Dallas Morning News ^ | April 19, 2002 | Patrick B. Briley

Copyright 2002 by Patrick B. Briley

At about 4 pm on April 18, 1995 one day before the OKC bombing, a Ryder truck stopped for gas at the E-Z Mart in far north central Oklahoma at a small town named Newkirk. A light blue 1970’s Chevy pickup truck stopped at the same time with the Ryder truck at the EZ Mart in Newkirk.

According to witnesses the light blue pickup truck was driven by Terry Nichols and had a passenger with dark curly hair who was wearing a baseball cap, mirror glasses and was dressed in black. The pickup truck passenger had dark olive skin and appeared to look possibly Middle Eastern or Mexican. He also had a stern gaze and a large chest.

The Ryder truck reportedly had an overhang and one occupant, a driver who had short, light hair, a large nose and eyes and a mouth that were small in proportion to his face.

An employee at the EZ Mart said that Nichols came into the store and bought eight burritos but no chips or drinks. Nichols reportedly gave some of the food to the driver in the Ryder truck who appeared to have a disagreement with Nichols about something when Nichols handed him the food. The driver of the Ryder truck and the passenger in Nichols’ pickup truck never got out according to the EZ Mart employee.

The EZ Mart employee was interviewed by OKC TV station, KWTV, Channel 9 and their reporter Gann Mathews in mid May 1995. The witness also gave an interview to the Arkansas City Traveler newspaper which came out in a May 1, 1995 article entitled “Bombing Suspects Spotted in Newkirk”. Unfortunately, the newspaper reporter Jeff Guy got some of the significant facts (as to who was in which trucks) confused in the article. The EZ Mart employee was considered to be very reliable as she was married to a police officer and was also very observant with details.

The Dallas Morning News had a lengthy article published in May 1995 which showed a map of the route taken by McVeigh and other John Does from near Junction City Kansas, and south through Arkansas City, Kansas into Oklahoma and passing directly through Newkirk, Oklahoma en route to OKC. A 32 year veteran of the OKC police department told me in May 1995 that up to five men associated with the OKC bombing had passed through Newkirk with a Ryder truck.

Two other witnesses who taught school at Newkirk came to the EZ Mart around 4 pm on April 18, 1995 and saw a Ryder truck parked there. One of the witnesses said that to buy a coke the witness was standing in line with three men waiting to pay for their snacks. This witness said that two of these men come out of the EZ Mart and that one of them passed snacks to the driver of the Ryder truck. This witness said that the man buying snacks and giving it to the Ryder truck driver was about 5 feet seven, unshaven, and MAY (not certain) have been Terry Nichols. One of the teacher witnesses also said that the man buying snacks got into an old pickup truck

All the witnesses said they were interviewed by the FBI and some said they were also interviewed by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) at the same time they were interviewed by the FBI.

The BATF came to the EZ Mart about a week after the bombing canvassing the area and learned of witnesses who had seen the Ryder truck, Nichols and a John Doe. The BATF interviewed the EZ Mart employee and had the EZ Mart thoroughly dusted for fingerprints even though many customers had since been in the EZ Mart.

It is not known whose fingerprints (Nichols?) the BATF found at the EZ Mart. Bombing victim survivors presumably still not only would like to find out about the identities of fingerprints at the EZ Mart, but like to learn the identities of the fingerprints taken from where another John Doe (not John Doe #2) stayed in room 25 of the Dreamland motel in Kansas with McVeigh. A sketch of the John Doe in the Dreamland was made by FBI sketch artist Jean Boylan with witness Jeff Davis and resembles an FBI informant working at Elohim City, Peter Ward.

Do FBI or BATF files show the fingerprints taken from the EZ Mart and the Dreamland and the identities of the fingerprints and was this information later destroyed or withheld from the courts and the public?

About two weeks after the bombing the FBI interviewed the same EZ Mart employee witness for about fifteen minutes. The witness strongly identified an FBI supplied frontal view sketch of a John Doe #2 wearing a baseball hat. The witness also gave the FBI a description of the driver of the Ryder truck and told the FBI that even though he resembled McVeigh the witness could not be sure if it was McVeigh. The witness also told the FBI and BATF that they were certain that Nichols was not only at the EZ Mart driving a blue Chevy pickup when the Ryder truck on April 18, 1995, but also had been there with the same pickup at about seven a.m. on the Saturday before the OKC bombing.

Nichols presence with the Ryder truck and John Doe at the EZ Mart on April 18, 1995 suggests an even stronger role for his involvement in helping do the OKC bombing than heretofore commonly known. And John Doe#2’s participation is obvious by these accounts.

McVeigh, the FBI and prosecutors have kept saying for years that there were no John Does who helped McVeigh even though the FBI had positive confirmation of the John Doe# 2 by the witness at the EZ Mart. The witness was never called by the prosecution or defense at the trials. The witness was also not called by the OK County Grand Jury investigating the OKC bombing. Furthermore, during the trials the prosecution never called witnesses who had seen McVeigh with any John Does anywhere even though the FBI testified at a preliminary hearing on April 27, 1995 of over ten witness sightings of McVeigh with John Does including in OKC at the time of the bombing.

The curly hair and olive skin of the John Doe seen riding in Nichols pickup truck is consistent with the description of the John Doe reported by witnesses in OKC and later identified as the Iraqi suspect, Al Hussain Hussaini. Hussaini had reportedly been seen fleeing the area of the Murrah Building and with McVeigh at several locations prior to the bombing in OKC.

There is suspicion that the FBI and OSBI and BATF either did not do adequate interview reports of the sightings of Nichols and the John Doe by the EZ Mart witnesses or that the FBI withheld the reports from the defense and the court trials or had the reports destroyed too early (as recently verified by the DOJ inspector General Glenn Fine two weeks ago in his report to the Senate Judiciary Committee).

One important detail revealed by the EZ Mart employee witness is that the Ryder truck had an overhang. The Ryder truck allegedly driven by McVeigh on April 19, 1995 and carrying a bomb was shown across the Regency Towers apartments (a block to the northwest of the Murrah Building) in a video at the trial but it did not have an overhang. The EZ Mart witness also noted this difference in what they had seen at the EZ Mart and what was shown at trial.

Danny Wilkerson ran a snack shop in the Regency Towers apartments. Wilkerson told me that McVeigh parked a Ryder truck with an overhang in front of his snack shop at 8:35 a.m. April 19, 1995. Inside the Ryder truck, Wilkerson said he saw a John Doe. McVeigh came in and bought pop and talked to Wilkerson. Wilkerson says that by about 8:45 he noticed that McVeigh had driven around the block and parked the Ryder truck across the street in a direction headed toward the Murrah building and in the location shown by video at the trial. Wilkerson also said he saw McVeigh get out of the truck (after he parked it across the street) and look east up the street in the direction of the Murrah building

Wilkerson says several FBI agents including Ricky Raines tried for months to get him to change his description of the Ryder truck as having an overhang. Wilkerson said he believed Raines even tried to trick him to change his story by showing him a fake or an incomplete Ryder truck brochure having no pictures of Ryder trucks with overhangs. Wilkerson says he had seen Ryder trucks with overhangs many times before since they were used by people to move into the Regency Towers apartments. He even asked McVeigh if he was moving in because he says he saw the overhang on the truck.

The yellow pages in the OKC phone book from 1994-1995 clearly show that Ryder rented a truck with an overhang just as Wilkerson and the EZ Mart employee witness have stated they saw.

So we have both Wilkerson and the employee at the EZ Mart insisting that the Ryder truck they saw had an overhang while the Ryder truck the FBI says was used to blow up the Murrah building and shown in videos at trial did not have an overhang. If the witnesses are correct then these possibilities remain to account for the evidence:

Either the FBI is wrong about the truck that blew up in front of the Murrah building and altered the trial video, or a second Ryder truck was used in the bombing exercise. If a second Ryder truck was used with an overhang, perhaps it was used to transport bomb making materials to Oklahoma for future assembly inside of the larger, Ryder truck (it had a side door) the FBI says blew up. If this were the case then McVeigh would have had to switch trucks after he left the snack shop and drove around the block and parked a Ryder truck across the street.

Wilkerson was not called during the trials and his testimony to the FBI about the Ryder truck overhang and McVeigh having a John Doe in the Ryder truck was never disclosed in the trials. It is suspected that the FBI once again (as in the case with the EZ Mart employee witness) either did not do interview reports or withheld them or had them destroyed.

What is obvious from these accounts is that the DOJ and FBI are still withholding from the courts, Congress and the public evidence of John Does involved in the OKC bombing. McVeigh and Nichols who did not act alone as the FBI and DOJ still try to claim. Evidence of Nichols greater involvement may have also been withheld from the trials to preclude the jury and public from learning of the John Doe(s) that were with Nichols ( and perhaps McVeigh) at the EZ Mart on April 18, 1995.

There is growing concern that the John Does involved in the OKC bombing can bomb again and/or that they come from radical domestic groups who could help Middle Eastern terrorists in the US attack innocent civilians in the future.

Copyright 2002 by Patrick B. Briley