Oklahoma City Bombing

The Trial

Opening statements for United States v. McVeigh began on April 24, 1997, in a Denver, Colorado, courtroom. The government presented several points: McVeigh's antigovernment beliefs; his anger over the government-initiated sieges in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho; forensic evidence; telephone and rental records; John Doe No. 1 sightings; the facts of McVeigh's initial traffic arrest on Interstate 35; and key testimony from McVeigh's Army buddy Michael Fortier, his wife, Lori, and McVeigh's sister, Jennifer. Jennifer McVeigh testified to Timothy's ascent from antigovernment protest to “direct action,” while Michael and Lori Fortier, who traded their testimony for lesser charges and immunity, respectively, told the court of McVeigh's plan, hatched, the government asserted, in September 1994, as well as their roles in aiding his efforts. The judge also allowed highly emotional testimony from survivors and victims' family members, which often brought the jury of seven men and five women to tears.

McVeigh's defense team, in the months preceding the trial, launched a large and expensive independent investigation focusing on the possibility that the [Page 270]conspiracy included many more individuals, not just McVeigh and Nichols. Stephen Jones, McVeigh's chief defense counsel, made an early assertion that the two men, if guilty, did not have the resources to carry off the bombing on their own. The defense suggested possible links with Islamic militants based in the Philippines, neo-Nazis, Iraq, and Elohim City, the nearby Christian Identity compound. Jones also claimed that the government, through its various agencies, was suppressing evidence that proved it knew of the planned attack beforehand and could have prevented it. These claims, which were suppressed in court but made known through public records and in Jones's book, Others Unknown (1998), have been the basis for the persistent conspiracy theories surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing.

The most alarming connections alleged by the defense's investigation, especially in light of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States involved Nichols's repeated trips to the Philippines. Nichols first traveled to the Philippines in 1990 to meet his mail-order bride, Marife Torres. Nichols returned several times, ostensibly researching “business opportunities.” Before his final trip, in November 1994, Nichols gave his former wife, Lana Padilla, a package to be opened in the event of his death. Padilla opened the package soon after Nichols departed, finding therein a significant amount of cash, stolen valuables, wigs, a life insurance policy, and a letter from Nichols to McVeigh. That letter urged McVeigh, “Go for it!”

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