 
liked it and stayed. 

Strassmeir's fled to Germany in January 
1996. He denies involvement. 

A U. S. State Department memorandum 
says Strassmeir shouldn't be permitted to 
return to this country. 

Millar says he would never condone 
violence in the cause of change. 

"I don't think terrorism or blowing up 
buildings accomplishes anything. It's 
counter-productive." 

Carol Howe goes on trial next week on 
the bomb-threat charges. The charges are 
trumped up to keep her quiet, claims her 
attorney, Clark Brewster. 

***** 

Murrah Building Targeted Long Before McVeigh 

Sunday, July 27, 1997 - Rocky Mountain News 
By Kevin Flynn 

White supremacists hatched plot in 80's 
to retaliate against federal government. 

In February 1983, a North Dakota 
farmer named Gordon Kahl killed two U. 
S. Marshals trying to arrest him for a 
probation violation. 

Kahl, a member of the tax-protesting 
Posse Comitates, fled. But in June federal 
agents tracked him to a bunker in Arkansas 
and killed him. 

His death became a rallying cry for the 
extreme right and led to a plot to blow up 
the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma 

Page 576 

City â€” a plot that fizzled more than a 
decade before Timothy McVeigh's tragic 
success. 

At the heart of the scheme was a self- 
proclaimed prophet named Jim Ellison, 
who considered himself a descendant of 
biblical King David. 

Ellison led a militant group called the 
Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord â€” 
the CSAâ€” which anointed him "King James 
oftheOzarks." 

At his isolated 224-acre compound on 
Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas, Ellison had 
built a paramilitary training facility and 
survivalist school, accepting clients from 
all over the country. 

Years later, he became a government 
witness, and this story of the first plot to 
destroy the Murrah building comes from 
court files and an interview with his 
federal handler, assistant U. S. Attorney 
Steven Snydet 

After Kahl's death, Ellison attended the 
annual Aryan World Congress in Idaho. 
There the racial right groped for ways to 
retaliate against the government. 

One idea: Attack federal buildings. 

In October 1983, Richard Wayne Snell, 
a member of CSA asked Ellison if "in his 
opinion would it be practical to blow up a 
federal building in Oklahoma City, or 
possibly a federal building in Dallas or 
Forth Worth, Texas." 

Ellison and a top lieutenant traveled to 
Oklahoma City to scout it out and posing 
as maintenance workers in brown 
uniforms, walked through the Murrah 
building. 

Next, Ellison designed a remote- 
controlled bomb and asked CSA's skilled 
machinists to put it together. 

But when the device accidentally blew 
up and injured a worker, the King of the 

Ozarks took it as a sign from God to 
abandon the project. 

Snell's lust for destruction would not be 
deterred, though. 

In November, he and the man who had 
helped Ellison case the Murrah Building 
tried to bomb a natural gas pipeline over 
the Red River near Hope, Ark., and an 
electrical transmission line in Fort Smith, 
Ark. 

A few days later, Snell and two other 
CSA members robbed a pawnshop in 
Texarkana, Ark. Snell killed the owner, 
William Stumpp, later saying he thought 
the man was Jewish. 

Then, on June 30, 1984, Snell killed a 
black Arkansas state trooper who had 
pulled him over. Police tracked Snell to 
Broken Bow, Okla., where he was shot and 
arrested. 

Eventually Snell was sentenced to death 
for the Stumpp murder. 

In the meantime, the CSA compound 
was raided by the FBI on April 19, 1985 â€” 
10 years to the day before the Oklahoma 
City bombing. 

Ellison was arrested along with several 
fugitive members of The Order, another 
white supremacist gang, which had staged 
a brief but intense crime spree in 1983 and 
1984, killing Jewish radio talk show host 
Alan Berg in Denver and robbing more 
than $4 million from banks and armored 
cars. 

Ellison served just under 10-years in 
prison. When he was released, he went to 
Elohim City, Okla., another radical-right 
compound, and married one of the 
granddaughters of the leader, the Rev. 
Robert Millar. 

Meanwhile, Snell's execution date 
approached and he predicts there would be 
an explosion on the day he died. 

He was right. 

Page 577 

On April 19, 1995, just hours before the 
Oklahoma City bombing, the state of 
Arkansas killed Snell by lethal injection. 

Millar claimed his body and buried it at 
Elohim City. 

ick-kick 

The Second Debut Of Carol Howe 

Monday, July 28, 1997 - Tulsa World 
By David Harper 

Jurors Will Have To Decide Who the 
Real Woman Is 

Just who is Carol Howe? 

Is she a diligent informant who got in 
trouble with the federal government for 
insinuating it could have stopped the 
Oklahoma City bombing? Or is she a 
dangerously unstable woman who is trying 
to use her brief tenure as an ineffective 
informant to excuse a bombing plan of her 
own? 

There is one thing we know for sure. 
Beginning Monday, she will be the 
defendant in the highest profile federal trial 
in Tulsa in at least seven years. Not since 
Colombian drug kingpin Jose Abello was 
tried and convicted in 1990, has a federal 
criminal case in Tulsa caused such a stir. 

Time Magazine, People Magazine, the 
Washington Post and the Canadian 
Broadcasting Corp. Are just a few of the 
media outlets that have filed â€” or are in 
the process of putting together â€” stories 
about Howe. 

The petite, 26-year-old blonde is 
accused of conspiracy, willfully making a 
bomb threat and possessing the elements of 
what prosecutors claim could have been 
crafted into a pipe bomb. 

A former Tulsa debutante, Howe was 
charge in March along with Tulsan James 
Dodson Viefhaus, Jr. After a week-long 
trial, Viefhaus was convicted on all three 
counts late Friday after a jury deliberated 
for almost 12 hours. 

Viefhaus and Howe got in trouble early 
last December after the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation was tipped to an answering 
machine message emanating from the 
home the two shared in east Tulsa. 
Viefhaus said that a letter had been 
"written and received" from a high-ranking 
revolutionary commander stating that 
bombs would be activated in 15 U.S. cities 
unless action was taken by "white warriors" 
by Dec. 15, 1996. 

Based on this message, which is the 
basis of the "bomb threat" charge, a search 
warrant was executed on the Viefhaus and 
Howe residence. Prosecutors claim that 
they found the pipe, end caps, powder and 
fuse necessary to make a pipe bomb. 

According to Howe's testimony last 
Thursday during the Viefhaus trial, Howe 
held no racist views until March 1994 
when she claims she was pushed off a 
ledge at Chandler Park by "some black 
people" who she said were making 

Page 578 

sexually explicit suggestions to her. The 
incident led to her sustaining foot injuries 
that apparently continue to cause her pain. 

Howe testified that she soon got a 
swastika tattoo. But Howe said she only 
genuinely held racist beliefs for "about six 
weeks" in 1994. Howe testified that she 
met Tulsas' white separatist Dennis Mahon 
in May 1994 after calling his racist hotline. 
The two began to spend time together, 
though Howe insists it was not a romantic 
relationship. 

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms agent Angela Graham said 
Howe's filing a harassment complaint 
against Mahon â€” together with information 
from the Tulsa Police Department â€” led to 
Graham contacting Howe in August 1994. 

Graham said Howe's initial assignment 
was to keep any eye on Mahon and those 
who came in contact with him, which 
quickly led to her taking trips with and 
without Mahon to Elohim City, what Howe 
described as a "religious, racial 
community" in far eastern Oklahoma. 

According to statements Howe's 
attorney, Clark O. Brewster, made to the 
court at t pretrial hearing July 16, Howe 
gave about 70 reports about what she saw. 
Brewster said Howe told her ATF 
superiors about "dangerous, apocalyptic 
statements" coming from Elohim City 
leader Robert Millar and others at the 
compound, warning of a "cataclysm" 
coming in the spring of 1995. 

Brewster said Howe told the ATF that 
there was talk at Elohim City of bombing 
federal buildings in Oklahoma City or 
Texas, talk which eventually became the 
subject of "daily meetings: in anticipation 
of the return of James Ellison to Elohim 
City. 

Ellison, former leader of an Arkansas 
extremist group known as the Covenant, 
the Sword and the Arm of the Lord, 
allegedly had conspired along with a man 
named Richard Snell to bomb the Alfred P. 
Murrah Federal Building in 1983. Snell 
was executed for murder on April 19, 
1995, the day of the Oklahoma City 
bombing, and is buried at Elohim City. 

Brewster said when the Murrah 
Building blew up, Howe felt like she 
needed to be more specific in her 
informant work. 

Howe said Thursday the list that was 
found in Howe and Viefhaus' home last 
December of 18 possible' bombing sites in 
the Tulsa area (as well as pictures of 
buildings when Tulsa FBI and ATF offices 
are located) was part of Howe's 
information collected on behalf of the 
government. 

Howe said she heard a "powerful 
murmur" in the fall of 1995 that Tulsa 
could be the target of a major bombing in 
the spring of 1996. Howe said Thursday 
she left messages in 1995 but that her calls 
weren't returned. 

Brewster has claimed that Howe worked 
for both the ATF and the FBI for more 
than a year after the bombing. Graham has 
testified that Howe's name was accidentally 
leaked to the defense team of Timothy 
McVeigh in March 1996. Howe said 
Thursday that she feared for her safety. 

By this time, Howe said that she was 
already engaged to Viefhaus, who she says 
she met in early 1995 while on an ATF 
assignment to infiltrate the local skinhead 
community. Howe said that she thinks 
Viefhaus viewed her as a "double agent" 
for the far-right wing and that he didn't 
realize the "degree" to which she was 
involved with the federal government. 

Page 579 

Thinking she had no way out of her 
undercover duties, Howe said she set up 
the National Socialist Alliance of 
Oklahoma with Viefhaus. Their neo-Nazi 
literature, their post office box and even 
the hotline where the message at issue in 
this case was playing were all set up, 
Howe said Thursday, to collect names, 
addresses and phone numbers of potentially 
dangerous people the government might 
want to investigate. 

The defense claims that many, if not all, 
the items the government claims could 
have been made into a pipe bomb, were 
returned to Howe by the ATF after she had 
collected them from Mahon in 1994-95. 

In early 1997, Howe was free and 
charged with nothing while Viefhaus was 
indicted and in jail. Around this time, 
reports that Howe warned in late 1994 and 

early 1995 that federal buildings had been 
threatened began to surface. 

Howe was named in a superseding 
indictment with Viefhaus on March 1 1 on 
the same facts in Viefhaus' original 
indictment. Brewster has said the 
indictment was a "retaliatory" move by the 
government meant to punish Howe for 
speaking out and frighten her into keeping 
her mouth shut in the future about the 
advance notice she had given about the 
Oklahoma City bombing. Brewster said the 
government did not count on Howe 
fighting back. 

Brewster insists that the jury in Howe's 
case must be allowed to hear the evidence 
about Howe's Oklahoma City warnings 
because it is vital to a full understanding of 
the case. 

"kiekick 

Howe's Facts Differ From Government's 

Monday, July 28, 1997 - Tulsa World 
By David Harper 

The prosecution's view of the facts in 
the Carol Howe case is considerably 
different from those recited by the former 
debutante and her lawyer. 

The government does agree that Howe 
did serve as an informant for the ATF 
beginning in August 1994 and that she did 
have several tape-recorded meetings with 
Tulsan Dennis Mahon and others and took 
several trips to Elohim City. 

ATF agent Angela Graham did 
acknowledge in an April 24 pretrial 

hearing that Howe had said that German 
national Andreas Strassmeir had threatened 
to bomb federal buildings, that Howe had 
taken a trip in early 1995 with Elohim City 
residents to Oklahoma City where they 
shot off a "potato gun" and that Howe had 
insisted from their first meeting that 
Graham read "The Turner Diaries," a novel 
which some see as the blueprint for the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

However, the government has not 
confirmed the more specific warnings that 

Page 580 

Howe's attorney, Clark O. Brewster, claims 
that Howe made. The issue of how's 
warnings about Oklahoma city never came 
up during the trial of Tulsan James Dodson 
Viefhaus, Jr. because Viefhaus' attorney, 
Craig Bryant, never got into the subject. 
Depending on the rulings of U. S. District 
Judge Michael Burrage, the topic could be 
in play during Howe's trial. 

The government claims Howe never 
provided it with anything against Mahon or 
anyone else that was used in a successful 
prosecution. 

Graham testified Friday at Viefhaus' 
trial that Howe was "deactivated" in March 
1995 for "instability" after she was 
reportedly transported to a mental health 
facility with what Tulsa Police thought 
were self-inflicted cuts. 

Graham said Howe, at her own request, 
was briefly reactivated after the Oklahoma 
City bombing because Howe thought she 
might be able to find John Doe No. 2. 
Graham testified Friday that she thought 
that Howe was "flaky" but that the 

government would have used anyone who 
might help it find all those responsible for 
the bombing. 

Graham said Howe spent three days at 
Elohim City at the beginning of May 1995 
under the auspices of the FBI and turned 
up no usable information. Graham said she 
tried to "deactivate" Howe again as an 
informant but that her superiors in Dallas 
refused because they wanted to preserve all 
their files and information about the 
Oklahoma City investigation. 

Graham said her next conversation with 
Howe was not until March 1996 after 
Howe's name had been revealed in the 
Timothy McVeigh case. Graham said 
Howe was offered protection but that 
Howe had said she wasn't worried. 

Graham said Howe called her once or 
twice after that, worried about "men in 
suits" wandering around near her residence 
but that Howe never mentioned Viefhaus, 
the National Socialist Alliance of 
Oklahoma, or gave any indication of her 
apparent Nazi activities. 

iefcfckic 

Gazette Reporter Is Excluded from Carol Howe Trial 

Tuesday, July 29, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

With most of the state's median in 
attendance, and some national media 
including the New York Times in the 
courtroom, the kickoff of the long-awaited 
trial of Carol Howe began in earnest 
Monday. 

The Tulsa World called the federal case 
against Carol Howe the most important to 
come to Tulsa in seven years. 

But no sooner had the government 
begun calling witnesses in the conspiracy 
trial of the former Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms informant than this 
reporter was barred from the courtroom by 
the prosecution. 

Citing a subpoena delivered to The 
McCurtain Gazette early this month, 
Assistant U. S. Attorney Neal Kirkpatrick 

Page 581 

told Judge Burrage that the Gazette's 
reporter was in Tulsa under a government's 
subpoena to testify. 

It was the Gazette which first broke an 
unrelated story about Carol Howe's work 
for the BATF. 

That story concerned warnings Howe 
gave the BATF about a plan persons at a 
religious compound, called Elohim City, 
had to bomb federal buildings. 

Howe's handler at the BATF had 
already said that such warnings were 
passed on prior to the disaster that struck 
in Oklahoma City. 

After that Gazette story ran, the defense 
team for convicted mass-murderer Timothy 
McVeigh called Carol Howe to Denver, 
but the trial judge there ruled her testimony 
"irrelevant" and barred her from testifying. 

Under federal rules, if a judge grants a 
motion by either party to a criminal action 
to bar potential witnesses from the 
courtroom because they are expected to 
testify in the trial, then such witnesses 
cannot appear in court until after they have 
appeared on the stand. 

When Kirkpatrick noticed this reporter 
in the courtroom, he told the judge that the 
Gazette reporter was still under a 
government subpoena and must leave. 

Whether or not the government really 
intends to call this reporter to the stand is 
in doubt, though. 

During a bench conference, Kirkpatrick 
was overheard saying, "Cash is the one 
who started all this and I don't want him in 
the courtroom." 

National attention has focused on Carol 
Howe since the Gazette stories earlier this 
year revealed her warnings to the 
government. 

There were warnings that Justice 
Department officials today deny were 

detailed enough to act upon before the 
bombing of the Murrah building. 

After the mid-afternoon incident in 
Tulsa, the case proceeded with the 
government putting forward the same 
arguments against Carol Howe as they did 
her former housemate, James Dodson 
Veifhaus, who stood trial last week. 

Veifhaus was charged in the indictment 
with Howe for allegedly conspiring to 
make a bomb threat and possession of an 
unregistered destructive device. 

Monday, the head of the FBI's domestic 
terrorism unit played tapes for the jury of 
messages confiscated at the Veifhaus-Howe 
residence. 

Those tapes were originally played on 
the couple's "hotline" in the weeks before 
the Dec. 13th raid on their home. 

The government alleges one of those 
tapes represents a threat to bomb 15 cities. 

The defense is expected to say that 
Howe was simply fulfilling her obligations 
to the BATF by appearing to be a 
legitimate neo-Nazi and thereby, 
sympathetic to that "movement." 

The tapes confiscated contain few racial 
slurs. They consisted mainly of stories 
taken from news articles and repeated on 
the pair's "hotline" they called the Aryan 
Information Network. 

The superseding indictment against 
Howe also alleges she possessed an 
unregistered destructive device. 

Easy-to-purchase items were found at 
the Tulsa residence which the government 
says could be used to construct a pipe 
bomb. 

Howe's records with the BATF show 
that she gathered most, if not all these 
items, and turned them in to the BATF 
months before the raid. 

Special agent Angela Graham testified 
in the Viefhaus trial that Howe obtained 

Page 582 

racist literature and bomb-making 
components from Tulsa radical Dennis 
Mahon, who was a subject of the bureau's 
investigation that Howe was once assigned 
to. 

Graham also testified that she returned 
those items to Howe because they were not 
illegal to possess unless combined to make 
a bomb. 

Veifhaus was found guilty of all charges 
against him last week. 

But Howe's trial is expected to be the 
more difficult to prove because her voice is 
not on the tape the government contends 
was a bomb threat. 

Moreover, her name was still on a list 
of informants the BATF used when her 
home was raided. 

The Gazette will continue to cover the 
trial from other reporter's notes. 

***** 

Government Also on Trial, Attorney Says 

Tuesday, July 29, 1997 - Tulsa World 
By David Harper 

The trial of former informant Carol 
Howe begins. 

The trial of former federal informant 
Carol Howe began in Tulsa Monday with 
Howe's attorney telling jurors that they sit 
in judgment not only of Howe, but also of 
the government. 

Howe is charged with conspiracy, 
willfully making a bomb threat and 
possessing items that could have been 
turned into a pipe bomb "in a New York 
minute" according to Assistant U. S. 
Attorney Neal Kirkpatrick. 

Howe's attorney, Clark O. Brewster 
opted not to give an opening statement 
Monday. But he has previously said that 
the believes Howe was charged in a 
"retaliatory" move by the government, a 
measure meant to punish the former ATF 
and FBI informant for speaking out about 

the advance warning she says she gave of 
the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City 
bombing. Brewster made the statement 
about the jury judging the government as 
well as Howe during jury selection. 

Howe was charged along with Tulsan 
James Dodson Viefhaus, Jr., who was 
convicted of all charges Friday in federal 
court in Tulsa. 

Kirkpatrick said the reference on a Dec. 
8 answering machine message recorded by 
Viefhaus constitutes a true threat when 
considered in the context of the weapons, 
Nazi literature, "target" list and "how-to" 
books on Viefhaus and Howe shared. The 
government alleges Howe helped 
"compose" the message. 

Kirkpatrick said, "You'll see, you'll 
hear, you'll know what they were up to." 

Page 583 

The case will be heard by a seven-man, 
five-woman, all white jury. 

The March 1 1 indictment in the case 
alleged Howe and Viefhaus founded the 
National Socialist Alliance of Oklahoma. 

The indictment alleges that the group's 
"philosophy and preps.. .was to promote the 
alleged superiority and survival of the 
white or Caucasian race." 

Two whites were excused from the 28- 
member jury panel because they were 
concerned that they would not be able to 
separate their consideration of the facts of 
the case from their repulsion over the 
racism promoted by the National Socialist 
Alliance of Oklahoma. 

Howe said last week during her 
testimony in the Viefhaus trial that she 
held racist beliefs for "about six weeks" in 
1994 after a traumatic experience in a 
Tulsa park However, she said she no 
longer holds such views and that the tapes 
and literature associated with the 
organization were meant to elicit responses 
from people her government bosses might 
be interested in monitoring. 

The government maintains it knew 
nothing of Howe's activities with the 
National Socialist Alliance of Oklahoma 
and that Howe was not authorized to do 
any informant activities after June 1995. 

Another potential juror was excused 
because of her opposition to firearms. 
There were several legally owned firearms 
at the residence and Howe testified last 
week that she still owns three firearms. 

Two other potential jurors were excused 
because they said they heard Viefhaus was 
found guilty last week and would have a 
hard time believing Howe's innocent since 
she lived with Viefhaus. 

Many potential jurors indicated they had 
heard of the case against Howe but none 

said that the media coverage had biased 
their opinion one way or another. 

In light of Howe's anticipated defense, 
Kirkpatrick asked potential jurors if they 
believe the United States had "specific" 
warnings of the explosion at Oklahoma 
City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building 
that killed 168 people. Kirkpatrick also 
asked if any jurors believed that the 
government would not do all it could to 
prevent such a disaster. 

None of the jury panel answered 
affirmatively to the questions. 
Brewster told the potential jurors that he 
anticipates the case will last well into next 
week. 

Each side announced its witness list 
Monday. Among the scheduled defense 
witnesses are Howe's former attorney, 
Allen Smallwood; Tulsa white separatist 
Dennis Mahon; ATF agents Angela 
Graham and Dave Roberts; FBI informant 
Richard Schrum; Howe's father, Bob; 
convicted bomb conspirator Willie Ray 
Lampley; Viefhaus' attorney, Craig Bryant; 
retired FBI agent Martin Weber and 
journalist J. D. Cash. 

The rule of sequestration was invoked 
Monday for all potential witnesses except 
for David Argo of the FBI and Bob Howe. 
Cash will not be permitted to watch the 
trial. 

The prosecution's witness list is nearly 
identical to that used in the Viefhaus trial. 

In fact, Monday afternoon's testimony 
was virtually identical to that presented in 
the early stages of the Viefhaus trial. 

Kenneth Piernick, unit chief of the FBI's 
domestic terrorism operations unit in 
Washington, D.C., testified that he was 
contacted last December by a journalist in 
Spokane, Wash., who was alarmed by an 
answering machine message in Tulsa. The 

Page 584 

message alluded to 15 bombs being 
activated in 15 U. S. cities on Dec. 15, 
1996, unless action was taken against the 
federal government by that date. 

Piernick said he considered the message 
to be a "profound threat" and that his 
colleagues in Washington were "visibly 
shocked." Piernick said he notified FBI 
officials in Oklahoma. 

On cross-examination, Brewster asked 
Piernick if he was aware that Howe lived 
at the house where the message was 
coming from and if he knew that Howe 
was an informant. 

Piernick said all he knows of Howe's 
informant background is "what I've read in 
the newspaper." 

Brewster brought up in his questioning 
that informants are supposed to "talk the 

talk" and fit in with those they are 
monitoring. 

Piernick said he didn't know the taped 
message was based on a statement made 
by Lampley until about a month ago. 
Lampley is in prison in Illinois after being 
convicted in federal court in Muskogee last 
year in a bomb conspiracy case. 

However, Piernick said his concern 
would have been heightened, not lessened, 
in December if he had known of the 
Lampley connection due to Lampley's 
history of dangerous activity. 

The day concluded with the jury hearing 
tapes of the National Socialist Alliance of 
Oklahoma's "Aryan Intelligence Network" 
hot line from which the Dec. 8 "threat" 
tape came. 

***** 

Controversy Over Howe's True Loyalties Become Focus of 
Her Trial 

Wednesday, July 30, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

The controversy over Carol Howe's true 
loyalties â€” and whether the FBI team that 
raided her house knew of her role in the 
Oklahoma City bombing case â€” has 
become the focus of the Tulsa conspiracy 
trial of the former informant for the Bureau 
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF). 

Two FBI agents testified Tuesday about 
facts related to the raid on the residence 
Howe shared with convicted conspirator 
James Dodson Viefhaus. 

But the stories they told about their lack 
of knowledge about Howe's undercover 
work for the government were hard for 
many observers to swallow. 

Howe's attorney contends the 
government was trying to destroy Howe's 
reputation because she warned the BATF 
about a plot to bomb the Murrah federal 
building in Oklahoma â€” before the April 
19, 1995, explosion. 

Page 585 

That Dec. 13, 1996, raid was 
purportedly set in motion after a newspaper 
reporter called a "hotline" at the Viefhaus- 
Howe home and heard a message on the 
couple's answering machine that caused 
him to call the head of the FBI's domestic 
terrorism unit in Washington, D.C. 

That message said a letter had been 
received by a high-ranking member of the 
underground who warned that 15 cities 
could be bombed by Dec. 15 if certain 
actions were not taken by "white warriors." 

Pete Rickel, the Tulsa FBI agent who 
tracks activities of suspected terrorists, said 
he had spoken with Howe in spring 1996 
about her concerns that her "cover" had 
been blown when the FBI released a 
document to the McVeigh defense team 
revealing her undercover work in the 
radical neo-Nazi movement. 

But Rickel told the court Tuesday that 
when the raid was planned and carried out 
at the residence of the BATF informant, he 
and others had no inkling of who Howe 
really was. 

Rickel claimed under cross-examination 
that he did not learn until later that Howe 
was the same person he spoke with in the 
spring about her role in the underground 
investigation of the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Several hours after the raid began, 
Rickel claimed he learned of Howe's 
identity. 

Rickel also told Howe's attorney that he 
had told her earlier that the FBI would not 
offer her any protection and that she 
should seek help from the BATF. 

But the BATF also refused to provide 
Howe any protection after her cover was 
compromised, figuratively throwing her to 
the wolves, Howe attorney Clark Brewster 
had said earlier. 

Rickel admitted under Brewster's 
grilling that Howe "theoretically" could 
have decided to continue playing the role 
of a neo-Nazi after learning the 
government was not going to provide for 
her safety from those who might take 
revenge against her. 

Howe's defense in the trial is that she 
was working undercover for the BATF â€” 
and that her statements and actions before 
the raid were simply part of her cover. 

As part of that undercover work, Howe 
says she gathered bomb-making 
components from the subject of one of her 
investigations. 

Yet, she laments, it is those components 
in her possession â€” as a result of her 
undercover investigation â€” that the 
government is using to charge her with, a 
sort of Catch-22 situation. 

The government contends Howe's work 
for BATF ended in the summer of 1995 
and that she had no reason to associate 
with members of the radical white power 
movement after that. 

But Howe's actual records with the 
BATF indicate that she was still on the 
books as an approved BATF informant, at 
the time of the raid on her house. 

Moreover, a document obtained by the 
McCurtain Gazette shows the level of 
concern the government had about Howe's 
true identity and the highly sensitive work 
she was apparently still performing for the 
government. 

Months after government officials said 
Howe was no longer an informant, an 
April 22, 1996, BATF memorandum has 
this to say: 

This informant is involved with the 
Oklahoma City bomb case which is 
pending prosecution in Denver and was the 
key in identifying individuals at Elohim 

Page 586 

City, which is tied to the Oklahoma City 
bombing case. 

During the Viefhaus trial, Howe's 
handler at the agency tried to explain the 
discrepancy this way: That Howe's still 
being on the books as an informant was a 
"procedural matter" and should be 
"disregarded." 

Special BATF agent Angela Graham 
also testified last week during Viefhaus's 
trial that she had no idea what Howe was 
doing in 1996 â€” and was unaware a raid 
had been planned on her home. 

But FBI special agent Chris Peters took 
the stand Tuesday and provided a strong 
suggestion that Graham may very well 
have known. 

After explaining his role in the raid on 
the Howe residence, Peters was asked by 
defense attorney Clark Brewster during 
cross-examination who he was married to. 

"Angela Graham," Peters replied. 

Peters said he hand no idea of Howe's 
relationship with his wife when he 
participated in the raid. 

The defense is expected to begin putting 
its case on later this week. 

â€¢*"*"*"*"*â–  

Prosecution Ends, Carol Howe's Attorney Begins Defense 

Thursday, July 31, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J. D. Cash 

The government ended its case against 
former debutante-tumed-BATF-informant 
Carol Howe on Wednesday with testimony 
from FBI agents that the house she shared 
with a Tulsa white supremacist was filled 
with racist-oriented literature and 
components that could be used to make a 
bomb. 

Howe, 26, has been charged in a three- 
count indictment of conspiracy to make a 
bomb threat and possession of an 
unregistered destructive device. 

Last week, the defendant's former 
boyfriend â€” James Viefhaus â€” was found 
guilty on all three counts. 

And now prosecutors are reportedly 
working feverishly to convince the 28- 
year-old Viefhaus to make a plea deal and 

testify against Howe during he 
government's rebuttal stage of the trial â€” 
what some observers see as an indication 
of the weakness of the government's case. 

Howe's attorney was to begin putting on 
his defense today, and he is expected to 
attack the government vigorously â€” 
contending Carol Howe was indicted by 
the government as revenge for her public 
statements that she warned the government 
prior to the Oklahoma City bombing that 
persons at Elohim City had targeted federal 
buildings. 

Those FBI agents who testified 
Wednesday said when they raided the 
house the couple shared in Tulsa, they 
found items stored in a box and duffel bag 

Page 587 

which could be combined to make a pipe 
bomb. 

A former lab technician with the FBI 
told the jury that a section of threaded pipe 
with attached end caps could have been 
altered and filled with gunpowder, creating 
a weapon. 

Cannon fuse and hexamine tablets were 
also discovered at the home, along with 
hair bleach arid a home-canning solution. 

All these items, Special FBI Agent 
Robert J. Heckman said, could be used in 
the bomb-making process. 

But under cross-examination, the agent 
told Howe attorney Clark Brewster that it 
was irrelevant that the pipe seized in the 
raid showed no evidence of having ever 
contained gunpowder or having been 
drilled for a fuse. 

Heckman said these facts had no 
bearing on his opinion that they were 
illegal items. 

Brewster then reminded the FBI agent 
that he had earlier testified in another trial 
â€” telling a completely different story. 

In a similar bombing conspiracy case, 
Heckman had said a piece of empty pipe 
with end caps attached was not considered 
a destructive device â€” until it had been 
drilled out for a fuse. 

Heckman conceded that he had testified 
to that in an earlier case. 

He was also forced to admit by 
Brewster that it was not illegal for a mere 
piece of empty pipe to be in the same 
room with a can of gunpowder. 

Brewster then attacked Heckman's 
record at the scandal-ridden FBI crime lab 
in Washington, D.C., where he was 
recently criticized in an official 
investigation. 

He acknowledged he had been 
reassigned to duties outside the lab. 

And, Heckman conceded, he had also 
been singled out by senior lab scientist and 
whistle-blower Frederic Whitehurt for 
misleading juries, changing other experts' 
testimony and testifying outside his 
expertise. 

Brewster will begin putting on his 
defense today. 

â€¢k-k-kick 

Revenge Pictures Never Delivered 

Howe Told of ATF, FBI Photos 

Thursday, July 31, 1997 - Tulsa World 
By David Harper 

An FBI agent testified Wednesday that 
defendant Carol Howe told him that she 
took pictures of FBI and Bureau of 
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms offices in 
Tulsa because she wanted revenge on the 

government for exposing her role as a 
federal informant. 

Josh Nixon said that Howe told him last 
Dec. 13 that - earlier in 1996 - she felt 
like she was going to die anyway after the 

Page 588 

FBI revealed her role as an informant to 
Timothy McVeigh's defense team. Nixon 
said Howe admitted she took pictures of 
the Pratt Tower and the Meridian Tower 
and hoped to give them to someone within 
"the movement" who might actually have 
the courage to attack those sites. 

However, Nixon also said Howe told 
him her anger had since subsided, that she 
never gave the pictures to anyone and that 
she just wanted to be left alone. 

Nixon's testimony came on the third day 
of Howe's trial in federal court in Tulsa. 
Howe is charged with conspiracy, willfully 
making a bomb threat and possessing 
materials that allegedly could have been 
converted into a pipe bomb. 

Tulsan James Dodson Viefhaus Jr. was 
named in the same March 1 1 indictment as 
Howe. Viefhaus was convicted an all three 
counts in a separate trial last week. 

On Dec. 13, a search warrant was 
executed at the east Tulsa home Howe and 
Viefhaus shared. The FBI had been tipped 
to a Dec. 8 answering machine message it 
viewed as a bomb threat and traced it to 
the Howe and Viefhaus residence. 

On Wednesday, Nixon testified that 
Howe had told him that she helped write 
the Dec. 8 message recorded by Viefhaus 
that got the couple in trouble. However, 
Nixon said Howe told him that she tried to 
discourage Viefhaus from including on the 
tape the reference to 15 U.S. cities being 
bombed unless action was taken by "white 
warriors" against the federal government 
by Dec. 15, 1996. It is that passage which 
prosecutors allege constituted a bomb 
threat. 

"She said she had concerns about it and 
asked him (Viefhaus) not to put it on the 
tape, but that he did anyway," Nixon said. 

Nixon said he and fellow FBI agent D.J. 
Dunlap were assigned to interview Howe 
while federal agents searched the house. 

Nixon said Howe told him that she was 
"race-conscious" and thought that the races 
should live separately. Nixon said Howe 
told him that she and Viefhaus had 
established the National Socialist Alliance 
of Oklahoma and that she did not give any 
indication that her activities with the 
organization were part of a "cover" for any 
sort of informant work. 

Defense attorney Clark O. Brewster said 
July 16 that Howe was an informant for 
the ATF and/or the FBI from August 1994 
through March 11, 1997, when she was 
indicted. Brewster has indicated that he 
believes Howe was charged to punish her 
for indicating that she warned of the April 
19, 1995, bombing of Oklahoma City's 
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an 
explosion that killed 168 people. 

The Government maintains that Howe 
worked as an ATF informant from August 

1994 through March 1995 when she was 
deactivated for "instability." The 
prosecution says Howe was briefly 
reactivated in May 1995 to go to Elohim 
City on behalf of the FBI in a failed search 
for "John Doe No. 2." 

ATF agent Angela Graham testified 
during Viefhaus' trial that Howe was kept 
on the books as an active informant 
through 1996 only because deactivation 
would have meant records of the 
Oklahoma City bombing investigation 
might have been destroyed. Graham said 
Friday that she and Howe agreed in June 

1995 that Howe would do no more work 
as an informant. 

Nixon said Howe told him about going 
to Elohim City as an informant after the 
Oklahoma City bombing. Nixon said 

Page 589 

Howe told him she had "lived there" in late 
1994 or Â«arly 1995 and that she met 
Andreas Strassmeir and former Covenant, 
Sword and Arm of the Lord leader James 
Ellison at Elohim City. 

Nixon also said Howe never said to him 
that the powder, end caps, fuse and 
chemicals found at her house Dec. 13 were 
collected as part of any informant duties. 

Earlier Wednesday, FBI supervisory 
specialist Robert J. Heckman testified for 
the prosecution as an expert witness. 
Heckman said the items found in and 
around a black box at Howe's and 
Viefhaus' house could have formed a 
"lethal" pipe bomb if properly assembled 
and initiated. 

Howe claimed last week, while 
testifying as a defense witness in Viefhaus' 
trial, that she could not even open the 
black box, insinuating that anything in the 
box was put there by Viefhaus. 

Though Heckman claimed that he was 
"exonerated" in a Department of Justice 
investigation of the FBI lab, Brewster still 
brought up allegations made by FBI Lab 
supervisor Frederic Whitehurst. 

Brewster mentioned charges that 
Heckman had testified beyond his area of 
expertise, had made misstatements at a trial 
in Italy and made improper additions to a 
statement of a colleague. He also said 
Heckman is someone who has been 
described as needing supervisory 
professional counseling and monitoring in 
the future. 

Brewster also said since Heckman is not 
a chemist, he cannot say that any powder 
found at the Howe and Viefhaus residence 
was explosive. 

After Heckman acknowledged that there 
is nothing illegal about possessing 
gunpowder, Brewster asked him if anyone 

with gunpowder and a piece of pipe in 
their garage could be charge with a federal 
crime, Heckman said no. 

"Good," Brewster said. "I was getting 
nervous about that." 

Brewster also brought up that there was 
no gunpowder in the pipe and that there is 
no evidence that a hole had been drilled 
where a fuse could be stuck. 

Heckman said Wednesday that a pipe 
filled with powder with end caps attached 
could explode without a fuse if the pipe 
were jostled but said that a powder-filled 
pipe would need a hole with a fuse 
attached in order to be a "predictable" 
explosive device. 

During cross-examination of FBI agent 
David M. Bell Jr., Brewster said many of 
the items the government considers as 
being part of the alleged potential pipe 
bomb have harmless uses. For example, 
Brewster said citric acid is used in canning 
tomatoes, that liquid stabilizer developer is 
used in hair care, that green fuse is sold at 
hobby shops, that safety matches are used 
in camping and that hexamine and trioxane 
can be used in the process of heating food 
on camping trips. 

In fact, Brewster indicated that Howe 
had a cooking skillet and food "rations" in 
the same backpack with some hexamine. 

Bell said he saw six loaded firearms in 
the Howe and Viefhaus house. Brewster 
had earlier objected to the introduction of 
legal firearms into evidence saying it 
"doesn't prove anything" about the charges 
against Howe. Brewster said it was a 
further attempt by the prosecution to get 
past "the weakness" of its case and make 
the jury fear Howe. 

Brewster made a similar argument 
Tuesday about white separatist literature 
being forwarded to the jury. Just like 

Page 590 

Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Michael 
Burrage let the evidence in but instructed 
the jury to consider it only in the narrow 
context of the defendant's state of mind. 
Also Wednesday, 19-year-old Jessie 
Allison testified that he met with Howe, 
Viefhaus and another person in a Broken 
Arrow fast-food restaurant in late 1996 to 
discuss Allison's possible participation in 
the white separatist movement. Allison, 

who said he is serving jail time in Texas 
after an assault conviction, said Viefhaus 
and the other person talked about some 
sort of bomb being wired and planted. But 
Allison said Howe looked "shocked" when 
the subject of a bomb came up and that 
Howe did not participate in that portion of 
the conversation. 

The defense is expected to begin its cast 
Thursday. 

***** 

Howe Expected to Testify in Her Own Defense Today 

Friday, August 1, 1997 - McCurtain Daily Gazette 
By J.D. Cash 

TULSA - As promised, the defense in 
the conspiracy trial of Carol E. Howe 
began with an attack on the motivation of 
the U.S. government with they indicted the 
former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms informant. 

During opening statements, defense 
attorney Clark Brewster told the jury Howe 
was working for the BATF when her house 
was raided and that she had previously 
given important information about the 
Oklahoma City bombing - that was 
subsequently ignored. 

Saying Howe would take the stand in 
her own defense, Brewster said: "My client 
will tell you what happened." 

Brewster's defense includes the 
allegations that Howe's warning of the plot 
to bomb the Murrah building became an 
embarrassment that prompted the 
government to indict Howe to destroy her 
credibility. 

Howe is charged in a three-count 
indictment for conspiring to make a bomb 
threat and possessing an unregistered 
destructive device - the same charges on 
which her boyfriend, James Dodson 
Viefhaus Jr., was found guilty last week. 

But the defense maintains the 26-year- 
old former debutante was working 
undercover for the BATF when she 
collected the items the government now 
claims she could have used to build a pipe 
bomb. 

Moreover, the defense says Howe lived 
with, and associated with, subversives in 
the neo-Nazi movement to gather 
information for the government. 

It is that lifestyle, basically, that 
prosecutors have been using in attempt to 
prove Howe was working to overthrow the 
government. 

And while Howe's defense attorney 
asserts she was still working undercover at 

Page 591 

the time of her arrest, the government has 
been using one of its own, BATF Special 
Agent Angela Finley Graham, to try to tap 
dance around that hole in its case. 

Called to the stand first, Graham said 
she was the person who recruited and 
signed Howe up in the summer of 1994 to 
investigate White Aryan Resistance (WAR) 
leader Dennis Mahon and others in the 
neo-Nazi movement for explosives and 
weapons violations. 

Graham said Howe never gave her a 
"specific warning" about the impending 
attack on the Oklahoma City bombing - a 
key element in the trial because of billions 
of dollars in claims filed by victims of the 
bombing who claim the government had 
"prior knowledge" of the bombing. 

But Graham did say that Howe told her, 
as soon as she began her investigation, that 
Graham should read a copy of "The Turner 
Diaries" - a copy of which was provided 
to Howe by Tulsan Dennis Mahon. 

That fictional account bears an uncanny 
resemblance to the Oklahoma City 
bombing. It details how a group of 
underground terrorists bent on the . 
overthrow of the U.S. government bomb 
FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. - 
using a truck bomb filled with fertilizer- 
and-fuel oil mix. 

During the McVeigh trial, the 
prosecution repeatedly told the jury the 
"Turner Diaries" was the blueprint 
McVeigh used to put together his plan for 
the attack. 

Graham had said earlier that she was 
largely unfamiliar with what she refers to 
as the "militia movement" when she began 
her investigation into Mahon and WAR. 

And Thursday, alluding to Howe's 
progress while working undercover, 
Graham claimed the young informant never 

provided anything of importance to the 
agency. 

But Brewster, Howe's attorney, 
figuratively hung Graham with her own 
words, noting for jury's attention a report 
from Graham dated April 22, 1996, in 
which she wrote: 

7mS INFORMANT IS INVOLVED 
WITH THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMB 
CASE WHICH IS PENDING 
PROSECUTION IN DENVER AND WAS 
THE KEY IN IDENTIFYING 
INDIVIDUALS AT ELOHIM CITY, 
WHICH IS TIED TO THE OKLAHOMA 
CITY BOMBING CASE 

Graham also admitted Howe told her 
that the paramilitary training advisor at 
Elohim City, German national Andreas 
Strassmeir, had indicated a desire to 
destroy the U.S. government through 
bombings, assassinations and mass 
shootings. 

Graham also conceded the BATF's own 
reports show Howe told her in January 
1995 that the spiritual leader of Elohim 
City - the Rev. Robert Millar - was 
advising his followers that they had to 
"take action" by the anniversary of the 
Branch Davidian incineration - on April 
19, 1995 when the Oklahoma City 
bombing took place - or they would all 
end up like David Koresh and his 
followers. 

Additionally, Howe's forewarnings 
included information provided Graham that 
quoted Tulsan Dennis Mahon as saying the 
group planned to bomb federal buildings in 
Oklahoma City or Tulsa. 

Howe's reports also show Mahon told 
her he had successfully built and detonated 
a 500-pound fertilizer-and fiiel oil bomb 
some five years prior to the Oklahoma City 
bombing. 

Page 592 

Alluding to a trip back to Elohim City 
after the Oklahoma City bombing, Graham 
said Howe returned with information that 
included comments from Rev. Millar's 
daughter saying, "There's a big secret out 
there." 

Graham insisted while on the stand that 
Howe's work for the agency ended in the 
summer of 1995 - despite the agency's 
official report showing she was an active 
informant when the Howe-Veifhaus 
residency was raided on Dec. 13. 1996. 

Graham's excuse for that discrepancy in 
her story is that if Howe's name had been 
removed from the BATF's list of active 
informants, critical information about the 
bombing might have to be destroyed. 

Graham's testimony also weakened the 
government's contention that the evidence 
gathered against Howe had been done on 

her own, not as an undercover agent. 
Graham testified one of the cans of 
gunpowder listed in the conspiracy 
indictment was actually gathered from 
Mahon at the agency's direction - another 
key part of Howe's defense. 

The defense has repeatedly said Howe's 
reports show each of those potential bomb- 
making components came from the target 
of BATF's investigation of Mahon. 

Today, the defense is expected to finish 
up with testimony from Carol Howe and a 
former high-ranking official of the BATF. 

Robert Sanders, the former BATF 
official, is expected to testify as an expert 
for the defense and to say he has reviewed 
Howe's extensive reports and finds 
considerable fault with the agency's 
handling of the informant's information. 

***** 

Agent Says Howe Gave No Warning 

The defendant didn't mention having advance knowledge of 
the Oklahoma City bombing, ATFs Angela Graham testifies. 

Friday, August 1, 1997 - Tulsa World 
By David Harper 

ATF agent Angela Graham testified 
Thursday that former informant Carol 
Howe told her before the Oklahoma City 
bombing of anti-government rhetoric 
coming from the white separatist 
compound known as Elohim City. 

But Graham did not say that Howe 
issued any specific warning that the Alfred 

P. Murrah Federal Building was targeted 
for destruction on April 19, 1995. 

Howe is on trial in federal court in 
Tulsa for participating in an alleged 
criminal conspiracy with Tulsan James 
Dodson Viefhaus Jr. A grand jury alleges 
that Howe and Viefhaus composed a bomb 
threat and possessed the elements of a pipe 

Page 593 

bomb when a search warrant was executed 
at their residence on Dec. 13, 1996. 

Viefhaus was convicted in a separate 
trial last week on all three charges. 

Viefhaus was arrested in December and 
indicted in January; Howe was not charged 
until March 11. Howe's attorney, Clark O. 
Brewster, has alleged that Howe was 
indicted in a "retaliatory" move because the 
government was trying to stop Howe from 
making further statements that she warned 
the ATF in advance of the Oklahoma City 
blast, which killed 168 people. 

Graham was called to the stand 
Thursday by the defense after the 
prosecution rested its case at 9:15 a.m. 
Brewster never asked Graham directly 
whether Howe warned her in advance of 
the Oklahoma City bombing, instead 
embarking on a line of questioning that 
seemed to indicate that any "warning" 
Howe might have issued was more general. 

Graham said Howe did tell her about a 
German named Andreas Strassmeir who 
frequented Elohim City and who reportedly 
wanted to destroy the U.S. government via 
bombings, assassinations and mass 
shootings. Howe apparently also told 
Graham that a man named James Ellison 
was planning on returning to Elohim City 
in the spring of 1995 with the intent of 
reuniting his anti-government group known 
as the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm 
of the Lord. 

Graham testified Thursday that she was 
not aware until after the Oklahoma City 
bombing that Ellison had plotted with a 
man named Richard Snell to blow up the 
Murrah Building in 1983. Snell was 
executed on April 19, 1995. 

Graham also acknowledged that Howe 
had told her sometime before Jan. 11, 1995, 
that Elohim City leader Robert Millar was 
"gaining momentum" in an effort to unite 

sympathizers in Oklahoma, Missouri, 
Arkansas and Texas to fight the 
government. 

Brewster referred to an April 21, 1995, 
interview with Howe done by the FBI's 
James R Blanchard II and Graham. During 
the interview, Howe said that besides 
Sneirs execution date, Elohim City 
residents were "very conscious" that the 
April 18-19 time frame was the 
anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth and of 
the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian 
compound near Waco, Texas, in which 
more than 80 people died. 

However, the April 21, 1995, report 
does not say that Howe conveyed the 
significance of those dates to Graham 
before the bombing. 

The report says that some Elohim city 
residents had "sympathies" toward deceased 
Branch Davidian leader David Koresh, that 
they feared that Elohim City may be raided 
and that some members had suggested that 
they should strike the government first. 

Howe claimed in the interview with 
federal authorities that Tulsa white 
separatist Dennis Mahon had talked before 
the Murrah bombing of "targeting" federal 
buildings in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. 

However, the report says, "Carol heard 
of no specific plans for vengeance." 

On Thursday, Graham confirmed that 
Howe returned from Elohim City in May 
1995 and reported that "there's a big secret 
out there." Howe also told Graham she 
had heard the Ellison was at Elohim City, 
though Howe apparently did not see 
Ellison during her three-day stay. Graham 
also indicated that Howe reported seeing 
Snell's freshly dug grave on her visit. 

Graham said Thursday that Howe was 
unsuccessful on her quest to find John Doe 
No. 2 during Howe's May 1995 visit. 

Page 594 

Howe testified in the Viefhaus trial that 
she initially thought Michael Brescia or 
one of two brothers named Ward who 
spent time at Elohim City might have been 
John Doe No. 2. 

Graham said Thursday Howe did not 
want to go back to Elohim City after her 
May visit and thought that Millar and 
possibly others had caught on to her role 
as an informant for the government. 

Also Thursday, Brewster confronted 
Graham with evidence that Graham had 
heard Viefhaus , name in a tape of Jan. 18, 
1995, telephone conversation between 
Howe and Mahon. Graham had previously 
claimed she had never heard Viefhaus' 
name before last Dec. 13. 

Under cross-examination by Assistant 
U.S. Attorney Neal Kirkpatrick, Graham 
said the reference to Viefhaus "went right 
by me. I never made a connection with 
who he was." 

The issue is significant because 
Brewster claims that Howe was an active 
informant forced to maintain "deep cover" 
with Viefhaus after her named was 
released as an informant. The government 
maintains that Howe never did any work 
for the government after June 1995. 

Graham testified Thursday that Howe 
provided "minimal" information about local 
Skinheads in early 1995 and that she felt 
that Howe was "mixing" with them and 
wasn't relaying all she knew about their 
activities. 

But Brewster introduced evidence that 
indicates that on at least one occasion in 
early 1995, Howe provided tapes of two 
phone conversations with local Skinheads 
as well as names and phone numbers of 
some local "skins." 

"How much more specific information 
than names and phone numbers do you 
need?" Brewster asked Graham. 

Still, the defense has not managed to 
show that Howe reported any of her 
activities from July 1995 through 
December 1996 to the government. 
Graham said Howe was told from the start 
of her informant career that it was 
"imperative" she maintain contact with 
Graham. 

Graham testified that Howe's agreement 
with the ATF not only directed Howe to 
stay in contact with the agency, but also 
that she not engage in unapproved criminal 
activity and that she report any observed 
violations of the law to the ATF. 

Howe actually signed two such 
contracts, one in August 1994 and another 
in May 1995 on which she listed local 
"Hammerskins" as being among her 
associates. 

Graham said Howe had to sign another 
contract because Howe had be deactivated 
in March 1995 for "instability," a move 
that aborted a plan to send Howe hack to 
Elohim City for as much as three months. 
Graham said she doesn't remember if she 
explained to Howe that the reason Howe 
had to sign another contract was that Howe 
had been deactivated in March. Howe 
claims that she was never informed of any 
deactivation by the ATF. 

It is not disputed that Howe was listed 
as an "active informant" for the ATF 
through Dec. 18, 1996, but prosecutors 
claim that she was listed that way only 
because removing her might have led to 
the destruction of records concerning the 
Oklahoma City bombing investigation. 

Graham also implied that Howe was an 
ineffective informant who never unearthed 

Page 595 

evidence that resulted in the conviction of 

a "target." 

But Brewster directed Graham to a 
report she wrote on April 22, 1 996 , that 
called Howe "the key" in identifying 
Elohim City residents during the Oklahoma 
City bombing investigation. Brewster also 
pointed out that Graham had at least 
sometimes used Howe's reports on Elohim 
City figures word-for-word in her own 
reports. The information Howe gathered 
as a $25-a-day informant apparently 
included drawings of Elohim City 
residents' family trees and sketches of 
members' tattoos. 

Graham did say Howe was offered in 
the spring of 1996 whatever degree of 
protection she wanted after Howe's name 
was leaked as an informant to the defense 
team of Timothy McVeigh in January 
1996. 

"I told her anything you need you call 
me, you page me," Graham said. But 
Graham said Howe never called her after 
that looking for protection. 

The defense has maintained that the 
government offered Howe no protection 
from Mahon, Elohim City residents, 

McVeigh sympathizers or anyone else and 
that Howe had no choice but to continue to 
associate with the far right. 

Graham said Howe was insistent that 
Graham read "The Turner Diaries," a novel 
that features a bomb in a delivery truck 
going off outside a federal building. 
Graham said she did read the book, but 
said there is no evidence that would prove 
that she did. 

Of the elements the government claims 
was potential pipe bomb, Graham said she 
only recognized one can of Pyrodex 
powder as being something Howe collected 
as an informant. 

Howe said July 24 that she had a list of 
18 potential targets in the Tulsa area 
because she heard a "powerful murmur" 
that a major bombing might occur in Tulsa 
in 1996 and wanted to document possible 
blast sites and warn people of the threat. 
Howe said she left messages for Graham in 
the fall of 1995, intending to talk to 
Graham about the list. 

Graham said Thursday she doesn't 
remember Howe leaving any messages for 
her in the fall of 1995 and that Howe 
never mentioned the list to her. 

***** 

Howe Acquitted in Bomb Case 

Jury Finds Former Informant Innocent on All Counts 

Saturday, August 2, 1997 - Tulsa World 
By David Harper 

Former federal informant Carol Howe 
was found innocent of all charges late 
Friday night after 5 1 /2 hours of 
deliberations by a federal jury in Tulsa. 

Howe, 26, had been charged with 
conspiracy, willfully making a bomb threat 
and possessing what a grand jury claimed 
was a potential pipe bomb. 

Page 596 

"Fm thrilled that justice has been served 
in this case," Howe said after the verdict 
was read at 10:30 p.m. Friday. 

Howe said she plans to go back to 
college and would ultimately like to 
become a lawyer. 

Howe's lawyer, Clark O. Brewster, 
ridiculed the government's case during his 
closing argument, saying that prosecutors 
should be "ashamed of themselves" for 
bringing such a "weak" case. 

Brewster pointed out to the jury on 
Friday how much time the prosecution 
spent during the case on uncharged acts, 
such as Howe's possession of legal 
firearms and her possession of far-right- 
wing literature, much of which was 
collected during the serving of her 
informant duties for the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco and Firearms. 

Brewster said the government tried to 
"smear" his client to compensate for the 
lack of evidence against her. 

Brewster theorized that Howe was 
charged, along with the now-convicted 
James Dodson Viefhaus Jr., because the 
government decided "we don't like her 
anymore. We don't like her for what she 
said or what she may say. Let's make her 
a convicted felon." 

Brewster asked the jury: "How can the 
government look you in the face and ask 
you to convict her?" 

Howe testified earlier Friday that she 
told the ATF in the fall of 1994 - while 
she was working as a federal informant at 
the white-separatist compound known as 
Elohim City - that she had heard talk of 
something "apocalyptic" that was brewing 
on the horizon in the spring of 1995. 

On April 19, 1995, a bomb exploded at 
Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
Building, killing 168 people. 

Howe said she told the ATF that federal 
buildings were being threatened by people 
at Elohim City, though she said Friday that 
she never mentioned the Murrah Building 
by name because "I had never heard of the 
Murrah Building." 

The charges against Howe in Tulsa 
sprung from an answering machine 
message that was emanating from the 
residence Howe was sharing with Viefhaus. 
Several minutes into the message, Viefhaus 
said "a letter form a high-ranking 
revolutionary commander has been written 
and received demanding that action be 
taken against the government by all white 
warriors by Dec. 15, 1996, and if this 
action is not taken bombs will be activated 
in 15 major preselected U.S. cities." 

FBI Agent Pete Rickel had testified 
during the Viefhaus trial that "the high- 
ranking revolutionary commander" was 
convicted bomb conspirator Willie Ray 
Lampley. Lampley was convicted last year 
in federal court in Muskogee and is serving 
an ll 1 /2-year sentence at a federal prison in 
Illinois. 

FBI agent Josh Nixon had testified that 
when he interviewed Howe on Dec. 13, 
she said she tried to talk Viefhaus out of 
including the reference to 15 bombs on the 
Dec. 8 answering machine tape but that he 
did it anyway. 

Brewster said charging Howe with 
making a so-called bomb threat was 
"outrageous." 

"An old man in prison (Lampley) who 
thinks he's a prophet makes some 
statement that Carol didn't believe and that 
she didn't want on (the tape)," Brewster 

Page 597 

said. "She didn't make a phone call, didn't 

say a word." 

Prosecutors alleged that they found the 
pipe bomb at the residence Howe and 
Viefhaus shared after a search warrant was 
executed there. 

But Brewster maintained that most of 
the items were collected by Howe during 
her days as an informant and that others 
were items used in the legal use of 
firearms, camping activities and even hair 
care and vegetable preservation. 

Brewster's reaction seemed to be 
somewhere between rage and hearty 
amusement after Assistant U.S. Attorney 
Neil Kirkpatrick said something that 
Brewster interpreted to mean that it was 
OK to have items such as gunpowder and 
hobby fuse in one's home as long as they 
weren't near each other. 

"You've got to make sure that you don't 
have certain things in the same room 
now?" Brewster asked incredulously. 
"Gee, I guess if I go to a plumbing store 
and buy some pipe, I better go home and 
put it away before I go to a hobby store 
and buy some green fuse. Otherwise I 
might have a nonregistered destructive 
device in my car. I sure better not put 
them in the same black box." 

Howe again denied Friday that she even 
knew how to open the black box in which 
many of the alleged pipe bomb elements 
were found. 

Howe also said Friday that she felt 
"embarrassed" and "humiliated" when 
jurors and others in the sometimes packed 
courtroom listened to audiotapes during the 
trial in which Howe spewed racist 
statements. 

Howe said those Aryan Intelligence 
Network tapes, her establishment with 
Viefhaus of the neo-Nazi National Socialist 

Alliance, and even her revolutionary 
persona as "Freya" were all part of the 
cover she was forced to assume after the 
FBI leaked her status as an informant in 
January 1996. 

Howe claimed that in March 1996 ATF 
agent Angela Graham routed her to the 
FBI's Rickel for protection after the 
disclosure to Timothy McVeigh's defense 
team. McVeigh was later convicted in the 
Oklahoma City bombing. 

Rickel said during the trial that his 
suggestion - if Howe wanted protection - 
was to call back the ATF. 

During testimony Friday, Howe's father, 
Bob Howe, read aloud from a letter his 
daughter had left in a sealed envelope with 
a friend. The letter was to be given to 
Howe's family if she were ever forced into 
the witness-relocation program because of 
her informant duties. 

Howe wrote then that serving as an 
informant was an opportunity to "do 
something for someone else." 

The government had claimed that Howe 
was deactivated as an informant in March 
1995 and then was only briefly reactivated 
for a three-day trip to Elohim City right 
after the Oklahoma City bombing. 
Prosecutors claimed that there was some 
sort of agreement between Howe and 
Graham that Howe would not do any more 
informant work after June 1995 and that 
Howe was only listed as an "active 
informant" until December 1996 because 
deactivating her again would have meant 
that records relating to the Oklahoma City 
bombing investigation would have been 
destroyed. 

However, no evidence was presented 
that would have shown why deactivating 
Howe would have meant that records 
would have been destroyed. The 

Page 598 

government admitted that Howe was 
definitely deactivated Dec. 18, 1996. 
Whether that means any records of the 
Oklahoma City bombing investigation have 
been shredded remains unclear. 

Howe said that if she was ever 
deactivated she was certainly never told 
about such a move. 

At the conclusion of his closing 
argument, an exasperated Brewster 
summed up the government's case and its 
version of who Carol Howe is and said, 
"This is wrong." 

Apparently, the jury agreed. 

***** 

Howe, Acquitted on All Counts, Wants to Help OKC 
Victims 

Sunday, August 3, 1997 - McCurtain Sunday Gazette-News 
By J.D. Cash 

TULSA - After nearly six hours of 
deliberations Friday, a jury acquitted Carol 
Howe of all charges against the former 
debutante-turned-government undercover 
informant. 

Howe's acquittal was a major loss for 
the Justice Department that could have 
widespread reverberations. 

Tulsa's most high-profile criminal trial 
in years lifted Howe into the national 
spotlight because of information she passed 
to the government about a bomb plot 
discussed at a paramilitary-religious 
compound in far eastern Oklahoma. 

If it is later established Howe's 
warnings of the plot were specific enough 
to have averted the Oklahoma City 
disaster, the ramifications in Washington 
D.C. could be on a scale not seen since the 
Watergate scandal. 

In the tearful aftermath of the innocent 
verdicts, the 26-year-old Howe said she 

intends to resume her college education 
and work toward a degree in law. 

And with the government's efforts to 
put her behind bars derailed, Howe is 
expected to provide potentially explosive 
evidence to a grand jury meeting in 
Oklahoma City. 

The grand jury is looking at other 
persons - still at large - who may have 
participated with convicted mass-murderer 
Timothy McVeigh in the Murrah building 
bombing. 

Recently, that grand jury's spotlight has 
turned to Tulsan Dennis Mahon and others 
who frequented Elohim City's 1,000-acre 
compound. 

Only two weeks ago, Mahon - an 
Oklahoma organizer of a group called 
White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.) - 
claimed his privilege against self- 
incrimination when he appeared before the 
grand jury. 

Page 599 

Howe's information also could be 
crucial to those who are suing the 
government for negligence in failing to 
prevent the Oklahoma City terrorist attack. 

Howe's BATF reports indicate she 
reported Dennis Mahon and his side-kick 
Andreas Strassmeir were discussing plans 
to bomb federal buildings months before 
the carnage in Oklahoma City. 

But in court, Howe's supervisor, Special 
Agent Angela Graham, testified that she 
dismissed the discussions of such a plot as 
mere rhetoric common at Elohim City, 

Graham herself also been named in a 
civil suit brought by families who lost 
loved ones in the bombing. 

-kick 

Elohim City first came into the national 
news after it was reported that McVeigh 
called the compound on April 5, 1995, just 
seconds after he placed a call to a Ryder 
truck rental. 

A later story by the McCurtain Gazette 
reported that McVeigh was said to be 
looking for Elohim City's paramilitary 
instruction, German national Andreas 
Strassmeir. 

Strassmeir has since fled and has been 
barred from re-entering the U.S. because 
the U.S. State Department says he is a 
terrorist. 

Howe also told the Gazette that one of 
the three Oklahoma building Mahon and 
Strassmeir targeted was the "Oklahoma 
City federal building." 

Adding to the evidence that there was 
such a widespread plot, the BATF's own 
investigative reports show Howe told them 
that Rev. Robert Millar - the religious 
leader at Elohim City where Mahon and 
Strassmeir were conducting paramilitary 

exercises - was also encouraging his 
"warriors" to strike against the government 
by April 19, 1995. 

Both Strassmeir and Mahon have denied 
to the media any participation in the 
bombing. 

Inexplicably, while government 
documents obtained by the Gazette clearly 
show that Mahon and Strassmeir were 
considered suspects in the mass murder, 
neither was interviewed by the FBI 
immediately after the attack. 

Instead, it was over a year later - and 
after numerous articles appeared in the 
press - before the FBI bothered to contact 
the pair by phone. 

Howe was indicted on March 1 1 - two 
months after her boyfriend, James Dodson 
Viefhaus, was charged with making a 
bomb threat and possession of a pipe 
bomb. 

Only last week a Tulsa jury convicted 
Viefhaus on all three counts against him. 

But some believe Howe's subsequent 
indictment for the same crime was an 
attempt by the administration to silence or 
discredit her after lawyers for Timothy 
McVeigh said they planned to call the 
informant as a witness in Denver. 

Judge Richard Matsch eventually ruled 
Howe's testimony irrelevant and would not 
let her testify. 

ickic 

Friday's stunning defeat for the 
government capped a dramatic day of 
testimony. 

Early that morning, a former assistant 
director of the BATF was called to testify 
as an expert for the defense - shredding 
the earlier testimony of BATF agent 
Angela Graham. 

Page 600 

Robert Sanders explained that during his 
24 years of service, he had held every 
management, supervisory and executive 
position at the agency. 

During testimony, Sanders said he had 
reviewed Howe's informant files and 
determined that her assignment to ferret 
out evidence of illegal activities at Elohim 
City was so important to the government 
that it was listed as "SIGNIFICANT - 
SENSITIVE." 

It was bureaucratic jargon, Sanders 
explained, that denoted this: 

"An investigation that has potential 
national interests involved and that was, or 
should have been, monitored at the highest 
levels in Washington." 

During an evidence hearing concerning 
Sander's proposed testimony, the retired 
official said Howe's reports "showed 
reliable and uniquely detailed information 
and no evidence of deception or 
exaggeration on her part." 

Sanders also believed Howe's work was 
extremely dangerous and that she had 
reason to fear being exposed as an 
informant. 

Other critical points, Sanders gleaned 
from the reports were that Howe had 
clearly obtained items from one of the 
targets of her investigation, Dennis Mahon, 
and turned those items over to her 
supervisor, Special Agent Angela Graham. 

It was those items, such as gun powder 
and cannon fuse, that Graham testified 
earlier she returned to Howe because they 
were not evidence that Mahon intended to 
build a bomb. 

But when Howe was indicted, her 
attorney pointed out, the grand jury said 
just the opposite - that those components 
were evidence Howe and Viefhaus 
intended to build a bomb. 

Also, Assistant U.S. Attorney Neal 
Kirkpatrick introduced evidence of racist- 
oriented literature found during the raid, 
along with photos of Howe in neo-Nazi 
regalia and books oil how to make bombs. 

Howe claimed that she was encouraged 
to acquire these items as part of her 
"cover." She said she continued living the 
lifestyle of a neo-Nazi in order to escape 
detection after her name was leaked to the 
McVeigh defense team by the FBI in early 
1996. 

"I had to go deeper," she said. 

Last Thursday, BATF agent Angela 
Graham testified that Howe quit working 
for the agency in June 1995. 

Graham then said Howe was only listed 
as an "active informant" through the end of 
1996 "because critical investigative reports 
concerning the Oklahoma City bombing 
would have to be destroyed if she were 
taken off the books." 

Such an account by Graham was finally 
shot down by Sanders. 

He flatly stated that the agency does 
NOT destroy investigative files just 
because an informant is fired or quits. 

With a courtroom filled with observers 
including the media and a large contingent 
of federal agents, defense attorney Clark 
Brewster called Howe to stand at mid- 
morning Friday. 

He then walked his client through 
testimony centered on her efforts to obtain 
evidence of illegal plans being pursued by 
the residents of Elohim City. 

"Mahon," Howe recalled, "told me he 
would take me to Elohim City and show 
me how they train terrorists there." 

And at one point, Howe said, "Over 
time, I gained their trust and came to see 
that they were not some fringe religious 
group." 

Page 601 

"I watched their paramilitary training 
and learned they were extremely 
dangerous." 

Under a blistering cross-examination by 
Kirkpatrick, the 98-pound Howe was 
unshakable in her statements that she was 
not a racist and had no intentions of 
building a bomb. 

And as for the literature and possible 
bomb-making components, Howe said she 
continued to gather information and 
evidence from members of the "movement" 
because she never left the government's 
service until she was deactivated following 
her arrest in 1997. 

The last witness called Friday provided 
the trial's most moving testimony. 

That was Carol Howe's father, who read 
a letter that had remained sealed since his 
daughter began working for the BATF. 

Initially, Howe had prepared the letter 
in August 1994 and placed it inside an 
envelope with instructions that it not be 
opened unless she disappeared or was 
killed. 

Choking back tears, the retired 
executive worked his way slowly through 
the four-page letter. 

Citing the reasons Howe went against 
her family's wishes and joined with the 
BATF to infiltrate Mahon's group, she 

wrote, "These people intend to start a war 
here in the next few years." 

Then, after thanking her family for 
providing the money for an education, 
Howe said, "Now the ATF will finish up 
where we left off. They will teach me to 
be responsible and to take care of myself." 

During closing arguments, Howe's 
attorney at one point turned and pointed at 
the government's table and said: 

"They ought to be ashamed of 
themselves, now!" 

"They want to put Carol Howe away for 
what she knows, but they need 12 
accomplices to do it...Don't let them!" 

Following Howe's acquittal, Brewster 
told the Gazette this: 

"I believed the system could work for 
Carol and it finally did... She now can help 
the families of the victims in the Oklahoma 
City bombing." 

Kathy Wilburn, grandmother of two 
children killed in the bombing and widow 
of grand jury co-petitioner Glenn Wilburn, 
attended the entire trial. 

She said she looked forward to Howe's 
help, adding, "Maybe people will listen to 
Carol... finally."