By The
Associated Press
Edited by Jamie Karl
News Digest
Monday, May 1, 1995 Page 2
Bombing puzzle far from being resolved
OKLAHOMA CITY — Was
Timothy McVeigh alone in Oklahoma
City? Was he there with John Doe 2?
Or were there more like-minded ex
tremists involved in the bombing of
the federal building?
With each new revelation come?
more questions and more seeming
contradictions.
A senior federal official involved
in the investigation told The Associ
ated Press such frustrations are noth
ing new to such cases.
“The problem for you guys (in the
media) and the publ ic is you want it all
to make sense each day,” he said
“Cops leam in their first few years on
the job that every case they ever inves
tigate is goingto have some things thal
are totally unexplainable.”
An example: the 1977 yellow Mer
cury Marquis that McVeigh boughl
on April 14th in Junction City, Kan.
The used car has become a touch
stone for various theories about
McVeigh’s movements, the possibil
ity of a second getaway car, or a sce
nario that has McVeigh setting off the
bomb himself, then fleeing in the pre
viously positioned Mercury. |
McVeigh was arrested in the car as
he sped north from Oklahoma City
about 75 minutes after the blast. The
senior federal official said a note found
in the car read: “Not abandoned. Bat
tery cable problem. Will be back to
pick it up.”
The note also included a date, which
was not revealed. Officials are trying
to fit this with another puzzle piece:
Why did McVeigh have his friend
Terry Nichols pick him up in Okla
homa City and drive him back to June -
tion City two days before the bomb
ing?
Nichols told the FBI McVeigh
called him on April 16; the two re
turned to Junction City early on April
17, the day McVeigh is believed to
have rented the Ryder truck with a
man investigators identify as John Doe
2.
The owner of the Dreamland Mo
tel, the Junction City motel where
McVeigh was registered from April
14-17, reported seeing the Mercury
when McVeigh checked in. Within a
few days the Mercury was gone, she
said, replaced by the truck.
Does this all add up to the possibil
ity McVeigh parked the car with its
note in Oklahoma City, returned to
Junction City with Nichols, then drove
down to Oklahoma City alone in the
rental truck, detonated the bomb and
escaped in the Mercury?
Tlie federal official said the sce
nario is one of several being explored.
“It’s absolutely possible, physi
cally, for one man to have detonated
it,” he said.
But there are problems with this
theory.
Investigators say McVeigh would
have taken a big risk by leavin g the car
on the street for three nights. The
surveillance camera in an automatic
teller machine across from the federal
building captured images ofthe Ryder
truck, several individuals and a pos
sible second getaway car with Ari
zona license plates.
At least one witness says he saw
two men driving the truck shortly be
fore the explosion.
The federal official said such con
tradictory bits of information can
muddy a clear picture of what hap
pened.
Trail of evidence
Investigators have compiled a trail of V
evidence which foHcws Iknothy McVeigh\
Junction City, Kansas to the
of the AtfredP. Murrah federal building in 1 /
1994: Nichols works for
rancher Jim' Donahue.
Co-workers 'remember
his rants against the
gorernmenj and his
boasts of art ability to
build bomba
April 19: Timothy
McVeigh is arrestedJor ,
driving a car with no
license plate.
April 19: McVeigh is
incarcerated at the jail.
He is later identified
as “John Doe no. 1.’
April 19: Bomb outside
the Alfred R Murrah
federal building explodes
m
t
11988: Timothy McVeigh
and Terry Nicnols enlist in
the army and are assigned |
to the 1 st Infantry Division.
April 14: McVeigh checks
into the Dreamland Motel.
April 17: McVeigh is seen
at the Ryder rental agency
where he uses a fake
drivers license to rent a
ot lerry iNicnois.
April 22: An FBI search of
the Nichols' home uncovers
bags of ammonium nitrate,
mixing barrels, a fuel meter,
blasting caps-all ingredients
for the type of bomb used in
Oklahoma City.
April 22-23: FBI Agents
check a storage shed rented
by McVeigh. Tracks there
have been reported to
Four remain at-large
following prison escape
SANTA CLARITA, Calif.—Ten
of 14 prisoners were captured Sunday
after they escaped through the roof of
a maximum-security jail and over a
20-foot razor-wire fence.
Four of the fugitives were caught
almost immediately in the pre-dawn
jailbreak, the biggest escape from the
Los Angeles County jail system.
The other 10, wearing orange jail
jumpsuits, vanished into the darkness.
Six of them were captured later in
the day within five miles of the jail
after more than 100 sheriffs deputies
and three aircraft mounted a manhunt,
sheriffs spokesman Capt. Jeff Springs
said.
Two of the four fugitives who re
mained at large were murder suspects.
Housing developments near the
2,800-acre Peter J. Pitchess Honor
Rancho jail were placed under guard
as teams of deputies searched for the
fugitives. Loudspeakers on patrol cars
warned residents to keep children in
doors.
More than 100,000 people live just
south of the jail in Santa Clarita. Small
highway and farm communities dot
the region.
The inmates escaped their jail mod
ule through a hole in the ceiling that
had been temporarily repaired with a
metal plate, Springs said.
“Somehow the inmates managed
to remove the metal plate, enlarge the
hole and gained access to the roof,” he
said.
The jail, between the mountainous
Angeles and Los Padres national for
ests 35 miles northwest of downtown
Los Angeles, has 4,152 inmates.
VI News...
* in a Minute
Clinton offered refuge
CAIRO, Egypt — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says the Okla
homa bombing signaled the start of a mass revolt against the American
government, and he offered President Clinton refuge in Libya.
Gadhafi made the remarks in a speech late Saturday marking a battle
between Libyans and an Italian military force 80 years ago, die state-run
JANA news agency reportetfSunday.
“Oklahoma was the beginning of the reaction of the masses living in
America,” Gadhafi was quoted as saying. “It was a reaction against the
nightmare and tyranny ”
Saying “thousands of militias were currently waging armed popular
revolution in America,” Gadhafi invited Clinton and his wife, Hillary, to
flee to Libya, “the only safe country in the world.”
Keg party turns deadly
LAKE RONKONKOMA, N.Y.—An empty beer keg thrown into a
bonfire at a party exploded early Sunday, killing a man with pieces of
flying metal.
Chester Vesloski, 21, was standing about 35 feet from the fire when
the keg exploded. One of the pieces of metal severed his arm at the
elbow, said Suffolk County Detective Sgt. Kevin Cronin.
Vesloski died later at a hospital.
About 10 people were at the outdoor keg party near woods in this
Long Island town. No one else was injured.
The bulk of the keg was found about 250 feet from the fire, Cronin
said.
Life goes on for boy after
bombing takes ‘best buddy’
BROKEN ARROW, Okla. —
The headlights that seemed to turn
the highways into endless funeral
processions are fewer now. The fli
ers announcing memorials are com
ing down. The bouquets heaped on
fresh graves, like Trudy Rigney’s,
are beginning to wilt.
Life moves on for those left be
hind by the OklahomaCity bombing.
One of those left behind include
Jonmichael Rigney, the son Trudy
raised alone. At 11, Jonmichael’s
life is beginning anew: a new home
100 miles from his old one, new
school and a new family doing their
best to make life possible now that
his mom, his “best buddy,” is gone.'
The boy jioes not express his
sorrow yet. Asked how he’s doing,
he says only, “Fine.” Distractedly,
he moves from one activity to the
next: watching a few minutes of
television, playing with a cousin’s
“G.I. Joe,” strumming an uncle’s
guitar.
His aunt, Paula Rigney, who
moved the pictures from the wall of
his old bedroom to his new one in
his grandmother’shousehere, stays
close by this Thursday afternoon,
one day after the funeral. She lights
up when Jonmichael smilesat some
thing on TV.
They talk about it for a moment,
then she gently prods, “Did your
mom like that show?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Are you thinking about her?”
“Yeah.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“We miss her, too,” she says.
“But there’s going to be lots of
people to take care of you.”
“I just don’t want to talk about
it,” the boy replies.
Jonmichael may “lack the lan
guage of pain,” as an expert in child
grieving explains, but not the feel
ings.
The boy and his mother were
inseparable.
“Jonmichael was right at her
heels. They were mother and son,
but they were best buddies, too,”
said Rick Rigney, Trudy’s brother.
The boy’s father left before he was
bom, Rigney explained.
As a toddler, Jonmichael rode
on the back of the bike that was her
only transportation. She took him
to meetings, to work, on trips. They
“were silly together,” someone re
members. A photo shows her stick
ing out her tongue, mimicking him.
Together, they struggled to make
a better life, fell back, and started
again. After a traffic injury cost her
her job, they lived in a homeless
shelter. They had been on welfare.
Still,-when she died Trudy
Rigney was closing in on a degree
from die University of Oklahoma.
And she dreamed of buying the
little white bungalow they rented,
where azaleas she planted are flow
ering now in the front yard.
She had parlayed a student in
ternship at the Oklahoma Water
Resources Board, across the street
from the Alfred P. Murrah federal
building, into a 30-hour-a-week job
and the prospect of full-time em
ployment. She was at work when
the bomb exploded.
The honors she won, in spite of
all, at the university and at Tulsa
Junior College made her son proud
and helped form his own deter
mined spirit, friends say.
“Living in a homeless shelter -
“Jonmichael was
right at her heels. They
were mother and son,
but they were best
buddies, too
m
RICK RIGNEY
Jonmichael's uncle
how many people would have the
courage to say, ‘I’m not going to
stop here. I’m goingto go on,’” said
Barbara Slagle, the college’s direc
tor of student activities who pre
sented Trudy a top academic award.
Jonmichael’s father may be “out
East somewhere,” said Rick Rigney,
adding that the family is concerned
he could resurface as Jonmichael’s
grandmother, Haroldene, seeks cus
tody.
Haroldene Rigney drove to her
daughter’s home in the Oklahoma
City suburb of Midwest City as
soon as she learned about the ex
plosion, to care for Jonmichael.
When Trudy’s death was confirmed
April 23, the family returned to
Broken Arrow, outside Tulsa.
“We had all decided before we
came back, we just decided we’d
raise him just like he was one of our
kids,” said Rick Rigney, whose two
children from a first marriage visit
him and Paula on weekends. They’ 11
play and that will help, he hopes.
“Right now we just want to tiy to
show him as much love as possible,
hug him as much as we can,” he
said.
Nebraskan
Editor J. Christopher Hain Night News Editors Mitch Sherman
472*1766 Julie Sobczyk
Managing Editor Rainbow Rowell Matt Waite
Assoc. News Editors DeDra Janssen Doug Peters
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