Oklahoma City Bomber Nichols Says a 3rd Man Took Part in
Plot
By Richard A. Serrano
Times Staff Writer
May 4, 2005
WASHINGTON — After a decade of silence, Terry L. Nichols, who was
convicted in the Oklahoma City bombings, has accused a third man of
being an accomplice who provided some of the explosives used to kill
168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building 10 years ago.
Nichols, in a letter written from his cell at the U.S. government's
Supermax prison in Colorado, said Arkansas gun collector Roger Moore
donated so-called binary explosives, made up of two components, to
bomber Timothy J. McVeigh that were used in Oklahoma City, as well as
additional bomb components that recently were found in Nichols' former
home in Kansas.
The claim that a third man — in addition to
McVeigh and Nichols — was involved in the plot comes as a California
congressman has begun pressing for answers to lingering questions about
what, until Sept. 11, 2001, had been the worst terrorist attack in the
United States.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach),
chairman of the investigative arm of the House Committee on
International Relations, has been collecting new evidence in the
bombing and said he would announce soon whether formal hearings would
be opened into the April 19, 1995, tragedy.
He believes
Nichols' knowledge about other potential conspirators is central to his
investigation, especially since the components found in March in a
crawl space below Nichols' former home remained undetected for nearly a
decade.
The congressman said it was important to determine
whether others were involved beyond Nichols and McVeigh, two Army pals
who became antigovernment zealots.
"That this mass murder of
Americans was accomplished by two disgruntled veterans acting alone
seems to be the conclusion reached by those in authority," Rohrabacher
said recently on the House floor, referring to the FBI's investigation
of the bombing.
"However," Rohrabacher said, "there are some unsettling loose ends and
unanswered questions."
Nichols has been convicted twice — in federal and Oklahoma state courts
— and is serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of
parole.
For 10 years, he has kept his silence. His recent
revelations are considered particularly significant because they came
in letters he sent to a woman named Kathy Sanders, who lost two
grandchildren in the bombing.
Having turned 50, Nichols said he
wanted to begin speaking out about the bombing because the 10-year
anniversary last month honoring the victims had passed and he "felt the
record should be set straight."
Repeated attempts to find
Moore, an itinerant gun dealer who has lived in Arkansas and Florida,
for comment on Nichols' allegations were unsuccessful Tuesday.
The FBI, in the early stages of its investigation, took a hard look at
Moore because of his antigovernment views and his close relationship
with McVeigh.
McVeigh often stayed at Moore's home in Royal,
Ark., and the two had exchanged letters sharing their views about the
government.
In past interviews, Moore has steadfastly denied
any involvement in the bombing. He maintained that in the period before
the explosion, he was robbed at gunpoint by a masked man who stole
dozens of firearms and other weapons worth about $60,000 from his home
in Royal.
The FBI and government prosecutors later proved that
McVeigh sold the firearms to raise money to purchase bomb ingredients,
and prosecutors long asserted that it was Nichols who had robbed Moore.
In past interviews with The Times, Moore said he took a lie-detector
test that convinced the FBI he was not involved in the bombing.
"Everything they asked was 100% right," said Moore, who was 60 at the
time of the bombing. "They told me that."
Nichols' letter to Sanders was dated April 18, the day before the
10-year anniversary. In it he said the government knew that others were
involved but would not prosecute them, and he wanted to work with
Rohrabacher and Congress "to help expose the gov't coverup in my case
and thus reveal the truth in the OKC bombing."
He said ongoing
FBI tests of the components found at his house in Herington, Kan.,
would support his allegation that the material came from Moore and his
friend, Karen Anderson.
"That case of nitromethane came directly
from Roger Moore's Royal, Arkansas, home, and his prints should be
found on that box and/or tubes, and Karen Anderson's prints may be
there as well," Nichols wrote.
Anderson also could not be found Tuesday.
"Moore provided McVeigh with the binary explosives known as KINE-STIK
(aka-KINE-PAK) which consist of 2 components — ground ammonium nitrate
and nitromethane — and is approx. the size of a stick of dynamite."
Nichols added in the letter: "Moore testified in open court that he did
not know what KINE-STIK nor KINE-PAK was. He was clearly lying!
"Kinestik that McVeigh got from Moore was used
in the OKC bombing! … The Fed Gov't knows of Roger Moore's corrupt
activities and they are protecting him and covering up his involvement
with McVeigh at the OKC bombing!"
The two components of the
binary explosives — ground ammonium nitrate and nitromethane — are
chemicals that explode when combined and ignited.
An FBI
spokesman in Kansas City, Mo., Jeff Lanza, said Tuesday that 300
blasting caps found in the Nichols home had been positively traced to a
nearby Kansas quarry from where agents believed Nichols and McVeigh
stole some of the bomb components.
Lanza said other material,
which he declined to identify, found at the home was being examined for
fingerprints and other evidence at the FBI crime laboratory in
Quantico, Va.
"I'm not going to deny that they were there,"
Lanza said of the Kinestik and Kinepak described by Nichols. "But we
just haven't made any conclusive determination" about where those
explosives came from.
Despite her personal loss in the Oklahoma
City bombing, Sanders has befriended Nichols over the years, while
conducting her own investigation into the bombing. She said the letter
he wrote her showed that he was eager to talk now that his trials were
over, the anniversary had passed and Congress was considering hearings
on Capitol Hill.
"He was a quiet, introverted little fellow
before the Oklahoma City bombing," she said. "He's been sitting in his
cell now for 10 years alone. He's very timid; he's not good in social
circles.
"But he is starting to want to tell everything."
McVeigh was considered the bombing mastermind. Nichols helped him
assemble the bomb in Kansas but stayed home while McVeigh drove the
rental truck to Oklahoma City.
McVeigh was executed in June
2001, and any secrets he might have had died with him. That makes
Nichols all the more interesting to Rohrabacher and Sanders.
She recently wrote a book, "After Oklahoma City," and met with the
congressman to share some of what she had turned up in her quest to
find others besides Nichols and McVeigh who might be responsible.
In other letters from Nichols, which she shared with The Times, he
described his solitary life amid unending conspiracy theories such as
whether a gang of Midwestern bank robbers were involved, whether there
was a German or Middle Eastern connection to the bombing, and whether a
figure known as John Doe No. 2 accompanied McVeigh to the truck rental
store.
In March 2000, Nichols wrote Sanders that God had changed his outlook
on life.
"I wish I would have known these truths myself years ago, for it would
have prevented me from making numerous mistakes in my life," he wrote.
"But that's the past and no one can change it."
In a letter
dated April 6 this year, he denied that he had hidden the explosives at
his home so they could be used for another bombing at the Murrah site
on the 10-year anniversary. He said another inmate at his prison told
authorities that story to try to win a reduced sentence.
"The devil is twisting the truth," Nichols wrote.
He added: "Pray that the truth be revealed."
In his April 18 letter alleging the connection between Moore and the
explosives, Nichols included this line: "There's much more I would like
to say…. Please pray that the truth finally comes out."
And in
a final letter dated April 24, which Sanders received Monday night, he
urged her to seek clearance from prison officials to meet with him. "I
would be more than willing to discuss with you my knowledge of the OKC
bombing," he said.
Sanders said Rohrabacher had made inquiries
about meeting with Nichols. If he convenes formal hearings, the
congressman could subpoena Nichols to appear in Washington as a star
witness.
In his House floor speech April 19, the congressman
suggested that Nichols held many of the answers for those who doubted
he and McVeigh had acted alone. The congressman also wants to review
government documents and 23 surveillance tapes of activity around the
Murrah site on the morning of the bombing.
The tapes have not been released to the public, even though the trials
are over and the FBI says its investigation is closed.
"This is a free society," Rohrabacher said. "And if the public is to
have faith in their government, we cannot keep secrets like this."
