A mysterious severed leg in a military boot. Television headline stories of a new witness who saw Timothy McVeigh driving into the Murrah Building parking structure minutes before the blast. A federal informant who claims he warned of impending bombings of federal buildings weeks before the deadly Oklahoma City terrorist act. The lead FBI official in charge of the Oklahoma investigation falling in disgrace, perhaps facing criminal charges. A U.S. Marshals Service memo issued one month before the April 19th explosion warning of expected terrorist bombings of federal buildings. Additional witnesses identifying John Doe No. 2. A new eyewitness who was at “ground zero,” who survived the blast, and who has come forward to provide key testimony. These are but a few of the sensational developments in the Oklahoma City bombing case over the past weeks.
THE NEW AMERICAN‘S September 4th report on the Oklahoma City explosion (“Searching for John Doe No. 2“) examined some of the testimony from an expanding lineup of eyewitnesses who have, independent of one another, provided a growing body of compelling evidence that may lead to the identity of the elusive “John Doe No. 2.” This remains one of the most important and fertile areas of progress.
As reported in that article, since mid-June the Justice Department and the major media have presented a very confusing picture of the status of the John Doe No. 2 investigation, giving the impression that the famous sketch of the world’s most wanted fugitive was a false lead, the result of misidentification and faulty memories. Press reports that Todd Bunting, a soldier from Fort Riley, Kansas who slightly resembled the FBI sketch, had been “cleared” of any involvement in the bombing evolved into news stories that John Doe No. 2 had probably been a phantom from the start.
When asked directly if the dragnet for John Doe No. 2 has been dropped, Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI spokesmen stated that the search for the mysterious suspect and other individuals possibly connected with the crime continues, and that “no stone will be left unturned.”
However, to those closely following the federal investigation it appears that a great many stones are being left unturned or, even worse, are being buried, much like the Murrah Building evidence that has been entombed in an Oklahoma City landfill. Credible eyewitnesses who place Timothy McVeigh with John Doe No. 2 — and possibly a John Doe No. 3 and a John Doe No. 4 — have not been called to testify before the federal grand jury. Federal prosecutors may yet seek indictments against other individuals implicated in the bombing, but the apparent direction of the investigation and prosecution seems to indicate that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols ultimately may be the only suspects to be tried for the terrorist act that took the lives of 168 men, women, and children on April 19th.
If that occurs, other co-conspirators in the mass murder will remain at large, making a mockery of the Clinton Administration’s promise to bring to justice all those involved in this terrible crime. However, even more alarming and outrageous than the gross miscarriage of justice of such an outcome is the realization that these murderers will be free to commit still more acts of terror. If that happens it will not be for lack of effort on the part of some very courageous journalists and investigators who have doggedly pursued a number of very important leads in this case.
As mentioned in our September 4th article, investigative reporters for KFOR-TV Channel 4, Oklahoma City’s NBC affiliate, have been conducting an extensive probe of the evidence concerning the missing John Doe No. 2 and have uncovered some very startling and convincing testimony. Their series of news reports, together with further evidence brought to light by other investigators and by additional witnesses interviewed by THE NEW AMERICAN, reliably connect John Doe No. 2 and another suspect (not Terry Nichols) to the Ryder rental truck believed to be the vehicle that carried the huge ammonium nitrate bomb to the Murrah Building. Furthermore, witnesses connect Timothy McVeigh, John Doe No. 2, and a John Doe No. 3 on the morning of April 19th not only to the Ryder truck, but to the yellow Mercury Marquis which McVeigh was driving when arrested, and to the brown Chevrolet pickup truck seen speeding away from the Murrah Building immediately after the explosion — the brown pickup which was the subject of a police APB shortly after the detonation.
Based on the testimony of these witnesses, a timeline has been pieced together tracking Timothy McVeigh and at least two accomplices in the crucial minutes before and after the explosion at the Murrah Building. Approximately 30 minutes before the blast, a Ryder truck pulled into Johnny’s Tire Service at 10th and Hudson, several blocks from the Murrah building. Mike Moroz, an employee of the tire shop, went out to meet the man who was stopping to ask directions to 5th and Harvey (one corner of the Murrah Building). Moroz identified the man as McVeigh. He also identified a second person who was seated in the Ryder truck several feet away as a man who resembled John Doe No. 2. Moroz is one of the few witnesses who has been willing to be publicly identified.
Several minutes later, at around 8:45 a.m., a second witness observed a Ryder truck parked across the street from the post office on 5th Street, less than a block from the Murrah Building. Sitting in the cab of the truck, he said, was a man with a striking resemblance to John Doe No. 2. A man who the witness identified as McVeigh was standing on the sidewalk at the back of the truck talking with a third man. One of the men handed something to the other. Parked two spaces in front of the Ryder truck, said the witness, was an old, dirty, yellow Mercury Marquis, matching the description of the vehicle in which McVeigh was arrested. When the witness emerged from the post office five minutes later, the Marquis and the truck had moved. The Ryder truck had crossed the intersection and was parked in front of the Murrah Building — and McVeigh was walking away from the truck across 5th Street.
A third witness at the Journal-Record building across from the Murrah Building saw the Mercury Marquis parked in the parking lot next to the Journal-Record and across 5th Street from the Murrah Building at around 8:55. As he walked down the alley next to the Journal-Record, suddenly the Marquis raced down the alley toward him. Inside were two men. The driver could have been McVeigh, he testifies. He did not have time to get a good look at the passenger; he was too busy trying to get out of their path. As the car raced recklessly down the alley, it struck a cement parking lot marker.
At the same time, 8:55, seven minutes before the detonation, a fourth witness on the ground floor of the Murrah Building claims to have seen John Doe No. 2 get out of the Ryder truck and walk just 10 to 12 feet from her, headed hurriedly toward the northeast side of the Murrah Building, where two more witnesses say a brown pickup was parked — a pickup which matches the description of the FBI-police APB issued after the explosion. The witness inside the Murrah Building was badly injured by the blast and has only recently recovered sufficiently to give her testimony. Like many other witnesses, she is fearful of reprisals by those involved in the bombing who are still at large, and has asked that her identity be protected.
Not more than a minute after the explosion another witness was nearly run over by the brown pickup speeding away from the vicinity of the Murrah Building. The witness says she was just six feet away from the truck when she and the driver made eye contact: “The driver — I made eye contact with him; he looked like he was in his late 20s, [he] had an angry look on his face. I’ll never forget the look on his face. It was full of hate and anger, and it just really struck me because every one else coming out looked scared and confused and he looked full of anger.”
On August 26th, the Los Angeles Times broke an important story with still another credible witness. Unfortunately the Times got the facts all wrong, as did the CBS Evening News, which used the story of James R. Linehan as its lead feature. The Times headline proclaimed that Linehan had seen McVeigh “just before the blast.” The Times piece by Richard Serrano reported that “James R. Linehan, 39, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, said that shortly before the blast he saw McVeigh driving erratically in a car — not the Ryder truck — around the federal building and then suddenly disappearing into its underground parking area. Linehan’s description of the car matches the battered yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis that McVeigh was driving when he was arrested the day of the blast.” CBS likewise reported that Linehan had positively identified the driver of the vehicle as McVeigh. So did USA Today and most other major media organs.
Linehan told a decidedly different story to THE NEW AMERICAN: “What I told the FBI, the Los Angeles Times, CBS, and everybody else — very emphatically — was that I can’t say that it was McVeigh [driving the car].” The driver, who “was in a big hurry” and driving erratically, pulled up in the right hand lane next to Linehan’s car. Linehan, an attorney who was on his way to the federal court building across from the Murrah Building, said he could not identify the individual in the Marquis because the driver was “hunched over the wheel and looking up at the Murrah Building” to the right and because either hair, a hood, or a cap obscured the driver’s face.
According to Linehan, all he could see was the end of a “sharp nose” and “a kind of sharp chin,” and a white hand. It’s possible that it was McVeigh, he told THE NEW AMERICAN, but his “gut” impression at the time was that the driver was female, and he still tends to lean in that direction. One thing Linehan is quite certain about is the yellow Mercury. He says he reported it to the FBI on April 20th, the day after the bombing, long before any broadcasts or reports concerning McVeigh’s arrest and his yellow Marquis came out. Another thing he is certain about: The only news organization that got his story straight was KFOR-TV, the same station that has been taking brickbats from other members of the fourth estate for carefully and persistently pursuing credible leads that the rest of the media have ignored and spurned.
If McVeigh was the driver seen by Linehan, it does not necessarily conflict with the timeline established by the testimony of other witnesses. Linehan recalls clearly that while he was stopped at the intersection of 4th and Robinson at the southeast corner of the Murrah Building, he looked down and checked the time: It was 8:38. If it was McVeigh, it would have been possible for him to drive the car into the parking garage as Linehan observed and still keep to the timeline. But to what purpose? Why would he drive virtually right into the building which was to explode in a matter of minutes? To pick up or drop off an accomplice? To place or check on additional explosives?
Regardless of whether or not the driver of the Marquis was McVeigh, the disinformation in the stories by the Times, CBS, and other paragons of the Establishment media served to further the line that McVeigh was the “lone” bomber. This flies in the face of a vast accumulation of compelling evidence. KFOR reporter Jayna Davis aptly summed up the status of the case at the conclusion of her August 17th broadcast reviewing the stories her station had covered thus far: “Together, these eyewitnesses show prime suspect McVeigh could not have acted alone the morning of April 19th. At least two more men, possibly three, were also there.”
On August 24th, Oklahoma City resident Al-Hussaini Hussain filed a lawsuit in Oklahoma County District Court against KFOR-TV, reporters Jayna Davis and Brad Edwards, and news director Melissa Klinzing, charging that the news station had falsely accused him of being John Doe No. 2. Since June, Channel 4 had been running a series of interviews with witnesses (some of whom are mentioned above) who claimed to have seen a man whom KFOR identified only as a “possible John Doe No. 2” with Timothy McVeigh or in connection with the brown “getaway” pickup.
In the KFOR broadcasts we have seen, Hussain’s name was not mentioned and his face was always digitally blurred to protect his identity. Reporter Jayna Davis repeatedly emphasized that Channel 4 was not accusing the man (Hussain) of being John Doe No. 2 or claiming that he had any role in the bombing. In fact, she said on more than one occasion that the man may be simply the unfortunate victim of an amazing string of coincidences.
However, the independent testimony of the eyewitnesses linking this “possible John Doe No. 2” to McVeigh, to the Ryder truck, and to the brown pickup truck is very persuasive. According to some of these witnesses, however, Hussain more nearly resembles the profile sketch of the John Doe No. 2 in the baseball cap than either of the two more familiar frontal face sketches (one with a baseball cap, one without) of the suspect. The testimony of these witnesses, together with our own investigations, lend support to the theory that the frontal face sketches may be of an entirely different individual, a John Doe No. 3.
Hussain has identified himself as a “refugee” who came to the United States last year after fleeing Iraq. According to journalists whom THE NEW AMERICAN has interviewed and who have had access to Hussain, the “refugee” has given at least three conflicting accounts concerning his supposed “opposition” to Saddam Hussein and the circumstances of his “escape” from Iraq. According to some sources Hussain was a soldier in the Iraqi dictator’s elite Republican Guard and came to the U.S. as part of the controversial Iraqi POW resettlement program initiated by President Bush and carried out by President Clinton that brought thousands of iraqis to America over the past 24 months.
Still another troubling aspect of the Oklahoma City bombing is its direct connection to two of the most controversial and tragic recent fiascoes involving the federal government’s use of deadly force against civilians. That direct connection comes in the form of senior FBI officials Larry Potts and Bob Ricks.
As the assistant director in charge of criminal investigations at FBI headquarters, Potts was the Washington-based manager of the deadly 1993 Waco operation and the 1992 Randy Weaver standoff near Ruby Ridge in remote northern Idaho. The FBI’s operation against the Weavers resulted in the deaths of Mrs. Weaver, who was shot in the head by an FBI sniper, and of the Weaver’s son, Sammy. The FBI’s assault on the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas left more than 80 people dead, including 22 children. Potts was also the FBI’s man charged with overall supervisory responsibility for the Oklahoma City investigation. Bob Ricks, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Oklahoma City office for the past six years, was the bureau’s chief spokesman at Waco and one of its three commanders during the 51-day siege.
In December 1994 FBI Director Louis J. Freeh elevated Larry Potts to be his chief deputy, the FBI’s second highest position. This in spite of the fact that a Justice Department inquest into the Ruby Ridge incident found that the Bureau’s special “rules of engagement” for that affair, its fatal “shoot on sight” orders, “not only departed from the FBI’s standard deadly force policy, but also contravened the Constitution of the United States.”
Over the past several months, however, some things have begun to unravel. On July 14th Freeh was forced to demote Potts and then suspend him. Potts, now on administrative leave without pay, is implicated not only in approving the illegal deadly force orders, but in covering up his responsibility in the matter. Eugene Glenn, the FBI field commander at Ruby Ridge, and Richard Rogers, the FBI’s hostage team chief, have testified that the orders were approved by Potts.
Then there is the cover-up: evidence destroyed, evidence withheld from defense lawyers, documents shredded, agents failing lie-detector tests. It was a disturbing pattern of gross misconduct (in some instances, criminal conduct) which would be repeated in the aftermath of the Waco conflagration. And it appears that another repetition is underway in Oklahoma City.