ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997 TAG: 9703030038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DALLAS
SOURCE: The Dallas Morning News
A DEFENSE ATTORNEY denies knowledge of documents in which Timothy McVeigh tells how he bombed the federal building.
Timothy McVeigh has described for his defense team how he bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, saying the daytime attack left a ``body count'' intended to get a point across to the government, according to confidential defense reports.
In the documents, examined by The Dallas Morning News, McVeigh implicated his former Army buddy and co-defendant Terry Nichols in the plot, but insisted that he alone drove the explosives-filled truck that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995.
McVeigh's lead attorney, Stephen Jones, said he could not confirm the contents of the documents.
``I don't presume to know everything everybody has said,'' Jones said. ``But none of that sounds familiar to me.''
Jones said the reports were either stolen or fakes and should not be published. Ralph Langer, executive vice president and editor of The Dallas Morning News, said the newspaper obtained the documents legally.
Prosecutors and lawyers for Nichols had no comment, but Nichols has pleaded not guilty and denied any part in any illegal activity related to the bombing.
Both defendants face possible death sentences if convicted of murder and conspiracy. McVeigh's trial is set to begin March 31.
McVeigh's statements, culled from summaries of several 1995 interviews with a defense team member, appear to validate key elements of the prosecution's case. They describe how the two men committed robbery and burglary in the course of assembling money and materials for the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The blast killed 168 people and injured more than 500.
In a July 1995 interview, McVeigh responded to the view of an anti-government activist that he would have been a hero had he bombed the building at night, when fewer people might have been killed.
``McVeigh looked directly into my eyes and told me, `That would not have gotten the point across to the government. We needed a body count to make our point,''' the staff member wrote in notes of the interview with McVeigh.
Prosecutors have said the bombing attack was revenge on the government for the deadly 1993 Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas, in which more than 80 people died.
Though McVeigh has pleaded not guilty, he has never publicly denied committing the bombing. Nowhere in the documents does he deny a role in the attack.
The reports were written based on meetings with McVeigh between July and December 1995 at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma, where he was held before his transfer to the Denver area in March 1996. Because the reports were based on McVeigh's meetings with a defense team member, they are not available to prosecutors and will probably never be introduced to the jury.
The reports provide no details on whether McVeigh was accompanied by another man - the elusive John Doe No.2 - as first described by witnesses at the Junction City, Kan., Ryder agency that rented the truck used in the blast.
In one meeting, McVeigh disputed the account of a waitress who said she knew the identity of another man who actually drove the bomb truck.
``McVeigh again insisted that he was the one who drove the Ryder truck,'' the interviewer wrote.
The reports contain several references by McVeigh to Nichols' participation and knowledge of the bomb plot, but denied any involvement by Terry Nichols' brother. James Nichols, of Decker, Mich., was arrested after the bombing and held for a month as a material witness.
The reports also detail McVeigh's account of a November 1994 robbery that prosecutors say helped bankroll the bombing. In one report, McVeigh said that Terry Nichols was the gunman in the holdup of Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore.
The indictment alleges McVeigh and Nichols ``caused'' the robbery and got the proceeds from stolen guns, but does not identify the robber.
``McVeigh stated that he laid out the plan and that Terry Nichols alone broke into Moore's house and stole the weapons,'' a report says.
``McVeigh stated that [James] Nichols had no knowledge about the bombing as far as he knew, but that he didn't know what Terry Nichols might have told brother James,'' says one report.
Federal prosecutors have accused McVeigh and Terry Nichols of starting in September 1994 to assemble components for the bomb, allegedly built the day before the blast at a lake near Nichols' home in Herington, Kan.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) McVeigh. color.by CNB