Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 14, 1995 TAG: 9507060090
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: DETROIT LENGTH: Long
Nichols even drew a diagram of the nine-story building and produced a newspaper clipping that described it after rummaging through files at his farm in Decker, Mich., the informant said.
The FBI account of the information was included in more than 100 pages of documents released Monday in response to a lawsuit filed by the Detroit Free Press to unseal records of the Nichols investigation. The records also show that searches of Nichols' property yielded fuses, blasting caps, fertilizer, fuel oil, dynamite and plastic drums, all possible components of bombs like the one used in Oklahoma City
Nichols' attorney, Robert Elsey, said late Monday he had ``absolutely zero comment'' about the newly released documents. Elsey, who secured Nichols' release from jail, has maintained that Nichols has no connection to the Oklahoma City bombing and that any explosives made on his property were for chores such as stump removal, or just fireworks.
One of Nichols' neighbors in the sparsely populated "thumb" told federal agents that a blast from the Nichols' farm one night in February was big enough to shake her house.
Nichols, 41, is not charged in the April 19 bombing that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City. His brother, Terry Nichols, 40, and Timothy McVeigh, 28, a sometime visitor to the Nichols farm, are jailed without bond and expected to be indicted in the bombing.
In another development, federal agents believe they have identified the ``John Doe No. 2'' in the Oklahoma City bombing case - but he probably had nothing to do with the attack, the Los Angeles Times learned Tuesday.
Investigators located and questioned the man several days ago. But rather than finding a leading accomplice of McVeigh, sources close to the case say, they apparently have an innocent man who happened to be at a Kansas truck rental firm at the same time as McVeigh.
However, investigators in the bombing believe the mastermind of the attack is still out there, a federal law enforcement source said Tuesday.
``There's somebody still out there,'' a source close to the investigation told The Associated Press. ``Somebody had to point [McVeigh] at a target and tell him what to do. The guy isn't capable of doing it by himself.''
During the search of his farm two days after the explosion, James Nichols told federal agents that McVeigh still had a bedroom in Nichols' house.
After the search, Nichols was jailed for about a month, but then released under strict conditions and surveillance, pending trial on charges of making explosives, but unrelated to the Oklahoma blast.
Very little of the specific information released Monday was used by federal authorities in their effort two weeks ago to prevent Nichols' release, although he was described as a danger to the public. During the hearings, federal agents testified about Nichols' alleged discussions of building a ``superbomb'' to attack an unspecified federal building, but never linked it to Oklahoma City.
The records also show that Terry Nichols made five phone calls, each less than a minute long, from his home to the Nichols farm about the time on April 21 that nationwide newscasts showed federal agents arriving to search it. Terry Nichols surrendered a short while later to police in Herington, Kan., where he lives.
Federal authorities had no comment Monday beyond releasing the records.
The informant said Nichols was enraged by the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed more than 250 people. The informant said Nichols, a struggling farmer and vocal critic of most authority, blamed the U.S. government for the disaster.
Nichols told how a small bomb could bring down an airliner and ``then explained ... that a megabomb capable of leveling a building could be built,'' offering the Oklahoma City structure as an example, the informant said.
The documents also link Terry Nichols and McVeigh to a November 1994 robbery of an Arkansas gun dealer in which a number of Chinese SKS assault rifles were stolen. One such rifle was found at the Nichols farm, according to the records.
Agents said the gun dealer named McVeigh, an itinerant dealer in weapons and military-type equipment, as possibly being involved in the robbery. They said a safety deposit key taken in the Arkansas theft was found in a search of Terry Nichols' home in Kansas. The search of the Nichols farm yielded a letter from Terry to James in which Terry says he is sending James some 30-round magazines ``so you can try out your SKS.''
The Nichols farm was searched several times, with agents saying they were seeking evidence that could be linked to the Oklahoma City bombing and also information about the Michigan Militia.
Agents said four white, plastic 55-gallon barrels with blue lids found at the Nichols farm were identical to those found at Terry Nichols' house in Kansas. Authorities believe, based on fragments found at the scene, that such barrels held the bomb that blew up in Oklahoma.
by CNB