The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 10

Similar items were found in James Nichols' farm, including blasting caps, safety fuses, ammonium nitrate, and diesel fuel. Nichols, who was taken into custody the same day as his brother, denied any wrongdoing, and authorities dropped all charges. As for his brother, he commented, "My gut feeling. I didn't do anything. He didn't do anything." When asked by a reporter, "How about Timothy McVeigh? he replied, "I want to see some facts."

Yet the facts against Terry seemed to be piling up.

On April 15, 1995, Barbara Whittenberg served breakfast to three men at the Sante Fe Trail Diner: Terry Nichols, Tim McVeigh, and a third man with dark features. She also recalled seeing a Ryder truck outside, and asked the men where they were headed. Suddenly, she said, it was "as if ice water was thrown on the conversation."[375]

The men left before 7:00 a.m. Later that afternoon, as Whittenberg and her son were driving to nearby Junction City, they saw the truck parked at Geary State Fis.h.i.+ng Lake - where authorities originally claimed the bomb was mixed. The truck was still there when they drove past around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. Whittenberg's son recalled seeing three men along with what he described as a Thunderbird with Arizona tags.

Later that day Nichols visited a Conoco station in Manhattan, Kansas, and a Coastal Mart in Junction City, and bought over 30 gallons of diesel fuel. Nichols' pick-up has a diesel motor, according to his brother, and Nichols' had been a regular diesel customer for over two months prior to the bombing, according to Shan Woods of Klepper Oil Co., purchasing between $20 to $30 worth of diesel fuel "two or three times a week." Receipts were again found in his home.[376]

The next day, Nichols purchased an additional 21 gallons from the Junction City Conoco station.

Then, on the evening of April 17, 1995, a Ryder truck was seen parked behind Nichols Herrington home. A Ryder truck was seen that same week backed up to a storage shed that Nichols rented.

On the morning of the 18th, several witnesses again saw the Ryder truck parked at Geary Lake. Parked next to appeared to be Nichols' pick-up. When the FBI subsequently inspected the area, they allegedly recovered bits of ammonium nitrate and strands of detonator cord, and saw signs of diesel fuel.

That same day, or possibly the day before, a convoy pulled in for gas at the Easy Mart in Newkirk, 100 miles north of Oklahoma City. It was a Ryder truck accompanied by a blue pick-up with a camper top. Manager Jerri-Lynn Backhous recalled seeing three men. The pa.s.senger in the pick-up was dark skinned with black hair, average height, and had a "real muscular build," she said. He was wearing a t-s.h.i.+rt and sun-gla.s.ses, and "looked just like the John Doe 2 sketch."[377]

Backhous also saw a reflection of the person in the Ryder truck. He was a short man with close cropped, dark hair and gla.s.ses, she said. Employee Dorinda J. "Wendy" Hermes waited on the third man - Terry Lynn Nichols - who came into the store and bought food for the others. Hermes particularly recalled Nichols' pick-up. "It caught me funny because it had street tires on it, but it was all muddy," she said.[378]

But perhaps most interesting was the recollection of Nichols' son Josh, who accompanied McVeigh and his father on the ride back to Kansas that Sunday. McVeigh a.s.serts that he called Nichols from Oklahoma City because his car had broken down, and asked Nichols to pick him up. On the way back, according to Josh, McVeigh made his infamously cryptic remark: "Something big is going to happen."

Nichols reportedly asked him, What, are you going to rob a bank?"

"Something big is going to happen," McVeigh stoically replied.

A curious statement. If McVeigh and Nichols had conspired to bomb the Murrah Building, wouldn't Nichols already know that "something big" was going to happen?

Or was the statement invented by Nichols to exculpate himself from the plot in the eyes of investigators? Given the fact that the statement was relayed to the FBI by Nichols' 12-year-old son, this seems unlikely.

And if Nichols was involved in the plot, there is evidence that in November of '94 he wanted out. Among the doc.u.ments prosecutors handed over to the defense is testimony from Lori Fortier that McVeigh began to solicit help from her husband because Nichols was "expressing reluctance."

It should be noted however that the FBI and the "Justice" Department is infamous for framing people, and they brought enormous pressure on the Fortiers, threatening them with knowledge of a terrorist plot, weapons violations and other charges if they did not testify against Nichols and McVeigh. Federal prosecutors subsequently coached Lori Fortier heavily before McVeigh's trial, having her practice her testimony in two mock trials.

Yet if Nichols had no involvement in the plot, what was he doing with large quant.i.ties of ammonium nitrate, blasting caps, detonator cord, and a collection of 55-gallon drums? Why the purchases of diesel fuel? Were these items planted by the FBI?

If Nichols was involved in the bombing, why didn't he make any attempt to hide or dispose of these incriminating items before April 19, or even by the 22nd? Why would a man,who had allegedly just blown up a building, killing 169 people, plainly leave a receipt for the so-called bomb ingredient in his kitchen drawer?

In fact, Nichols didn't attempt to hide any of these items, before he casually walked into the local police station on April 22, after hearing his name on TV. Such do not seem like the actions of an intelligent, calculating, cold-blooded killer.

But, then there were the mysterious trips to the Philippines. Those trips, and Nichols' clandestine meetings with some mysterious players in Las Vegas, would begin to intrigue a handful of journalists and investigators, as the Oklahoma City bombing plot took them down an even darker and more insidious road.

4.

Millar's Rent-A-n.a.z.i.

Authorities have postulated that McVeigh's "obsession with Waco," and Nichols' hatred of the Federal Government were the driving forces that led them to bomb the Federal Building. Their alleged a.s.sociation with militias and other paramilitary groups, authorities claimed, was the key influence that guided them along their sinister path to their final, vicious act of revenge.

These numerous pseudo-experts also theorized that McVeigh himself was inspired by the Turner Diaries, written by former physics professor William Pierce. In this fictionalized account of white race-warriors' overthrow of the Zionist Occupational Government (ZOG), the "heroes" demolish the FBI building in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. with a fertilizer bomb at precisely 9:00 a.m.

The idea for bombing a federal facility is hardly new. In the mid-1970s Oklahoma resident Harawese Moore was convicted of planting an incendiary device outside both the Federal Courthouse and the Alfred P. Murrah Building - a case, coincidentally, defended by Stephen Jones.

In 1983, members of the Covenant, Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA), a white supremacist group based in northern Arkansas, planned to truck-bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Building. In 1988, former CSA leader James Ellison turned states' evidence and testified that CSA member Richard Wayne Snell and others had partic.i.p.ated in the plot. Snell was bitter toward the government, Ellison claimed, because the IRS and FBI had seized his property.

Other defendants included Richard Girnt Butler, chief of the Aryan Nations; Robert E. Miles, a former Ku Klux Klansman; and Louis Beam, Jr., former Grand Dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan, and Aryan Nations "Amba.s.sador at Large" - who led a campaign of terror against Vietnamese-American fisherman.[379]

Ellison, who fancied himself "King James," was surrounded at his CSA compound near the Missouri-Arkansas border on the prophetic date of April 19 (ten years to the day of the Oklahoma City bombing), leading to a four-day standoff against 200 heavily-armed agents. Ellison later testified at his sedition trial that at Snell's request, he had cased several buildings, including the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

"He took me to some of the buildings and asked me to go in the building and check the building out," Ellison said. According to his testimony, rocket launchers were to be "placed in a trailer or a van so that it could be driven up to a given spot, parked there, and a timed detonation device could be triggered so that the driver could walk away and leave the vehicle set in position and he would have time to clear the area before any of the rockets launched."[380]

Ellison would later deny this. Yet on October 22, 1996, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) played a clip of Ellison, where the former CSA leader admitted his involvement in the plot: Ellison: ...Wayne Snell had been... had made a trip to Oklahoma City, and Wayne came back and told me about different buildings that he had seen, wanted to know if I would look at them with him sometime. And Steve talked to me and gave me a description of these buildings and asked me to design a rocket launcher that could be used to destroy these buildings from a distance... heavy, large buildings.

In the CBC piece, former CSA member Kerry n.o.ble states: "I still look at things like this and realize how close we were, and, you know, that this could have been me having done this." The reformed n.o.ble, now a critic of the militant extreme-Right, spoke openly about the plot with CBC's Trish Wood: n.o.ble: It was one of the targets that we had talked about at [the] CSA in '83. The day it happened, as soon as I heard it on the news, I said, the Right-wing's done it - they finally took that step.

n.o.ble explained that the Murrah Building was a target because it was a low security complex that housed many different federal agencies. He said the plotters thought it would have more effect on the country "than if you did a building, say, in New York City or something."[381]

Wood: Do you think - and I know this is a guess - that Snell or Ellison told [Reverend Robert] Millar about the early plans to blow up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City?

n.o.ble: ...I think that probably Millar knew that something major was going to happen. Now, whether he knew the exact details, chances are he probably did not, because he would not want to know specific details at first. But I think he knew something major was going to happen.

Ellison later settled at Elohim City at the behest of Millar, who claims to disavow the bombing. "If I knew something like that was taking place then or today," said the Christian Ident.i.ty minister, "I'd do everything I could do to prevent it and, if necessary, call in government agents to help stop it."

While all 14 defendants in the original 1983 bombing plot were acquitted, Snell was executed on the ever-prophetic date of April 19, 1995, the very day that the Murrah Building was bombed. Snell was convicted of killing a black state trooper in 1984, and a p.a.w.n shop owner he thought was Jewish. While under arrest, Snell called himself a "prisoner of war," precisely what authorities claimed McVeigh said.

Before his death, Snell had time to watch scenes from the bombing on his jail-room TV. Millar, who was with the 64-year-old Snell during his final hours, said he was appalled at the destruction. Yet according to Arkansas prison official Alan Ables, "Snell chuckled and laughed as he watched television coverage of the Oklahoma City disaster."

Both Millar and Snell's wife contend that the convicted murderer was saddened by the bombing. Yet n.o.ble thinks McVeigh was in some way inspired by Snell.

Wood: Did you ever think that it was a coincidence that Tim McVeigh - if, in fact, he did it - chose that building?

n.o.ble: No, I don't think it's any coincidence. When you bring that into account with the declaration of war that we made, the pressure that the older leaders of the groups are putting on the younger followers to do something in a major way before they die - no, it's no coincidence.

Wood: How would McVeigh have known about the earlier plans for the Murrah Building?

n.o.ble: It's very feasible and likely that he would have kept in communication with certain people and said... you know, then if somebody said, well, what would you recommend as a starting place - it's very likely he could have said, well, this is what we had picked out.

Interestingly, Ables told the Denver Post, "Snell repeatedly predicted that there would be a bombing or an explosion the day of his death."

Ables: A few days before the execution I began to hear things from the director, the wardens, just talk in the office, that strange things were going on, Snell was talking strangely, he was, you know, making statements that were a little scary... catastrophic events, things were going to happen. This date, April 19th, was going to be something that the governor would regret perhaps.

Snell's parting words before leaving this Earth were, "Look over your shoulder, Governor, justice is coming. I wouldn't trade places with you or any of your cronies. h.e.l.l has victory. I am at peace."

Wood: Are those the ravings of a man about to be executed or are they the comments of a man with a plan?

n.o.ble: I think a man with a plan, I think a man who is taking the satisfaction that his death may mean something after all and that it may be the catalyst that puts somebody over the line to do what he himself didn't get the chance to do.[382]

A similar bomb plot surfaced a year after the Oklahoma City bombing, when Richard Ray Lampley, 65, his wife Cecilia, and friend John Baird were convicted of a plot to bomb the ADL office in Houston, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, and various gay bars and abortion clinics. Lampley made his intentions known at one of Dennis Mahon's WAR meetings. A former Grand Imperial Dragon of the KKK, and number three man in WAR, the Tulsan was a frequent visitor to Lampley's place, and to Elohim City.

A self-proclaimed "Prophet of G.o.d," Lampley claims he was entrapped by Richard Schrum, an FBI informant. Schrum was sent by the Bureau to infiltrate the Oklahoma white separatist compound, but when he found nothing illegal there, he infiltrated Lampley's group instead.

According to defense attorneys, it was Schrum who ran the militia cell to which Lampley belonged, and threatened to leave when it appeared Lampley was wavering. "If anyone formed any kind of conspiracy, it was Richard Schrum," defense lawyer Mark Green said. Defense attorney Warren Gotcher backed up Green, stating "This conspiracy to build a bomb is totally on the orders of Richard Schrum." Schrum told Lampley that he had a brother in the Special Forces at Fort Bragg, NC, who would provide logistic support when the "New World Order" invasion came.[383]

The bomb, a mixture of homemade C-4, was supposed to tested at Elohim City.[384]

Whatever the reality of that case, it provides a unique insight into the characters and players of the white supremacist community of Southeastern Oklahoma - a community that drew to it like a magnet some of the key players of the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy.

Led by the 71-year-old Millar, Elohim City (Hebrew for "City of G.o.d") is a 1,100-acre Christian Ident.i.ty compound near Muldrow, Oklahoma. Founded in 1973 by the Canadian-born Mennonite, the community is home to approximately 90 residents, about half of whom are direct descendants of Millar.

Christian Ident.i.ty adherents believe that white Anglo-Saxons, not Jews, are G.o.d's chosen people, being descendants of the 12 lost tribes of Israel, and that America, not Israel, is the Promised Land. This sanctified doctrine also holds that Jews are the sp.a.w.n of Satan, and non-whites are a "pre-Adamic," sub-species.

Only whites are the "true sovereign citizens" of the Republic, and all others are "Fourteenth Amendment citizens" - the creation of an illegitimate "ZOG." Believers of this odd mix of theology not only believe that the end times are near, but that a great messiah will arise to lead these "holy warriors" in a terrible final battle against the evil ZOG.

Those who monitor Right-wing extremist groups say Millar is probably the most influential Christian Ident.i.ty leader in the Great Plains.[385] As Millar explained it: "We are opposed to governmental misuse of tax money.... We are opposed to some of the actions of government. We're not anti-government... Our people are all self-employed, and we all pay taxes.... "We are racist," Millar said, "but we aren't anti-Semitic. I think it's better for races and cultures... to have relations.h.i.+ps within their own ethnic group. That doesn't mean isolationism, but it means separatism."[386]

Yet the group does maintain connections to white supremacist and neo-n.a.z.i organizations, including WAR, the somewhat defunct CSA, and the violent but largely disbanded Order. The Christian Ident.i.ty adherents also formed alliances with Richard Butler, Christian Ident.i.ty "minister," and head of the Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho. The Hayden Lake compound served as a nexus for white supremacist groups from all over the country, including the KKK, Posse Comitatus, William Pierce's National Alliance, and Robert Mathews' Order. It was Mathews' group, inspired by Pierce's Turner Diaries, that went on to commit a string of bank robberies, counterfeiting, bombings, and murder throughout the Mid- and Northwest in the 1980s.[387]

Ama.s.sing between $2 and $4 million from robberies and heists of armored cars, the group distributed the proceeds amongst the white supremacist movement. They also purchased land in northern Idaho for paramilitary training, but moved to northern Arkansas, linking up with the CSA when they found the harsh climate unsuitable for their purposes.

The Order's exploits came to an end in November of '84, when Mathews died in a shoot-out with police and federal agents on Whidby Island off the coast of Was.h.i.+ngton. It's members who managed to escape fled across the country, integrating themselves into different white supremacist groups, or went underground altogether.

Richard Lee Guthrie, Jr., the son of a CIA employee, who was discharged from the Navy for painting a swastika on the side of a s.h.i.+p and threatening superiors, his childhood friend Peter K. Langan, and Shawn Kenny, went on to form the nucleus of a group known as the Midwest Bank Bandits. The group stole more than $250,000 from 22 banks between January of '94 and December of '95 in a spree that led them across Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. The four-member group would often wear FBI jackets agents to taunt the Bureau, and create diversions to foil police, including leaving behind inert pipe-bombs to slow pursuit. The bandits even had a macabre sense of humor, wearing a Santa Claus suit during a hold-up around Christmas, and an Easter basket with a gold painted pipe-bomb left inside a bank in Des Moines.

"Wild Bill" Guthrie also admitted to a West Virginia sheriff that he had helped Butler's Aryan Nations raise another quarter million dollars through fraud. Both Guthrie and Langan were regular visitors to the Hayden Lake compound.

The seeds for the mens' dalliance with the paramilitary extreme-Right was sown in 1991, when Shawn Kenny, a friend of Langan and Guthrie, began discussing their plans to further the "cause."

Interestingly, the Secret Service recruited Langan as an informant in August of 1993 to keep an eye on his friend Guthrie, who had made threats against the lives of Presidents Clinton and Bush. Langan was released from his Georgia jail cell (where he was serving time for robbing a Pizza Hut with Guthrie) and set up in a house in Ohio, where he was to a.s.sist the Secret Service in locating his old friend. The deal soon went sour.

Secret Service Agent d.i.c.k Rathnell summed up the fiasco this way: "Our main interest was to find if there was an interest to harm the President or overthrow the government.... We didn't know they were these bank robbers."[388]

Langan went south on the Secret Service six weeks later, and soon located his old friend Guthrie. The two set themselves up in a safehouse in Pittsburg, Kansas, from which they were alleged to have launched their notorious crime spree.

In November of '94, Mark Thomas, the local Aryan Nations representative, united the two with others of their kind. Thomas' farm, located rather appropriately next to a toxic waste dump, has been the site of skin-head and neo-n.a.z.i rallies such as White Pride Day and the annual Hitler Youth Festival, where partic.i.p.ants enjoyed such wholesome activities as pagan rituals and cross burnings.

Thomas introduced the pair to Pennsylvania native Scott Stedeford, a rock musician and artist, and Kevin McCarthy, a ba.s.sist in a white-power band named "Day of the Sword." Thomas was instrumental in helping the men form an alliance which they would call the Aryan Republican Army (ARA).

Taking the moniker of "Commander Pedro," Langan became the group's leader. According to testimony provided by Kenny at Stedeford's trial, Langan boasted that the gang was modeled after The Order.

"Learn from Bob [Mathews]," Langan is heard saying on a home-made recruitment video. "Learn from his mistakes. Study your enemy. Study his methods."[389]

The Pennsylvania Posse Comitatus leader would also introduce Stedeford and McCarthy to Michael Brescia, a Philadelphia native and rock musician who would go on to form a speed metal band with McCarthy and Stedeford, called "Cyanide." The rock 'n roll bank robbers decided to recruit the 24-year-old La Salle University student after planning the heist of a large bank in Madison, Wisconsin, which the trio robbed on August 30, 1995.

The three men came to know "Grandpa Millar" at Elohim City courtesy of Thomas, and Brescia was soon engaged to Millar's granddaughter, Ester. Brescia wound up living at the reclusive compound for two years. It was there that he would meet his new roommate, Andreas Karl Stra.s.smeir, the mysterious German who settled there in 1991. It was also at Elohim City that Brescia would meet Timothy McVeigh. As ATF informant Carol Elizabeth Howe recalled: "Sometime before Christmas [of 1994] a lot of guys showed up at EC (Elohim City). One that I recall was Tim [McVeigh], who I only knew as Tim Tuttle. He was there with a guy who used the name Fontaine, a person I now recognize as Mike Fortier."

Referring to McVeigh, she said, "I never even spoke to him. He was considered a 'good soldier' by the members of the ARA, but not a leader; he was just someone you sent out on jobs, because he was reliable."[390]

Were McVeigh and Nichols involved in bank robberies? Had the robberies financed the bombing? It was a question that has disturbed Nichols' ex-wife Lana Padilla, who discovered masks, nylon stockings, and wigs in her former spouse's storage locker. Nichols was known as a vehement critic of the banking system, had been on the losing end of a large credit card lawsuit, and had declared the Federal Reserve corrupt.

McVeigh himself sent his sister Jennifer three $100 bills, telling her they were the proceeds from a bank robbery. While there was no proof that the pair had actually partic.i.p.ated, authorities would ponder the significance of the a.s.sociations. As the Gazette writes: A reliable source familiar with the investigation confirmed that admitted co-conspirator Michael Fortier told the FBI that ex-army buddy Tim McVeigh said in February 1995 that he (McVeigh) was going to Colorado to join "The Order."[391]

Interestingly, what is not known is just where McVeigh was on the days immediately before and immediately after 11 of the robberies.

What is known is that Brescia, Stra.s.smeir, and McVeigh became friends, attending gun shows, traveling the white supremacist circuit, and cras.h.i.+ng high-school parties in Kansas, not far from Terry Nichols' house. Neighbors recalled seeing men who fit the general description of McVeigh and John Doe 2 at Nichols' Herrington home.

For his part, Stra.s.smeir claims he'd "never been in Kansas," then admitted, "...well, once, driving through."[392]

Catina Lawson's roommate, Lindsay Johnson, dated Brescia, and Lawson was close friends with McVeigh. Both she and Lawson recalled seeing Stra.s.smeir, Brescia, McVeigh and Fortier at the Kansas parties around the Summer of '92. The young women allegedly referred to the handsome young Brescia as "Mike Breezy."

It is Brescia, some investigators claim, who is the mysterious John Doe 2 originally sought by the FBI. Bombing victim Glenn Wilburn, along with investigator J.D. Cash, learned of Brescia's relations.h.i.+p to Stra.s.smeir and McVeigh after talking to people at Elohim City and others in the white supremacist underground. The family filed a $30 million lawsuit against McVeigh, which includes Stra.s.smeir, and named Brescia as John Doe 2.

Robert Millar insists that Brescia, who is engaged to Millar's granddaughter, is not John Doe 2, but simply a "cleancut, college type boy."[393]

Yet several witnesses in Kansas claimed that Brescia closely matches the FBI's wanted sketch. Like John Doe 2, Brescia has a tattoo on his left arm. Curiously though, Brescia's tattoo is circular - a cross inside a wheel - the emblem of the Aryan Nations. The tattoo seen by Mike Moroz and other witnesses on John Doe 2 more closely resembled a dragon, an anchor, or a snake. But then again, according to numerous witnesses, there is more than one John Doe 2.

While Brescia's connection to Elohim City centered around his relations.h.i.+p with Ester, it was Stra.s.smeir who was his roommate. A German national, the 38-year-old Stra.s.smeir is the son of Gunter Stra.s.smeir, former Parliamentary Secretary of State to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Stra.s.smeir's uncle is in the German parliament, and his brother Alexander sits on the Berlin City Council. Like Langan, Stra.s.smeir's father also reportedly has connections to the CIA.

Andreas served as a lieutenant in the German Panzer Grenadiers (the equivalent of our Special Forces), had formal military intelligence training, and did a stint as a liaison officer with the Welsh Guards. He told the London Sunday Telegraph that part of his work was to detect infiltration by Warsaw Pact agents, and then feed them disinformation. "If we caught a guy, we'd offer him amnesty. We'd turn him and use him to feed false information back to the Warsaw Pact."[394] While Stra.s.smeir would not admit it, it is reported that he is an agent for the German national anti-terrorist police, the GSG-9.[395]

"Andy the German," as he became known, arrived in the U.S. in May of 1991, without being doc.u.mented by the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), and lived on a credit card provided by sources unknown. He soon became Elohim City's Director of Security.[396]

According to Stra.s.smeir, his path crossed McVeigh's at a Tulsa gun show in April of '93. Stra.s.smeir stopped by McVeigh's table and bought a few military souvenirs and discussed events at Waco. He then gave McVeigh his card bearing the inscription "Elohim City." In an interview in Soldier of Fortune, Stra.s.smeir professed never to of heard of McVeigh, though he later recanted his story for the Telegraph.. "I met the guy once at a gun show," he said. "We spoke for five minutes, that's all."[397]

It would seem the relations.h.i.+p goes deeper than that however. Stra.s.smeir reportedly met McVeigh again at the first anniversary of the Waco ma.s.sacre in April of '94. And according to journalist William Jasper, sources close to the investigation revealed that McVeigh visited Elohim City on at least 20 occasions. Traffic records show McVeigh was stopped for speeding on October 12, 1993, two miles north of Cederville, Arkansas, less than 10 miles from Elohim City, on a remote road leading to the compound. ATF informant Carol Howe also recalled seeing McVeigh and Fortier at Elohim City during the winter of '94.

Yet possibly the most revealing connection surfaced in the form of two phone calls, one placed by McVeigh from the Imperial Motel in Kingman, Arizona to Stra.s.smeir on April 5, just two weeks before the bombing. It was just minutes after McVeigh had allegedly called Junction City to reserve the Ryder truck. According to Millar's daughter-in-law Joan, who answered the phone, the caller asked to speak to "Andy." Andy wasn't in. McVeigh left a message saying, "Tell Andy I'll be coming through."

Robert Millar, Elohim City's "spiritual leader," claimed ignorance of McVeigh or the phone call.[398] He later recanted his story.

Then one day before the bombing, McVeigh called Stra.s.smeir's U.S. attorney, Kirk Lyons, looking for Andy. Not finding him there, he engaged Lyon's a.s.sistant, Dave Holloway, in a 15-minute conversation about Waco, Lyons claims, and the need to "send a message to the government." It seemed McVeigh also needed to send a message to Stra.s.smeir.

For his part Stra.s.smeir claims McVeigh never visited Elohim City. "I don't know why McVeigh was trying to contact me," he said.

Catina Lawson, who was close friends with McVeigh for two years, remembers seeing Stra.s.smeir at the Junction City parties. "He was just someone you'd see every once in a while," said Lawson, who, along with friends, would meet and party with the soldiers from nearby Fort Riley. "He was tall, skinny and pale, with crooked teeth and sunken eyes surrounded by dark circles. And he had this accent...."[399]

Larry Wild and his wife Kathy also recall seeing Stra.s.smeir on one of their fis.h.i.+ng trips to Cameron Springs Lake, near Fort Riley. The Wilds remember seeing Stra.s.smeir with two other men with an old Ryder truck one week before the bombing. Just who those two other men were they couldn't say. Wild did recall speaking with Stra.s.smeir though. "I said, 'Your dialect is really different. Are you a soldier?' He said, 'No.' I said, 'Do you work for the government?' He just kind of laughed."

Yet still more witnesses recall seeing the two men together. At least five dancers recall seeing McVeigh, Nichols, Brescia, and Stra.s.smeir at Lady G.o.diva's, a strip joint in Tulsa, which the men visited on April 8, 1995. In an interview with CBC's Trish Wood, the dancers, who wish to remain anonymous, were "positive" of Stra.s.smeir and McVeigh's presence just eleven days before the bombing: Wood: You saw this man in here?

Unidentified: Yes.

Wood: And how do you remember? What makes you remember seeing him in here that night?

Unidentified: From one of the girls. I just heard her say something about a couple of guys, there were a couple of weird guys, she wanted somebody to go sit with them.