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| Preview of Terry Nichols’ Legal Defense |
| 2004-04-25 |
| Terry Nichols’ attorneys may call dozens of witnesses who say they spotted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh with others. A judge last week imposed stiff restrictions on his defense but allowed evidence of sightings of others with McVeigh at "relevant times." .... The judge ruled defense attorneys cannot try to blame the 1995 bombing on a gang of white supremacist bank robbers, residents of Elohim City or survivalist Steven Colbern. The judge said he found nothing linking these suggested alternative suspects to the bomb plot. Nichols’ attorneys had been focusing their defense on the bank robber theory. .... The ruling leaves Nichols, 49, with the same basic strategy as his federal trial -- that McVeigh’s true accomplice was the mysterious John Doe No. 2. .... Nichols’ attorneys plan to call new witnesses and witnesses who testified before. "Over 50 different witnesses saw Timothy McVeigh and a man resembling the composite sketch of John Doe 2 in Kansas and Oklahoma the week before the bombing," attorneys told the judge. "Most of these sightings were at times that eliminated Mr. Nichols as Mr. McVeigh’s accomplice." .... In legal filings, attorneys wrote some witnesses saw McVeigh with other men inside the Murrah Building the week before the bombing. They wrote that some witnesses saw McVeigh and another man "in or near" the Ryder truck the morning of the attack. "The car was described as being distinctive for a variety of reasons, including unusual rust patterns on a back panel and a dangling Arizona license plate," attorneys wrote. The defense witnesses include Jeff Davis, who delivered Chinese food to McVeigh’s motel room in Junction City, Kan., on April 15, 1995. Davis insists the man who took the food was not McVeigh. Another witness is Nancy Kindle, a waitress who said she served coffee to McVeigh and two other men at the Denny’s in Junction City on April 16, 1995. Attorneys also are expected to seek to show jurors a sworn statement by Danny Wilkerson, who claimed he sold McVeigh cigarettes and two cans of soda at his store in the Regency Tower apartments moments before the explosion. Wilkerson, who died in 1997, said he saw another man in the Ryder cab. Also still admissible is testimony from David Paul Hammer, a convicted murderer. In a new book, Secrets Worth Dying For, Hammer claims McVeigh identified the real accomplices during conversations on death row. Prosecutors say he is a con man. ... Jurors in the state case already heard from the retired owner of a Kansas body shop. Eldon Elliott testified McVeigh was with another man when he picked up the Ryder truck April 17, 1995. Elliott identified an FBI artist’s sketch of John Doe No. 2 -- in a hat -- as the second man. .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #1 Tell him to call Jose Padilla as a witness. Maybe it's just a wild, unrelated coincidence, but Padilla kind of resembles the sketch of "John Doe #2." |
| Posted by: Anonymous4555 2004-04-26 12:23:25 AM |