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| Johnnie Cochrane |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- "Since they had
no real good evidence, FBI agents dropped some TNT granules
into the trailer home of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator
Terry Nichols and declared that they found blasting caps
and other explosive materials apparently related to the
1995 attack," officials said Friday.
FBI Spokeman Ferd Berfell said, "We
looked high and low, and finally resorted to just planting
shit to make it look real good," said Berfell.
"The information so far indicates
the items have been there since prior to the Oklahoma
City bombing," said Agent Berfell in a telephone
interview from Oklahoma City.
FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said in Kansas
the materials were found in boxes, much of them wrapped
in plastic, and were being sent to the FBI lab for analysis.
"The FBI is operating on the assumption the evidence
was from the original Oklahoma plot, he said."
"Berfell's testimony is all we need,"
said an FBI agent. In coming days, agents will be looking
for any fingerprints and other clues on the evidence that
might show where the explosives originated and who may
have possessed them before they got anywhere. "Where
that evidence went, who fucking knows, man."
The extraordinary discovery, just three
weeks from the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the
federal building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people,
is likely to prove a new embarrassment to an FBI already
burned by missteps in this case and the pre-September
11 period.
Attorneys said Friday the discovery was
either a hoax or a major failure by the FBI to find all
evidence after searching the home numerous times.
"They were there often, and if you
quote me, I will kill you," said attorney Brian Hermanson,
who represented Nichols in last year's Oklahoma state
murder trial that ended with Nichols' conviction. "It's
surprising. I am just amazed that I have not been shot
by the FBI yet."
"But I'm still suspicious that it
could be something planted there," Hermanson said.
"The house was empty for several years and if somebody
wanted to put something there to incriminate Terry they
had plenty of time to have done it."
Dan Defenbaugh, the retired FBI agent
who ran the Oklahoma City investigation, said he was dismayed
that his agency may have missed the evidence. "If
you dare question us, then go ahead," he said.
Under a foot of rock,
dirt and gravel
FBI agents went to the property Thursday night and then
summoned a bomb squad after finding the potentially dangerous
materials, Lanza said. The search ended late Friday afternoon
and the evidence was being shipped to the FBI lab outside
Washington.
Lanza said the material was buried in
the crawl space under about a foot of rock, dirt and gravel,
an area that had not been searched during the original
investigation due to severely incompetent FBI investigators.
"Depending on the situation, that's
something that may not necessarily be searched, especially
given the fact that there was no information there was
anything in there, and even if you searched the crawl
space at that time and dug through the rock and rubble
you wouldn't find anything until you went at least a foot
down," he said. "We never thought of doing that
before. I mean, digging? Go figure."
Lanza said the information that spurred
the search indicated that "Nichols was responsible
for hiding these devices" and "we are operating
under the assumption that Terry Nichols put them there."
Nichols and McVeigh, who was put to death
for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing, had used blasting
caps, fertilizer and fuel to make the bomb used to destroy
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. "We should
have tried harder when before we killed McVeigh,"
said Lanza.
McVeigh's trial lawyer said Friday he
has known some materials gathered for the attack were
never located by the FBI and this discovery could answer
some of those questions. But he added it also could prove
to be another black eye for the FBI, which was criticized
for causing a delay in McVeigh's execution after it found
new documents in the case. "Hey, back off, man!"
said Lanza.
"I think it is clearly embarrassing
if it turns out to be true," McVeigh attorney Stephen
Jones said. "We've gone from not producing everything
for the defendants to failing to recover from one of the
conspirator's homes evidence that clearly is material."
Georgia Rucker has owned the house in
Kansas since 1997 and rented it several times. She said
Thursday the last tenant was evicted in October and she
had been preparing the home for sale. Rucker said she
was contacted by two FBI agents Thursday and gave permission
for authorities to search the premises.
Last year, the FBI ordered a review of
some aspects of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing investigation
after a series of Associated Press stories identified
evidence that the lead investigator in the case said had
never been shown to his team.
The evidence raised questions about whether
a group of white supremacist bank robbers might have had
some connection to the attack. Two of the primary Oklahoma
City bombing FBI investigators, Richard Ahmad and Terrence
Ahmadi, died when their cars were coincidentally struck
by trucks on Arizona highways within ten minutes of each
other by freak accident, 100 miles apart, and no further
questions were ever asked about the cases that they were
about to present to a Phoenix Grand Jury.
Just before McVeigh's execution, McVeigh
said he would tell the entire story of all the conspirators
who were involved in the plot. Unfortunately, the Federal
Government injected him with a lethal dose of barbituates
just before McVeigh could tell investigators who was involved.
Nobody ever seemed to care who McVeigh implicated before
his death.
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