Testimony suggesting other bombing suspects aired at Terry Nichols' state trial

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- A man in a pickup truck was nearby when Timothy McVeigh was taken into custody following the Oklahoma City bombing, a motorist testified at bombing conspirator Terry Nichols'

Saturday, May 8th 2004, 6:43 am

By: News On 6

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- A man in a pickup truck was nearby when Timothy McVeigh was taken into custody following the Oklahoma City bombing, a motorist testified at bombing conspirator Terry Nichols' murder trial.

Scott Gregory of Norman was one of nine defense witnesses who testified Friday, including several who recalled seeing McVeigh with others in the days prior to the deadly federal building explosion.

McVeigh's contacts, including the enigmatic dark-skinned suspect known as John Doe No. 2, is the key to Nichols' defense. His attorneys allege that others helped McVeigh plan and execute the bombing and that Nichols was set up to take the blame.

Gregory testified he saw McVeigh being arrested along Interstate 35 north of Oklahoma City about one hour after the April 19, 1995, bombing.

At the same time, a truck driven by a man wearing a red and white baseball cap backed up in the highway's parking lane near McVeigh's 1977 Mercury Marquis, Gregory said.

"I thought that was so odd," Gregory said. "I thought: 'What an idiot. Why are you stopping to talk to that police officer when he's obviously in a high-stress situation?"'

Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Charles Hanger stopped McVeigh because his car had no license plate. McVeigh later admitted he was carrying a loaded weapon. He was linked two days later to the bombing, which killed 168.

Joan Rairden, then an assistant manager at a McDonald's restaurant in Junction City, Kan., said McVeigh came into the restaurant on April 13 or 14 with a group of other people, including a dark-skinned man with slicked-back black hair.

Rairden said the group piled out of a Ryder truck that was pulling a car shortly before midnight. Three people came into the restaurant, including McVeigh and the dark-skinned man, who she said had large lips and a wide nose.

"McVeigh went into the rest room," Rairden said. The other man came to the counter and placed an order, she said. McVeigh came into the restaurant with the same group during the lunch hour a few days later, she said.

Rairden said she could not identify the dark-skinned man from a sketch of John Doe No. 2 that was shown to her by FBI agents after the bombing.

"He was darker. It didn't look like exactly him," she said.

The sketch was based on a description by a worker at the nearby Elliott's Body Shop in Junction City, where McVeigh leased the Ryder truck that delivered the bomb.

The drawing depicted a heavy, well-built man with brown eyes and hair who witnesses said was with McVeigh at the leasing agency.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Suzanne Lister asked Rairden why a security videotape from the restaurant show McVeigh there just once, two days before the bombing shortly before McVeigh leased the Ryder truck.

Rairden said she had not seen the tape, which was shown to jurors during the prosecution's case. The tape indicates McVeigh came into the restaurant alone.

Following her testimony, prosecutors said they will call Rairden back as a rebuttal witness and play the tape for her.

Nichols, 49, is serving a life prison sentence on involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy counts in the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers in the bombing.

In Oklahoma, he faces 161 counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the other 160 victims and one victim's fetus.

McVeigh was convicted on federal murder charges and executed in 2001.