Family members weep at Terry Nichols' state murder trial

<br>McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- Graphic descriptions of how victims of the Oklahoma City bombing died brought members of victims' families to tears at bombing conspirator Terry Nichols' state murder

Saturday, April 24th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- Graphic descriptions of how victims of the Oklahoma City bombing died brought members of victims' families to tears at bombing conspirator Terry Nichols' state murder trial.

Oklahoma's top medical examiner, Dr. Fred Jordan, revealed in gruesome detail the injuries suffered by 73 of the 168 people who perished in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

Jordan testified on Friday that many victims were pulled from rubble in an area known as "The Pit," where the building's nine floors pancaked one on top of another into a pile of debris about three stories tall, leaving a gaping hole on the structure's north side.

"It was as if someone had taken a bite out of it," Jordan testified.

Members of Nichols' jury appeared uncomfortable as Jordan methodically described medical charts and diagrams that pinpointed the physical trauma victims suffered when a homemade bomb ripped through the building. One juror dabbed tears from her eyes.

Members of victims' families wept silently in the gallery.

Nichols, wearing a gray jacket, looked at Jordan's medical charts as they were displayed on television monitors in the courtroom, but showed no emotion.

One of the victims was 1-year-old Baylee Almon, whose photograph in the arms of firefighter Chris Fields came to symbolize the bombing. Jordan said the child suffered an extensive skull fracture in the blast and died almost instantly.

She was one of 19 children killed, many of them in a daycare center on the federal building's second floor.

The body of another victim, Kathryn Elizabeth Ridley, 24, was recovered in a parking lot across the street from the federal building. Jordan said Ridley suffered fourth-degree burns from the fireball caused by the blast.

Jordan said most victims died of multiple trauma and many suffered crushed chests and broken limbs. In some cases, victims' limbs and heads were partially or totally severed.

Nichols is charged with 161 counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of 160 bombing victims and one victim's fetus. He is already serving a life prison sentence for the deaths of eight federal agents in the blast.

Jordan said a human leg found in the building's rubble did not match any known victims and could be from an unidentified victim. He said the leg may have belonged to a woman but that her identity is unknown.

"It has never been identified, never matched with any individual," Jordan said. "This is a mystery to which I don't have the answer."

Nichols' attorney, Barbara Bergman, pressed Jordan for details about the dismembered leg, indicating it may play an important role in Nichols' defense when his attorneys begin presenting evidence on May 6.

Attorneys for bombing coconspirator Timothy McVeigh suggested at his federal bombing trial that the leg, which wore a military-style boot, belonged to the real bomber, who was killed in the blast.

Nichols' defense attorneys maintain that McVeigh received substantial help in the bombing plot from other coconspirators and that Nichols was set up to take the blame.

McVeigh was convicted on federal bombing charges and executed in June 2001.