Murrah Building Tenth Anniversary - Questions that still remain

In the ten years since the Murrah Building bombing, most of the circumstances surrounding the event have been answered.  But there are a few nagging questions that still remain.  Here are four of them:

Who was John Doe No. 2?

Were multiple bombs detonated?

Did the government have prior knowledge of the bombing?

Was there a 169th victim?

A caveat before you begin reading - one immediate problem with many of my online sources is that they are very far right wing websites - guys who think that William F. Buckley is a liberal establishment shill.  When you read an article on a website and then see a sidebar ad for The John Birch Society, it doesn't bolster your confidence.  Unfortunately these websites are, in many cases, the only source of in-depth information about the Murrah Building bombing. 

I am writing this post because I believe that there is sufficient evidence to merit the attention of you, the reader.  Obviously I cannot verify the statements or opinions of others, and I realize that much of the information that swarms around this type of event is based on speculation and rumors.   I can vouch for the things that I heard and saw myself.  As for the rest, take it with as many grains of salt as you see fit. 

1) John Doe No. 2

The first APB for suspects in the Murrah bombing involved a brown pickup truck carrying three men apparently of Middle Eastern descent.  According to witnesses, this truck was seen fleeing the scene at a high rate of speed.  After the rear axle of the Ryder rental truck was found and identified, the FBI frantically began tracking down Ryder truck rentals near Oklahoma City.  They determined that the bomb truck was rented in Junction City, Kansas.  FBI agents interviewed numerous witnesses who saw the men who rented the truck, and based on the descriptions of the witnesses the FBI released two sketches of the prime suspects.  John Doe No. 1 was obviously Timothy McVeigh.  At the time the sketches were released, McVeigh was sitting in jail.  He had been stopped less than two hours after the bomb exploded by an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer.  McVeigh's car did not have license plates.  A search of his vehicle turned up a gun, and McVeigh was arrested.

The media swarmed around Timothy McVeigh, and in the following weeks the interest in John Doe No. 2 and the brown pickup quietly faded away.  Yet numerous witnesses identified a second conspirator with McVeigh in Junction City, Kansas (where he picked up the Ryder truck) and other witnesses also saw the same man with McVeigh in Oklahoma City several days before the bombing.  The man was neither Terry Nichols nor Michael Fortier, the two other men convicted as conspirators in the bombing plot.  Witnesses at the bombing scene suggested that one of the men in the brown pickup might have been John Doe No. 2.

To this day no one positively knows the identity of  John Doe No. 2, or why the FBI ended their search for him.  Here are the sketches originally released by the FBI:

 

       

UPDATE: After drafting this post I dug through a box of old video tapes and rewatched Fox's "America's Most Wanted" from April 29, 1995.  That show centered around John Doe No. 2 and included interviews with witnesses in Junction City, KS who saw McVeigh and John Doe No. 2 together on many occasions.  The show made no mention of the brown pickup truck.

Award-winning investigative reporter Jayna Davis is now the authoritative source regarding John Doe No. 2.  Visit her website to learn more about her investigation and the resulting book, "The Third Terrorist."  Davis felt that she had uncovered the identity of John Doe No. 2, and news reports based on her research were aired in Oklahoma City.  Even though Davis did not reveal any names in her reports, an individual came forward and sued her employer (KFOR television) for defamation of character, claiming that the reports unfairly targeted him.  After the suit, the investigation never resurfaced in the mainstream media. 

Here's a direct link to two news articles about Jayna Davis' work; one article appeared in the Indianapolis Star, the other in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Other information here, here, and here.

2) Multiple bombs?

Although there is no question that Timothy McVeigh's Ryder truck bomb was the primary weapon used in the April 19th attack,  credible investigators have postulated that another bomb or group of bombs may have been planted inside the building either to aid the truck bomb, or to act as backup if the truck bomb failed to detonate.

During the first few hours after the bomb blast, crowds were pushed back at least twice because rescue workers believed that they had located additional unexploded bombs or ordinance.  I clearly recall local radio reporters announcing the evacuations.  CNN also reported that two more  bombs were defused and removed from the building shortly after rescue workers began arriving.

The most common explanations regarding the additional bomb scares involved either the rescue workers misidentifying harmless items as bombs, or actually finding weapons or dummy training bombs in building offices that were occupied by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF)  or the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). 

Mistakes would certainly have been easy to make in the panic and confusion following an event like the April 19 bombing.  Also, rescuers were probably more likely to err on the side of caution, assuming that other bombs were likely to be found.  To date, no one has been able to produce concrete evidence (photographs of devices or the actual defused devices themselves) of other terrorist bombs allegedly found in the building.

Interestingly, a study commissioned by the government and conducted at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida seemed to indicate that the air detonation of the Ryder truck alone could not have caused the kind of damage sustained by the building.  Their study suggested that the internal structure of the building would have had to have been damaged by internal bombs in order for the entire north face of the building to collapse.  You can read more about the Air Force study here. 

Another interesting twist involved seismograph charts recorded at the Omniplex Science Museum and the University of Oklahoma, which seemed to indicate two distinct explosions approximately ten seconds apart, followed by the cave-in of the building.  (At the time of the blast I distinctly remember feeling two bumps - a ‘thud ... thump' sound - though the interval between the two was much less than ten seconds.  I was about 12 miles away from the point of the explosion.)

A subsequent investigation which monitored seismic activity generated by the May 23 demolition of the remains of the building, and compared it to the seismographs recorded on April 19, concluded, "The two wave trains recorded on April 19 are consistent with a single explosion, not evidence of two explosions 10 s apart."  A detailed analysis of the seismographs published by the American Geophysical Union is available here.

3) What did they know and when did they know it?

A common conspiracy theory that pops up after events like the April 19 bombing is the idea that someone, somewhere knew that the event was going to happen, but did nothing to prevent it.  Some of the more colorful conspiracy stories about April 19 involve ubiquitous black helicopters, scheming lawmakers, and a trail of dead informants.

In reality, no direct evidence related to the April 19 attack indicates that the government had exact prior knowledge of the event.  The FBI and other law enforcement agencies did admit that they were concerned about radical right-wings groups planning a "revenge attack" on the anniversary of the Branch Davidian raid in Waco, Texas, which occurred on April 19, 1993.  But according to the FBI, the information that they had regarding these revenge attacks was sketchy at best and did not include profiles of specific individuals or exact dates or targets.

Others point out that the BATF had informants in several radical right-wing extremist militia camps.  One of these camps,  Elohim City, is located in a remote area along the Oklahoma-Arkansas border.  Timothy McVeigh was known to have visited Elohim City at least once.  The BATF's informant in Ehohim City was a woman named Carol Howe.  She was later tried on bombing and conspiracy charges in an unrelated case.  Her trial ended with an acquittal on all counts.  Interestingly, the testimony presented in Howe's federal trial indicated that she continuously reported suspicious activity to her BATF and FBI superiors before April 19, and that she had specifically warned them about revenge bombings that could take place around the anniversary of the Branch Davidian assault.   

Immediately after the bombing, rumors began circulating that all FBI, DEA, and BATF agents received pages ordering them not to come to work that day.  All three agencies denied foreknowledge of the bombing, and the children of several FBI employees were present in the Murrah Building day care center that morning. 

I knew one of the BATF agents who was headquartered in the Murrah building.  I talked to him after the bombing and he said that he did receive a page that instructed him to report to another BATF office on the morning of April 19.  He did not think that the page was strange because BATF agents often were directed to other field offices when they were to participate in raids.  He believed that a raid was scheduled for the morning of April 19, but was canceled in the wake of the bombing.

I also have numerous recollections of conversations on local talk radio concerning the Oklahoma City Police bomb squad.  According to allegations at the time, the OKC Police bomb squad was present at the building in the early morning hours and left before the building was opened to the public.  I do not recall whether or not the police ever formally acknowledged these allegations, and information about this specific incident seems to be unavailable on the Internet.

A final piece of evidence cited by those who insist that the government had prior knowledge of the event is a statement made by David Kochendorfer, an Oklahoma County Sheriff's deputy who was at the bombing scene immediately after the incident occurred. 

"It was about 9:00 p.m. when the dignitaries started showing up. Governor Keating, [District Attorney] Bob Macy, and the mayor all came in with their people," recalls Kochendorfer. "I spotted Congressman [Ernest] Istook walking toward me from the east perimeter. He stopped and we spoke for about 15 to 20 minutes — small talk mostly, about what a tragedy it was and such." Then, says the deputy, the congressman uttered a stunning comment. "Istook said, ‘Yeah, we knew this was going to happen.'" Kochendorfer was shocked, and asked, "Pardon me? How did you know that?" He says Istook responded, "Well, we got word there's an undercover … right-wing, Muslim, fundamentalist group operating in Oklahoma City," and that "an information source thought that a federal building was going to be bombed." The deputy was even more stunned.

Then, says Kochendorfer, Congressman Istook looked closely at his hat and asked, "What department are you with?" It had been raining and the deputy's uniform was covered by a yellow slicker. Kochendorfer told him he was with the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Department. The deputy says the Oklahoma City congressman replied, "Oh, I thought you were with the Highway Patrol," and then turned and walked away. According to Kochendorfer, his deputy's hat and those of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol are both of the Smokey-the-Bear type, so it was easy for him to understand the congressman's mistake. What he didn't understand was Istook's odd reaction and apparent snub of the Sheriff's Department.

Not surprisingly, Rep. Istook has repeatedly denied that he ever made such a statement, and that he or anyone else could have had any prior knowledge of the bombing.

4) The "169th Victim"

One hundred sixty eight victims were officially accounted for in the aftermath of the Murrah building bombing.  But a news story that kept cropping up in the following months concerned an extra leg found by investigators.  Forensics experts could not positively match the leg to any of the 168 known victims. 

Many subsequent stories identified the leg as belonging to Airman First Class Lakesha Levy.  But deeper investigation revealed that Levy's body was buried with both legs accounted for.  So much for that theory.

The blog Classical Values published a pretty good rundown on the leg story about a year ago, which was also linked on InstaPundit.  According to Classical Values' research, the identity of the leg is still a mystery.

...

On a personal note, the saga of John Doe No. 2 is the story that I find most intriguing.  Law enforcement agencies deserve credit and praise for the quick capture of Tim McVeigh, but to this day the FBI has never sufficiently explained why they ended the search for John Doe No. 2 after McVeigh's capture.

Circumstantial evidence and numerous witnesses seem to confirm, beyond a reasonable doubt, that John Doe No. 2 existed.  And we know that law enforcement never believed that John Doe No. 2 was Terry Nichols or Michael Fortier.

Curious indeed.

Comments

[one more opinion]

When I read about the Murrah building bombing I'm forced to wonder. What if George Bush had been president? Given the proven links to the Michigan milita, would he have occupied the state? Would he have used the missing suspect as an excuse to Invade Iraq or Cuba? Or would he have done just what Clinton did and let the authorites handle it as best they could. Given what we know about the president, it is unlikely that he would have under reacted.

One more thing

As you wonder about connections to Islam, I'd like to note that even today there is no evidence that Islamic extremists have ever collaborated with non muslims.

Who gets the "credit" is a big part of why terrorists blow things up. The loss of the federalb building alone did nothing to help Islam. If 911 was claimed by the Michigan Militia, Al queda would not have gained any of the noteriety that it craved. Noteriety means money and recruits to these organizations. They have (evil) reasons for doing what they do. They seek to gain from their terrorist actions. They don't blow up building just because they can.

[tGod]

too bad the "main" weapon could not have done that damage
the truck bomb was weak!see General Parton's analysis of dissipation of energy. the Feds made Oklahoma happen