The Oklahoma City Bombing Trial Transcripts
Terry Nichols
Monday, November 3, 1997 (morning)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Criminal Action No. 96-CR-68
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
vs.
TERRY LYNN NICHOLS,
Defendant.
REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT
(Trial to Jury: Volume 59)
Proceedings before the HONORABLE RICHARD P. MATSCH,
Judge, United States District Court for the District of
Colorado, commencing at 9:00 a.m., on the 3d day of November,
1997, in Courtroom C-204, United States Courthouse, Denver,
Colorado.
Proceeding Recorded by Mechanical Stenography, Transcription
Produced via Computer by Paul Zuckerman, 1929 Stout Street,
P.O. Box 3563, Denver, Colorado, 80294, (303) 629-9285
APPEARANCES
PATRICK RYAN, United States Attorney for the Western
District of Oklahoma, and RANDAL SENGEL, Assistant U.S.
Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, 210 West Park
Avenue, Suite 400, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 73102, appearing
for the plaintiff.
LARRY MACKEY, SEAN CONNELLY, BETH WILKINSON, GEOFFREY
MEARNS, JAMIE ORENSTEIN, and AITAN GOELMAN, Special Attorneys
to the U.S. Attorney General, 1961 Stout Street, Suite 1200,
Denver, Colorado, 80294, appearing for the plaintiff.
MICHAEL TIGAR, RONALD WOODS, ADAM THURSCHWELL, REID
NEUREITER, and JANE TIGAR, Attorneys at Law, 1120 Lincoln
Street, Suite 1308, Denver, Colorado, 80203, appearing for
Defendant Nichols.
* * * * *
PROCEEDINGS
(In open court at 9:00 a.m.)
THE COURT: Please be seated.
Good morning.
You have, Mr. Mackey, an estimate of the length of
your opening? Or whoever is delivering the openings.
MR. MACKEY: I am, your Honor; and I would estimate an
hour and 40 minutes, perhaps.
THE COURT: All right. Is the defense going to do an
opening?
MR. TIGAR: Yes, your Honor. We'll open. Mr. Woods
and I will open about the same amount of time.
THE COURT: Well, we'll probably be needing or --
maybe need a recess in there; and instead of my interjecting,
you may suggest where it's an appropriate time, seeing how it
develops.
MR. TIGAR: We'll do that, your Honor. Thank you.
THE COURT: Okay. All right. Let's bring in the
jury.
(Jury in at 9:01 a.m.)
THE COURT: Members of the jury, good morning.
We've assigned seats for you this morning, and what
we'll be doing in the course of the trial is changing the
seating arrangement every now and then so that each person on
the jury will, in the course of the trial, then have a little
different perspective on the courtroom and the ability to see
the exhibits and so forth. So we'll let you know when we
change the seat assignments.
Now, as I indicated when I reviewed with you when we
were last together, on Thursday, the outline of the trial,
we're going to begin, first of all, with asking all of you to
take the oath as jurors for deciding the case according to the
law and the evidence, and then we'll proceed with opening
statements.
And at this time, I'll ask you please to stand, raise
your right hands, and take the oath as the jury for the trial
of this case.
(Jurors sworn.)
THE COURT: Please be seated.
Now, again, just to review with you briefly again the
stages of the trial that I outlined for you before, we will
start with opening statements. And the opening statements are
simply an opportunity for the lawyers on each side to give you
an overview, a preliminary view, an introduction, if you will,
of what they expect the evidence in the case to be. But before
hearing from counsel, I want to remind you that what is said in
opening statements is just that, expectation of what the
evidence may be in the case. It will not be a part of the
evidence. The evidence will come in, of course, as witnesses
are called to the stand and the evidence is taken.
So these opening statements, though, are a chance for
us to sort of get a picture in the beginning of just what we
can expect to hear and what the issues will be in the case. So
with that, I'll call on the Government counsel for the opening
statement, Mr. Mackey.
OPENING STATEMENT
MR. MACKEY: Thank you, your Honor.
May it please the Court. Ladies and gentlemen of the
jury, good morning. April 19, 1995, fell on a Wednesday, the
middle of the workweek. On that morning, Terry Nichols was
home. He was home in Herington, Kansas, with his wife and his
daughter. He was home and at a very safe distance from a truck
bomb that exploded in downtown Oklahoma City in front of the
federal building in Oklahoma City in the heartland of America.
And Terry Nichols had planned it just that way.
There were others in Oklahoma City on that morning,
and Terry Nichols had planned on that, too. Tim McVeigh was in
Oklahoma City on the morning of April 19. He was one of those
people. And on that day, Terry Nichols knew exactly where Tim
McVeigh would be and knew exactly what he would be doing.
Tim McVeigh was there to do one thing, one thing only,
the only thing left to do, the final act in a plan of terrorism
that Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh had embarked upon months and
months before that date.
This is a case about two men who conspired to murder
innocent people. Their plan succeeded when the bomb went off
and people died.
On that day, at that moment, Terry Nichols was not in
Oklahoma City; but during the months before that date, Terry
Nichols had been side by side with Tim McVeigh, together in
their plan of violence.
And true to that plan, on Wednesday, April 19, 1995,
Terry Nichols knew that Tim McVeigh would be delivering a large
Ryder truck as close as he could get it to the federal building
in downtown Oklahoma City. And true to that plan, Tim McVeigh
detonated that bomb.
When the bomb exploded at 9:02 that morning, it
consumed the truck, it destroyed the building, and it changed
the face of American history forever. And it killed 168
people, men, women, and children, the cross section of this
country, whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, Native
Americans, people of all ages, races, and backgrounds.
For just as Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh had planned,
there were others in Oklahoma City on April 19, innocent
others. And at that moment, in fact, there were hundreds of
people inside the Murrah Building. Most of those people were
there as workers, men and women carrying out the business of
the federal government. Others were there as citizens, seeking
the assistance of that very same government. And still others
were youngsters and toddlers and infants entrusted by their
parents to the safekeeping of the day-care center in that
building.
Those who died were there inside the building. Scores
of people, including 19 children, died because they were there
inside the building. They were inside a nine-story building as
the floor below them gave way and the ceiling above them
crashed down.
As time stood still in downtown Oklahoma City that
morning, Terry Nichols was home in Kansas, a long, safe
distance from the blast that rocked that city just the way he
had planned it.
At that same moment, Terry Nichols also thought he was
safe from ever being linked to that horrible crime. Prior to
the blast, without detection, Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols had
together managed to buy or steal every ingredient necessary to
build that bomb: 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, hundreds of
blasting caps and explosives, 165 gallons of racing fuel, and
numerous 55-gallon plastic barrels. And they had managed to do
so for months before their target date of April 19, 1995, the
second anniversary of the tragedy at Waco.
Together, they had hidden the ingredients in storage
sheds, many of which were under false names. Together, they
had acquired the knowledge to make those ingredients into a
bomb; and together, just the day before the bombing, they had
mixed those ingredients and prepared that bomb, just as they
had planned.
And as they had planned, by the time the bomb went
off, Tim McVeigh's getaway car was safe in Oklahoma City,
waiting for him as his means of escape. Their plan did not
call for Terry Nichols to be in Oklahoma City on that day.
But Susan Hunt, whom you will meet in this case, did
need to be in Oklahoma City on April 19. She had a job. She
had an important job. She was the office manager for the
Department of Housing, Urban and Development (sic). And she
had a plan. It was a simple plan: go to work and do what she
could to provide housing for people in the state of Oklahoma.
She followed her plan that day and somehow survived the
bombing.
But Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh also followed their
plan that day, and 35 of Susan Hunt's co-workers died.
Their plan was not perfect. As the evidence will
show, not all things went according to plan. Within minutes of
the blast, Tim McVeigh was arrested by an alert Oklahoma
highway trooper stopped on the highway. At the time of his
arrest, Tim McVeigh was carrying a concealed weapon and driving
on Interstate 35, north out of Oklahoma City, north to Kansas.
Within hours of the blast, the FBI had traced the
Ryder truck bomb back to its origin, back to Junction City,
Kansas. And by the next day, the FBI had found a witness who
had seen Tim McVeigh driving a Ryder truck in Junction City,
Kansas. Junction City, Kansas, is only a short distance from
Herington, Kansas, where Terry Nichols was living at that time.
And within two days of the blast, on Friday, April 21,
FBI agents were on the way to Herington, on their way to talk
to Terry Nichols. Terry Nichols had not planned on Tim
McVeigh's arrest nor on the rapid developments of the FBI's
investigation. He had not planned on any of it happening at
all and certainly not as quickly as it did. And within two
days of the blast, Terry Nichols was being questioned by the
FBI, and his home was searched. And in the course of this
trial, you will hear what Terry Nichols told the FBI, the
denials of involvement; and you will see the physical evidence
taken from his home that contradict those denials.
You will see the physical evidence such as a receipt
for the purchase of 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and a
phony name with Tim McVeigh's fingerprint on it found in Terry
Nichols' house. You will see 300 feet of blasting caps found
in Terry Nichols' house, a cordless drill used to break in and
steal explosives found in Terry Nichols' house, 55-gallon
plastic barrels of the kind used to hold the bomb found in
Terry Nichols' house, and stolen guns used to finance in part
the bombing plan, all found in Terry Nichols' house.
In the course of the days that will now follow, you
will hear the testimony from witnesses that will prove, as the
grand jury has charged in an 11-count indictment, first, that
Terry Nichols conspired with Tim McVeigh and others unknown to
use a truck bomb against the Murrah Building and the people
inside the building; second, that Terry Nichols aided and
abetted Tim McVeigh's use of that truck bomb to kill people and
destroy that building; and third, that Terry Nichols aided and
abetted the first-degree murder of the eight federal law
enforcement officers who died that morning on April 19.
During this case, you will hear legal terms like
"conspiracy" and "aiding and abetting," and these terms simply
mean that a defendant may be guilty of a crime even if he
wasn't at the scene. Under the law, Terry Nichols did not have
to be in Oklahoma City on April 19 to be guilty of conspiring
with Tim McVeigh or to be guilty of aiding and abetting the
murders that took place that day.
Those criminal charges will shape the evidence in this
case. They will focus on the question: Did Terry Nichols know
of the plan to bomb the Murrah Building? And if he did know,
did he intentionally help carry out that plan? The answer to
those questions, as the evidence will show, is that Terry
Nichols knew from the beginning of the plan to bomb the Murrah
Building and he intentionally helped that plan succeed. Terry
Nichols was there at the beginning and he was there at the end.
The evidence will show that Terry Nichols was there at the
beginning to acquire the bomb ingredients and he was there at
the end to stash Tim McVeigh's getaway car in Oklahoma City and
to prepare the bomb.
Prior to the explosion, Tim McVeigh -- excuse me --
Terry Nichols was there side by side with Tim McVeigh each step
of the way. Terry Nichols plus Tim McVeigh equaled the
destruction of the Murrah Building.
The prosecution's evidence in this case will focus on
the conduct of Terry Nichols. The only person on trial is
Terry Nichols. The only charges before you are those against
Terry Nichols. And as his Honor has told you, the ultimate
question for you in this case will be did the United States
prove beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against Terry
Nichols. This case will not seek to identify every possible
other co-conspirator. As we proceed through trial, we will
keep the evidence focused on the conduct of Terry Nichols.
You are the fact-finders in this case. One fact is
horribly true: 168 people died as a result of the bombing that
morning. 168 men, women and children. This is a murder case;
and because it is a murder case, we will prove to you the
identity of each of those victims and the manner of their
death. That kind of testimony will be emotional, but by no
means will every victim's story be told during this trial.
Instead, in the course of our case, you will hear from one
representative of the 13 agencies and organizations that once
had offices in the Murrah Building.
Those representative witnesses will describe the
events of that morning. They will identify their fellow
workers who died. They will tell you about the way the blast,
the loss of life, and the total destruction of their workplace
changed their lives and stopped the flow of services to the
people in Oklahoma. And you will see from those representative
witnesses, those federal employees who were there inside that
building that day that they were hard-working, conscientious
people who had done no harm to Terry Nichols or Tim McVeigh and
certainly did not deserve to die.
But there were more victims than those who simply
worked there. The Murrah Building was a modern office complex
and it had a day-care center. It was called the America's
Day-Care Center (sic), and it was located on the second floor.
There were deaths inside the day care that day. But no one
from the day care can come to court and tell you about those
who died. There were three adult workers that day. Every one
of those women died. There were 21 children in the day care.
15 of those children died. Obviously, those who survived
cannot come to court and testify about those who died. And so
instead, one mother representing those who died will appear
before you and identify the children and the adult care workers
who died.
But there were yet other victims, more than the
workers and more than the day-care people. On Wednesday,
April 19, the Murrah Building was open for business. And quite
predictably, at the moment of the blast, there were visitors
inside, people at the first floor Social Security office
seeking assistance and others inside that public office
building. 29 people, including four children, were simply
visiting at the moment the bomb exploded, people who on any
other day would not have been there. They died alongside the
federal workers and the people in the day-care center.
All of this testimony about the loss of life will be
difficult to listen to, but it's the reason we're here. This
is a murder case.
The image of anyone exploding a truck bomb outside a
day-care center is almost unthinkable, but that is the ugly
reality of this case. What could give anyone enough reason in
their own mind to commit such a crime? The answer for Terry
Nichols and Tim McVeigh is revealed in the date of the bombing,
April 19, 1995, two years to the day after the fire at Waco,
Texas. Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh blamed the federal
government for the events at Waco, and they selected April 19,
1995, as the date to strike back against that government. The
date of the bombing was no coincidence. Terry Nichols and Tim
McVeigh intended to send a message on that day.
Then why that place? Why Oklahoma City? Why the
Murrah Building? The motive in this case is revealed not only
by the date but by the building they chose to attack. As you
will learn from a friend of Tim McVeigh, Tim McVeigh thought
that ATF agents who had served at Waco had their offices in the
Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. You will learn that he was
right, and you will hear testimony from one ATF agent who was
at Waco and who was also in that building on April 19.
The proof in this trial will allow you to compare the
views of hatred of the federal government shared by Terry
Nichols and Tim McVeigh. When Trooper Charlie Hanger arrested
Tim McVeigh on the morning of the bombing on April 19, on the
front seat of McVeigh's car were documents referencing Waco.
And when the FBI searched Terry Nichols' house two days later,
inside that house, they found documents about Waco. Terry
Nichols felt strongly about Waco. And before the bombing, he
described it as an injustice and predicted civil unrest in this
country because of it.
Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh thought that attacking
the Murrah Building was a justified way to express their views
about Waco. The bombing of a federal office building after the
workers and the day-care children had arrived was nothing less
than an act of terror.
Of course, there could be no prosecution if the only
proof was that Terry Nichols viewed the federal government with
contempt. Each of us has our rights to our political views.
But the proof will show far more than political dissent and
contempt for the government. The proof will show that Terry
Nichols teamed with Tim McVeigh in a plan of action, a plan to
commit a horrendous act of murder. Actions do speak louder
than words.
And we are not here because of anything Terry Nichols
thought or said. We are here because of the actions of Terry
Nichols. We are here because Terry Nichols purchased 4,000
pounds of ammonium nitrate in a false name, because Terry
Nichols stole, transported, and concealed hundreds of blasting
caps and other explosives, because Terry Nichols bought barrels
in which to mix those ingredients, because Terry Nichols rented
storage sheds in false names to hide the bomb ingredients,
because Terry Nichols stashed Tim McVeigh's getaway car in
Oklahoma City, because Terry Nichols helped McVeigh prepare the
bomb and because Terry Nichols tried to conceal and destroy the
evidence of his own role in that plot. By these actions, Terry
Nichols displayed his commitment to a plan that ended with the
death of many, many people and the destruction of a federal
building.
This will be a trial about that conduct. You will
learn that Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh knew each other and
had known each other for many years before the bombing, before
they decided to take action against the federal government and
its employees. Their relationship dates back to 1988 when they
first met as they entered the U.S. Army together. Tim McVeigh
was a 19-year-old recruit, and he worked hard to impress his
platoon leader, Terry Nichols, a man who had enlisted in the
Army at the age of 33. These men were more than 13 years apart
in age. They left the service at different times, but they
remained friends. By 1993, they were living together. Tim
McVeigh spent a part of 1993 with Terry Nichols and his family
in Decker, Michigan. By that time, Terry Nichols, divorced
from his first wife, was married to a young Filipino woman whom
he had met during a short visit to that country. But both
Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh left Michigan in 1993 and neither
ever returned there to live.
Instead, by early 1994, Tim McVeigh had settled in
Kingman, Arizona, a small town near the western border of
Arizona and Nevada. Terry Nichols lived briefly with Tim
McVeigh in Kingman and then in early 1994 moved to Marion,
Kansas, central Kansas. But as you will learn, distance did
not separate these two men for long. In fact, during the late
summer 1994, Tim McVeigh traveled from Kingman to Arizona --
excuse me -- to Kansas and lived with Terry Nichols and his
family. Tim McVeigh was still there in Kansas in mid September
of 1994 when Terry Nichols' wife and his daughter left this
country and returned to the Philippines. His wife and daughter
did not return to this country for the next six months. Their
departure left Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh alone and together
in Marion, Kansas, and that combination of time and place
begins a series of events spelled out in the grand jury's
indictment.
September 1994 marks the time and central Kansas marks
the place where Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh took their first
steps in their plan to attack the federal government. They
began with their commitment to each other and Tim McVeigh's
attempt to recruit a third person, a man named Michael Fortier,
into their plan.
Michael Fortier, who had met both Terry Nichols and
Tim McVeigh when they were together in the Army, will be called
by the government as a witness. Michael Fortier is in custody
and is awaiting sentencing on his conviction on four felonies,
including conspiring with Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh to
transport and sell stolen firearms and including crimes arising
from false statements he made to the FBI when first questioned
about the bombing in 1995. Because he is testifying pursuant
to a plea agreement, you should consider Michael Fortier's
testimony with caution and care and look for corroboration.
The evidence in this case will provide that corroboration.
Michael Fortier will tell you that after he left the
Army, he and Tim McVeigh remained friends and the two of them
spent time together, time together in Kingman; and because of
the time spent together, Michael Fortier knew that Tim McVeigh
held a deep-seated hatred for the federal government about
Waco. He will tell you that in 1994, he got a letter from
McVeigh and in the letter, Tim McVeigh told him, "Terry and I
have decided to take offensive action against the government."
The letter went on to solicit Michael Fortier to join McVeigh
and Terry Nichols in their plan of violence.
Michael Fortier will also tell you that shortly after
he got the letter, he had a face-to-face conversation with Tim
McVeigh, who was there to recruit Michael Fortier. Michael
Fortier spelled out to -- Tim McVeigh spelled out to Michael
Fortier what their plan was. He described the plan of Terry
Nichols and Tim McVeigh. "Our plan is to bomb a federal
building." Michael Fortier rejected McVeigh, but his refusal
did not stop Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh from pursuing their
plan. And in fact, in the 30 days thereafter, in the fall of
1994, Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh together had gathered
virtually all of the ingredients they would need for their
bomb.
The Murrah Building in downtown Oklahoma City is gone.
It's gone entirely from where it once stood. And the hole that
remains is proof that it takes very little to build a weapon of
mass destruction; a little know-how and just a few ingredients.
The truck bomb that exploded on that day in downtown Oklahoma
City, as the evidence will show, was enormously powerful, but
it was also quite simple. It consisted of tons of ammonium
nitrate fertilizer, gallons of fuel, mixed inside large plastic
barrels. And that mixture was then rigged with explosives that
would both ignite the blast and boost the power. And you will
hear from experts in this case who will describe the recipe for
that bomb and how very, very simple that recipe is. And you
will learn, too, that Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh had the
know-how. They knew how to build a fertilizer bomb.
The main component of that bomb was ammonium nitrate,
and it was Terry Nichols who acquired it. Unlike Tim McVeigh,
Terry Nichols had spent many years on farms in Michigan and
Kansas, and that farming experience made Terry Nichols the
natural candidate to walk into a Kansas farm supply store and
pay for 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate. And the proof will
be that Terry Nichols did just that.
Buying ammonium nitrate fertilizer is not illegal.
Possessing ammonium nitrate fertilizer is not illegal. And yet
as the proof will show, Terry Nichols used a phony name when he
bought 4,000 pounds of fertilizer at the Mid-Kansas Co-op in
McPherson, Kansas. The phony name Terry Nichols used on both
occasions at the farm supply store was Mike Havens, first on
September 30, 1994, when he paid for 2,000 pounds of fertilizer
and later on October 18, when he paid for another 2,000 pounds.
On both occasions, he used the false name Mike Havens.
Staying at motels is certainly not illegal. And yet
as the proof will show, Terry Nichols used phony names when he
registered at motels. And twice in October of 1994, within
days of the ammonium nitrate purchases, Terry Nichols used the
phony name Havens when he checked into motels. First, he used
the name Terry Havens, and later, he used the name Joe Havens.
And on both occasions, Terry Nichols checked in under the same
false address and the same false license plate number.
The trail that began at the farm supply store in
McPherson, Kansas, in the fall of 1994 ended at Terry Nichols'
house in Herington, Kansas, in the spring of '95. On April 22,
the FBI executed a court-issued search warrant at the Terry
Nichols residence; and inside the house, they found a receipt,
a receipt from the McPherson farm supply store. The receipt
was found inside a kitchen drawer in Terry Nichols' kitchen.
The receipt was dated September 30, 1994, and it reflected the
sale of 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate to a customer using
the name Mike Havens. So the proof in this case will answer
the question who was Mike Havens, and the answer is Terry
Nichols.
The proof will be that on September 30, Terry Nichols
was at that farm store, using the name Michael Havens and
purchasing a ton of fertilizer, a key ingredient in the bomb.
September 30, 1994, was a Friday. It was also the
last day that Terry Nichols worked for a Kansas rancher, a man
by the name of Tim Donahue. Mr. Donahue's ranch is located
less than 40 miles from the McPherson, Kansas, supply store.
Mr. Donahue will be a witness in this case, and he will tell
you that Terry Nichols surprised him on the last day of work
when Terry Nichols announced that he would be leaving early.
Terry Nichols did leave work early that day; and several hours
later that same day near dusk, Tim Donahue went back to Terry
Nichols' house to run an errand. When he got back to Terry
Nichols' house, Terry Nichols was there and so was Tim McVeigh.
Parked at the house on September 30 was Terry Nichols' truck, a
dark-colored pickup with a light-colored camper shell.
The employee at the farm store on that same day will
also testify, Rich Schlender. And he will tell you that the
customer, Mike Havens, was driving a dark-colored pickup with a
light-colored camper shell. Mr. Schlender encountered the same
Mike Havens the second time on October 18 when he returned to
buy yet another 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate; and again,
the customer was driving the dark-colored pickup with a
light-colored camper.
Rich Schlender will not come to the stand and point
out Terry Nichols to you and swear to you that he knows that
man was Mike Havens, but he will tell you that the receipt
found in Terry Nichols' house was for the sale of 2,000 pounds
of ammonium nitrate from his store; his store in McPherson,
Kansas.
The evidence in this case will also answer the
question if you buy 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate for an
illegal purpose, what do you do with it. And the answer is you
hide it. And that's what Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh did as
part of their plan. They rented storage sheds, multiple
storage sheds, and more often than not in phony names. Before
Terry Nichols purchased that first 2,000 pounds of ammonium
nitrate on September 30, they already had a place to hide it.
On September 22, several days before, while Tim McVeigh and
Terry Nichols were living together in Kansas, McVeigh rented a
storage shed. He used a phony name, but he left his
fingerprints behind on the lease. And when asked to provide
for an address, he gave them Terry Nichols' address. And on
that date in September of 1994, Tim McVeigh selected the
storage facility in, of all places, Herington, Kansas, the very
same city that Terry Nichols selected to move to in March of
1995, only weeks before the bombing.
Ammonium nitrate fertilizer, even tons of it, cannot
hurt you if left alone, but by its chemical nature, it is an
oxidizer; and combined with certain other ingredients, it can
become deadly. In the fall of 1994, Terry Nichols and Tim
McVeigh launched a plan to acquire all those other ingredients
that would turn commonplace fertilizer into something very
dangerous, and together, they used whatever means necessary to
get those other ingredients.
Burglary and theft were some of those means that Terry
Nichols and Tim McVeigh used to get the explosive components.
Together, they broke into explosive sheds at a Kansas rock
quarry near where Terry Nichols lived; and together, they stole
from the sheds hundreds of blasting caps and other explosives.
In the course of this trial, you will hear from people
who make their living around explosives. One such person is
Bud Radtke. Mr. Radtke has a job title. He's known as a
blaster, and he does that just about every day at the Kansas
rock quarry where he has worked for years. It's his job to use
explosives to blast rock out of the earth for road
construction. And each day, Mr. Radtke sets off explosives
that are a combination of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel,
and he boosts the four of those explosives with sausage-shaped
explosives called Tovex, and he often initiates those
explosions with blasting caps often referred to as Primadet.
Mr. Radtke's explosives are obviously dangerous, and
so they are stored some safe distance away from the operations
quarry as well as the offices of the quarry. They are secure
under padlock, and they are surrounded by walls of dirt to keep
them safe.
When Bud Radtke came to work on Monday, October 3, he
discovered that his explosives sheds had been broken into and
hundreds and hundreds of Tovex sausages and Primadet blasting
caps had been stolen. Whoever broke in had come prepared
because each shed was protected with a padlock and that padlock
in turn protected by a shroud, and someone had a cordless drill
to reach up inside that shroud and drill out the padlocks that
protected the sheds. The thieves left behind one padlock,
padlock that had been drilled out; and that padlock has become
evidence in this case.
The evidence in this case will answer the question
where was Terry Nichols when Bud Radtke's explosive sheds were
broken into. And the answer will be that he was together with
Tim McVeigh, engaged in the theft of those explosives. You'll
learn that Mr. Radtke's rock quarry is about 10 miles from
where Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh were living in central
Kansas in the fall of 1994. And on the other hand, Kingman,
Arizona, is more than 1,000 miles away, more than 1,000 miles
away from central Kansas. And that's how far Terry Nichols and
Tim McVeigh drove in order to hide the stolen explosives.
On Tuesday, April 4, the day after Mr. Radtke had
discovered the burglary, Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh were
together in Kingman, Arizona. And on that date in Kingman, Tim
McVeigh rented a storage shed. And Michael Fortier will tell
you that he went to that storage shed with Tim McVeigh and
Terry Nichols. He'll describe what he saw: Boxes with the
emblem of explosives.
The FBI's investigation in this case led not only to
Oklahoma and to Kansas but to Arizona, as well. And after the
bombing, the FBI recovered Primadet blasting caps from Kingman,
Arizona, and they tested those blasting caps for fingerprints,
and you'll learn the results of those tests. Terry Nichols'
fingerprints were found on blasting caps recovered in Kingman,
and you will learn that the blasting caps that had Terry
Nichols' fingerprints were identical to the blasting caps found
in Terry Nichols' house in Kansas and, in turn, identical to
the blasting caps stolen from Bud Radtke.
In the course of this case, you will also hear yet
other kinds of physical evidence that links Terry Nichols to
the theft of Mr. Radtke's explosives. In April 1995, when the
FBI learned about the break-in at the rock quarry, they
gathered up the evidence from the local sheriff's office,
including the padlock. And at the same time, they also found a
cordless drill and a set of drill bits inside Terry Nichols'
home, and then they went to work to see if either of those
might hold the clues to the identity of the burglars. You'll
learn what they found.
Under a microscope, a person can see and study the
marks that were inside the padlock, the drilled-out padlock,
and they can see the marks left by the drill bit that drilled
that padlock out. And just as easily, someone can see and
study the marks of which -- the marks that would be left by
drill bits taken from Terry Nichols' home. And expert
witnesses will tell you when those two sets of tool marks are
compared, they match and tell you that one of the bits, one of
the drill bits found in Terry Nichols' home was the bit used to
drill the padlock at Bud Radtke's quarry.
Of course, it is not illegal to use phony names. But
in this case, you will learn that Terry Nichols did so over and
over again. And the question is why. And the answer is, the
evidence will show -- is that he did so repeatedly in order to
conceal his involvement with Tim McVeigh and the bombing plan.
When questioned, Terry Nichols was asked by the FBI, "Have you
used a name other than your own?" He told them about two, Ken
Parker and Jim Kyle, but he concealed others. Terry Nichols
did not reveal his use of the name Havens, but then Havens was
the name used to purchase 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate.
The other name he concealed was Bridges, Daryl
Bridges. And during this trial, you will learn exactly why
Terry Nichols concealed from the FBI the fact that he was Daryl
Bridges, because to discover that fact would mean the FBI could
easily trace the activities and the whereabouts of both Terry
Nichols and Tim McVeigh.
What Terry Nichols attempted to conceal from the FBI
nonetheless will be proven to you in this trial, and you will
learn that, together, Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh bought a
telephone calling card in the name of Daryl Bridges and the use
of that phone card left a trail. By following that trail, you
will see that both men used that card in 1994 to acquire
bombing components; and by following that trail, you'll see
that both men used that card in 1995 to finalize their plan of
violence.
And during the course of this trial, you'll be able to
follow the entire trail left by the Daryl Bridges phone card.
The trail begins at Terry Nichols' house again because that's
where the FBI found the Daryl Bridges phone card. And as you
will learn, they followed that trail by trying to determine who
paid for the phone calls on that card. And the proof will be
that only two men ever paid for calls on the Bridges card: Two
men, Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh.
But the FBI did not stop there. They gathered the
records that would show when and where those phone calls were
made on the Bridges card. And you'll hear testimony from a
computer specialist from the FBI, a man named Fred Dexter, who
studied those records and prepared a chronological summary of
the phone calls made on the Bridges phone card, and that
summary is the rest of the trail. The Daryl Bridges phone
summary will serve as an important source of information to you
in the course of this trial. It will help you and other
witnesses reconstruct the activities of Terry Nichols and Tim
McVeigh. And the trail left by the Bridges phone card will be
part of the proof, for example, that Terry Nichols and Tim
McVeigh were successful in the fall of 1994 in finding yet
other bomb ingredients.
Again, ammonium nitrate by itself is harmless, but if
mixed with fuels, a sensitizing process, it is one step closer
to becoming an explosive. One different -- among the different
types of fuels that can be used to accomplish that purpose is
nitromethane. Nitromethane is not the kind of fuel you buy at
a gas station. It's a special kind of fuel for dragsters and
race cars. It's sold by chemical companies and by distributors
at dragstrips, and the proof in this case will show that Terry
Nichols and Tim McVeigh knew that's where you go in order to
find nitromethane.
The evidence in this case will answer the question
where was Terry Nichols during the month-long search to acquire
nitromethane. The answer will be right there side by side with
Tim McVeigh. Like the other bomb components, the search for
nitromethane began in central Kansas in the fall of 1994. The
Bridges phone card left a trail of 30 phone calls made to
chemical companies, racetracks, and distributors for
nitromethane. Most of those calls were made during the last
week in September, the last week of Mr. Nichols' employment at
the Donahue ranch, the same week of the purchase of the 2,000
pounds of ammonium nitrate.
The search for fuel that began in Kansas in 1994 ended
in Texas later in October of 1994. It ended on October 21 at a
dragstrip south of Dallas, Texas, almost 500 miles from central
Kansas. The search ended when a fuel salesman at a dragstrip
sold three 55-gallon drums of nitromethane for cash to a man
with Tim McVeigh's physical features. The salesman will
testify in this case, and he will tell you that he loaded that
165 gallons of racing fuel into the back of a pickup with a
light-colored camper shell.
He will tell you that Terry Nichols was not there when
he made that sale. But the proof in this case will show you
where Terry Nichols was, and the answer will be close at hand.
You will see proof that Terry Nichols spent the night
before the fuel purchase in a motel in Oklahoma. That motel
sits south of Oklahoma City and on the interstate that connects
to Dallas. When Terry Nichols left the motel the next morning,
the same day of the fuel purchase, he was driving his pickup
with the camper shell, and he left his fingerprints behind on
the registration card, a card he had filled out in a phony
name.
Now, in order to mix ammonium nitrate and
nitromethane, you need a container, and the evidence in this
case will answer the question where was Terry Nichols when the
containers for the bomb were being sought. And the answer
again, just as with the ammonium nitrate, just as with the
explosives, side by side with Tim McVeigh.
As the evidence will show, in October 1994, Terry
Nichols and Tim McVeigh were quite busy. They were hiding the
stolen explosives in Arizona, they were acquiring the second
ton of ammonium nitrate in Kansas, they were tracking down
racing fuel in Texas, they were searching for containers that
would hold those ingredients and they were crisscrossing huge
parts of this country while doing all of that. And again, the
trail left by the Bridges phone card will reconstruct that
activity, including the search for the bomb containers.
On October 18, 1994, the second 2,000-pound purchase
of ammonium nitrate was made; and later that same afternoon,
October 18, there were a number of phone calls made on the
Bridges calling card from nearby Council Grove, Kansas. Calls
were made from a pay phone located across the street from a
storage facility where Terry Nichols had rented a unit in one
of his false names. Several of the calls from that Council
Grove pay phone were made to companies that used barrels and
containers.
The last phone call on that day, April 18, was to a
coin shop in Wichita, Kansas; and on the very next morning,
Terry Nichols walked into that very same coin shop. You will
hear the testimony of the coin shop dealer, and you will see
Terry Nichols' pictures captured on the store's security
camera. Moments after Terry Nichols walked out of the coin
shop, the Bridges trail started up again, from a pay phone
across the street from the coin shop, five phone calls made in
a row, all five made to phone companies listed -- excuse me --
to companies listed in the phone book in the Yellow Pages under
barrels.
And the proof will be that Terry Nichols got what he
was looking for as he stood at a pay phone in Wichita, Kansas,
going down the Yellow Pages, calling companies under barrels.
Part of that proof was found in the bomb crater in
Oklahoma City. The other part of the proof is found in Terry
Nichols' garage. The bomb that destroyed the Murrah Building
left very few traces of the bomb that it once was. Large,
well-made bombs, when they explode, leave little trace behind,
and that was the case here. But there were some clues that did
remain. Small amounts of ammonium nitrate were found embedded
into a piece of the Ryder truck. And in addition, small
plastic fragments were found among the streets surrounding the
bomb crater. You will see those plastic pieces. They are
off-white in color. And you will see when you look at them
that they have been subjected to intense heat and pressure.
You will hear testimony from witnesses about those
plastic pieces, including Linda Jones. Linda Jones is an
explosive expert from Great Britain, and she will tell you that
those plastic pieces found near the bomb crater were close,
quite close to the explosion.
And as you will see in this case, the same plastic
fragments found in the streets of Oklahoma City were linked to
evidence taken from Terry Nichols' garage. Among the many
items discovered during the search were plastic barrels. Each
was a 55-gallon container. Each was off-white in color.
Plastic is a chemical compound and a trained chemist can look
inside a piece of plastic and tell you how it was made and a
chemist will do so in this case and he will tell you that the
charred pieces of plastic found in Oklahoma City and plastic
from the barrels found in Terry Nichols' garage were made by
the same manufacturer.
Your Honor, this would do. How long did you want to
go?
THE COURT: Well, all right. We'll -- we'll take a
break at this time. Perhaps we can take a 15-minute break.
And members of the jury, we're doing this so -- you can step
back to counsel table. We're doing this so that, you know, you
can focus attention on these statements. We're not going to
always be breaking at the same time in our recesses here, so
I'll acquaint you with that now, but we know that all of us
have limited attention spans, so we're going to be breaking in
at times to assist, recognizing the importance of what counsel
are providing here in these overviews and we'll be doing the
same thing, of course, during the defense opening.
So I'm going to also be saying to you at every break
what I'm going to say to you now and which you'll get very
tired of hearing, but it is important for you to recognize that
you must, among yourselves, wait until you've heard it all
before you even talk about it or talk about any part of it. So
during all of our recesses, I'm going to be instructing you
that you must not discuss anything that you see and hear in the
courtroom or anything about the case. That seems unnatural at
first, but I'm sure you'll get used to it. And it simply
recognizes, as I'm sure each of you does recognize, that we
can't put the trial on all at once and of course, we're not
into any evidence even yet, so please withhold discussion of
the case among yourselves and even in your own minds withhold
forming any judgments.
Opening statements are not a part of the evidence in
the case so what is said in opening statements does not factor
in to your decision, even, but I just mention this caution to
you now and as I say, I'll be repeating it whenever we recess
because it is an extremely important part of your duty as
jurors to withhold judgment in the case as well as not let
anything outside of the case interfere with your decisions that
are to be made on the law and the evidence.
We're going to recess now about 15 minutes. So you're
excused from the jury box.
We'll be going out this way. We'll get you used to
this routine as we go.
(Jury out at 9:52 a.m.)
THE COURT: Okay. 15 minutes.
(Recess at 9:53 a.m.)
(Reconvened at 10:07 a.m.)
THE COURT: Be seated, please.
(Jury in at 10:08 a.m.)
THE COURT: All right.
Mr. Mackey, you may resume.
MR. MACKEY: As you will learn through the course of
this trial, by the close of October of 1994, Terry Nichols and
Tim McVeigh had acquired virtually all of the ingredients they
would need in order to build the bomb. Those ingredients were
hidden safely in storage sheds. But the two men knew at that
time there would be more costs to put their plan in final
stages, more costs as they waited for April 19 to arrive, they
would need money to rent a bomb truck, they would need money to
continue to pay the rent on the storage sheds where they hid
their components, and they would need money to pay the bills on
the Bridges phone card, all of those needs at a time when
neither man had regular income and both were living out of
hotels and traveling great distances. That was their problem.
Armed robbery was their solution. And again the search at
Terry Nichols' house produced evidence that you will see, this
time evidence of armed robbery.
In addition to the 55-gallon off-white plastic
barrels, in addition to the receipt for the ammonium nitrate,
in addition to the drill and drill bit, in addition to the
blasting caps, in addition to the Bridges' phone card, in
addition to all of that, the FBI found firearms and ammunition
stolen during an armed robbery of an Arkansas gun collector.
That evidence and other testimony will answer the
question where was Terry Nichols on November 5, 1994, when Tim
McVeigh's former friend and gun collector, Roger Moore, was
robbed at gunpoint at his home in Arkansas.
The answer is that Terry Nichols was there; the answer
is Terry Nichols was the robber.
As the evidence will show, on that day, Terry Nichols,
wearing a ski mask and carrying a pistol-gripped shotgun, stole
firearms, ammunition, currency, gold and silver coins, pieces
of jade, and other valuables from Roger Moore. And Terry
Nichols committed that robbery as one means to finance his plan
with Tim McVeigh.
During this trial, you will meet Roger Moore. Roger
Moore is 62 years old. For many years, he's lived in a remote
area of Arkansas near Hot Springs. He owns horses and other
livestock that he keeps on his property. And for years, he has
run a mail-order business from that home selling ammunition
around the country. He also attends weekend gun shows where he
sells ammunition.
And Roger Moore will tell you that during one of those
gun shows, he met Tim McVeigh and that on more than one
occasion afterward, Tim McVeigh stayed at his home in Arkansas.
Roger Moore will also tell you that his relationship with Tim
McVeigh ended very badly, ended in an argument. On Saturday,
November 5, 1994, Roger Moore was home alone because his
business associate and companion, Karen Anderson, was on the
road at a gun show.
And around 9:00 that morning, Roger Moore walked out
of his home to tend to his animals; and just as he stepped
outside his home, he was confronted by a man wearing a ski
mask, carrying a pistol-gripped shotgun. The man tied Roger
Moore up, put duct tape across his eyes, and over the course of
the next hour or so virtually cleaned out Roger Moore's home.
He loaded the loot into Roger Moore's van and then drove off.
That van was recovered empty a short distance from the Moore
home later.
During the robbery, the masked gunman took scores of
firearms, cash, gold and silver coins, precious stones, pieces
of carved jade, camera equipment, ammunition, alarm devices,
even the quilt off of Karen Anderson's bed and the keys to
Roger Moore's safe-deposit boxes. I mention these items
because many of them were found, found in Terry Nichols' house.
Because the gunman wore a ski mask and because Roger
Moore had his eyes taped, he cannot positively identify the
robber, but he knows it was not Tim McVeigh. He knows Tim
McVeigh is tall and thin and that the robber, his robber, was
shorter with a medium build. And as the evidence will show,
Tim McVeigh was not the robber. Tim McVeigh was not even
there. Instead he was miles away at a gun show and then later
at his father's home in western New York. But because the
gunman knew exactly where to find many of Roger Moore's
possessions and because they had split on very bad terms, Roger
Moore always suspected that Tim McVeigh had something to do
with the robbery. Roger Moore was right.
Michael Fortier will testify that Tim McVeigh told him
that he and Terry Nichols had settled upon a plan to rob a gun
collector who Tim McVeigh knew and who lived in Arkansas.
McVeigh also told Fortier that Nichols and he -- that is,
McVeigh -- would share the proceeds from that robbery.
In the course of this case, you will learn a bit about
U.S. geography. You will learn, for example, if you drive from
Roger Moore's house in Arkansas, you can get to Junction City,
Kansas, in nine and a half hours, time enough to rob Roger
Moore in the morning and check into a motel in Junction City
the same day.
The Sunset Motel in Junction City is where Terry
Nichols checked into that day. When he checked in, he used a
false name and a false address. And on the next morning,
Sunday, Terry Nichols began calling for Tim McVeigh in New
York, and Tim McVeigh began calling for Terry Nichols in
Kansas. And as the evidence will show, they did not stop
calling until they connected. Between Sunday morning and
Monday evening, the two men made 16 phone calls to each other,
often from pay phones, six different pay phones.
November 7 was a Monday, the first business day after
the robbery. And on that Monday, Terry Nichols rented a
storage shed, Unit No. 37, at Council Grove, Kansas, using the
name Ted Parker. The woman who met Terry Nichols at the
storage facility to rent him the unit remembers him driving a
dark-colored pickup with a light-colored camper shell. Terry
Nichols rented Unit No. 37 on that day even though he already
had Unit No. 40 at the very same facility.
As of November 7, Terry Nichols had two storage names
(sic) under two different false names at the same facility in
Council Grove, Kansas, two units that he would pay to keep for
months. The evidence will show that at least one thing
happened between the time that Terry Nichols rented his first
storage unit at Council Grove and the second. And the answer
is that Roger Moore lost a truckload of property.
Within days of the Roger Moore robbery, Terry Nichols
left Kansas and drove to Las Vegas. He spent time with his
ex-wife, Lana Padilla, and their 12-year-old son, Josh; and two
weeks later, he left this country and flew to the Philippines.
You will learn that when Terry Nichols left for the
Philippines, he was afraid that he would not come back alive.
And so before he left, Terry Nichols took steps to assure that
his bombing plans with Tim McVeigh could succeed, even in the
event he did not return alive.
On November 22, 1994, immediately before he boarded
his plane to the Philippines, Terry Nichols handed Lana
Padilla, his ex-wife, a paper bag, a paper bag wrapped in tape
with instructions not to open the bag unless he failed to
return by a future date. Lana Padilla was curious; and shortly
after Terry Nichols left, she opened the bag. She was not
supposed to unless Terry Nichols did not come back. She did so
anyway.
Inside the bag, as she will tell you, she found, among
other things, a letter from Terry Nichols to Tim McVeigh. And
in that letter, Terry Nichols specified that he was writing to
Tim McVeigh only in the event that something should happen to
him; in his words, only for my -- purpose of my death. The
letter explained that if McVeigh received the letter, it was
because Lana Padilla had mailed it to him at Terry Nichols'
instructions, but Terry Nichols assured Tim McVeigh in that
letter that was all Lana Padilla knew.
The letter to Tim McVeigh spelled out instructions to
McVeigh about the two storage units that Terry Nichols had in
Council Grove, Kansas. And at the end of those instructions,
Terry Nichols wrote the words, "You're on your own. Go for
it." At the very bottom of the letter, Terry Nichols added the
words, "As far as heat, none that I know."
Inside the bag, Lana Padilla also found directions to
a secret compartment that Terry Nichols had built into the back
of one of her kitchen cabinet drawers. She followed the
directions and found $20,000 of currency hidden in that
compartment.
Inside the paper bag, she also found instructions to
another storage unit, yet another one, and this one in Las
Vegas. Lana Padilla visited that storage shed while Terry
Nichols was still in the Philippines. She'll describe what she
saw. She spent time in that storage shed.
Inside the shed she saw a ski mask. She also saw a
box of carved jade, camera equipment, precious stones, among
other things, like the things just stolen from Roger Moore.
As it turns out, it was never necessary for Lana
Padilla in fact to mail anything to Tim McVeigh. In mid
January, 1995, Terry Nichols came back from the Philippines
safe and unharmed. And so Terry -- excuse me -- Lana Padilla
never married -- excuse me -- never mailed Terry Nichols'
letter.
When he got back, they talked about what she had
found, and they quarreled about the money that Terry Nichols
had hidden in her drawer, and she kept part of it. But she did
not tell Terry Nichols that she also kept a copy of the letter
that he had written to Tim McVeigh. After the bombing, Lana
Padilla turned over that copy to the FBI, and you will see that
letter in evidence in this case. And you will see in Terry
Nichols' own words, "Go for it."
When Terry Nichols returned from the Philippines in
January of 1995, he was alone. His wife and daughter were
still in the Philippines. He owned no real estate anywhere.
He had no job, no regular paycheck. He could have chosen to
live anywhere. He could have chosen to live in Las Vegas near
his son. His choice was to return to Kansas. Within days of
his return to this country, he was back in Kansas and together
again with Tim McVeigh, together with Tim McVeigh at the Sunset
Motel in Junction City, Kansas.
Terry Nichols immediately went back to the place where
the bomb components were stored, the stolen property hidden,
and back to the company of Tim McVeigh.
As the evidence will show, after their initial
rendezvous in January of 1995, Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh
kept their distance from one another during the waiting period
that followed. Terry Nichols stayed in Kansas; Tim McVeigh
stayed in Arizona. While Terry Nichols waited, he made more
payments on the storage shed, paid money on the Bridges card,
but other than that, there was little else left to do but wait
for April 19. In 1995, there was no need for the plan to
absorb every waking hour; and in fact, in 1995, Terry Nichols
did other things, many entirely innocent things.
But on April 11, 1995, the wait was over. Eight days
before the bombing, the wait was over. On that day, April 11,
Terry Nichols called for Tim McVeigh in Arizona, and Tim
McVeigh called for Terry Nichols in Kansas. And on the next
day, Tim McVeigh checked out of his Arizona motel and began the
drive to Kansas, to the site of the bomb components and to
Terry Nichols.
The proof in this case will establish exactly when Tim
McVeigh arrived in Kansas in April of 1995. Proof will not
come from police authorities but from men who make their living
working on cars. On the evening of Thursday, April 13, six
days before the bombing, Tim McVeigh had just made it across
the Oklahoma border into Kansas. Tim McVeigh stopped there
briefly at a Wal-Mart, the city called Arkansas City, Kansas.
And at the Wal-Mart, because he had car problems, Tim McVeigh
bought an oil filter that would fit the small Pontiac station
wagon he had just driven from Arizona. Tim McVeigh got a
Wal-Mart customer receipt for the oil filter, and that receipt
showed the purchase took place shortly before 6:00 p.m. on
Thursday, April 13.
At 9:00 a.m. the very next morning, Friday, April 14,
Tim McVeigh drove that same small Pontiac station wagon into
the Firestone store in downtown Junction City, Kansas, just a
few miles north of Terry Nichols' home. The station wagon was
belching white smoke, and in time it was clear repairs were too
expensive.
In the course of that morning, as the evidence will
show, Tim McVeigh got another car and made two phone calls.
For $250, Tim McVeigh bought a 1977 Mercury Marquis from the
Firestone manager and left his Pontiac station wagon there as
part of the deal. And while the Firestone store was working on
the Mercury to get it ready for the road, Tim McVeigh walked
across the street to the bus stop and made two pay phone calls
at that bus stop, using the Daryl Bridges card. The first call
he made from that pay phone at the bus stop was to Terry
Nichols' home. It lasted about a minute. He hung up and
immediately made a second phone call.
Tim McVeigh's very next phone call was to the Ryder
dealership in Junction City, Kansas, to the very same Ryder
dealership that would later rent him the bomb truck.
When Tim McVeigh drove out of the Firestone store that
morning with his old, large Mercury, he told the manager he was
headed to Michigan. That's not where he went. He stayed right
there in Kansas near Terry Nichols. Later that same day,
Friday, April 14, McVeigh drove his Mercury into the Dreamland
Motel in Junction City. The Junction City Dreamland Motel sits
right next door to the Sunset Motel. When he checked in, Tim
McVeigh used his true name, Tim McVeigh. But he listed as his
address the Decker, Michigan, farm where Terry Nichols and he
had once lived together.
At the time he checked in, he paid for four nights in
advance, four nights' lodging, indicating he would leave on
Tuesday, April 18, the day before the bombing.
When Tim McVeigh drove into the Dreamland, he had his
Mercury. In the course of his stay, the car disappeared, and
he was last seen driving a Ryder truck. The evidence in this
case will explain why and how it came that Tim McVeigh would
show up with a Mercury and leave in a Ryder. And the proof
will focus on the events that happened in the three days
immediately preceding the bombing.
The proof will be that on Sunday, Easter Sunday, Tim
McVeigh's Mercury was driven from Kansas to Oklahoma City and
parked near the Murrah Building where it would serve as his
getaway car. The proof will be that on Monday, Tim McVeigh
rented the Ryder truck. On Tuesday, the bomb components, the
tons of bomb components were mixed together, the preparation of
the bomb complete. And of course on Wednesday, Tim McVeigh
delivered that truck bomb to downtown Oklahoma City.
The evidence in this case will answer the question:
Where was Terry Nichols on each of those days? And the answer
will be that whenever Tim McVeigh needed help to finish the
plan, Terry Nichols was there, side by side with Tim McVeigh.
Their plan called for stashing the getaway car in Oklahoma
City. Terry Nichols was there to do that. Their plan called
for moving and mixing the ingredients to prepare the bomb.
Terry Nichols was there to do just that.
In the course of this trial, you will learn there is
no dispute about one thing: Terry Nichols was in Oklahoma City
on Easter Sunday. He was in Oklahoma City on Easter Sunday
with Tim McVeigh. There will be considerable dispute about
why. As fact-finders in this case, you will be called upon to
decide: Was Terry Nichols in Oklahoma City on Easter Sunday
with McVeigh to stash the getaway car as part of the bombing
plan or, as Terry Nichols told the FBI, was he there to pick up
a used television set?
The answer in this case will be that Terry Nichols on
April 16, 1995, Easter Sunday, was there just as he had been,
as Tim McVeigh's partner in the plan to bomb the building. His
presence in Oklahoma City had nothing to do with a television
set and everything to do with completing their plan.
You must resolve that question in the course of this
trial because Terry Nichols first posed it when he made his
statement to the FBI after the bombing.
The series of events that led the FBI to Terry Nichols
all emanate from one single clue left behind by Tim McVeigh.
When Tim McVeigh checked into the Dreamland, as I mentioned, he
left behind the address of Decker, Michigan, an address shared
with he and Terry Nichols. When he was arrested on the day of
the bombing, April 19, he listed his address as Decker,
Michigan. That clue led the FBI to Terry Nichols in Herington,
Kansas. It led them to Terry Nichols on Friday, April 21. And
by that day, April 21, the FBI knew that Terry Nichols and Tim
McVeigh had been friends. They knew they had lived together in
Decker, Michigan; and they knew that at that very time Terry
Nichols was living in Herington, a city just nearby Junction
City where Tim McVeigh had stayed before the bombing and where
the bomb truck had been rented.
And the proof will show, just as the FBI was learning
about Terry Nichols, Terry Nichols was learning about the FBI's
investigation. Before Terry Nichols ever spoke to the FBI, he
already knew that Tim McVeigh had been arrested. He knew that
the bomb truck had been traced back to Kansas, and he knew that
it was suspected that the bomb was made of ammonium nitrate and
he heard news on the radio that the FBI was looking for him.
Terry Nichols later told the FBI he left his house
that Friday to avoid another Waco. At 2:45 p.m. on that
Friday, Terry Nichols, his wife, and his daughter got into his
pickup and drove off. They did not go to the Herington police
station. Instead they drove off in the opposite direction.
And only when Terry Nichols spotted the FBI cars that arrived
in tiny Herington did he stop, turn around, reverse course, and
then go to the police station.
In the course of this trial, you will have the
opportunity to hear what Terry Nichols told the FBI on Friday,
April 21. You will hear from Agents Steve Smith and Scott
Crabtree. They'll describe that interview for you.
They'll tell you that consistent with FBI policy, they
did not tape-record Terry Nichols' statement but rather took
contemporaneous notes and then prepared a written report.
Agent Smith, who is a former accountant for Arthur Andersen,
will describe the very meticulous notes that he took as he
spoke to Terry Nichols at Herington police station, and he will
describe how Terry Nichols' very deliberate manner in answering
allowed him to keep pace with everything that Terry Nichols
said. In his statement to Agent Smith and Crabtree, Terry
Nichols denied any involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing,
and he denied knowing of anyone else's participation.
Now with the benefit of the FBI subsequent
investigation, you'll have the opportunity to test the
truthfulness of Terry Nichols' statements. Terry Nichols will
fail that test because what he told the FBI on April 21 simply
was not true.
As you might expect, Agents Smith and Crabtree wanted
to know from Terry Nichols about his last contact with Tim
McVeigh. Terry Nichols told them that he had spoken personally
with Tim McVeigh on Easter Sunday and that Easter Sunday was
the first time that he had any contact with Tim McVeigh for
months. Terry Nichols told the FBI that on Easter he got an
unexpected phone call from Tim McVeigh who told him that he was
calling from Oklahoma City. Of all people, Tim McVeigh; of all
places, Oklahoma City; of all times, three days before the
bombing.
And according to Terry Nichols' story, months earlier
he had written to Tim McVeigh and asked him to bring a used
television set to Kansas. Tim McVeigh was living in Arizona.
Terry Nichols was living in Kansas. And supposedly on Easter,
Tim McVeigh called from Oklahoma City, announced to Terry
Nichols that his car had broken down, and if Terry Nichols
wanted his used television set, he would simply have to drive
to Oklahoma City and pick it up.
Despite the fact that it was Easter Sunday, despite
the fact that McVeigh called while Nichols finished his Easter
dinner with his family, despite the fact that Josh, his
12-year-old son, was visiting on his spring break, despite all
of that, Terry Nichols agreed to immediately leave his home and
to make the 500-mile, 10-hour, round-trip drive to Oklahoma
City and back.
Within 10 minutes of McVeigh's call, Terry Nichols
left his house. He left his wife, his daughter, and his son.
Before he left his family, he told them where he was going. He
said, I'm going to Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha, Nebraska. He did
not tell his family that he was going to Oklahoma City.
In the course of this case, you will have to answer
the question: Why would Terry Nichols lie to his family about
where he was headed on Easter Sunday?
According to Terry Nichols' story, he was to go to
downtown Oklahoma City and McVeigh would find him. Terry
Nichols said he drove past the Murrah Building and then found
Tim McVeigh in the vicinity.
He told Agents Smith and Crabtree that when he picked
up McVeigh, McVeigh was standing there in a light rain with his
used television set and green laundry bag, no car in sight,
according to Terry Nichols.
Terry Nichols also told the agents that he drove Tim
McVeigh from Oklahoma City back to Junction City, Kansas,
passing through Herington along the way, and then dropped Tim
McVeigh off in the middle of the night, 1:30 in the morning, at
a closed McDonald's restaurant. According to Nichols, without
knowing where Tim McVeigh would be staying, without knowing
when or if he would ever see him again, he left his Army buddy
standing at a closed McDonald's in the middle of the night.
Agents Smith and Crabtree asked Terry Nichols about
the conversation he had with Tim McVeigh as the two drove back
from Oklahoma City to Junction City, the 5-hour drive. Terry
Nichols admitted that the two men talked about Waco.
The Government's evidence in this case will prove that
Terry Nichols concealed what he knew to be the real purpose of
the trip to Oklahoma City on Easter. He made a false statement
when he told the agents that he assumed the call came from
Oklahoma City because, as the evidence will show, there was a
phone call to Terry Nichols' house on Easter Sunday, about
3:00 p.m. It didn't come from Oklahoma City. As the evidence
will show, it came from Herington, a few blocks away from Terry
Nichols' house, a phone call made from Tim McVeigh on the Daryl
Bridges phone call. It was the phone call to let Terry Nichols
know it was time to take the vehicles to Oklahoma City.
And that Easter afternoon, two vehicles drove from
Kansas to Oklahoma City, Terry Nichols' pickup and Tim
McVeigh's Mercury; and that evening, that night, one vehicle
came back, Terry Nichols' truck carrying Tim McVeigh and Terry
Nichols. The getaway car was planted in Oklahoma City.
Terry Nichols also made a false statement, as we will
prove, when he told the agents that he had not spoken or talked
to Tim McVeigh for months before the Easter Sunday phone call.
In fact, as the evidence will show, the two men saw or spoke to
each other virtually every day in the week preceding the
bombing.
You will see physical evidence that Terry Nichols and
Tim McVeigh got together almost immediately after Tim McVeigh
arrived in Kansas in April of 1995 and that they had been
together in Kansas before they ever drove to Oklahoma City.
As you will recall, when McVeigh arrived in Kansas, on
April 13, he bought an oil filter at Wal-Mart. By the next
morning, Friday, he had no use for that oil filter for that
small Pontiac station wagon. He had just bought a large
Mercury.
On the next day, Saturday, April 15 -- before Easter
Sunday -- Saturday, April 15, Terry Nichols had both that
Wal-Mart receipt and the oil filter in his possession. You
will see the receipt, and you will learn where the FBI found
it.
When Terry Nichols arrived at the Herington Police
Department on April 21, he was carrying his wallet, and inside
the wallet was the Wal-Mart receipt. Terry Nichols could not
have known the clues that would -- that receipt would provide
to the FBI's investigation. The receipt had two dates on it,
April 13, the day that Tim McVeigh bought the oil filter, and
April 15, the day that Terry Nichols presented that oil filter
at a Wal-Mart store near his home.
The receipt also had two fingerprints on it. One
belonged to Terry Nichols. One belonged to Tim McVeigh.
According to his story, Terry Nichols had not seen Tim McVeigh
for months until Easter Sunday, but he had the Wal-Mart receipt
on Saturday, the day before. And as the evidence will show,
both can't be true.
The Wal-Mart receipt will show, will prove, that Terry
Nichols and Tim McVeigh were together face to face in central
Kansas before Easter Sunday. It will prove that Terry Nichols
tried to conceal the real purpose of his drive to Oklahoma
City.
On Monday morning, only hours after Terry Nichols,
according to his story, had dropped Tim McVeigh off in the
middle of the night, the two men were in touch again. That
Monday morning, Tim McVeigh called Terry Nichols' home from the
Dreamland. And later that same day, Tim McVeigh went to the
Ryder truck dealership, Elliott's Body Shop, in Junction City
and rented the truck that would become the truck bomb. On that
Monday afternoon, using the false name of Bob Kling, Tim
McVeigh picked up the 20-foot Ryder truck that would become the
bomb truck. Terry Nichols was not with Tim McVeigh at
Elliott's Body Shop, but Tim McVeigh had to tell the dealership
where it was that he was taking their 20-foot Ryder truck, just
like Terry Nichols had to tell his family where he was going
when he left on Easter Sunday. They both chose to say Omaha,
Nebraska.
Monday ended the way it started, with phone calls
between the two men. This time it was Terry Nichols who called
for Tim McVeigh. Standing at a pay phone late Monday night,
April 17, only hours before -- or rather after the bomb truck
had been rented, Terry Nichols called for Tim McVeigh at the
Dreamland. The evidence will be that on that Monday night,
Terry Nichols drove his son, Josh, to Kansas City to put him on
a plane to send him home to his mother. With his son on a
plane and while still at the airport, Terry Nichols called Tim
McVeigh at the Dreamland using the Bridges phone card. Even
Tim Mc -- excuse me, even though Terry Nichols had insisted to
the FBI he had no idea where Tim McVeigh was staying, he called
the Dreamland Motel, the precise place where Tim McVeigh was
staying.
And the evidence will show that Terry Nichols' Monday
night phone call from the airport had a purpose. The purpose
was to make plans to meet the next morning at a location
between Terry Nichols' home and Tim McVeigh's motel. The place
was Geary Lake, a low-lying area next to the highway that
connects Herington, where Terry Nichols lived, and Junction
City, where Tim McVeigh was staying, a place where two men,
after removing the tons of ingredients from nearby storage,
could mix those same ingredients into a bomb.
The next day, April 18, Tuesday, the day before the
bombing, was a day that one man spotted a Ryder truck sitting
on the bank of the Geary Lake. He also spotted a pickup. A
second man got an even better look. April 18 was not a workday
for Army Sergeant Richard Wahl. He took the day off to go
fishing with his son. It was not a perfect day for fishing by
any means. It was cold. It was windy. It was miserable. But
a promise is a promise, and his son insisted.
And Richard Wahl will tell you that he fished all
morning on Tuesday, April 15, at Geary Lake. He will tell you
that he didn't catch a thing and that it was unpleasant to be
outside as the wind, so strong, continuously blew his boat to
shore. But as he and his son fished there for three hours, he
noticed something. He noticed that though there were no other
fishermen there, his son and he were not alone. From the time
he got there in the morning until the time he left at noon,
there were two other vehicles parked nearby, less than
150 yards from the boat ramp that he used. And while he was at
that lake, those two trucks remained parked side by side. One
was a large, yellow Ryder truck. The second one was a
dark-colored pickup with a light topper.
Richard Wahl watched for people around the truck but
did not see anyone, but he will tell you that he saw signs of
activity because the side door on the Ryder truck was open at
one point and then later closed shut.
And as you will hear, Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh
knew how to build fertilizer bombs. They had spent time
reading literature, researching the different recipes, talking
among themselves about which recipe was most explosive. They
knew what they were doing on April 18.
After helping to mix the bomb on Tuesday, April 18,
Terry Nichols' part of the plan was over. The last step would
be left to Tim McVeigh, just as they had planned. When Terry
Nichols drove from Geary Lake that morning, he drove to a
military surplus center at Fort Riley, an Army post outside of
Junction City. We will prove to you that he did not sign in
until 1 p.m. that afternoon.
However, Terry Nichols gave an entirely different
accounting for his whereabouts that same day when questioned by
the FBI. He told Agents Smith and Crabtree that he had been
there all morning outside looking at surplus military items,
all morning in the cold, windy, miserable conditions.
He also told the agents that early that morning,
unexpectedly, he got another phone call from Tim McVeigh; and
Tim McVeigh wanted to borrow his pickup. And with very few
questions asked, according to Terry Nichols, he loaned his
pickup to Tim McVeigh that morning.
But as the proof will show, Terry Nichols was not at
the Army surplus center all morning on Tuesday, April 18. No
one saw him there, because he wasn't there. He was with his
truck at Geary Lake. He was with Tim McVeigh. And Terry
Nichols' and Tim McVeigh's plan was tragically completed the
next day at 9:02 in downtown Oklahoma City.
On Friday morning, April 21, Gladys Wendt, who will be
a witness in this case, as usual, drove from her farmhouse to
her hair appointment in Herington, Kansas; and after her hair
appointment, as usual, she went to her friend's home to pick
her up for the two to go out for coffee.
The friend lived in Herington on 2d Street, the same
street that Terry Nichols lived on. Gladys Wendt pulled her
car up and, as was her custom, waited outside for her friend to
come out. As she sat there waiting, she noticed a man across
the street furiously tossing ammonium nitrate on his tiny
unkempt yard, as she will describe it, so much so, that it
began to accumulate like snow. The man was Terry Nichols. And
the fertilizer toss was one attempt to conceal his involvement
in the Oklahoma City bombing. Later that day, Terry Nichols
admitted to the agents that he had tried to get rid of the
ammonium nitrate because he thought having fertilizer in his
house would make him look guilty to a jury.
He also insisted the only ammonium nitrate he had ever
purchased was a hundred pounds in the spring of 1995 and that
the only reason he bought that was to resell it as plant food
at gun shows.
On Wednesday morning, April 19, 1995, the huge truck
bomb exploded outside the nine stories of plate glass windows
in downtown Oklahoma City. The explosion ripped a gaping hole
in the building and snuffed out the lives of 168 innocent men,
women, and children. No one in that building, no one in that
city, no one in the nation could comprehend that anyone could
hate so much. But the evidence in this case will prove us
wrong. It will prove that over the eight months leading up to
April 19, Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh had together carefully
and methodically prepared for that one day when they would
launch a violent attack against America. And on that day,
America's TV screens filled with the images of collapsed
buildings, a city in chaos, and the lifeless bodies of small
babies. And on that day, Terry Nichols was home. He was home
in Herington, Kansas, with his wife and his daughter. Terry
Nichols had planned it just that way.
Thank you.
THE COURT: Are you prepared to proceed, Mr. Tigar?
You have heard of course, only from counsel for the
Government. There is another side in the case, of course. So
you'll hear now opening statement for the defense. Mr. Tigar.
MR. TIGAR: I will begin, your Honor, then; and at
some point, we might take a break.
THE COURT: Yes, wherever you say.
OPENING STATEMENT
MR. TIGAR: May it please the Court, Counsel,
Mr. Nichols, members of the jury, on the 19th morning of April
at 9:02 in the morning, or actually just a few minutes before,
Timothy McVeigh parked in front of the Murrah Building in
Oklahoma City. He was in a Ford F-700 truck from Ryder rentals
with a 20-foot box. And Timothy McVeigh was not alone. With
him in the cab of that truck were one or two other people. The
driver parked the truck and set the bomb to go off.
Yes, Terry Nichols was not there and did not know
about the bombing until the next day. He was at home in
Herington, Kansas, at 109 South 2d Street in a house he'd
bought and moved into one month and six days before. He was at
home. With him there were his pregnant wife, Marife; their
infant daughter, Nicole; Marife Torres Nichols, born in the
Philippines, who came to the United States as Terry Nichols'
wife. Terry Nichols was building a life, not a bomb.
My name is Michael Tigar; and with our team, I
represent Terry Nichols. We're here to gain respect for the
undeniable fact that right now Terry Nichols is presumed
innocent. We're here to help point out the hundreds of
reasonable doubts that lurk in the evidence.
In this opening statement, I want to introduce you
first to our team members, the ones that are going to help us
here; and then I want to outline for you the allegations, the
charges, to point out what is not in dispute, what we agree
with these prosecutors about, and what on the other hand we do
contest, what the Government will try to prove and fail, and
where you may find the reasonable doubts when the evidence is
all in. Yes, when the evidence is all in.
Can you see my hand? You can't see my hand. Not
until I've turned it over and showed you both sides could you
say that you've seen my hand.
And just as in life, the last bit of evidence about an
important thing may be the thing that lights up the whole
picture, so we beg you to have open minds. We'll present
evidence to you, beginning with our cross-examination of the
very first witnesses that take that witness stand; but for the
first few weeks of the trial, the Government has the choice of
what witnesses to bring, what evidence to bring. He that
pleadeth his cause first seemeth just, but the defendant come
and searcheth it out.
Over and over again, you're going to hear about the
presumption of innocence. That means we start with a clean
page. That means that suspicion, prejudice, prejudgment,
speculation have no place.
Now, when the Government rests, we are going to
present our witnesses and exhibits. So after introductions and
review of the allegations here, Ron Woods and I, my co-counsel,
are going to do an opening statement in three parts so that you
can have a perfect way of keeping track of the strands of
proof.
First, I'm going to describe for you the results of
our investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing. I'm going to
describe for you how Timothy McVeigh planned this crime, who he
planned it with, and who helped him commit it. I will tell you
about the people that Timothy McVeigh used and lied to, the
people he used in ways that he had to know would put them under
unjustified suspicion.
Second, Ron Woods and I are going to tell you about
Terry Lynn Nichols, born and raised in a farming community,
married, the father of three children. Ron will tell you about
what happened when Terry Nichols first heard on the radio that
he was being sought as somebody who knew Timothy McVeigh, how
he went right to the police station and spent nine-and-a-half
hours telling the truth -- yes, the truth -- to the FBI, even
as the FBI agents lied to him, lied to his family, and lied to
the court.
And third, I'm going to talk very briefly about the
FBI and its laboratory, its so-called "experts," some of whom
are going to testify here, how those people ignored vital
evidence, used junk science, did sloppy fieldwork, and rushed
to a very wrong and quite early judgment. I say "briefly,"
because when their witnesses testify, we will cross-examine
them fully and you'll have a chance to see who it is that's
right and who is not.
So who's on the Nichols team? Well, the first member
is Terry Lynn Nichols. Me, I'm Michael Tigar; and I am a
school teacher. I teach at the University of Texas in Austin,
Texas. My co-counsel is Ron Woods, solo practitioner from
Houston, former United States Attorney for the Southern
District of Texas and formerly special agent for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. We have some lawyers here, young
lawyers helping: Reid Neureiter from Washington, Adam
Thurschwell from New York, and Jane Tigar from Austin.
Now, handling the evidence -- and you'll see these
people working in the courtroom from time to time -- we have
Rose Haire, Tia Goodman, and Jan Halbert and Molly Ross from
Oklahoma City and Stephanie White from Denver.
So let's begin by asking: What are those prosecutors
charging that Terry Nichols did? What are they going to try to
prove beyond a reasonable doubt? Well, you know there's an
indictment, and there are 11 separate charges. When the case
is all over, Judge Matsch will tell you what the formal, legal
elements of each of these charges are; and he'll say to you, in
effect, that if the Government fails to prove any element of a
charge beyond a reasonable doubt, then it becomes your duty to
acquit on that charge and to say not guilty.
Now, the first charge is that Timothy McVeigh, Terry
Nichols, and others used -- conspired to use a weapon of mass
destruction against the Murrah Federal Building and the people
in it. We do not contest that Timothy McVeigh did indeed
conspire with several other people to blow up that building.
We agree and understand and stipulate and concede that at least
168 people died from that crime, that the crime visited
enormous harms on the hundreds of others. There's no dispute
about that. The dispute is can they overcome the presumption
in law that Terry Nichols had nothing whatever to do with it.
But I want to warn you: The prosecutors may choose
not to accept the reality that we accept. They may choose to
put before you graphic, emotional, tragic evidence of the
devastation on April 19. These evidence -- these events, I
repeat, are -- they're not in dispute. We understand that
there's not a joy the world can give like -- like that it takes
away. The prosecutors may replay these terrible images over
and over as if to say that somebody has to be punished for
these things. That, of course, is not the question. The
question for you at the end of the evidence will be who; and
that is a question to be answered, we trust, in the light shed
by the evidence and the law and not in flashes of anger.
If the prosecutors present this evidence, our concern
will be to show how it fits the picture that we have drawn and
not theirs. We will cross-examine all the witnesses who come
here, even those who have lost so much. By doing that, we mean
them no disrespect. To the living, we owe respect. To the
dead, we owe the truth.
Now, there will be plenty of evidence that Timothy
McVeigh promised to do violence and that he preached his gospel
of hate, that he assembled the bomb materials. But there will
not be any witness who will say that they heard Terry Nichols
utter any threats of violence to anybody. The key to this case
is the charge, the allegation that Terry Nichols knew there was
a conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction against the
building and the people in it and intentionally joined in that
agreement. As to that, Terry Nichols says not guilty, and as
to that, the evidence will show you plenty of reasonable
doubts. Guilt by association is not conspiracy, knowing is not
conspiracy, being associated is not conspiracy.
In saying what the evidence will show -- by the way --
we don't assume a burden we don't have. Terry Nichols is
innocent. He's presumed innocent. If they want to change
that, they've got to bring you evidence, to satisfy you beyond
a reasonable doubt. We don't have any burden of proof here.
And our job is simply to show the reasonable doubts; and to do
that, we'll show you the hard evidence, the truthful
alternatives to their theory. And from the first witnesses
they present, we'll do that when we rise to cross-examine.
Back to the charges. The second charge is that Terry
Nichols -- who wasn't there -- knowing, intentionally,
willfully, maliciously helped Timothy and others to make and
deliver a weapon of mass destruction. Once again, plenty of
reasonable doubts; we'll ask for a verdict of not guilty.
The third charge is that Terry Nichols knowingly,
intentionally, willfully, and maliciously helped Timothy
McVeigh destroy the Murrah Building and cause death to people
in it. The evidence will show reasonable doubts; we'll ask for
a not guilty verdict.
And the charges in Counts 4 through 11 are murder,
premeditated murder of federal officers working that day in the
Murrah Building. They all were killed; they all were on duty
at that time. The bomb killed them. There will be many, many
reasonable doubts that Terry Nichols knew there was a plan to
kill and that he intended to kill anybody. Not guilty.
So those are the charges. Here's the evidence:
Part 1. How did this bomb arrive there on the 19th
morning of April just before 9:02? Timothy McVeigh was born in
New York. He enlisted in the Army in May 1988. There he met
Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier. By coincidence, Nichols
from Michigan, McVeigh from New York, and Fortier from Arizona,
all entered the Army on the same day, May 24, 1988. In the
Army, Timothy McVeigh began to show interest in bombs and
bombing. I don't just means military ordnance. One expects
that of a soldier. I don't mean pop-bottle bangers. The
evidence will show that his interest, that he pursued by
writing away for publications, was in manufacturing
large-scale, homemade bombs. He was also drawn to fringe
groups with an agenda of violence, racial violence.
McVeigh stayed in the Army until December 31, 1991,
just the new year, just the start of '92. Terry Nichols had
gotten out of the Army in May of '89. Timothy McVeigh served
in the Gulf War. But after he got out of the Amy, McVeigh's
friends noticed that he became changed, more prone to talk
about violence. The evidence will show that he began to talk
about his views to anyone who would listen and even some who
did not want to.
He gave away copies of books in which he had marked
things, he gave away pamphlets and writings with racist
messages and sent out mailings with violent sentiments. He
sent copies of this stuff to dozens of people, including all
his former Army friends, including Terry Nichols. And not
surprisingly, some of Tim McVeigh's friends handled these
things, they'd had them in their house, they got their
fingerprints on it. In fact, at one time Timothy McVeigh even
borrowed Terry Nichols' copier to make copies of things.
Well, as the evidence will show, this is not or should
not be a case about controversial beliefs. Everybody -- you,
me, the prosecutors -- has a right to that. Timothy McVeigh
was different. His expressed beliefs included acts of massive
violence. Yes, there will be evidence that Terry Nichols went
to gun shows; that he had copies of the literature you can get
at gun shows. Some of that literature contains sentiments that
could only be described as radical, right-wing sentiments. And
the evidence will be that there are movements in this country
who think that we shouldn't have a strong federal government,
who think that the gun laws are wrong, who think that there
shouldn't be an income tax, who think a lot of things like
that.
And the important thing will be to try to distinguish
among people who associate with those movements or who hang
around with people who have those views, between those who
express violence and a willingness to use violence and those
who do not. That will be the crucial inquiry.
So let's look at the crucial period here, from
McVeigh's discharge from the Army, beginning of '92, until
April 19, 1995, a little over three years.
During this time, McVeigh held all sorts of jobs. He
was a security guard, stock clerk, a farmhand, and he
discovered the world of gun shows, where all sorts of things
are bought and sold. Now, once again, you know, there are
millions of Americans, I think, trade at, go to, make their
living at these gun shows, including Terry Nichols; and you're
going to hear a lot about them. If you've never been to one,
they're a little bit like a swap meet or a flea market or a
craft show even, in some respects. A promoter, somebody like
Sertoma civic organization hires a space and advertises the
show. And individual dealers can then rent tables to sell
their wares. People sell guns, ammunition, military goods, and
other things that would appeal to those at the show or to some
of them. Roger Moore, for example, who you'll meet, made
thousands of dollars selling porn movies at gun shows.
But for Timothy McVeigh, the gun shows were a special
place. Mr. McVeigh began his interest in gun shows in the
Army, and he first worked one in May 1992. Terry Nichols was
not there.
Early in 1993, Mr. McVeigh was preaching his ideas to
his friends Michael and Lori Fortier in Kingman, Arizona.
Terry Nichols was living with his family on the Nichols farm in
Michigan.
On February 13, 1993, McVeigh met Arkansas gun dealer
Roger Moore at a gun show in Florida. Moore and McVeigh became
friends and allies. Yes, the evidence will be that they
remained friends and allies through the spring of 1995. Moore
came to trust McVeigh, as he trusted few others. Moore also
goes by the name Bob Miller, or just "Bob from Arkansas."
The McVeigh/Miller friendship provides the key to the
so-called "robbery" of Roger Moore. The Government will not be
able to prove that Roger Moore was robbed. Too many doubts,
too many contradictions in Moore's own stories to different
people, just beginning with one version in which he said his
robber was a smelly guy who hadn't taken a bath for three
months, weighed 180 pounds, was big enough to drag Moore across
the floor, had a beard, and was extremely dark-complected.
Roger Moore has told six different stories at least about that
robbery to as many different people. And whatever version he
comes up with will be contradicted by the evidence. He never
heard of Terry Nichols.
No, there was too much going on, as the evidence will
show, between Timothy McVeigh and Roger Moore and between
Timothy McVeigh and Roger Moore's girlfiend, Karen Anderson.
Within two weeks of their first meeting, McVeigh and Moore were
partners at a gun show at Dinner Cay, Florida on February 27
and 28, 1993.
Later in 1993, McVeigh did visit the Terry Nichols --
did visit Terry Nichols at the Nichols family farm in Michigan.
Now, there was where Terry grew up; where his dad, Robert, and
his mother, Joyce, lived. Robert and Joyce were divorced,
living apart. Terry's older brother, James Nichols, was
managing most of the old family farm. Terry's eldest brother,
Les, drove a truck. Sister Susie lived nearby. Tim McVeigh
did stop by there. Worked a little bit, hung around mostly,
moved on.
During part of the year, 1993, Terry Nichols wasn't
even in Michigan, because the evidence will be that his wife
Marife was a citizen of the Philippines, and the family would
visit there as much as they could.
But something else did happen in 1993. On
February 28, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the
ATF, raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. On April 19,
1993, was the tragic fire that cost the lives of so many men,
women, and children. Many Americans were concerned and even
angry about these episodes. People have the right to hold
differing opinions about Waco, and Terry Nichols certainly held
opinions about it.
For Timothy McVeigh, the Waco events -- you're going
to hear this in the evidence -- they were a turning point. It
moved him to step outside the law. It increased the kind of
paranoia he had, even to the point of believing that Russian
vehicles were being secretly stored at bases in Mississippi.
And he spoke of this to his friends Michael and Lori Fortier
and to Roger Moore -- but to Michael and Lori Fortier in
Kingman, Arizona.
This is a good point to introduce to you Michael and
Lori Fortier. Today, Michael Fortier is in prison. He'll find
out when he gets out, only after he testifies in this trial,
and after these prosecutors decide whether to make a
recommendation about his cooperation. Lori Fortier has been
given complete immunity from prosecution. But in 1992, through
May 1995, the Fortiers were living in a trailer house in
Kingman, Arizona. Michael Fortier was Timothy McVeigh's Army
buddy. The Fortiers barely knew Terry Nichols. He never spent
more than an hour in their company. The evidence will be that
McVeigh used the Fortiers' trailer house as a base and that
they were his most trusted confidants, to them were to go
warning messages. To them they described in detail how he was
going to make a bomb to avenge Waco, or so they say.
You will hear in great detail because the Fortiers
helped Timothy McVeigh and were used by him and lied to by him
and how they wove their own web of lies. But the Fortiers,
despite all this, are not conspirators with Timothy McVeigh to
bomb the Murrah Building and are not being treated as such by
the Government.
And here is the prosecutors' problem: Neither Michael
Fortier nor Lori Fortier ever heard Terry Nichols say that he
was going to bomb anything, wanted to bomb anything, planned to
bomb anything, was going to hurt anybody, wanted to hurt
anybody, or planned to hurt anybody.
In order to believe that Terry Nichols ever planned or
wanted any such thing, you would have to put your faith in the
Fortiers, even though they never heard it and more. All they
know is what Tim McVeigh told them. And the evidence will be
that what Tim McVeigh told them was a series of lies, provable
lies. The evidence will be that the story told by the Fortiers
here in court is just one more version that they've concocted,
a story a day, a story a week, until they saw they were caught
by their own involvement and made a deal. You'll hear about
that deal. And you're also going to hear that the two of them
were habitual users of one of the most dangerous drugs being
peddled today, methamphetamine, speed. It makes you paranoid,
it gives you delusions, and it makes you a liar.
The Fortiers you'll meet today are very different from
the Fortiers of 1993, '94, and '95. We're going to show you
the original Fortiers with pictures, their words, their
writings before they made their bargains and cleaned themselves
up for presentation. We'll show you that they did not even
come up with a story about Terry Nichols until Terry Nichols
had been charged and the major details they now recount were
published in the papers.
It will be a dramatic moment, Michael Fortier in a
motel in Oklahoma City with Lori Fortier and some FBI agents,
and Michael Fortier steps out onto the balcony of the motel and
says to the FBI agent, "You give me immunity, I'll give you Tim
McVeigh." And the FBI agent looked back and said in effect,
"Son, we've already got Tim McVeigh. If you're going to get
something, you'll have to give us somebody else."
This would be a good point to break.
THE COURT: All right. Once again, members of the
jury, we'll take a brief recess here to help us be attentive
with respect to our ongoing proceedings and these arguments.
Now, we may go into what would be the normal noon hour a little
bit, so you may want to refresh yourself during this break.
And again, of course, as you're recessed from the --
excused from the courtroom during the previous recess, please
hold on, don't talk about the case or anything about it,
remembering that we're just in the very preliminary statements
here. So you're excused now again about 15 minutes.
(Jury out at 11:10 a.m.)
THE COURT: Okay. We'll again be in recess.
(Recess at 11:11 a.m.)
(Reconvened at 11:26 a.m.)
THE COURT: Please be seated.
(Jury in at 11:26 a.m.)
THE COURT: Please continue.
MR. TIGAR: Thank you, your Honor.
Members of the jury, we were talking about the
Fortiers. The evidence is going to show that a lot of the
things they say don't make sense because they defy the laws of
the physical universe, one of which is that nobody can be in
two places at once.
This evidence, however, is going to show there is some
reason to sympathize with the Fortiers' plight. There is no
question that Timothy McVeigh used them and lied to them. He
used their tools. He used their house. He used their phone.
He used their typewriter to make false identification. He got
them to disguise bomb components; and we know these things from
the Fortiers -- not solely from them but because there is
independent evidence of each of them.
Every time that we ask you to accept something that
the Fortiers have said, we're going to bring independent
evidence to verify or corroborate it; and the independent
evidence will show that Timothy McVeigh used the Fortiers just
as he tried to use others, such as arms dealers Ed and Dave
Paulsen, his boyhood friend Dave Darlak, his friend Greg Pfaff,
the Nichols' family friend Kevin Nichols, James Nichols, and
yes, Terry Nichols, too.
So let's continue tracking Timothy McVeigh on the road
to Oklahoma City. On March 16, 1993, Timothy McVeigh visited
Waco in sympathy with the Branch Davidians. He was
photographed there. Terry Nichols was not there.
But later in 1993, later in March of that year,
Timothy McVeigh began shopping for det cord. Now, that's
something you can use to make an explosion; and there is
nothing wrong, by the way, with having det cord or blasting
caps or dynamite. And the evidence in this case will show that
a very large number of people in this case had this kind of
material or had access to it. Michael Fortier had it, Michael
Fortier's father-in-law had it, Michael Fortier's brother had
it, other Kingman residents had it, the Paulsens had it, to
name just a few.
Indeed, the evidence will be -- and we might as well
tell you -- that in 1976 and 1977, Terry Nichols and his
brother James used dynamite on their family farm up in Michigan
to clear stumps; and the evidence will be that in that part of
Michigan that farmers have ready access to a formula for mixing
ammonium nitrate and fuel oil to use (sic) explosions for such
things as ditching and trenching and clearing the land. In
fact, you can go to the county agriculture agents' office in
that county and you can get a recipe for ammonium nitrate and
fuel oil for farm purposes, the same official government
publication that you can get in county agents' offices all over
the United States in farm country.
We're also going to show you when witnesses come how
many millions of tons of ammonium nitrate are used by farmers
all over the United States every year. But McVeigh's shopping
for det cord was in a different context, and Terry Nichols
didn't have anything to do with that.
During the first eight months of 1993, Timothy McVeigh
was on the move part of the time. Some of the time he,
however -- most of it, in fact, he spent in Kingman, Arizona,
with his friends the Fortiers. Kingman, Arizona, was Timothy
McVeigh's base of operations until April 12, 1995; and the
evidence of this close, continual contact will be indisputable.
McVeigh also traveled to gun shows to make money and
to keep up connections with his friend Roger Moore. He and
Moore were at a gun show in Kentucky on October 2 and 3 of
1993.
In early December of '93, Terry Nichols and his family
had left the family farm in Michigan to move to Las Vegas, so
Terry could look for work and be closer to his son by his first
marriage, Joshua. McVeigh stayed in Michigan. He and Terry
Nichols had very little contact, and McVeigh continued to work
gun shows. But by the end of 1993, McVeigh's sentiments were
taking shape. He confided them in a letter to his sister, and
Terry Nichols wasn't there.
The evidence about these casual contacts, people
writing letters, people visiting each other, is important, for
it helps to explain some of the fingerprint evidence in the
case that I'll talk about later.
But by the spring of '94, Terry Nichols despaired of
finding good work in Las Vegas -- wasn't his kind of town; so
he moved back to farm country. His wife and daughter returned
from a trip to the Philippines, so the Nichols family occupied
a farmhouse together in Marion, Kansas. Terry Nichols was
employed by the Donahue ranch.
You're going to hear that he was a good farm worker.
He made from 325 to $350 a week and had the use of a
three-bedroom house with utilities paid. But the work was hard
and the hours were long, and everybody who worked for
Donahue -- some of them will be here -- will tell you that.
And Marife and Terry Nichols wondered if there wasn't a kind of
work that would let Terry spend more time at home with the rest
of his family.
And that was when in the summer of 1994 Timothy
McVeigh, in one of his trips across the country, came to the
Nichols' home in Kansas with a proposal. He wanted Terry
Nichols to work with him, he said, in buying, selling and
trading items at gun shows. McVeigh, with much more experience
in this field, promised that they could make a good living and
most of the shows are on weekends so they'd have free time.
McVeigh, you see, was kind of a drifter. He'd work
some gun shows, hold a regular job, work some gun shows some
more. No real family ties except to his dad and his sister in
New York, who he rarely saw. His real attachments where he
spent most of his time were with his friends the Fortiers and
their buddies in Kingman, Arizona, and with his confederate,
Roger Moore. Later, as the evidence will show, he formed some
alliances with others.
In 1994, however, McVeigh had been living with the
Fortiers before he came back to Kansas. He had been the best
man at their wedding. In July of that year he was their
housesitter when they went on their honeymoon. He sold them
explosive components when he left Arizona. McVeigh and Michael
Fortier had even gone to a militia organizer in Arizona in
April of 1994, and Terry Nichols wasn't there.
Terry Nichols, not knowing these facts, agreed to do
business with McVeigh. And while the business was getting
started, Marife Nichols decided to return to the Philippines
with young Nicole, their daughter, to visit Marife's parents
and take classes at the university near her childhood home.
She left the United States September 18, 1994.
On September 30, 1994, Terry Nichols finished working
at the Donahue ranch. Up until that date, he was working in
the fields most weekdays and -- excuse me -- every weekday and
most Saturdays. As for the gun show partnership, McVeigh had a
different agenda. You're going to hear from the Fortiers that
McVeigh sent them a letter in late August or early September,
1994, saying that McVeigh and Terry Nichols were going to take
action against the government. There is no copy of this
so-called "letter" in existence.
The Fortiers never mentioned it until they were
dealing with the prosecutors to escape years in prison and
perhaps a greater punishment. In any event, this so-called
"letter" that only the Fortiers know about was written, they
say, by Timothy McVeigh.
One trouble with their story is that Lori Fortier says
that just after they got the letter, McVeigh came to Arizona
and they talked about it. She says that McVeigh was in Arizona
September 16, 1994; but he could not have been. He was in
Kansas at that time. The Fortiers and physical reality
collide. Another problem, of course, is that it isn't so.
Terry Nichols never agreed to any such thing.
When we speak of these dates, these contradictions,
there are going to be thousands of documents in evidence.
Sometimes you'll have to resolve contradictions.
The FBI cast its net very wide. For example, we have
a record in this case of almost every telephone call made by
everybody connected with this case for years. The FBI went out
and got all those records. Now, the problem with these phone
records is sometimes the phone companies make mistakes. We can
prove that. The problem with these phone records, such as
those that "Mr. Computerman," Mr. Dexter, is going come in --
is that sometimes the FBI makes mistakes, and you'll see that.
And often, the records don't show what is claimed for them.
There are some examples. Let's take phone records for
a minute. There is no dispute way back in 1993, long before
anybody is charged with doing anything wrong, Terry Nichols
bought one of those prepaid calling cards. He and Marife were
living in Michigan at the time on a farm that's run by Terry's
brother James. They didn't have long distance service of their
own.
Well, these days you can go to the drug store, the
laundromat, the service station and get one of these calling
cards; and the way you use it is you pay a certain amount and
you get so many minutes of talk time.
And back in 1993, however, they were relatively new;
and the conservative publication Spotlight advertised them.
Terry Nichols not only didn't have long distance service, he
had some financial difficulties. He had judgments against him.
And he started doing business exclusively in cash, so he didn't
have bank accounts, and in trade names, not his own name. He
got one of these Spotlight cards in the name Daryl Bridges; and
when he and McVeigh started their gun business, McVeigh got the
PIN number so he could make calls on it, too. There are a lot
of calls charged to that Bridges card, but the evidence is
going to show you that the Bridges records cannot be the basis
to conclude that anybody ever called anybody. They're just
numbers. In order to make a conclusion about who called whom,
you need more evidence. And in every instance we rely on,
we'll present that evidence to you.
But why would Terry Nichols get a card in a different
name than his own? Well, the evidence is that one of the
judgments against him was from AT&T. They had sued him on a
credit card bill. He figured that if he tried to get long
distance service in his own name even with some other company
maybe AT&T could interfere with it. And the evidence will be
that the forms are filled out and somebody on the farm took
them to the post office, and we can prove that.
Now, that card was still being used in late September
of 1994. So while Terry Nichols is out working on the Donahue
ranch in Marion, Kansas, we can prove that he's out there.
Somebody else -- and the only other person that had the card
number is Tim McVeigh -- used that telephone card to call
places that might supply components for a bomb. We can track
the calls that were made, the sequence, the time of day and
show you how that worked. Terry Nichols was not there. In
fact, members of the jury, we'll have witnesses on the stand
that will identify Timothy McVeigh from having known him before
based on having made those calls.
One of those is a person that had known Tim McVeigh;
that Tim McVeigh called -- and it had to be Tim McVeigh because
the person recognized him -- to get racing fuel. And Terry
Nichols wasn't there and didn't make that call.
What calls can it be shown that Terry Nichols made?
Well, he called places he did business. He called places where
you'd buy things, lawful things you use in the gun show
business, to store things that you need for your business and
things you're going to sell.
Let's take just one example of what the evidence will
be about what Terry Nichols shopped for.
The Nichols family: They have this house, this little
house in Herington, Kansas. There is a storage shed out behind
it. They have plastic barrels back there. You're going to see
pictures of those barrels, the ones that they had. Now, you're
also going to hear evidence that when Timothy McVeigh built the
bomb, he may have used plastic barrels to hold the explosive
mixture.
Now, let's look what the evidence is going to show.
First, most obviously, it's going to show that the barrels that
the Nichols family had could not have been used to build the
bomb because the Nichols family still have their barrels back
in their shed. But the evidence is also going to show that
these barrels -- they're 55-gallon barrels. 8 million of them
are made every year by a single manufacturer. They're made of
HDPE, high-density polyethylene, and they are designed under
federal and international regulations to be reused from 15 to
30 times. Otherwise, you couldn't sell them.
And the evidence will be that in the heart of Kansas,
in dairy barns, for example, which is where Terry Nichols got
his barrels, there are -- there is udder wash and dairy-barn
cleaner that is sold in these 55-gallon containers; and when
the containers are empty, the dairy barn people put them out to
recycling depots and you can buy them for five bucks apiece,
which compares quite favorably to a Rubbermaid trash barrel at
your local hardware store.
The barrels at Terry Nichols' house were not even from
a barrel company in Wichita about which reference has been
made.
Now, you also heard about fertilizer. Well, it's true
that on September 30, 1994, and October 18, 1994, two men
bought ammonium nitrate at a farm cooperative in McPherson,
Kansas. The two co-op employees who sold the ammonium nitrate
in bags were unable to identify the purchasers while the
transactions were fresh in their minds. These employees are
called Rick Schlender and Jerry Showalter. But Mr. Schlender
gave a very precise description of the vehicle. He said that
the men were in a Dodge pickup truck with Kansas license
plates, pulling a trailer made from a Ford truck bed.
Terry Nichols had a GMC pickup truck with Michigan
license plates and never owned a Ford pickup bed trailer.
Now, the FBI got to these two witnesses, accused them
of making false statements, tried to get them to change their
story; and you'll hear about how that process worked. You will
even hear that Mr. Schlender committed perjury before the grand
jury that indicted this case; but in the end, the evidence is
that Terry Nichols was not there. In fact, on September 29,
1994, Mr. Showalter, the other fellow -- he remembers he got a
call. He was at McPherson at the co-op there working. He got
a call from another branch of the co-op in Galva, Kansas,
saying somebody is in the store, wants to buy 2 tons of
ammonium nitrate in bags. Showalter advised his colleague in
Galva to send that person over to the McPherson store.
Now, on September 29, 1994, Terry Nichols was working
on the Donahue farm. Couldn't have been him.
Now, Terry Nichols did have access, no question, to
storage units, those rental storage units in the mid-Kansas
area. You know the ones. When Terry Nichols told the FBI
about these sheds -- and he did, and he told them in what names
he rented them. They went out and searched them. No residue
of any ammonium nitrate or other bomb component was ever found
in these sheds. They were, as Terry Nichols told the FBI, used
to store household furniture and things he was keeping to sell
in trade.
Now, you are going to see a receipt for a large
purchase of ammonium nitrate. The Government has told you
what's on the front of the receipt. But let's turn the receipt
over on its back; and by the time all the witnesses have
testified, you'll know the whole story, for on the back of that
receipt are fingerprints of one and only one individual,
Timothy McVeigh. And the way that that fingerprint evidence
showed the receipt was handled shows exactly what happened and
supports Terry Nichols' innocence.
Now, beginning October 1, 1994 -- that's the time
we're in -- Terry Nichols was working to create a viable gun
show business. Tim McVeigh had a different plan. Unbeknown to
Terry Nichols, he called Michael Fortier and asked him to max
out his credit cards and give him the money.
On October 2, 1994, McVeigh visited a racetrack and
inquired about buying racing fuel. Terry Nichols was not
there.
On October 21, 1994, McVeigh bought three 55-gallon
drums of nitromethane, in Ennis, Texas. Terry Nichols was not
there. And Lori Fortier's description of that transaction will
prove again that she has a powerful imagination, for she has it
taking place even before it could possibly have done so.
The evidence will show that in searching for racing
fuel, McVeigh used the Fortiers' phone on October 7, 1994. And
Terry Nichols was not there.
By late October, 1994, McVeigh's bombing plans were
well advanced. Terry Nichols, who had started this gun show
venture, had reached a parting of the ways with McVeigh. Now
their paths begin to diverge again. McVeigh went his own way,
hooking up with the Fortiers in Kingman, keeping in touch with
Roger -- Roger Moore -- excuse me -- and confiding in the
Fortiers about his plans.
On October 29, 1994, Terry Nichols called a travel
agency to book a flight from the United States to the
Philippines. He was going to join his wife, Marife, and
daughter, Nicole, over there.
Terry Nichols planned to bring Marife and Nicole back
to the United States and settle somewhere in the Midwest to be
in business by and for himself. He had already sold some coins
and things to raise money to make the trip and to help finance
Marife's education; and before going to the Philippines, the
evidence is going to show that Terry Nichols did not just one
thing but many things that a normal person does when going on a
trip to a foreign country where the political situation is
unstable and there is a record of violence.
First, he updated his life insurance.
Second, he had some penny stock, so he changed
ownership provisions so they'd go to his family in the event of
his death. We're not talking about a rich man with lawyers to
draft wills; talking about practical things. He put his
belongings, including his pickup truck, into a storage shed,
rented a big enough one to put his pickup truck. And he had
things spread around in storage sheds in Kansas and Las Vegas;
and some of these sheds were in different names for reasons
you'll hear.
So Terry Nichols wrote a letter to be opened only
after his death, so it couldn't be part of a live conspiracy.
We're going to show you the entire letter, and you'll see
evidence behind every word of it. In the letter he asked
Timothy McVeigh to go to the storage units, take things out,
and see that they were properly distributed to Mr. Nichols'
family in the event of Mr. Nichols' death.
The letter also reminds Mr. McVeigh that the rent on
the storage shed is due on particular days and so -- need to
pay that if he's not going to do it in a timely way.
Then it says something that somebody might say to
someone that you had known in life but would be reading the
words after you're dead. It says, "You're on your own; go for
it," which happens to be one of the most overused expressions
in the language and which was a motivational slogan in an
insurance agency where Terry Nichols worked during the 1980's.
Today, "Go for it" is such a well-worn phrase you can even find
it on boxes of Girl Scout cookies. There is no letters -- no
reference in this letter to bombs or bombings or violence or
anything illegal at all, not a word.
Having settled his affairs, Terry Nichols spent a few
days camping with his son Josh to talk about the trip he was
going to take. Then he went to the Philippines, where he spent
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's with Marife and Nicole.
He planned to return and did return in January of 1995. The
evidence will show that after he did he bought a house for his
family, for Marife, Nicole and Josh, began acquiring a stock of
military surplus items to sell supplementing gun sales, and
then began to establish his own separate business in his own
name centered in Kansas.
What did McVeigh do during those months while Terry
Nichols was there in the Philippines, not in the United States,
gone away with his family? McVeigh enlisted Michael Fortier's
help. He reached out to known adherents to radical right wing
causes, he investigated Ryder truck rentals, and he negotiated
for the purchase of bomb components. Terry Nichols wasn't
there for any of this, but the evidence will tell you who was
and what they did.
On November 30, 1994, a power company employee was
working in the Arizona desert near Kingman. He found a letter
from Timothy McVeigh fastened to a high-voltage tower and
addressed to SC. SC, the evidence will show, is Steve Colbern,
connected to McVeigh through gun dealer Roger Moore and his
paramour Karen Anderson. The letter was an effort to recruit
Colbern, whose identity had been given to McVeigh by Karen
Anderson and Roger Moore.
McVeigh contacted an arms and explosives dealer named
Dave Paulsen. In a series of meetings and telephone
conversations, McVeigh tried to induce Paulsen to sell or trade
dynamite to him. First meeting was December 3 or 4, 1994, in
Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Terry Nichols, of course, wasn't
there.
The evidence suggests a question. If, as the
Government claims, there was a robbery or burglary in October
to get components, what was McVeigh doing seeking dynamite in
December? On December 13, 1994, McVeigh sent a letter to a
friend volunteering to help if she needed anybody, as he put
it, "blown up."
In the middle of December, McVeigh enlisted the
Fortiers once again. Lori Fortier wrapped up some blasting
caps for McVeigh in Christmas paper so McVeigh could transport
them. Tim McVeigh offered Michael Fortier $10,000 to help him
by driving to Kansas to pick up some things and to help in
other ways. Michael Fortier went along with this plan,
although later McVeigh stiffed him for the 10,000. Terry
Nichols was with his family in the Philippines preparing for
Christmas.
McVeigh's Christmas packages were to trade with arms
dealer Dave Paulsen for dynamite. The Fortier driving trip was
to case the Murrah Building. Yes, Michael Fortier and Tim
McVeigh drove together to Oklahoma City to look it over; and
Terry Nichols wasn't there.
From early December, 1994, until January, 1995, Tim
McVeigh called arms and explosive dealer Dave Paulsen's phone
dozens of times. One of those calls was 49 minutes long. When
Tim McVeigh was arrested on April 19, he still had Dave
Paulsen's business card, which he apparently tried to get rid
of by dropping it in the arresting officer's patrol car.
Oh, those blasting caps to trade with Paulsen?
McVeigh told Kevin Nicholas he had bought, not stolen -- bought
them.
Tim McVeigh also reinforced his connection with
Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore. In September 1994, McVeigh
had asked Michael Fortier to forward a letter to "Bob" that
McVeigh had sealed in a plastic baggy to prevent there being
fingerprints. Then in January, 1995, McVeigh sent another
letter to Moore. Roger Moore's reply to that letter, which
refers to a plan, refers to it being secret from satellite
surveillance and other things. Moore's letter to McVeigh
you'll find in evidence, and it is significant.
On January 16, 1995, Terry Nichols returned from the
Philippines. He visited for a few days with his son Josh, made
financial settlement for Josh's support with Lana Padilla, his
former wife, assembled his available resources, met with Tim
McVeigh in Junction City to divide up their wares; and after
that meeting, Terry Nichols never worked with Timothy McVeigh
again. Instead he bought -- shopped for and bought a house in
Herington, Kansas, centrally located for the business he was
going to enter. He shopped for and bought furniture. He began
to buy and sell at gun shows in his own name. He began to
deal, in addition to the arms he had for sale, in military
surplus, going to the Fort Riley, Kansas, sales and auctions to
build an inventory, a business technique that Timothy McVeigh
never used.
And Terry Nichols prepared for his wife, daughter, and
son to come and live in Herington. We'll show you the
telephone calls he made, the places he stayed, and introduce
you to the people he met along the way.
In Kingman, however, at the end of January, McVeigh
was working on his plan. He enlisted the Fortiers to go to gun
shows and sell weapons with him. On January 31, McVeigh
checked into the Belle Arte Motel in Kingman, saying that he
would stay several weeks. The motel management kicked him out,
and he left on February 8. What happened? McVeigh was having
loud gatherings in and near his motel room, including one with
a person who resembles the description of the man with McVeigh
when he rented the Ryder truck months later and when he drove
it to Oklahoma City. Lori Fortier helped Tim McVeigh make a
false driver's license in the name Robert Kling, the name
McVeigh was to use when renting the Ryder truck in Junction
City, Kansas.
Tim McVeigh approached a friend of the Fortiers, James
Rosencrans, to recruit him to do some driving from one
undisclosed location to another. Rosencrans says he refused.
The evidence shows a pattern here. Tim McVeigh didn't
confide his plans to the Fortiers, just like he didn't tell his
boyhood friend Darlak or his other friend Pfaff why he wanted
racing fuels. Except for the Fortiers and some hints to his
sister Jennifer, he used people without leveling with them.
Tim McVeigh left the Belle Arte Motel; but he stayed in
Kingman, some of the time in motels and some of the time living
with the Fortiers at their home. This was his base of
operations.
In March and April, 1995, Tim McVeigh told Michael and
Lori Fortier that Terry Nichols would not have anything to do
with any plan to blow up a building. Now, of course, the
evidence is the Fortiers are unreliable witnesses. You can't
believe anything Tim McVeigh told them unless you find
independent corroboration. So let's look at what McVeigh and
the Fortiers did, not just what they said.
Tim McVeigh questioned Michael Fortier about using
James Rosencrans as a driver. He mentioned the underground
connections of Roger Moore as a potential getaway plan,
corroborated by Rosencrans. The continued contact with Moore
is documented by the exchange of letters.
But all during this time, Terry Nichols continues to
his earn his living at gun shows in the Midwest and to furnish
the home he bought for his family. On March 17, 1995, Marife
and Nicole Nichols arrived in Kansas, and the Nichols family
took another step towards being reunited March 31, 1995. The
following two weeks, in Kansas, Terry Nichols continues to work
and earn his livelihood.
But from Kingman, Arizona, on April 5 -- 14 days to
go -- Timothy McVeigh called a Ryder truck rental outfit in
Lake Havasu, Nevada, and got a quote for a rental. Terry
Nichols at that time was on his way to Michigan, to visit his
family and work at a gun show.
But in Kingman, just minutes after calling the Ryder
Truck Rental place, Timothy McVeigh called the leader of a
violent right wing separatist group in Elohim City, Oklahoma,
and asked to speak to Andreas Strassmeier, a citizen of Germany
known for terrorist activities.
On April 5, McVeigh, using the name Tim Tuttle, called
the National Alliance in Arizona, another arms separatist
organization, and he called them nine times in two days.
April 12, 1995, McVeigh headed east. He lied to
Michael Fortier and told him he was going to Colorado.
When Timothy McVeigh arrived in Kansas, he bought an
old Mercury Marquis from a Firestone dealer in Junction City.
It was the car he was driving when he was arrested. On the
drive from Arizona to Kansas, he may have stopped at the
Oklahoma City fed