The Oklahoma City Bombing Trial Transcripts
Terry Nichols
Monday, December 15, 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 125)
Proceedings before the HONORABLE RICHARD P. MATSCH,
Judge, United States District Court for the District of
Colorado, commencing at 8:45 a.m., on the 15th day of December,
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 8:45 a.m.)
THE COURT: Be seated, please.
Good morning.
MR. TIGAR: Good morning.
THE COURT: You have a matter?
MR. TIGAR: Yes, your Honor.
(At the bench:)
(Bench Conference 125B1 is not herein transcribed by court
order. It is transcribed as a separate sealed transcript.)
(In open court:)
(Jury in at 8:52 a.m.)
THE COURT: Members of the jury, good morning.
JURORS: Good morning.
THE COURT: Again, forgive us the delay, but I had
some matters to discuss with counsel so that we can proceed
without interruption, and we are prepared to do that.
Now, before proceeding, I told you that the evidence
was closed when we recessed last Thursday; but we have now, by
agreement, determined to reopen the evidence for the limited
purpose of receiving four additional exhibits, and this is, as
I say, by agreement between both sides.
Let me explain what these exhibits are. As you will
recall, Richard Wahl testified before this jury on November 20,
1997. Mr. Wahl testified that on the morning of April 22,
1995, he called an FBI hot line to report information on the
Oklahoma City bombing investigation. This hot line had been
established for individuals to call and report information
related to the Oklahoma City bombing. The FBI agent who
received this call in Washington, D.C., completed an FBI
information control sheet. This control sheet -- control sheet
is marked as defendant's -- Defense Exhibit 1891 and has been
admitted as an exhibit in this case.
You will also recall that Agent Christopher Budke
testified that on April 26, 1995, he spoke to Mr. Wahl at a
Burger King in Junction City regarding this information. And
that later that day, he summarized the conversation on another
FBI information control sheet. This information control sheet
was referred to as a lead sheet during Agent Budke's testimony.
This information control sheet has also been admitted as a
defense exhibit. This exhibit is numbered as D1890.
You will also recall that during Agent Budke's
testimony, there was a reference to an interview of Mr. Wahl by
FBI Agent Walter Schaefer. Also admitted as a defense exhibit
is a portion of an FD 302 reflecting the interview of Mr. Wahl
by Agents Schaefer and Francis E. Carey, III, on April 26 and
28, 1995. This exhibit is numbered as D1890A.
Also admitted as a defense exhibit is a portion of
Mr. Wahl's prior testimony before a federal grand jury on July
19, 1995, in which he described the second vehicle he observed
at Geary Lake on April 18, 1995. This exhibit is numbered
D1892.
So these four exhibits have been received as an
addition to the evidence, and with that, the evidence is now
closed. And the exhibits will be handed in and will be a part
of the exhibits that will be given to the jury in the case.
Now, members of the jury, we are with that ready to
proceed with the last two stages or phases of trial, which are
the closing arguments of counsel, following which I will
instruct you in detail with respect to the law that governs in
this case.
Under our procedure on closing arguments, because the
Government has the burden of proof in the case, you will hear
first from counsel for the Government, then counsel for the
defense, then counsel for the Government has an opportunity for
a rebuttal argument.
Following all of the arguments, I will instruct you on
the law. With respect to scheduling today for these arguments,
please remember that it is important that we give full
consideration to the arguments that are made by counsel in the
case, and this is an opportunity for the lawyers on each side
to advocate to you their respective positions as to what the
evidence in the case does or does not show.
In the course of these arguments, there may be
placards and other items shown to you to illustrate the points
being made in argument. Now, these things are different from
any exhibits in the case, of course. They're not received as
exhibits and they're not the same as demonstrative exhibits
which were used in the course of the taking of testimony to
assist in the -- in the explanations being given by witnesses
in their testimony. These exhibits are -- they're not
exhibits -- these placards and charts are for the purpose of
assisting counsel in illustrating the argument. And of course,
you will recognize that the arguments of counsel, just as the
opening statements of counsel, are not a part of the evidence
in the case. They are simply suggestion to you being made by
each side as to how you may analyze the evidence that is before
you.
Also with respect to our recesses now, we'll
anticipate perhaps several additional breaks so that counsel
will have an opportunity to tell us where convenient times to
interrupt the arguments might be, and we will close the noon
hour down to an hour to assist us here. So that will be our
schedule. And we'll proceed, then, and hear from counsel for
the Government. Miss Wilkinson.
CLOSING ARGUMENT
MS. WILKINSON: May it please the Court, counsel,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Good morning.
Looking back on September 1994, most of us would be
hard-pressed to remember what we were doing. People went to
work, people took their kids to day-care centers, and Americans
around the country performed their daily routine. But for
Terry Nichols, September 1994 was the month when his hatred for
the government evolved from thought into action.
Terry Nichols decided, along with Timothy McVeigh, to
construct and then execute a plan to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah
Building and to commit mass murder. In seven months, Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols acquired everything they needed to
bring down the Alfred P. Murrah Building, to kill 168 innocent
men, women, and children, and to shatter every American sense
of what would never happen in our country.
For the past two months, you have heard the evidence
that proves that Terry Nichols plotted and carried out his plan
to attack the Government. His countless actions over many
months show you that he intended death, destruction, and chaos
in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995; and there was.
You have heard from the witnesses. You have seen the
exhibits. And soon, you will hear the law from the Court. And
when you are through, you will have only one question to
answer. There's only one question in this case: Did Terry
Nichols intentionally help Timothy McVeigh bomb the Alfred P.
Murrah Building and kill the people inside of it? We submit to
you the answer is obvious, the answer is yes. This was no
mistake, no coincidence. It wasn't a toss of the coin
conspiracy: Heads, Terry Nichols was in; tails, Terry Nichols
was out.
The evidence is not simply a collection of mere
chances. Rather it was an accumulation of deliberate, ongoing
choices and decisions, choices that Terry Nichols made
intentionally, and knowingly.
As I review the evidence with you this morning, I'd
like you to consider three things: The time, the distance, and
the persistence of Terry Nichols. The time of seven months
that he took to plan and carry out the bombing of the Alfred P.
Murrah Building, the thousands and thousands of miles that he
drove to accomplish these tasks, and the persistence he showed
in overcoming obstacles to secure all of the bomb components
that he and Timothy McVeigh needed.
All of those facts point to only one answer: Terry
Nichols repeatedly made the choices to participate in the plan
to bomb the Murrah Building.
When the arguments are done today and the words in the
courtroom are silent, the only thing that will remain with you
is the evidence. So this morning, I want to spend my time with
you reviewing the evidence, and this review will take some
time. I hope you'll be patient with me as we start with Terry
Nichols' actions back in August and September of 1994 and trace
his steps through April of 1995.
There has been so much evidence in this case; it can
best be described as a avalanche of evidence against Terry
Nichols. The momentum of this evidence has been apparent over
the past two months: The links between Timothy McVeigh and
Terry Nichols, all of the actions that they took to obtain bomb
components, and perhaps most frightening, the elaborate
measures that they took to hide their identities and to conceal
these components until April 19, 1995.
Now, if you were to separate one piece of evidence, it
may tell you about one fact. But in order to see all of the
different facts, you have to look at all of the different
evidence and see the picture that it paints of Terry Nichols'
actions. We ask you to evaluate all of that evidence together.
His Honor has told you from the beginning and has
repeated every day that you must keep an open mind and wait
until you hear and see all of the evidence to make your
decision. The purpose of that instruction is to ensure that
you do not make up your mind before you can evaluate all of the
evidence together. We want you to do that. Do not consider
any one piece of evidence in isolation, but consider it in the
context of all the other proof.
If you do that, you will see that there's not only
evidence beyond any reasonable doubt, but you will see the
momentum of the evidence, the connections that cannot be
explained away again and again by coincidence, or bad luck.
The evidence -- the avalanche of evidence is a mountain of
proof that Terry Nichols cannot dispute.
To help us review what Terry Nichols did over the
seven months preceding the bombing in Oklahoma City, we've
designed a chart that sets forth the major steps that Terry
Nichols took to help Timothy McVeigh acquire the bomb
components, construct the bomb, and detonate it in Oklahoma
City. Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh started in
September 1994 down the road to destruction.
You can see on this chart the major steps as alleged
in the indictment that Terry Nichols took to help Timothy
McVeigh with the bombing, starting in September 1994, when the
Alfred P. Murrah Building was a glass-faced office building in
downtown Oklahoma City, where people from various Government
agencies did the work of the Government, providing services for
the men, women, and children of Oklahoma City.
But on September 30, Terry Nichols purchased one ton
of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Within days, over October 1
and 2, he stole explosives from the Martin Marietta quarry.
And just another step down the road, on October 18, he
drove to McPherson, Kansas, and purchased the second ton of
ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
Within three days, he was on the road again down to
Ennis, Texas, helping Timothy McVeigh purchase three barrels of
nitromethane.
The beginning of November, Terry Nichols, armed with a
shotgun, robbed Roger Moore of all of his property to help fund
the bombing conspiracy.
And then just days before the bombing, Terry Nichols
and Timothy McVeigh got together in central Kansas and made
their final plans.
On April 16, Terry Nichols drove to Oklahoma City and
stashed the getaway car for Timothy McVeigh.
Just 24 hours before this happened on April 19 at 9:02
a.m., in downtown Oklahoma City, Terry Nichols built the bomb.
He constructed it with his own hands and manufactured a
4,000-pound ammonium nitrate bomb to devastate the building and
kill the people inside of it.
Now, any of these steps, ladies and gentlemen, if you
find Mr. Nichols guilty of any one of these actions, knowing
that he intended to bomb the Murrah Building, you can find him
guilty of the crimes. But we submit to you, there is evidence
beyond a reasonable doubt of every one of these actions,
showing that Terry Nichols knowingly, intentionally killed 168
people.
As you can see from this road to destruction, some of
the trips were long, and some of the trips were short. But
Mr. Nichols spent many, many hours and many, many days and
many, many months thinking about what he intended to do. He
had time with Timothy McVeigh to think and plan and plot.
We will use this chart as we go along to keep track of
all the actions Mr. Nichols took in his plot to carry -- his
plot that he carried out to bomb and kill. And as we review
the evidence, I'll put up charts here for you to review all the
different types of proof we have for each one of these
allegations.
You'll see as we review those that Mr. Nichols and
Mr. McVeigh had patterns, their MO that they used to carry out
this crime, patterns of using fake names, of using tele -- of
using the Bridges telephone calling card, of using pay phones
and of covering their tracks so that no one would know what
they were doing for seven months.
As we review this evidence and see the net that it
tightly weaves, I will point out to you the different patterns
of behavior that Mr. Nichols engaged in. You will see the
repetition, the attempts to conceal, and you will conclude that
these are no coincidences. These are the actions of a guilty
man.
Now, Mr. Nichols' counsel has told us that it is wrong
to judge someone by the literature they had in their house or
by the words they may have spoken. So how does one judge
someone? By their actions. As we review the evidence and see
all the accumulation of actions Terry Nichols took on this road
to destruction, there will be no doubt that he is guilty
because of the actions that he took. It is his own deeds that
will tell you everything that you need to know about his role
in the crime.
Let's start back at the very beginning, back in August
and September of 1994 when Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh
were together in central Kansas. You know from Michael Fortier
that Timothy McVeigh sent a letter to him, telling him that
Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh had agreed to take action
against the Government. How do you know that that's true? You
know that Timothy McVeigh arrived in Kansas in August of 1994.
And you know Marife Nichols, Mr. Nichols' wife, left Kansas in
September of 1994 and didn't return to the United States until
March 17, 1995, just a month before the bombing.
So back in the fall of 1994, Terry Nichols was free to
be with Timothy McVeigh for those crucial weeks when they
obtained most of the bomb components. Marife Nichols had left,
and Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh began to immediately
carry out their deadly plan.
The first thing they did was rent a storage shed in
Herington, Kansas. You can see that on Government Exhibit 88,
which shows the rental agreement that Timothy McVeigh signed.
Excuse me. Thank you.
You may be able to see it.
Well, if you could see it -- and you'll see it when
you go back into the jury room -- Government Exhibit 88 is the
rental agreement between Timothy McVeigh and the Herington
storage unit. But it's not in his true name; it's in the name
of Shawn Rivers, and it was rented on September 22, 1994, and
eventually paid in cash so that the unit was available to
Mr. McVeigh and to Mr. Nichols through April of 1995.
Just that very first action tells you something about
what Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh planned back in
September. Back in the fall of 1995, they knew that they were
going to use that storage shed to store the bomb components
that they would accumulate but not use until April 19, 1995.
So let there be no doubt about it, even back in the fall of
1995 (sic), they knew what their objective was: They knew that
they wanted to attack the government and bomb the Murrah
Building in downtown Oklahoma City in the fall of 1994.
You also know that this was their mind-set, because
you heard a defense witness, Steven Hodge, tell you about
Timothy McVeigh and what he was thinking back in the summer of
1994. Mr. Hodge, Timothy McVeigh's best friend in Lockport,
New York, told you that McVeigh was trying to persuade him to
take -- that taking violent action against the Government was
justified. Timothy McVeigh took 23 pages to try and convince
Steven Hodge that violent action was warranted and warned him
that blood would flow in the streets.
But when Steve Hodge said he did not agree that
violence was warranted, Timothy McVeigh rejected him. On July
14, 1994, Timothy -- after that, Timothy McVeigh never
contacted Steve Hodge again. After being friends since
childhood, after exchanging at least 66 letters, Timothy
McVeigh turned his back on his friend and went to central
Kansas to be with Terry Nichols, someone who did share his
views and someone who was willing to act on those views.
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were together.
On September 30, the first day depicted on "The Road
To Destruction," Terry Nichols made a choice. He made a choice
to get on the road with Timothy McVeigh and leave behind a good
job. It was a crossroads for Mr. Nichols. He had been
employed by Mr. Donahue, who many of you remember was the
farmer from Marion, Kansas. He had been receiving a good
salary. But instead of continuing to work for Mr. Donahue, who
told you that he would like -- he would have liked to have
Mr. Nichols as a worker as long as Mr. Nichols was willing to
stay, Terry Nichols made a different choice. He chose on
September 30, to begin gathering bomb components for the deadly
destructive device that he and Timothy McVeigh knew would kill
and destroy the Murrah Building. Leaving behind an honest job
and hard work, Terry Nichols started down the road to the
biggest terrorist act in the history of our country.
Instead of working at an honest job and truly building
a life, Terry Nichols chose to quit his job, send his wife and
child halfway around the world, and he joined up with Timothy
McVeigh.
You also heard evidence about what Mr. Nichols' state
of mind was at that time. Mr. Donahue told you that at the
time that Mr. Nichols decided to leave his employment, he
started talking about bombs, Waco, and overthrowing the
government. That was at the same time that Timothy McVeigh was
in Kansas with Terry Nichols. Terry Nichols told Mr. Donahue
that he believed it was justified to overthrow the government,
and he justified it by quoting Thomas Jefferson. That was a
quote that you heard or you saw in a different context. The
quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to
time with the blood of patriots and tyrants," was the same
quote that Timothy McVeigh had on his shirt after he was
arrested in Oklahoma on April 19, 1995.
Mr. Nichols used Thomas Jefferson to justify violent
action. Well, Thomas Jefferson never bombed a day-care center.
There is no justification for what Terry Nichols and
Timothy McVeigh did. But on September 30, Terry Nichols made a
choice, and he purchased one ton of ammonium nitrate. On that
day, he wasn't building a life. He was building a bomb and he
was building an alibi. He used a fake name on September 30,
1994, to purchase that ton of ammonium nitrate; and for the
next seven months, as he and Timothy McVeigh proceeded down the
road to destruction, at every point, when Terry Nichols
obtained bomb components, stole bomb components, robbed Roger
Moore and plotted the final stages of the bombing, he used
false statements and fake names to provide an alibi for his
participation in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Now, the first question we need to answer about Terry
Nichols and the purchase of the ammonium nitrate fertilizer on
September 30 is: Who was Mike Havens? We submit to you that
Terry Nichols was Mike Havens, and we have presented lots of
different types of proof to show you why.
As you can see here, this is just a list of all the
different types of proof that show you why Terry Nichols was
Mike Havens on September 30. Let's start at the top. And the
first thing we have is the actual purchase of 2,000 pounds of
ammonium nitrate fertilizer by Mike Havens.
You saw this receipt many times in evidence,
Government's Exhibit 62, which shows the purchase on
September 30, 1994, in the name of Mike Havens, for 40 bags of
50 -- 40 50-pound bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer with a
tax of $12.74 and a total of $228.74. This was the same
receipt you saw Mr. Ryan show Miss Marife Nichols that has the
two coin impressions, and it was found in Terry Nichols' house.
We know that Terry Nichols had the opportunity to be
Mike Havens on September 30 because Mr. Donahue told you that
he left work early that day. That was supposed to be his last
day at work, Friday, September 30; but in an unusual turn of
events, he asked Mr. Donahue to leave early. He left early
enough to make that purchase and to return back to the farm
where Mr. Donahue saw him later that evening around 7:00 and
noticed for the first time that that white camper shell was on
top of his dark blue truck.
You have seen Government's Exhibit 51, which is the
photograph of Mr. Nichols' truck. That is the truck
Mr. Donahue saw on September 30, the white camper top, and the
blue truck that Mr. Nichols used to purchase the am -- the one
ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
So so far we have a purchase for 2,000 pounds, a false
name of Mike Havens, and a large cash purchase. You heard from
Mr. Nattier who told you that was a very unusual transaction
for the Mid-Kansas Co-op, because normally, customers who
purchase that amount of fertilizer, purchased it from an
account. It was, in fact, the largest transaction in cash at
the Mid-Kansas Co-op in McPherson that year.
Let's go to the most obvious fact, the next one on the
list, that the Mike Havens receipt, the one I just showed,
Government's Exhibit 62, was found in Terry Nichols' kitchen.
It was found in his kitchen three days after the bombing in a
house that his wife told you they had just moved into in March
of 1995. Mrs. Nichols also told you that Timothy McVeigh had
never been in that house, as far as she knew, and that all of
those coins that were in the kitchen cabinet where this receipt
was found belonged to Terry Nichols. In fact, she identified
the two coins that were found with the receipt and told you
that those coins were Terry Nichols'.
Mr. Nichols also told the FBI that Timothy McVeigh had
never been to his house and that he hadn't had personal contact
with Timothy McVeigh in the months prior to the bombing. The
only conclusion, then, ladies and gentlemen, is that Terry
Nichols made that purchase on September 30. The Havens receipt
was found in Terry Nichols' kitchen. The one thing that Terry
Nichols should have learned in the real estate business was
location, location, location.
The next reason that you know that Terry Nichols is
Mike Havens is because he used the name "Havens" on two
different occasions. In Government's Exhibit 83, you can see
the Starlite registration that Mr. Havens used. Terry Havens.
You can see the address, Route 2, Box 28, in Hillsboro, Kansas,
another fake address used by Mr. Nichols on several different
occasions. You know that he's Terry Nich -- Terry Havens
because he doesn't dispute it. That's his handwriting, as we
heard. And this registration occurred on October 16, 1994.
That's just two days before the second purchase of ammonium
nitrate fertilizer on October 18, 1994. You also know that
there were fingerprints found on the Terry Havens Starlite
registration card -- another good reason for Mr. Nichols to
admit that it was his handwriting.
We saw Mr. Nichols use that name "Havens" one other
time: when he checked in at the Buckaroo Motel under the name
"Joe Havens" on October 25, and again, notice the information
that's on this receipt: The name "Havens," the same false
address, Route 2, Box 28, Hillsboro, Kansas. And then look
down at the bottom. Gives you the number of the party, two;
the make of the car, the pickup; and the license plate, WX1640.
As you know from seeing the photograph of the license plate in
Nichols' house, you can see right here, WX1460 was his Michigan
license plate at that time. He transposed the two numbers, the
4 and the 6, but this is his license plate that he used on his
dark blue pickup truck with a light camper shell in the fall of
1994.
So so far, we have 2,000-pound purchase and a fake
name, we have that name being used by Mr. Nichols on two
different occasions, and we have the same fake address and
license plate being used on those registration cards.
But that's not all. We also have the identification
of Mr. Nichols' truck at the Mid-Kansas Co-op on September 30.
You heard from two of the employees from Mid-Kansas Co-op who
told you that they had worked on the transaction on
September 30 and one who had worked on the transaction on
October 18, 1994. They both recalled the transaction was for
2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, and Mr. Schlender recalls
that Havens -- the Mike Havens who made this purchase -- had a
dark-colored pickup truck with a light-colored camper shell.
That was the same day that Terry Nichols left work early.
You also heard that during that transaction, the
customer did not want the tax exemption, despite the fact that
he said that he was a farmer and he was going to use the
ammonium nitrate for his wheat crop. Now, here's where you can
use your common sense. Who spends money that they don't have
to? What farmer who is going to use the ammonium nitrate for
his crop wouldn't take the tax exemption? Well, we know why
Terry Nichols didn't want the tax exemption: Because it would
have created a paper trail, and Terry Nichols was very careful
from the very beginning to try and cover his tracks. So
instead of saving the money, the $12.74 that every farmer would
want to save by filling out the tax exemption paperwork, Terry
Nichols chose to pay that money and hide his true identity.
I've already told you that the coins and the receipt
were identified by Marife Nichols. So there can be no
suggestion from the evidence that you've heard that Timothy
McVeigh took that receipt, wrapped it around Terry Nichols'
coins, and put it in his house. There is no evidence that
supports that theory.
Now, you've heard descriptions of Mike Havens from
Mr. Schlender and Mr. Showalter, one who had done the
transaction on September 30, and one who recalls the
transaction from October 18. Both described the person
similarly, but what's most obvious is both say it was not
Timothy McVeigh. Mr. Schlender said it was a white male who
was 35 to 40 years old, 5' 8" to 6 feet tall, with a slight
build, light brown hair, but not cut in a crew cut, and it was
not McVeigh. He also told you that the person who made the
purchase on September 30 was the same person who made the
purchase on October 18.
Mr. Showalter said he also recalled that Mr. Havens
was a white male in his late 30's and early 40s, 5' 9" to 5'
10", dark brown hair and an average build. He, too, told you
that it was not Timothy McVeigh.
It is for all these reasons, ladies and gentlemen, all
the reasons listed on this one chart, that you can conclude
beyond a reasonable doubt that Terry Nichols was Mike Havens on
September 30, 1994, and that he purchased 2,000 pounds of
ammonium nitrate.
The next step that Terry Nichols took on the road to
destruction occurred almost immediately thereafter. After
loading the ammonium nitrate into the storage shed, Mr. Nichols
returned to his home and on October 1, we know he wasn't
working. We know he wasn't working because Mr. Donahue told us
that his last day of work was the Friday, September 30. So he
and Timothy McVeigh were in Marion, Kansas, on October 1 and 2.
Mr. Donahue told you that when he went over to check to see if
Terry Nichols had left that weekend, Mr. Nichols' truck was
still there. So once again, we know that Terry Nichols had the
opportunity to rob the Martin Marietta quarry which was located
just down the street.
And here are the reasons why you know Terry Nichols
robbed the quarry. Again, let's start with the obvious one.
The quarry was just down the road from the ranch where
Mr. Nichols worked. You heard that to go to the bank where
Mr. Nichols cashed his check every two weeks, he had to drive
right by the quarry. He, again, had the opportunity, and he
had the tools.
We know that the quarry was burglarized. There's no
debate about that. You heard from Mr. Radtke who described
what's depicted here in Government Exhibit 123, the quarry
magazines that were held shut by the padlocks which are
underneath these small protective areas in metal here so that
someone who wanted to drill those locks would have to reach up
with some kind of cordless drill and reach under that
protective area to drill the padlocks.
You heard from Mr. Radtke, who was the blaster who
worked at the Martin Marietta quarry every day; and he told you
that on September 28, he had checked those magazines to make
sure that they were secure. When he came back the next time to
check them on October 3, after the weekend, he realized that
some of the magazines had been broken into, and that explosives
had been stolen. You heard that electric blasting caps had
been stolen, and dozens of the non-electric, Primadet, 60-foot,
eight-second delay blasting caps with that orange shock tube
had been taken. And finally, you heard and saw what's depicted
here in Government's Exhibit 122, that cases of the sausages of
Tovex, a high explosive, were also missing that day. These
explosives were the explosives that Terry Nichols and Timothy
McVeigh needed to detonate the ammonium nitrate that they had
already purchased.
The next day, you heard Mr. Radtke tell you that he
also checked the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil trailer where
they had those big heavy sacks of premixed ANFO, and he noticed
that one of locks there had been partially drilled. He took
that lock and turned it over to law enforcement. And you saw
that lock here in court.
You know that up until the bombing in Oklahoma City,
the robbery was not solved. But there is no question that the
quarry was robbed. So for you the question is: Who did it?
We know that Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh had those
explosives because you heard that they were stored in Kingman,
Arizona, in Unit E10. In Government's Exhibit 177, Michael
Fortier picked out for you E10, which is right here in the
middle, and told you that he had seen Timothy McVeigh and Terry
Nichols inside that storage shed. The storage shed itself was
rented on October 4. That date's no coincidence. That's the
date that follows the robbery in Marion, Kansas. Mr. McVeigh
rented that storage shed under his true name, because he had to
show identification, and he and Terry Nichols stored the
explosives there.
But how do you know that what Mr. Fortier told you was
true? How do you know that Terry Nichols was actually in the
storage shed with the explosives? Well, first of all, we found
Primadet in Kingman that had Mr. Nichols' fingerprint on it.
There was the Primadet that was found in Mr. Nichols' house,
Government's Exhibit 140, the exact same kind of Primadet that
was stolen from the quarry and the exact same kind of Primadet
that was found in Kingman, Arizona. Mr. Nichols had that
Primadet in that house, and he had his fingerprint on the
Primadet in Kingman.
That is the type of corroboration that we want to show
you each time we ask you to believe Michael Fortier. We're not
asking you to rely on his testimony alone, but we're asking you
to look for other facts that support what he said.
The fingerprint found on the Primadet in Kingman tells
you that Mr. Nichols was there, just as Mr. Fortier told you,
handling the high explosives.
You also heard that he came out in early October and
had parked his car in front of the storage shed and was inside,
moving other items -- I believe it was a tire that he was
moving at that time -- in and out of the storage shed. So
clearly, he had access to that shed where all of those
explosives were.
At that same time, Timothy McVeigh showed Michael
Fortier a box marked "explosives" where they contained sausages
of explosives, which we call Tovex. That box that was marked
"explosives" with the yellow diamond looked exactly like the
box that Mr. Radtke described for you that was stolen from the
quarry back over the weekend of October 1 and 2.
Now, I asked you at the beginning when we consider
this evidence to consider the distance that Mr. Nichols went to
carry out this crime. Just in this trip alone, ladies and
gentlemen, he drove over 1100 miles and crossed four state
lines to store the explosives in Kingman.
Now, ask yourselves, why would he get in his car and
drive that car far, all the way from Marion, Kansas, at a time
when he had no job, to store explosives with Timothy McVeigh?
The answer is simple: He and Timothy McVeigh had stolen the
explosives from the Marion quarry, and they wanted to store
them as far away from the crime scene as they possibly could.
They wanted to make sure that law enforcement didn't know what
they were doing as they were accumulating bomb components
because if anyone stopped them at any step, they would never
get to their final point of destruction on April 19, 1995.
Unfortunately, Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh were
very successful at covering their tracks and no one had any
idea before the bombing that they had robbed the quarry.
Now, in case you need any other evidence about why
Terry Nichols robbed the quarry, you also found -- or you also
heard that a Makita drill, cordless Makita drill, was found in
his house after the bombing. That cordless drill had a set of
bits, and that bit was used and analyzed and compared to the
padlock.
Now, before we get into the analysis that was done --
and you can see the drill here on Government's Exhibit 2011 --
look at the drill itself. It is a Makita cordless drill.
Michael Fortier told you that he had heard from Timothy McVeigh
that Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh had robbed the quarry.
He also told you that a Makita drill had been used. Now, how
would he have known that? How would he have known that if that
weren't true? When we went to Mr. Nichols' house, that's
exactly what we found; we found a cordless Makita drill that
could be used to reach under those padlocks and drill the lock.
Again, corroboration for what Mr. Fortier told you. After the
lock and drill bit were turned over to law enforcement, two
different tool mark examiners compared the marks made by the
drill bit, the quarter-inch drill bit, to the padlock that had
been recovered from the quarry. And you heard that there were
similarities between both of those items. Mr. Krivosta from
the New York Suffolk County laboratory told you that those were
picture-perfect similarities. But you don't need to rely on
those folks. You can make the comparison yourself. You can
look at those marks and see that they match. You can see that
the drill bit found in Mr. Nichols' house was used to drill the
padlock at the Marion quarry.
Now, all of this evidence shows you that Terry Nichols
and Timothy McVeigh robbed the quarry. But you also heard part
of the story from Michael Fortier, and he told that he had seen
the explosives, as I said, in the shed, and he said that he had
heard the story from Mr. McVeigh.
Defense counsel has suggested to you that you can't
believe Michael Fortier. But he suggests to you that you can
only disbelieve him on certain counts. That is, he wants you
to use selective believability. He wants you to believe that
Timothy McVeigh did the bombing, and that Timothy McVeigh
carried out all the activities to support it. But Terry
Nichols wants to try and convince you that Michael Fortier was
lying when he says Terry Nichols was involved with the crime.
Michael Fortier was right about Timothy McVeigh, but supposedly
wrong about Terry Nichols. Everything that Michael Fortier has
told you about the bombing has been corroborated. And to
believe the theory that Mr. Nichols wants you to believe, you
have to believe that Michael Fortier remembers all the details
about Timothy McVeigh correctly, but just happens to remember
all the details about Terry Nichols incorrectly.
That can't be true. We know that the basic things
that Mr. Fortier told Timothy -- or that Timothy McVeigh told
Michael Fortier are true. He told them that they were going to
bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City. They did that.
They told you that they were going to obtain components to mix
that bomb and use the site of Geary Lake. They told you that
they were going to attack the federal government to retaliate
for Waco. And Mr. McVeigh told Michael Fortier that they were
going to mix racing fuel and ammonium nitrate in 55-gallon
plastic barrels and detonate the mixture with the explosives
they stole at the quarry. They did that.
That in fact, the bombing itself, ladies and
gentlemen, is the most tragic corroboration of what Mr. Fortier
told you.
Michael Fortier also told you that Timothy McVeigh had
told him about the plan to bomb the building and the plan to
get away. That plan included Terry Nichols. The two options
that they were considering was whether they would drive to
Oklahoma City several days before the bombing, leave
Mr. McVeigh's car there, and drive back to central Kansas so
that Timothy McVeigh would have a getaway vehicle when he
actually detonated the bomb in front of the building.
The other plan was that Mr. Nichols would be waiting
in a car nearby and drive Mr. McVeigh away from the scene after
the bombing. Well, we know that Mr. McVeigh's car was parked
in the area where Mr. Fortier told you -- that is; right near
the YMCA building -- because you saw the key. You saw the key
that was recovered from the crime scene that was found in that
alleyway; right around the YMCA building on the way to the
parking lot.
Timothy McVeigh had said that he wanted to make sure
there was a building between him and the blast, and that's what
he did. He left the truck in front of the Murrah Building,
walked around the YMCA, dropped the key, and went to his parked
vehicle right around the corner.
On April 16, 1995, Terry Nichols helped Timothy
McVeigh plant that getaway car just the way Michael Fortier
told you.
Let's go back for a moment, if we could, to the other
things that you heard from Michael Fortier about the stolen
explosives. We have other ways of proving that Terry Nichols
was in Arizona at the time those explosives were stored and at
the time Michael Fortier saw him. Let's take a look at
Government's Exhibit 1888 which are the phone records for
October 6. And as you can see here, it shows that at 5:30 in
the afternoon, there was a call from Kingman, Arizona, to Lana
Padilla's house in Las Vegas. And shortly after that, another
call was made from that same pay phone to Lana Padilla's house
for 5 minutes and 27 seconds.
She told you -- Miss Padilla told you that she had
never spoken to Mr. McVeigh for any length of time. So you
know these calls are from Terry Nichols to his ex-wife and son
in Las Vegas, Nevada. Another piece of evidence that shows you
that Terry Nichols was in Arizona in early October, 1994.
You also know that in late October, 1994, Terry
Nichols returned to Kingman, Arizona, to help Timothy McVeigh
clear out the explosives and bring them back to Kansas.
Michael Fortier told you that Terry -- Timothy McVeigh had been
at his house at the end of October and that he was waiting for
Terry Nichols. Timothy McVeigh got tired of waiting. He told
Fortier to give Terry Nichols the message to pick up the stuff
and meet him in New Mexico. When Fortier asked him what stuff
he was talking about, McVeigh said that Terry Nichols would
know.
McVeigh was right. When Terry Nichols showed up just
20 minutes later, Fortier gave Timothy -- gave Terry Nichols
the message, and Terry Nichols didn't ask any questions. He
just nodded his head and went on. He didn't ask what stuff
McVeigh was talking about, he didn't ask where in New Mexico he
was supposed to meet Timothy McVeigh. He just nodded.
And if we look at the phone records for that time, on
October 29 on Government's Exhibit 1888, we can see evidence,
again, that Terry Nichols came to Kingman, Arizona. Here on
October 29, there's a call at 9:52 a.m. from Michael Fortier's
house to Lana Padilla, and within minutes that morning, there's
a call from a pay phone, a phone of choice for Terry Nichols,
to Michael Fortier's house returning that call for 4 minutes
and 46 seconds. It is on that day that Terry Nichols then left
Kingman, Arizona -- excuse me, left Las Vegas, Nevada, and came
to Kingman, Arizona, to pick up the explosives and to meet
Mr. McVeigh in New Mexico.
We know Mr. McVeigh was in New Mexico that day because
he has a hotel or motel registration from Motel 76. Here on
Government's Exhibit 227 you can see Timothy McVeigh checked in
at the Motel 76 in Albuquerque on October 31, 1994, the hotel
where Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh met after they
collected some of the explosives out of the Unit 10 in Kingman.
Michael Fortier told you one other thing about the
explosives. He told you that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols
wanted to make sure that they were going to get it right on
April 19, 1995, so they conducted a small test blast. You
recall that Mr. Fortier saw that jug of ammonium nitrate and
fuel oil and a sausage explosive that Terry Nichols and Timothy
McVeigh were going to use out in the desert to conduct their
test. They asked Mr. Fortier whether he wanted to accompany
them, and he said no. But at that time, when Michael Fortier
was listening to Terry -- to Timothy McVeigh tell him about the
test blast, Terry Nichols was standing just six inches away.
He was there when Michael Fortier was touching that sausage of
Tovex, and he was there when Timothy McVeigh was talking about
the test. He was there with his dark-colored truck and a light
camper shell.
Terry Nichols went with Timothy McVeigh to do the test
blast. Michael Fortier did not.
It is for all those reasons, ladies and gentlemen:
The quarry near Mr. Nichols' house, the proximity of the
location; the Primadet found in his house; the Primadet found
in Kingman with his fingerprint on it; the explosives locker
padlock that was drilled out that has similarities to
Mr. Nichols' drill and drill bit; and the stories from Michael
Fortier about Mr. Nichols' presence in Arizona at the times
when the explosives were being handled that all tell you that
Terry Nichols stole explosives from the quarry in October of
1994.
Within just a couple of days of making the choice, the
choice to go down the pathway to destruction, Terry Nichols had
already purchased a ton of ammonium nitrate, he had already
chosen to rob a quarry, and he had already driven all the way
to Kingman, Arizona, to store those explosives. He had lots of
time on the road to think about what he was doing. And he
chose to take the next step. He chose on October 18 to
purchase the second ton of fertilizer. He chose to make sure
that he built a big bomb, as Linda Jones said, a very big bomb.
So he went back to the Mid-Kansas Co-op, and what did
he do? He purchased on October 18, 2,000 pounds in the same
name: Mike Havens.
Terry Nichols was Mike Havens on October 18, 1994. He
was Mike Havens because he used the same name, Havens, that he
had used during that same time period. Folks who handled the
transaction told you it was the same man. We have the same
name. It was for the same amount, and it was from the same
store. All of the facts exactly like the transaction on
September 30.
But by this time, Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh
had accumulated a rather large amount of bomb components and
they needed another storage shed, another place to store their
bomb components. So just one day before the purchase of
ammonium nitrate on October 17, Terry Nichols went to Council
Grove, and you can see it here on your monitor, how he rented
this storage shed, Unit 40, under a fake name. He used the
name "Joe Kyle" to rent No. 40 storage shed just 24 hours
before he was about to purchase the second ton of ammonium
nitrate.
Why did Terry Nichols choose to use the name "Joe
Kyle"? Well, we know that every time he wanted to do something
to assist the bombing conspiracy, he used a fake name. He had
already used Mike Havens for the purchase, so he chose the name
"Joe Kyle," the same name that he had used on several other
occasions. We know it's his name because he admits that it's
his name. He told the FBI that he had used the name "Joe
Kyle." He used the name "Joe Kyle" on several different
occasions, and he used it to hide his true identity from the
folks at the storage unit at Boots U-Store-It to rent storage
shed No. 40.
But you heard in opening statement counsel suggest to
you that Mr. Nichols had some creditor problems and perhaps
that's why he had to buy the Daryl Bridges phone card in a fake
name and why he would rent storage sheds in a fake name. Well,
throughout this trial, there's been no evidence that
Mr. Nichols had any credit problems. But even if he did, why
would you rent a storage shed in a fake name to hide from
creditors? First of all, creditors don't go around searching
storage sheds to look for people's belongings.
But Mr. Nichols didn't have any belongings to store on
October 18. Nothing had happened at that time for him to need
a place to store anything but bomb components. He had moved
out of his house on October 1 or 2. So any items that he had
to store, he had to store in Mr. McVeigh's storage unit in
Herington, the storage shed under the name of Shawn Rivers. He
had to have a place to put his things because we know after
October 2, he didn't have a house. He didn't have a home. His
family was gone. He was on the road and he was living in
motels. So if he had any large items to store, he would have
had to store them in the Herington storage shed back at the
beginning of October 1. So why, then, did he use -- need
Council Grove No. 40 on October 17? We submit to you that he
needed it because he was getting ready to purchase the second
ton of ammonium nitrate.
During the case, you saw a lot of phone records, and
you heard a lot about the Daryl Bridges phone card. Those
phone records are important because they show you many times
where Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh were and what they were
trying to do. In opening statement, we presented those phone
records to you and counsel suggested that there were some
problems with them. But over the trial, defense counsel used
those phone records just the way the Government did. Indeed,
during the defense case, you heard one of the counsel say, "The
phone records speak for themselves." We submit to you: They
do.
The phone records in this case show you why Terry
Nichols is the purchaser of the 2,000 pounds of ammonium
nitrate in the name of Mike Havens on October 18. If you look
at the phone records for that day, you can see where Terry
Nichols was. You might recall that the purchase of ammonium
nitrate was somewhere between 12 and 1:30 that day back in
McPherson, Kansas. Mr. Schlender told you that it was sometime
around the noon hour. You can see that there are a series of
phone calls in Council Grove; right near the Council Grove
storage shed, several hours after that purchase. That gave
Terry Nichols time to purchase the ammonium nitrate, to put it
in the storage shed, and go to the phone -- excuse me, the pay
phone to make these phone calls.
And look at what the series shows. They start at 3:32
in the afternoon. And there's one call after another -- one,
two, three, four, five, six calls, many to companies that
provide barrels. You know from this series of calls that the
person making these telephone calls on the Bridges card was
Terry Nichols, and you know that because you can see this last
call highlighted here from the Coastal Mart pay phone, the same
phone being used for all these previous calls, to Equity
Standard. That's the coin shop that Mr. Nichols was at the
following morning, on October 19.
Here's the videotape that you saw of Mr. Nichols,
Government's Exhibit 238B, and see the highlighted portion up
in the left-hand portion: It says 10-19, 1994. Mr. Nichols
called the coin shop the day before from Council Grove and
showed up that morning at 10:11 a.m. And there he is; right
there in the -- inside the blue circle. You heard from Kevin
(sic) Dunlap that he recalls that transaction with Mr. Nichols.
He recalls it because he bought coins from him that day. Those
coins, ladies and gentlemen, that he purchased -- that he
turned in for cash -- cash we submit was used just two days
later on October 21 to purchase the nitromethane.
But Mr. Nichols was there that morning, had the
transaction with Mr. Dunlap, and left immediately to start
making calls for barrels at a phone booth right down the street
from the coin shop.
Here you can see on this overhead map or photograph --
excuse me -- the coin shop up here in the center where
Mr. Nichols was that morning and the Denny's where the pay
phone was where the calls began around 10:24 a.m.
You can see those calls on Government's Exhibit 1888.
And these are the calls that begin right after Mr. Nichols
leaves the coin shop, gets his cash, and goes down the street
to the Denny's. Look at the time: Starts at 10:24 from
Denny's to Liberty Lobby, where Mr. Nichols often called in to
check his balance for the Bridges card. And then there's a
series of calls, 10:36, 10:49, and so on, down to 11:22, where
he tried repeatedly to contact barrel companies to obtain the
containers he needed for the ammonium nitrate he had just
purchased.
It is with this series of calls, ladies and gentlemen,
that you can see exactly where Mr. Nichols was. He rented the
storage shed in Council Grove on the 17th. He went to the
Mid-Kansas Co-op on the 18th, around noon, and purchased the
second ton of ammonium nitrate. He stored it in the storage
shed in Council Grove. He made phone calls that afternoon to
the barrel company and to the coin shop, and then he showed up
at the coin shop that next morning and continued his calls to
the barrel companies as soon as he'd received his cash.
You know that eventually Mr. Nichols did obtain
barrels, because we found four plastic barrels in his house.
These are the barrels in Government's Exhibit 1774, No. 4; and
they show the four barrels stacked up in Mr. Nichols' garage.
The one thing you may recall is that Agent Jasnowski
told you there were no trash in these barrels. The barrels
were empty except for the one barrel which contained Roger
Moore's safe-deposit box keys. Mr. Nichols wasn't using these
barrels for trash. He was using these barrels for containers
for the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil that he and Mr. McVeigh
planned -- used to bomb the Murrah Building on April 19.
You know that these are similar barrels because you
heard that the plastic fragments that were recovered at the
scene were analyzed by Tony Tikuisis, the chemist, and that
those fragments were Smurfit barrels.
You heard an instruction from the Court that you could
not rely on the phone survey that Mr. Udell did. But you can
rely on the chemical analysis that Mr. Tikuisis did when he
told you that those fragments were Smurfit plastic. He also
told you that two of the barrels found in Mr. Nichols' house
were Smurfit plastic. The barrels in Nichols' house matched
the fragments at the crime scene.
And you can be sure if Terry Nichols knew that there
was some other manufacturer who had used a different -- used
the same recipe that Smurfit used, you would have heard from
that witness. Now, Mr. Nichols has the right to remain
absolutely silent. He has the right to present no witnesses.
The burden is on the Government to prove to you beyond a
reasonable doubt that Terry Nichols is guilty of the crime.
But Mr. Nichols chose to present witnesses; and because he
chose, you can analyze what evidence he presented and what
evidence he did not. We did not hear evidence of any other
manufacturer who used the same recipe that Smurfit used to
manufacture these barrels. So you can conclude that the
Smurfit plastic at the crime scene matched the Smurfit barrels
found in Mr. Nichols' house.
It is all of these facts that suggest to you that on
the third step on the road to destruction, Terry Nichols
knowingly and intentionally bought another ton of ammonium
nitrate for the bomb that and Timothy McVeigh planned to use at
the Murrah Building.
Thus far, within three weeks, we have Terry Nichols'
purchasing 2 tons of ammonium nitrate and stealing explosives
that he could use to detonate the ammonium nitrate. We have
him storing those explosives, and we have him on the road with
Timothy McVeigh, on the road to destruction.
After Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols collected
those components, they knew that they needed something else.
They knew that they needed a fuel to mix with the ammonium
nitrate so that it would actually explode in front of the
Murrah Building.
So within two days of purchasing the ammonium nitrate,
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols got on the road again and
drove all the way to Ennis, Texas. You know that Terry Nichols
and Timothy McVeigh wanted to obtain fuels, because there's
numerous calls on the Bridges cards showing their attempts to
try and find fuel. You know that back in early -- or in mid
September of 1994, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols made calls
on the Bridges card to obtain that fuel. David Darlak came in
and told you -- and Glynn Tipton -- that Timothy McVeigh had
called them trying to find racing fuels.
If you review those calls, you'll see that there were
10 calls to racing companies and 18 calls to chemical
companies, all in search of fuel for their bomb. These
numbers, again, show you the persistence of Terry Nichols and
Timothy McVeigh in trying to obtain the components that they
needed.
Well, their persistence paid off on October 21, when
they bought three barrels of nitromethane. You know where they
were the day before on October 20 by looking at this phone
record, Government's Exhibit 1888, from October 20. You can
see that in the morning, at 10:01 a.m., they were back in
Junction City, and they were calling Coogle Trucking, a company
that Mr. Chambers told you sells racing fuel. That was the
last call for racing fuel on these records, because after they
left Junction City and drove to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, and
Ennis, Texas, they obtained the racing fuel they had been
seeking for so many weeks, and there was never a phone call
again for racing fuel.
Once again, the phone call here at Junction City at
10:01 shows you where Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were
that morning. At that time, Terry Nichols didn't have a job,
he didn't have a home, and he didn't have a family with him.
So he got on the road and drove to the Amish Inn, Pauls Valley,
Oklahoma. We know he stayed there because you heard from
Mr. Patel, who told you that someone named "Joe Kyle" checked
in on October 20 for one night. Joe Kyle is that same name
that Mr. Nichols uses every time he's engaging in criminal
activity on behalf of the bombing plot, and the same address
that he uses every time: Route 2, Box 28, Hillsboro. And once
again, he switched the license plate: XW1640, Michigan, a
plate that he had used over and over.
This is a map you saw earlier during the testimony
which shows Junction City, Kansas, up here, Geary Lake,
Herington, Marion, goes down through Arkansas City, get on 35
right here, drive straight through Oklahoma City and down to
Pauls Valley. That's what Terry Nichols did on the morning of
October 20. He drove from Junction City with Timothy McVeigh
through Oklahoma City and down to Pauls Valley; Pauls Valley,
which is just three to three-and-a-half hours from Ennis,
Texas, where he and Timothy McVeigh went the next day to
purchase the three barrels of nitromethane.
On this road to destruction, Terry Nichols took a long
drive from Junction City, to Ennis, Texas, to obtain the fuels
that he and Timothy McVeigh wanted.
Now, why would Terry Nichols use the false name of Joe
Kyle if he was just going to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, for some
other reason? Well, we know he wasn't going to a gun show.
You didn't hear any evidence of that. You know he wasn't going
to work, because he didn't have a job. We know he wasn't going
to see his family, because he didn't have any family in Pauls
Valley, Oklahoma. He was using a false name on October 20
because he was hoping he wouldn't leave any records. He was
obtaining bomb components with Timothy McVeigh, and he didn't
want to leave a paper trail.
You heard from Timothy Chambers that the actual
purchase of the three drums of nitromethane was done by one
man. Mr. Chambers -- you may remember him -- was quite a
colorful character; and he told you that racing fuel is his
business. He loves those fast cars, and he knows a lot about
the sale of nitromethane. He had never sold three barrels of
nitromethane for cash in his career. So he recalls that
transaction. He recalls that one man came and bought three
barrels from him, left the racetrack, and came back in about an
hour with a dark or with a shiny pickup truck with a
white-colored or light-colored camper shell. These are the
barrels that Mr. Chambers sold those days, barrels clearly
marked "VP Racing Fuels" and on the top clearly marked
"nitromethane," for racing.
When Mr. Chambers testified, he didn't identify for
you who the purchaser was. He gave a general description. But
he didn't tell you who the actual purchaser was. But in this
case, that doesn't matter, because defense counsel told you in
his opening that the purchaser was Timothy McVeigh. Timothy
McVeigh was the one who purchased three drums of nitromethane
on October 21, 1994.
MR. TIGAR: Object to what defense counsel said in
opening, your Honor. Not evidence.
THE COURT: Well, you'll limit remarks, of course, to
the evidence that's before the jury.
MS. WILKINSON: There's no dispute, ladies and
gentlemen, that Timothy McVeigh was the purchaser of
nitromethane. He bought those three barrels, and Mr. Chambers
loaded them up in that pickup truck with the light-colored
camper shell. And Mr. Chambers remembers that light-colored
camper shell because he had to maneuver those heavy barrels to
actually roll them into the truck. Those barrels were heavy.
They were heavy because they each weighed approximately
543 pounds. Those barrels of nitromethane cannot be lifted by
one man alone.
Timothy McVeigh needed someone to help him get those
barrels out of the truck and load them into the Herington
storage shed. That's what Terry Nichols did. Terry Nichols
drove his truck down to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, with Timothy
McVeigh, and drove right through Oklahoma City that day. He
let Timothy McVeigh use his truck to purchase the nitromethane,
and the two of them drove all the way back from Ennis, Texas,
to Junction City -- well, really to Herington that day -- to
unload the barrels.
You know that those nitromethane barrels were in the
shed because you saw the barrel marks on Government's Exhibit
2054. On this red circle here, you can see the partial rings
left by the nitromethane barrels.
Terry Nichols cannot deny that he saw those barrels.
He had access to the Herington shed. Those three barrels you
saw are clearly marked and were standing three abreast in that
Herington shed for the months that Timothy McVeigh and Terry
Nichols waited to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Building. But not
only did he see them when they were in the shed, he helped
Mr. McVeigh unload them from the truck and put them in there on
October 21.
The only commonsense explanation for seeing
Mr. Nichols' truck, which was identified on the Pauls Valley
registration, in Ennis, Texas, with Timothy McVeigh is that
Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh drove back together to
Herington, Kansas.
Now, Terry Nichols wants you to believe that he had no
idea what was going on. He wants you to believe that he took
his truck from Junction City to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, and
somehow miraculously Timothy McVeigh had it when he purchased
three barrels of nitromethane; that Terry Nichols then got back
in the truck, having no idea that 1600 pounds of nitromethane
were in the back of his truck; that the barrels got unloaded by
Timothy McVeigh into the storage shed without Terry Nichols'
ever having a clue as to what was going on.
We submit to you that can't be true. That defies
common sense. Terry Nichols was a careful and deliberate man.
Terry Nichols did not give Timothy McVeigh his truck on
October 21 and then get back into it and have no idea that
1600 pounds of racing fuel were in the back of his truck.
People don't loan their trucks and ride with their
passenger for that many hours and not talk about what they're
doing. Anyone knows that if you put 1600 pounds in the back of
a pickup truck, as you're driving, you can feel that weight,
you can notice how it affects how fast you're going. Terry
Nichols knew exactly what was going on. He had turned in those
coins for cash and helped Mr. McVeigh pay for the nitromethane
that they needed to mix their ammonium nitrate bomb.
They drove over 500 miles, approximately 10 hours,
together in Terry Nichols' truck. What were they talking
about? Your own experience tells you that when people take
long car trips, especially if they're business partners who are
supposedly starting up a gun show business, they would be
talking about what they were doing. You heard no evidence in
this case that Terry Nichols was at any gun shows in the fall
of 1994. You know that he and Mr. McVeigh weren't starting up
in the gun show business. That was just another false
statement that they told others to cover up what they were
really doing.
Terry Nichols drove from Junction City, through
Oklahoma City, to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, and Ennis, Texas, to
purposely and intentionally obtain nitromethane to mix in the
bomb that he and Timothy McVeigh would use to kill innocent
Americans in Oklahoma City on April 19. Terry Nichols
committed his energy and his time to furthering this plot in
the fall of 1994. He had nothing else to do. He and Timothy
McVeigh had made a commitment together to obtain all the
components that they needed in the first few weeks of the fall
and then wait. Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh obtained
those components, stored them in the sheds, and waited.
They waited for months while people like Susan Hunt
from HUD planned to use new space in the Alfred P. Murrah
Building. She had a plan. But Terry Nichols had a different
plan. Terry Nichols let the people in the Alfred P. Murrah
Building go on with their business in the fall of 1994, having
no idea that he and Timothy McVeigh were obtaining those bomb
components and waiting for the day, the choice that they made
of April 19, 1995, to bomb the Murrah Building and kill the
people inside of it.
From September 30 through October 21, Terry Nichols
made choice after choice after choice. He wasn't doing
anything by happenstance. These weren't coincidences. He and
Timothy McVeigh were in business together, but they were in
business to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Building.
But the business got a little expensive, and Terry
Nichols wanted to make sure that he and Timothy McVeigh had
enough money to replenish their funds, to live in motels, and
to do other things they needed to cover their tracks in the
months as they waited for the date of April 19 to arrive.
Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh decided that a good
way for them to get money was to rob Roger Moore on November 5,
1994. There are lots of reasons you know Terry Nichols robbed
Roger Moore, and these are a list of just some of them:
The first one begins with the actual date of the
robbery, 11-5 or November 5, 1994. By that time, Terry Nichols
and Timothy McVeigh had obtained most of the components that
they needed, and they had paid 2700 or approximately $2,775 for
the nitromethane that they would use to mix the bomb. They had
stolen the explosives that they needed as a booster. And they
had identified the target. But they needed more money. They
didn't have jobs; they didn't have any income; and they knew
they were going to have more expenses.
So they decided to rob Roger Moore. He was the
perfect target. He was rich, he was paranoid, and he had no
security system.
Roger Moore had befriended Timothy McVeigh, and
Timothy McVeigh knew about Roger Moore's house. He knew that
Roger didn't have any security. He knew that Roger kept a lot
of cash in his home and that Roger had a gun collection. And
he knew that Roger Moore was paranoid. Roger Moore would be
the first one to suspect law enforcement's involvement in the
robbery.
But Timothy McVeigh couldn't be the robber, he
couldn't be the one to hold up Roger Moore, because Roger would
recognize him. So Terry Nichols was the one who carried out
the armed robbery. And as Michael Fortier told you here in
court, Timothy McVeigh told you that -- told him that, quote,
"Terry did Bob," Bob Miller, the gun dealer from Arkansas,
whose true name is Roger Moore.
Roger Moore's another character. You can say a lot of
things about him. You could say he's rude, you could say he's
paranoid, you can say he's suspicious of the government. But
everyone who came into this courtroom said Roger Moore got
robbed. Government witnesses and defense witnesses alike told
you Roger Moore was robbed on November 5, 1994. Mr. Moore came
in here and described the details of that robbery. Karen
Anderson told you about the property that was stolen. The
deputy sheriffs who investigated the robbery told you what they
found: the duct tape, the plastic ties, the report of the
stolen items. Even the insurance reps, who processed
Mr. Moore's claim for $5900, told you that Mr. Moore was
robbed.
But let's step back for a moment and forget about who
did the robbery. We know that Roger Moore's property was found
throughout Terry Nichols' home. What the heck was he doing
with Roger Moore's property in his house? The question is so
obvious, but it's one that was never answered by the defense
witnesses. It wasn't answered because it can't be. That
property was there because Terry Nichols robbed Roger Moore.
Marife Nichols, Mr. Nichols' own wife, came forward
and told you that the quilt depicted here in Government's
Exhibit 1771, I believe, No. 2, was a quilt in their house, a
quilt that she had not purchased and a quilt that didn't have
matching pillowcases, as you can see from the picture.
Mr. Nichols even took the quilt off Mr. Moore's bed --
or Miss Anderson's bed, that is, when he committed the robbery.
He put it on his own bed in his house in Herington, Kansas.
Why did he leave it there? He never thought anyone would know
that he was the robber. He committed the robbery on
November 5, 1994. And as of April 19, 1995, no one ever
suspected that he was involved.
But he didn't just have this quilt in his home. He
had guns, lots of guns, long guns, that he had stolen from
Mr. Moore. He had two safe-deposit keys that belonged to
Mr. Moore, of little good to anyone else other than Mr. Moore.
He had a blanket. He had ammunition that belonged to Mr. Moore
and Miss Anderson's business. He even had the four Army motion
detectors that Mr. Moore had to try and protect his property --
all of that different property spread all throughout
Mr. Nichols' house, property that the defense does not dispute
in part belonged to Roger Moore.
So because they can't dispute that the property
belonged to Roger Moore, they have tried to suggest that
Mr. Moore was not really robbed. They basically tried to put
Roger Moore on trial. They tried to raise questions about his
relationship with his wife and Miss Karen Anderson. They tried
to raise questions about his political views, views that they
claim don't say anything about who a person is and what actions
he takes. They tried to raise questions about Mr. Moore's
connections to Timothy McVeigh, and they even tried to suggest
that Mr. Moore had committed some kind of insurance fraud for
$5900.
None of these claims were ever substantiated. The
important facts that the Government alleged at the beginning of
the case -- that Mr. Moore was robbed by an armed gunman in a
ski mask -- were proven. They were proven beyond a reasonable
doubt by the Government's witnesses and by the defense
witnesses.
For the defense theory to be true -- that is, that
Roger Moore somehow was not robbed and that he engaged in some
form of insurance fraud -- you would have to defy your common
sense. The theory makes no sense. If Mr. Moore was not
robbed, why did he give police and the insurance claims
adjuster Timothy McVeigh's name and location? Mr. Spivey, who
was called by the defense, told you that Mr. Moore told him
that Timothy McVeigh lived in Kingman. Mr. Moore also told the
police that Mr. McVeigh was from New York and had been at Fort
Riley, the three places that we know Timothy McVeigh had been:
Kingman, central Kansas, and New York.
If Mr. Moore was not robbed, why did he call the
police week after week? Why did he demand from the insurance
company that they assist him in finding the robber? And why
did he even contact a private investigator when he was so upset
at the sheriff's office, who he thought hadn't done enough and
who he thought might be involved in the robbery? If someone
were trying to engage in insurance fraud or give property away
to some other person, why would they contact their own private
investigator to get on the case? That behavior, we submit to
you, is not consistent with someone who arranged his own
robbery for some type of insurance fraud, but it's behavior
consistent with someone who is a victim of a crime.
Your Honor, this might be a good stopping point.
THE COURT: All right.
We will take our recess at this time; and we may be
taking more than the usual recesses, as I've already told you.
We will at this time take a 20-minute recess. And during this
time, of course, I'm sure you are aware -- but I need to point
out the obvious -- that the case has not been given to you;
that we are in the middle of Government Counsel's arguments,
and that it would be a violation of your oath, of course, to
begin now to discuss the case based on partial argument. Wait
till you hear -- have heard not only from Government counsel
but defense counsel and of course from me with respect to the
law to be applied. So -- the case has not been given to you,
the trial is not complete, and your instructions during this
recess are the same: Keep open minds, avoid discussion of the
case among yourselves and all others, and avoid anything
outside the evidence. We're going to recess now for 20
minutes.
(Jury out at 10:19 a.m.)
THE COURT: We'll be in recess.
(Recess at 10:20 a.m.)
(Reconvened at 10:38 a.m.)
THE COURT: Be seated, please.
(Jury in at 10:38 a.m.)
THE COURT: Continue, please, Ms. Wilkinson.
MS. WILKINSON: When we broke, we were talking about
the Roger Moore robbery and why the defense theory that this
wasn't a robbery makes no sense.
I told you about all the different contacts that
Mr. Moore made to try and find a robber, but we also know that
Mr. Moore had no reason to try and perpetrate any kind of
insurance fraud. He had millions of dollars, and he had no
reason to give away the property that was important to him like
his father's Hornet rifle that he had had for 30 years and that
was found in Mr. Nichols' house. He had semiprecious stones
and jade and gold Tiki dolls that he himself had dug out of
Costa Rica back in 1974.
If he wanted to give someone money and get rid of his
property, or get rid of his property, to fund something, why
didn't he just give away cash? You heard him say and others
say that he carried around large amounts of cash and he also
had access to other money. So if he wanted to give money away,
he could have done that without giving away any items that
could be traced.
He also didn't get much money for the property that
was stolen. If he was trying to perpetrate an insurance fraud,
why would he have given away his luxury items, the items that
he knew weren't covered by his insurance?
You heard Mrs. Dies, who was the insurance agent in
Royal, Arkansas, tell you that he was never concerned about
those riders. He knew that he didn't have them, and he told
you the reason he didn't have them: because he didn't want to
tell anybody about the property that he had. He was paranoid.
And he told Mrs. Dies the same thing after the robbery, when
she asked him why he had never insured all of these items.
So you can say that he's paranoid, you can say he's
distrustful of the federal government, but you can't say that
he gave away over $60,000 in property to get $5900 back,
knowing that he would never recover the full value of those
items.
You know that, then -- that Terry Nichols was the
robber; but you know it not just because of all the property
that we found in his house, but you know it by his actions,
what he did around the time of the robbery on November 5, 6,
and 7.
You know first of all on November 5, he has no alibi.
We don't know where Mr. Nichols was that day. Again, he wasn't
at work, he wasn't at a gun show, and he wasn't buying army
surplus. He wasn't with his wife, because she was in the
Philippines. And he had no home.
So on November 5, he had plenty of time to drive to
Royal, Arkansas, commit the robbery, and come back to Junction
City where he stayed that evening. You know that he stayed at
the Sunset Motel that night. And we've shown you the
registration card, Government's Exhibit 1757, right here. He
uses his favorite fake name for criminal activity, "Joe Kyle."
But this time, he uses his address back in Michigan, 1400
Decker. Well, not really his address back in Michigan but a
variation of the Decker, Michigan, address. And he checks in
on November 5, 1995 -- 1994, the evening of the robbery.
What's unusual about this is you know that Mr. Nichols
stayed at the Sunset Motel on many occasions in 1994 and 1995.
In fact, he stayed there seven times. We showed you this
chart, Government's Exhibit 1764, which documents all of
Mr. Nichols' stays at the Sunset Motel. Take a look at it. On
each and every occasion, other than November 5, Mr. Nichols
used his true name. He used a variety of addresses, as you can
see here: the true Decker address, no address in February, a
general Manhattan address in the middle of February and his
post office box in Manhattan in March. But on each occasion he
used his true name, "Terry Nichols." It was only on
November 5, when he was trying to cover his tracks and create
an alibi, that he checked in for "Joe Kyle."
He told you -- or Mr. Chowdhury told you, who runs the
Sunset Motel, that when Mr. Nichols checked in that evening, he
claimed he was checking in for a friend. He was expecting a
friend and he wanted to check in for the man under the name
"Joe Kyle," and he took the keys to the room.
We submit to you there was no friend. Terry Nichols
checked in that day under the name of "Joe Kyle" because that's
the name that he used as an alias. He used it on October 17,
when he rented the storage shed at Council Grove for the
ammonium nitrate. He used it three days later on October 20,
when he checked into the Amish Inn in Pauls Valley, and then he
used it on November 5 after he had robbed Roger Moore. He used
it to hide his identity and to cover his tracks.
But that's not the only thing he did after November 5
to hide his identity and cover his tracks. Mr. Nichols was a
very busy man after the robbery of Roger Moore. The next
morning, Sunday, November 6, he immediately wanted to get in
touch with Timothy McVeigh. He wanted to tell them about the
success -- tell him the success of their plan to rob Roger
Moore.
Take a look at these phone records from November 6.
You can see that first thing in the morning, Mr. Nichols was in
Junction City, Kansas, as we know, at the Sunset. He went down
to the video pay phone and checked his Spotlight balance.
Thereafter, he immediately tried to call William McVeigh in
Pendleton, New York. You know from the agreement that William
McVeigh is Timothy McVeigh's father and that Timothy McVeigh
was at a gun show in Ohio on November 5 and was in Pendleton,
New York, following that time at his father's home.
Terry Nichols knew, that, too; and that's why he
wanted to contact Timothy McVeigh that morning to tell him
exactly what had happened in Royal, Arkansas; to tell him about
the cache of weapons, cash, semiprecious stones, and jade that
he had stolen from Roger Moore.
You can see that this call to Mr. McVeigh's residence
was very short. Probably Mr. Nichols was not successful in
getting in touch with Timothy McVeigh that morning, but that
didn't stop him.
He made some other phone calls. He called to Esquire
Realty, as you know, which is Lana Padilla's business phone
that was forwarded that day to her phone at home in Las Vegas.
She had a very unusual conversation with Mr. Nichols
that day, and we'll talk about that in a moment. Later that
afternoon, Terry Nichols tried again. This time he tried from
one of his favorite pay phones in Manhattan, Kansas, the Waters
True Value pay phone, trying again not to create any phone
records that would ever show you what Terry Nichols was doing
that day.
Terry Nichols knew that a pay phone would not create a
record. But what Terry Nichols didn't know was that the
Bridges phone card would, so he used that Bridges phone card to
contact the McVeigh residence again and had approximately a
minute phone call, tried again for another minute. And that
evening, he contacted Lana Padilla at her residence again. And
we see a phone call, the very last phone call of the evening,
where Timothy McVeigh went to the Convenient Mart pay phone
right down the road from his house at Pendleton and tried to
contact Mr. Nichols at the Waters True Value pay phone in
Manhattan, pay phone to pay phone, conspirator to conspirator,
to discuss their illegal activities.
But that evening at 7:41, Mr. McVeigh was not
successful in getting in touch with Terry Nichols.
We do know that Terry Nichols left his number at the
Waters True Value with the McVeighs, because you saw
Government's Exhibit 1889. This was a piece of paper recovered
from Mr. McVeigh's home with "Terry Nichols" written down and
the number "(913) 539-9702." Everyone agreed that that was
Jennifer McVeigh's handwriting. She wrote down Terry Nichols'
number; but go back to the phone records for November 6 and
look at the number for Waters True Value: (913) 539-9702.
Terry Nichols told the McVeighs that his phone number was the
Waters True Value.
It does not look like Timothy McVeigh and Terry
Nichols got in touch that day, but that didn't stop
Mr. Nichols. He wanted to tell Timothy McVeigh what he had
done, how successful he had been; so he tried again on
November 7, that Monday morning after the robbery.
He made a phone call very early that morning at
8:23 -- well, excuse me. The first phone call at 8:23 was from
Mr. McVeigh's residence back to that Waters True Value pay
phone, the same number Mr. Nichols had given. Timothy McVeigh
wanted to find out what had happened, and he tried first thing
in the morning to get in touch with Mr. Nichols.
You can see that the next few calls, the next two
calls, the one at 8:23 and 8:46, were not successful, two
different pay phones in Lockport, New York, to the same Waters
True Value pay phone. Mr. McVeigh could not reach Mr. Nichols.
And there was a reason he couldn't reach him, because
Mr. Nichols was using the business hours to accomplish many of
the tasks that he needed to, to hide what he had done at Roger
Moore's and to fund the conspiracy.
On November 7, after being Joe Kyle that Saturday,
Terry Nichols decided he was Daryl Bridges. And that morning,
he purchased a money order for the Daryl Bridges phone card,
Government's Exhibit 495, which has Terry Nichols' handwriting
and his fingerprints on it, a purchase for $100 in the name of
Daryl Bridges.
Terry Nichols, although he was leaving for the
Philippines just two weeks after that, decided to pay $100 on
the Bridges card. Now, why would he do that if he were going
to the Philippines and had broken away from Timothy McVeigh?
There is no reason to fund the card for Timothy McVeigh if they
were no longer partners. He funded it because they were
partners. He knew he couldn't use the Bridges card in the
Philippines. You heard that from the witnesses from The
Spotlight company, from the Darrell Bridges -- that owned the
Darrell Bridges card. The card did not work calling from the
Philippines to the United States. So Terry Nichols took just a
teeny bit of the money that he had stolen from Roger Moore,
$100, and funded the Darrell Bridges card for Timothy McVeigh
while he was away in the Philippines.
Terry Nichols not only was Joe Kyle and Darrell
Bridges that weekend, but he became Ted Parker just a few hours
later when he rented another storage shed at Council Grove.
You see here the agreement for Ted Parker -- Ted Parker --
excuse me -- with the Van Dyke, Decker address, Mr. Nichols'
family home, for Unit 37 on 11-7-94. That's November 7, 1994.
Now, ask yourselves again: Why did Terry Nichols need
yet another storage shed? He hadn't moved. He didn't have a
house. He had no belongings to store. And he already had
another storage shed at this same facility. We know he rented
Council Grove No. 40 on October 17. So what had changed from
October 17 to November 7?
Terry Nichols had robbed Roger Moore, and he had all
of the stolen property in the back of his pickup truck on the
first Monday open for business after the date of the robbery.
Terry Nichols needed a place to store all of his
stolen property, so he went back to the storage unit facility.
And you heard from Sharri Furman. She identified Mr. Nichols
as the person who rented the storage shed under the name "Ted
Parker." What he didn't -- what Terry Nichols didn't tell
Mrs. Furman at that time was that he already had another unit
there under yet another name.
So she rented him the storage shed under the name of
"Ted Parker"; and within three days, Terry Nichols was three
different men: Joe Kyle, Daryl Bridges, and Ted Parker. He
was three different men because he was trying to cover the best
that he could all of the criminal activity that he had engaged
in.
If we were to ask ourselves who had used that many
fake names, nine fake names that Mr. Nichols has used
throughout this entire case, the only person in this courtroom
who would raise their hand would be Terry Nichols.
Those aren't trade names, as were suggested to you.
Those are aliases, fake names, used by Mr. Nichols to cover his
tracks.
Trade names are names that people use for -- so that
people know who they are, so they recognize their name, like
"Xerox." It's not a name that someone uses to hide their
identity and conceal the paperwork or to create fake paperwork
so no one can track their activities.
Terry Nichols used Joe Kyle, Daryl Bridges, and Ted
Parker so no one would know what he was up to in early November
of 1994.
He did this one more time on November 7, after he had
bought the money order for the phone card and after he had
rented the storage shed. He checked in at the Travelers Motel,
using that same name, Ted Parker, claiming he was from Lum,
Michigan.
Now, once again, he put down his pickup truck as
YX1640 Michigan.
He checked into the Travelers; and by that time, he
still had not reached Timothy McVeigh. So as soon as he was
done checking in, he walked over to the Mini Mart, which you
know is just down the street from the Travelers Motel, and
started to call Timothy McVeigh one more time.
Here is a chart that shows all of the phone records
that were made on the 7th. You can see the calls from
Lockport, New York, the two calls in the morning to the
Waters -- the Waters True Value pay phone where Mr. Nichols had
left his number. You can then see the phone call that evening
after Mr. Nichols had been three different men and he rented a
storage shed and checked into a motel, from the Mini Mart pay
phone at 5:59, when he called to check his balance on The
Spotlight balance check.
Several minutes later, he went back to the Travelers
Motel and called the McVeigh residence for a minute and 14
seconds, just enough time to try to make an arrangement to have
their true criminal call from pay phone to pay phone. And what
do you see? Just minutes later after 6:04, Timothy McVeigh
went to the Convenient Mart Pendleton pay phone and made one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven attempts to reach out for
Terry Nichols at the Mini Mart pay phone just down the road
from the Travelers Motel.
These two men wanted to get in touch with each other,
and they wanted to get in touch so they could talk from pay
phone to pay phone about with had happened to Roger Moore.
Finally, after being unable to reach each other
through the pay phones, Mr. Nichols went back to the Travelers
Motel where he had checked in under the name "Ted Parker"; and
at 7:22, he had a 6-minute conversation with Timothy McVeigh at
the William McVeigh residence. Finally, they had achieved
their goal: They had reached each other so Terry Nichols had 6
minutes and 9 seconds to tell Timothy McVeigh about how the
Roger Moore robbery had gone and how he had stored all the
items in Kansas.
These were two men who were determined, and they were
persistent. Over two days and 15 phone calls, Timothy McVeigh
and Terry Nichols wanted to get in touch with each other to
tell each other what they had done.
This suggests to you, ladies and gentlemen, that Terry
Nichols and Timothy McVeigh did not part ways in November of
1994, as Counsel suggested during opening statement.
These two men were together from the beginning until
the end.
We know from many different sources that Terry Nichols
did not leave or part ways with Timothy McVeigh in November of
1994. We can see it from the activity of robbing Roger Moore,
to the telephone calls. We heard it from Marife Nichols when
she told you that Terry Nichols had arrived in the Philippines
as a surprise. She wasn't even expecting him. She called it a
vacation.
Terry Nichols had paid for the Bridges card before he
left, the card that he shared with Terry -- with Timothy
McVeigh; and he had left the stolen property in a storage shed
right down the row from the bomb components.
But perhaps the best evidence that Terry Nichols and
Timothy McVeigh were together in November of 1994 -- that is,
together in mind and purpose -- is the letter that Terry
Nichols left for Timothy McVeigh in case of his death. He
wanted -- he wanted to ensure that even if he died, this
conspiracy would go forward. He wanted to ensure even if he
died that the Murrah Building was destroyed and the people
inside of it were killed.
Their goal was clear at that time. They knew from the
very first day on September 30 that they didn't want anyone to
stop them; and Terry Nichols wanted to make sure that when he
left for the Philippines, Timothy McVeigh had everything he
needed if for some unknown reason Terry Nichols didn't return
from the Philippines.
Terry Nichols wrote this letter, Government's Exhibit
1857, and left it with Lana Padilla on November 22 as he
boarded the plane to the Philippines.
You can also see this letter on your screen.
You'll recall that Lana Padilla told you that Terry
Nichols left her with a package that was wrapped and was not
supposed to be opened unless he didn't return from the
Philippines. But Ms. Padilla did what many people would do.
She worried about Mr. Nichols and she was curious, so she
opened the package; and luckily for us, she did, because here
on Government's Exhibit 1857, you can see what Terry Nichols'
state of mind was in November of 1994. You can see how devoted
he was to this plan to bomb the Murrah Building and how far
down the road to destruction he had already gone on
November 22, 1994.
He wrote this letter so that Timothy McVeigh could
understand it and he wrote it in code, but a code that Timothy
McVeigh would understand because they had been together in the
fall of 1994 and Timothy McVeigh knew exactly what Terry
Nichols had been doing.
He said, "Tim, if you should receive this letter, then
clear everything out of CG 37 by 1 February 95 or pay to keep
it longer under Ted Parker of Decker."
Now, you know what CG 37 means now. You know that it
means Council Grove Unit 37. And you know what "under Ted
Parker of Decker" means now.
But Lana Padilla didn't know what that meant when she
read that letter, and neither would anybody else who wasn't
able to accumulate all the evidence that we've accumulated for
you.
This was written by Terry Nichols to Tim McVeigh, who
knew that he had already had storage sheds at Council Grove,
who knew that Terry Nichols had rented the Council Grove
storage shed No. 37 and that he would rent it under a false
name, the name listed here, Ted Parker, of Decker. Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols were communicating in code, and Terry
Nichols used that code because he knew Timothy McVeigh would
understand.
He also told him exactly the status of this letter,
what would have happened if he had received it. He says, "This
letter has been written and sealed before I left, 21 November
'94, and being mailed by Lana as per my instructions to her in
writing." He assures Timothy McVeigh that if this letter were
to ever reach Timothy McVeigh, it's because he could not come
back from the Philippines and because Lana had mailed it.
But most tellingly, ladies and gentlemen, he said,
"This is all she knows." Ask yourself: What does that mean?
Why is he assuring Timothy McVeigh that the only thing Lana
Padilla knows is that this letter was sent on his behalf? He
is trying to keep a secret about his activities from everyone,
from the mother of his son, from his family, from his friends,
and even from his current wife.
He wants to assure Timothy McVeigh that the two of
them are the only ones who know about their plot to bomb the
Murrah Building. Lana doesn't know. "This is all she knows."
He goes on to say, "It would be a good idea to write
or call her to verify things," and gives the number at home and
office"; just ask for Lana," enough instructions for Timothy
McVeigh to go to Council Grove 37, retrieve the weapons that
had been stolen and fund the bombing plot until April 19, 1995,
when they intended to decimate downtown Oklahoma City.
And just in case there is any question, Terry Nichols
made sure Timothy McVeigh knew that he was with him in spirit.
He said, "You're on your own." You're not with John Doe 2,
you're not with anyone else. "You're on your own. Go for it."
Now, you've heard a lot about what this phrase "go for
it" means. There are all kinds of suggestions made to you in
opening statement.
We submit to you it means exactly what it says, what
you know it means: Go for it, achieve your objective, do what
you intend to do.
Ms. Padilla can come in and here tell you that this
was a phrase used by an insurance company, and you can hear
that it was on the side of a box of Girl Scout cookies, but it
doesn't change the meaning. In this context, Terry Nichols was
telling Timothy McVeigh: If I don't come back, if I die in the
Philippines, I want you to succeed. I want you to bomb the
Murrah Building. "You're on your own. Go for it."
After signing it "Terry," he gives him a few more
instructions so that nothing possibly could go wrong. Terry
Nichols, the deliberate, careful man, who plans everything,
makes sure that Timothy McVeigh has no questions if Terry
Nichols is not able to return.
He says, "Also liquidate 40." Now, what does he mean
by that? If you didn't see all the evidence about the storage
sheds that he rented, you'd have no idea. If you were Lana
Padilla reading this letter back in November, 1994, you'd have
no idea.
But you all do know. You know that "liquidate 40"
means liquidate Council Grove Unit 40, the other storage shed
that they had rented to store the ammonium nitrate.
Terry Nichols told Timothy McVeigh to have his mail
forwarded to Lana, "but use my name and her address." In other
words, don't use any of my aliases, don't use my fake names,
use my own name and mail it to Lana's address.
Terry Nichols gives a few more instructions about the
Council Grove 40 when he says -- excuse me -- the Council Grove
37 when at the bottom here he says, "The Parker deal was signed
and dated 7 November 94," two days after the Roger Moore
robbery, "so you should have till 7 February plus five days'
grace if close or they disagree, then should pay another term
period." Terry Nichols knew that these storage sheds were not
for his personal belongings but for the stolen goods and the
bomb components, and he made sure Timothy McVeigh knew that
that storage shed was paid only through February of '95 and
that if he wanted to keep it going for that next term period --
that is, through April of '95 when they planned to bomb the
Murrah Building -- he needed to make another payment.
He made sure Timothy McVeigh knew everything about
those storage sheds, storage sheds that weren't used for just
personal property but were used for the bombing plot.
But if you had any question in your mind, any question
whatsoever about what Terry Nichols intended in November of
1994, it's answered in these last two lines of letter. He
says, "As far as heat, none that I know of. This letter would
be for the purpose of my death."
You're not going to see, "as far as heat, none that I
know of," on the side of any Girl Scout cookie box. That means
exactly what you know it means; that as for law enforcement
knowing what they've been doing, none that Terry Nichols knows
of. He was concerned in November of 1994 about law
enforcement, and he was concerned because he didn't want anyone
to stop him, him and Timothy McVeigh, from bombing the Murrah
Building and killing as many people as they could.
Now, in criminal cases, you don't often get a written
record of someone's intent; but here you have it: 1857 tells
you all you need to know about Terry Nichols' state of mind in
November of 1994. He was not leaving Timothy McVeigh. He was
going to the Philippines with the intent of returning in 60
days, which he did; but he was going to make sure that if for
some reason he didn't come back, the bombing plot would be
successful. Even in his death, he wanted the Murrah Building
destroyed.
Now, even though he had rented the storage shed at
Council Grove 37 for the stolen weapons, he rented one more
storage shed in November of 1994 before he left. You recall he
rented a storage shed in Vegas -- in Las Vegas -- under his
true name, because again they asked for identification. In
that storage shed, which Ms. Padilla told you was not full, he
left some of the other items that he took from Roger Moore. He
left the jade wrapped in tissue in the cigar box just the way
Mr. Moore described it to you. Ms. Padilla saw it. He left
some of the coins. He left some of the semiprecious stones;
but most importantly, he left the tools of the robbery. He
left a ski mask, a wig, and pantyhose.
Why did he take some of the items from the robbery and
leave them in Las Vegas and keep the others in Council Grove?
No one knows. Perhaps he had found more at Mr. Moore's house
than he ever imagined. Perhaps he wanted to keep some of the
valuable items for himself. But what we do know is those items
were there and those items were taken from Mr. Moore.
Lana Padilla came into this courtroom and told you
that she had seen those items. You can say a lot of things
about a lot of witnesses in this case, but you know that
Ms. Padilla had no axe to grind, no motive to lie, no reason to
implicate Terry Nichols. She came in here to tell you the
truth. She told you she had found the ski mask, the wig, the
makeup and the pantyhose; and the first thought that came to
mind was what is Terry Nichols doing? Robbing banks? She was
pretty close. He was robbing Roger Moore.
She had the same reaction when she found that $20,000
in cash hidden in a secret compartment in her kitchen,
something we submit to you doesn't happen very often to normal
people; but Terry Nichols wanted to make sure that he hid that
$20,000 and had it for himself upon his return.
When Lana Padilla found it, she wondered how he could
ever have $20,000 cash when he had no job and his family was in
the Philippines.
Terry Nichols had that money because he had robbed
Roger Moore, and he had those items in the storage shed because
he had robbed Roger Moore.
To counter the proof of Lana Padilla and her
identification of the ski mask and the wig, Terry Nichols
continued to lie even after his arrest. Lana Padilla told you
that after Terry Nichols' arrest in the summer of 1995, she
went to see Mr. Nichols and Mr. Nichols told her that the ski
mask and the wig had been used by him to scare Marife Nichols
on Halloween.
His attempts to lie, his attempts to build that
ridiculous explanation as an alibi for that ski mask, had
failed. Marife Nichols told you she never saw those items.
Never mind that she was in the Philippines on Halloween so
Terry Nichols couldn't have scared her. Terry Nichols lied.
He lied to the FBI, he lied to his wife, and he even lied to
his ex-wife months after his arrest. Terry Nichols has never
stopped trying to create an alibi. He's never stopped trying
to confuse and deceive and deny his role in the bombing of the
Alfred P. Murrah Building; and he went to such ridiculous
lengths as telling his own ex-wife that a ski mask and a wig
were used to scare Marife Nichols.
He did that because he knew exactly what you would
know if you heard that testimony: That he had been the robber
who robbed Roger Moore at gunpoint.
With all that proof, ladies and gentlemen, there is
one piece of evidence about the Moore robbery that is the most
devastating, the one piece that no one can argue with, and that
is the jade that Barry, Lana Padilla's son, took from the
storage shed back in the fall of 1994 and turned back in to the
FBI after the bombing that shows that Terry Nichols took the
jade from Roger Moore's house. Here is the photograph that
Roger Moore produced, Government's Exhibit 1747, that shows all
the jade pieces he had taken from Costa Rica in 1974 and the
gold Tiki dolls.
Lana Padilla and Barry told you that Government's
Exhibit 1748, this piece of jade, was taken from Terry Nichols'
storage shed in Las Vegas in the fall of 1994. This piece of
jade is right there on the photograph, right in the center to
the right, right down the center one, two, three rows. You can
see this piece of jade. You can make that match yourself.
Terry Nichols robbed Roger Moore and took this jade
and stored it in Las Vegas before he left for the Philippines
in November of 1994.
Now, in light of all this overwhelming proof that
Roger Moore was robbed by Terry Nichols, I suspect you will
hear much about the robbery during the defense argument and
especially about the list of 14 serial numbers that Karen
Anderson provided during her testimony.
We are not asking you to rely on that list in any way.
That list is flawed. The list has one serial number that
according to ATF paperwork belongs to Terry Nichols, but that
gun was never introduced into evidence, it was never presented
to you as Roger Moore's gun; and that single entry on that list
does not diminish all of this overwhelming proof about the
robbery of Roger Moore.
We do not want you to rely on that list in any way,
and we are not asking you to determine that Terry Nichols
robbed Roger Moore based on that list.
What we are asking you to do is look at all of the
evidence that they cannot dispute: the quilt, the stamp, the
stamped ammunition, the jade, the storage shed, the phone
calls, the motels, the firearms, ammunition, and the
safe-deposit keys that were in Terry Nichols' house. It is all
of this evidence that can convince you beyond a reasonable
doubt that Terry Nichols robbed Roger Moore and funded the
bombing conspiracy.
One other thing about the robbery: You know from all
the evidence that Timothy McVeigh was not the robber. Roger
Moore told you that he was not and that he could have
identified him or he could have recognized his voice and his
build if it was him, and Roger Moore told you he couldn't
identify the robber at all because of the ski mask blocking the
man's face.
But we know that Timothy McVeigh was involved with the
robbery and that he was familiar with Roger Moore's house, and
we know that he and Terry Nichols used the revenue that they
generated from robbing Roger Moore to pay for their expenses.
Michael Fortier told you that and Michael Fortier
identified Council Grove No. 37, the storage shed that Terry
Nichols used to store the stolen weapons, when he came in to
testify before you; again, another piece of evidence that
supports his testimony.
Timothy McVeigh could not be the gunman, so Terry
Nichols was.
When Terry Nichols left the package for Lana Padilla,
he was planning for every contingency for Timothy McVeigh down
to the use of his truck. You may remember there was another
letter in the package that showed -- Government's Exhibit
231 -- that showed Terry Nichols' making arrangements for his
storage shed and his vehicle. Down at the bottom there, you
can see highlighted Terry Nichols is talking about his '84 GMC
half-ton, diesel truck, the same pickup truck that he used
throughout the entire bombing plot. And at the very bottom, in
case Timothy McVeigh had any question, he told him that if he
used the truck, the oil had to be changed every 3,000 miles and
that they needed a PH13 Fram oil filter. Even back in November
of 1994, Terry Nichols knew exactly what kind of oil filter was
necessary for his truck. And he knew it wasn't the one that
was purchased at the Arkansas City Wal-Mart on April 13 and the
one he returned to Wal-Mart in Kansas on April 15.
So Terry Nichols, the careful, deliberate man, made
arrangements with Timothy McVeigh that if he ever wanted to use
his truck while he was away in the Philippines, Timothy McVeigh
knew exactly where it was and knew exactly what it needed.
Terry Nichols did one other thing that tells you what
he was thinking back in November of 1994 before he left for the
Philippines. He had one other conversation, a conversation
with Lana Padilla, that tells you what his mind-set was in the
fall of 1994. On November 6, the day after the robbery, when
Terry Nichols couldn't reach Timothy McVeigh, he reached out
for Lana Padilla. Lana Padilla just wanted to talk about Josh,
but Terry Nichols wanted to talk about Waco, civil unrest,
government overreaching, and shooting at the White House.
Terry Nichols told Lana Padilla that shooting at the White
House was justified, another example of Terry Nichols'
advocating violence.
But on November 6, when Lana Padilla wanted to talk
about their son and what they should do about him, Terry
Nichols was obsessed with his cause. He had just robbed Roger
Moore. He had found the money that he needed to fund the
conspiracy; and he was excited, if you can call it that, about
the potential for civil unrest. He predicted to Lana Padilla
that people were going to be killing each other in the streets.
Well, little did he know -- or little did Lana know
that the street and the killing that he was predicting was 5th
Street in downtown Oklahoma City, where he knew he and Timothy
McVeigh were going to kill as many people as possible.
Padilla talked about her son; Terry Nichols talked
about Waco.
But look at the timing. Waco had occurred over a year
and a half before that, and Terry Nichols was still angry. He
was still predicting civil unrest at that time. In his
tortured mind, he thought that the government's actions at Waco
justified violence.
He made these statements advocating violence and
discussing the shooting at the White House while he was on the
road to destruction in the fall of 1994, the road that he and
Timothy McVeigh were on that led to violence against the
government; that led to the intentional killing of government
agents and workers and the destruction of a federal building.
When Terry Nichols now comes before you and tries to
claim through counsel that he's never advocated violence, he is
trying to make you believe that what you know is true is not.
Terry Nichols was a man of few words. You heard that
from several witnesses. He did not make speeches. He didn't
write letters setting forth his views on the government; but he
did take actions to make his views clear. He didn't pay his
taxes. He signed documents "UCC without prejudice," and he
hated the government.
As you know, actions speak louder than words. Terry
Nichols did what was much more dangerous than making speeches.
He took actions. He planned the intentional murder of innocent
civilians and the destruction of the federal building with
Timothy McVeigh to retaliate for Waco. It is his actions and
not his words that killed 168 people.
Words could not have caused the death of the 19
children in the Murrah Building that day. Terry Nichols'
actions caused the murder of 19 children.
It wasn't words that caused 35 -- 18 women from the
credit union to fall to their deaths that day. It was Terry
Nichols' actions that caused the death of 18 women in the
credit union.
So regardless of whether Mr. Nichols spoke about what
he intended to do, the judgment you must make must be based on
his actions; and his actions, his steps down the road to
destruction, are what caused the decimation of the Murrah
Building and the 168 deaths.
As you can see from the fall portion of "The Road to
Destruction," Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh had obtained
almost all the bomb components that they needed. They had
money to fund their activities, and all they had to do was
wait. Think about it. They knew exactly what they were going
to do. They knew they were going to kill people on April 19,
and they waited. They left those bomb components in the
storage shed and went about their business.
Terry Nichols went to see his wife in the Philippines
for 60 days and returned in January. And his actions again in
January tell you exactly what he was doing and that he was
working with Timothy McVeigh in their final stages in their
plot to bomb the Murrah Building.
Terry Nichols returned to the United States on
January 16, 1995, and Lana Padilla picked him up from the
airport. That same day, she received a call. On Government's
Exhibit 1888, we can see the call for January 16. Lana Padilla
right here at the top received a call from Kevin Nicholas'
residence. You know from Mrs. Nicholas that Timothy McVeigh
was visiting them in January of 1995. Timothy McVeigh knew
exactly when Terry Nichols was coming back, and he reached out
for him on the 16th.
That evening, Mr. Nichols arrived; and first thing the
next morning, within hours of Terry Nichols' arriving in the
United States, Timothy McVeigh called him and spoke to him for
6 minutes from the Nicholas' residence at Lana Padilla's house.
6 1/2 minutes were not quite enough for Terry Nichols and
Timothy McVeigh to make their plans, so Terry Nichols called
Timothy McVeigh back just few minutes later for another 5
minutes, calling from Lana Padilla's residence to the Nicholas'
house in Vassar, Michigan.
Within 24 hours of returning to the United States,
Terry Nichols was in touch with his partner, his best friend,
Timothy McVeigh.
They made plans then to meet in Junction City, Kansas;
and you know they were there because of two different
documents. One, Timothy McVeigh's registration at the Sunset
Motel for January 19. That's Government's Exhibit 1758. Here,
Timothy McVeigh checked in on the 19th of January into Room 56.
That number is very important, because Terry Nichols received a
ticket that next day and gave his address as Room 56 at the
Sunset Motel.
Here you can see Government's Exhibit 1900 and the
ticket on the 20th of January, 1995, the name of Terry Nichols;
and right under there, "Room 56," the Sunset Motel. Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols were staying together within three
days of Terry Nichols' returning to the United States from the
Philippines, certainly no sign that Timothy McVeigh and Terry
Nichols had parted ways in November of 1994.
But there wasn't much for Terry Nichols and Timothy
McVeigh to do then. They had the components they needed. They
had the money they needed. The only thing they really needed
to do was rent the truck and build the bomb. They were smart
enough to know that they weren't going to do that until right
before the date of destruction.
Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh did speak to each
other in February, and we know that one more time from the
phone records. We know that on February 12 and 13 -- 12 and
13, Timothy McVeigh was staying at the Hilltop Motel in
Kingman, Arizona, and Terry Nichols was staying at his favorite
motel, the Sunset, on that same day.
You can see a series of calls here where Timothy
McVeigh is trying to call Terry Nichols, and Timothy McVeigh
finally reaches Terry Nichols and speaks to him for almost 5
minutes on Monday, the 13th of February.
Once again, the two men keeping in touch until it's
time for their final plans.
During that time, Terry Nichols had tried to convince
you that he was building a life. He was trying to convince you
that he was a family man; that he bought a home in Herington,
Kansas, which we don't dispute, and that he was going about his
business getting into the -- getting on the gun show circuit.
We submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that was just
one more step down the road to destruction, one more attempt to
cover his tracks and to give you excuses for what he was really
doing.
You know that he was still building a bomb in the
spring of 1994, because beginning on April 11, 1994, Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols were in touch. On April 11, there is
a telephone call from the Imperial Motel to Terry Nichols'
residence in Herington. There is another call right after that
from Imperial to his residence; and within 40 minutes, there is
a call from the Food for Less pay phone in Manhattan, Kansas,
right up the road from Mr. Nichols' house, to Michael Fortier's
residence.
That suggests that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols
had a plan. How did Terry Nichols know if he were at the
Manhattan -- in Manhattan, Kansas, at the Food for Less pay
phone that he was supposed to call Timothy McVeigh at Michael
Fortier's address? That call is only 1 minute, but it suggests
that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols had agreed to reach out
for each other on Monday -- excuse me -- Tuesday, April 11, a
week before the bombing and a week before they were going to
execute the final steps of their plan.
All they needed to do was make the final arrangements
for mixing the bomb. So what happened? Timothy McVeigh left
Arizona. He left Arizona on April 12 and checked out of the
motel and drove toward Kansas, drove back to central Kansas to
be with his partner in crime, Terry Nichols.
But this time, Terry Nichols was very, very careful.
Terry Nichols did not want anyone to know that he was involved
with this plot, and he took every step he could to avoid
detection, including lying to his wife.
As Timothy McVeigh proceeded from Arizona to Kansas,
he was having car trouble with his Pontiac J2000, and he
stopped at the Wal-Mart in Arkansas City on April 13 to
purchase an oil filter. Here on Government's Exhibit 265B, you
can see the date of the purchase, April 13, 1995, and see that
it occurred at approximately 5:42 p.m., the store where it was
purchased as "Arkansas City Wal-Mart," and it was an oil filter
that Mr. Kordyak testified would fit Timothy McVeigh's Pontiac
J2000. It was an oil filter that would not fit Terry Nichols'
GMC pickup truck. So Timothy McVeigh in his car stopped to try
and fix the problem in Arkansas City. But by the time he got
to Junction City on the morning of April 14, he knew his car
was not going to make it. He went straight to the Firestone
station where he met with Mr. Manning, the man that you all saw
on the video deposition, who said that Timothy McVeigh came in
with his Pontiac J2000 smoking and had serious problems.
Timothy McVeigh realized that he needed to have a
getaway car, needed a way to escape from Oklahoma City after he
drove the Ryder truck down to the Murrah Building; so he turned
in the Pontiac J2000 to Mr. Manning, paid a couple hundred
dollars, and bought the yellow Mercury Marquis, the yellow
Mercury Marquis that became the getaway car. But once he did
that, he had no need for that oil filter, no need for the oil
filter he had bought just a few hours before that in Arkansas
City.
Mr. Manning told you that while Mr. McVeigh was there
purchasing the car, he did several things. One thing is
Mr. Manning told you he doesn't remember seeing any TV set in
that car. But Timothy McVeigh left for a few moments. He left
the Firestone and went down the road to the J & K Bus Depot to
make some phone calls. Here's a photograph showing you the
Firestone -- excuse me -- showing you the J & K Bus Depot; and
if you look back in the center of the photo, you can make out
the word "Firestone."
Just a block away, Timothy McVeigh left his car and
Mr. Manning and went to make two important phone calls.
Who was the first person that he called? Terry
Nichols. Before calling the Ryder truck company or Elliott's
Body Shop, he checked in with his co-conspirator in crime,
Terry Nichols. He called at 9:51 a.m. and spoke for just 54
seconds from the pay phone to Terry Nichols' house.
You know that Terry Nichols got that call because
Terry Nichols was home that morning, like Marife Nichols said;
and you can see that just a few minutes later, he was on the
phone with Quarton U.S. Limited, the same folks he had been
speaking to April 13, the day before, and the same records that
show you that Terry Nichols could not have been in Arkansas
City the day before to purchase that oil filter. So you know
Terry Nichols received a 54-second call from Timothy McVeigh.
You know that it was him and not Marife Nichols because she
told you she had never spoken to Mr. McVeigh during that week
preceding the bombing, so the only person in the home that
could have received the call from Timothy McVeigh was Terry
Nichols.
After checking in with Terry Nichols that morning,
Timothy McVeigh did just what Terry Nichols and he planned: He
called the Ryder rental company, what we know as Elliott's Body
Shop, and checked on the rates. You heard from Vicki Beemer,
who gave him an estimate and recalls the call taking over, I
believe she said, 7 minutes. This call is 7 minutes and 36
seconds from the pay phone to the Ryder truck company.
Timothy McVeigh now had made arrangements for the
truck, and he and Terry Nichols only needed to move the bomb
components and mix them at Geary Lake.
Just these phone calls show you that Terry Nichols
lied again and again. He lied to his wife, who he never told
about Timothy McVeigh or their contacts; and he lied to the FBI
just two days after the bombing, when he said that he had not
had contact with Timothy McVeigh in the months prior to the
bombing other than the letter he had written about the
television set.
You also know that Terry Nichols lied about meeting
with Timothy McVeigh. You know he met with Timothy McVeigh
sometime on April 14 or 15, because Terry Nichols had Timothy
McVeigh's Wal-Mart receipt in his wallet at the time of his
arrest.
You also know that he met to obtain that Wal-Mart
receipt that was generated on April 13 because Marife Nichols
told you that he returned the oil filter on April 15; so for
Terry Nichols -- for Timothy McVeigh to purchase the oil filter
on the 13th and Terry Nichols to return it on the 15th, he and
Timothy McVeigh had to be face to face either on April 14 or
the morning of April 15. He didn't tell anyone about that. He
didn't tell his wife and he didn't tell the FBI.
On the morning of April 15, Timothy McVeigh tried one
more time to get in touch with Terry Nichols. Over these days
just preceding the bombing, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols
talked or tried to get in touch with each other every single
day.
On Saturday, you can see from the phone records
Timothy McVeigh called from the Dreamland Motel where he was
staying to Terry Nichols' residence. The length of the call is
zero, which indicates that Timothy McVeigh was unable to reach
Terry Nichols that morning.
Timothy McVeigh went about his business and went over
to the Elliott's Body Shop by himself and paid a down payment
for the Ryder truck that he was going to use with Terry Nichols
to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Building.
You know a few other things about the final
preparations that Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh took in the
days before the bombing, because Marife Nichols came in and
told you about a letter that she had seen that arrived at their
home sometime a week or so before the bombing. That letter had
two phrases that she didn't understand, two phrases that tell
you that not only did Terry Nichols intend to mix the bomb but
that he intended to deceive his wife.
The first thing that she recalls is that the letter
said something about "shake and bake". We all know they
weren't talking about chicken. "Shake and bake" was code for
them to discuss making the bomb. Marife Nichols didn't
understand it, and she wasn't supposed to understand it. Terry
Nichols didn't want his own wife to know anything about what he
was doing that week.
The other phrase that she remembers is "need an excuse
for second half." Timothy McVeigh is acknowledging that for
Terry Nichols to leave his home and help him store the getaway
car in Oklahoma City, he needs an excuse for his second half,
for his wife, Marife.
So Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh had planned an
excuse. They planned to have Timothy McVeigh bring the
television set so that when Terry Nichols arrived back at his
home Monday morning, Marife Nichols and his son, Josh, would
have no idea what Terry Nichols was really up to. Terry
Nichols had come up with an excuse for his second half.
If there is one day that tells you the most about
Terry Nichols and his activities to further the bombing plot in
Oklahoma City, it's Easter Sunday, April 16. That's the day
that Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh stashed the getaway car
in Oklahoma City and planned Mr. McVeigh's escape.
That morning, Terry Nichols and his family were home
in Herington, Kansas. They went to church and they had dinner.
But that was the same day that Terry Nichols chose Timothy
McVeigh and his plot for destruction over his own family.
Timothy McVeigh called Terry Nichols at approximately
3:08 that afternoon to tell him he was on the road and they
were -- they should get ready to go one step further down the
road to destruction. This call on the Bridges card, the only
call that day, was from Tim's Amoco pay phone in Herington,
just eight blocks down the street from Terry Nichols' house.
Timothy McVeigh wanted to make sure that Terry Nichols
was ready to go and help him stash the getaway car down in
Oklahoma City.
This map shows you how close Timothy McVeigh was to
Terry Nichols at 3:00 on Easter Sunday.
When that call came in, Terry Nichols knew exactly
what was going to happen. They had planned it. Terry Nichols
also knew that he could never tell his wife what he was really
doing. So he lied. He lied to Marife Nichols, he lied to his
son Josh, and he said he was going to Omaha to pick up Timothy
McVeigh.
Just ask yourselves why, if Terry Nichols was doing
nothing wrong, if he had no idea what Timothy McVeigh was do --
why would he lie to his own family about where he was going?
Because, he says to the agents, that he, Timothy McVeigh, was a
secretive man? Well, that's true. But he lied because he knew
he could never tell anyone that he was going to Omaha -- to
Oklahoma City three days before the Alfred P. Murrah building
would be destroyed and three days before 168 people would be
killed. He didn't want anyone to know after the bombing
occurred that he had been anywhere near Oklahoma City in those
hours before the bombing. He didn't want his wife to know, he
didn't want his son to know, he didn't want anyone to know. So
he lied.
And he chose Timothy McVeigh over his family when he
refused to take his own son on the trip with him. Marife told
you that Josh Nichols wanted to go with his father. It was the
last day he had before he returned to Las Vegas to be with his
mother. He was his son. He wanted to be with his father.
Terry Nichols said no. Terry Nichols rejected his own
son and chose Timothy McVeigh. He lied to Josh and told him
that there wouldn't be room in the truck for him, but he told
him a partial truth when he said he didn't know what kind of
trouble McVeigh was in. He knew what kind of trouble he and
Timothy McVeigh were in, but it was the kind of trouble he
didn't want anyone to find out about. He knew that he was
going to be helping Timothy McVeigh store the getaway car, and
he knew he was going to Oklahoma City to do it. And he didn't
want his son, Josh Nichols, to have any idea; so he rejected
his son and once again chose Timothy McVeigh.
When he did that, you know he had planned to do it,
because when he took that phone call from Timothy McVeigh, he
didn't write down any directions. He knew exactly where he was
going. He knew he was going to Oklahoma City, and he knew that
he was going to help Timothy McVeigh park the getaway car far
enough away from the Murrah Building so that Timothy McVeigh
would have been safe after he killed 168 people. Terry Nichols
didn't need any directions. He knew the plan.
Marife didn't see him write down anything, and he
didn't tell the agents about any directions he had written
down. He knew where he was going, and he knew why he was going
there.
On Government's Exhibit 97, you can see how long it
takes to get from Junction City, Kansas, to Oklahoma City.
Terry Nichols didn't just drive 5 hours each way to pick up a
used television set from Timothy McVeigh. He didn't drive
282 miles back from Oklahoma City to Junction City to drop off
Timothy McVeigh because he was just doing a friend a favor. He
drove to Oklahoma City to help with the plot. He drove down
there in his truck, picked up Timothy McVeigh, left the getaway
car, and turned around and went up Route 35 to Route 77 north
to Herington.
Terry Nichols told the agents that he took Route 77;
and as you can see from this map, to take Timothy McVeigh all
the way to Junction City, he had to bypass his own home. Why,
if Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh were just good friends and
Terry Nichols had no idea what Timothy McVeigh was planning?
Why in the middle of the night would he drive past his home in
Herington and drop off Timothy McVeigh at a closed McDonald's?
Marife Nichols told you she would have expected
Timothy McVeigh to stay at their home if he had been in town.
That was what they always did.
Terry Nichols didn't want to stop in Herington, even
though it was another 50 miles out of his way to go to Junction
City and back that evening because he di