Mohave County residents asked to testify in Nichols trial

<br>BULLHEAD CITY, Ariz. (AP) _ The list of 13 Mohave County residents asked to testify in the state trial of Oklahoma City bombing suspect Terry Nichols has been made public. <br><br>The local residents

Friday, April 9th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BULLHEAD CITY, Ariz. (AP) _ The list of 13 Mohave County residents asked to testify in the state trial of Oklahoma City bombing suspect Terry Nichols has been made public.

The local residents are people who knew Nichols, executed bomber Timothy McVeigh and former Kingman resident Michael Fortier.

Superior Court Judge Steven Conn has scheduled a hearing for April 16 to determine whether the witnesses can offer good reasons for not testifying in the Oklahoma trial.

According to court documents, the potential witnesses include:

_ Billie Jo Stanley of Bullhead City. She was a former girlfriend of Steve Colbern, a friend of McVeigh and one-time suspect in the 1995 bombing.

_ Richard Coffman of Fort Mohave. A reported leader of the National Alliance who allegedly spoke with McVeigh before the bombing about anti-government views.

_ Joyce Cadima of Fort Mohave. She rented a storage unit to Colbern.

_ Les Hart of Kingman. He allegedly traded McVeigh blasting caps for cannon fuse.

McVeigh was convicted of killing 168 people on April 19, 1995, by blowing up a rental truck loaded with explosives at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was executed in 2001.

Nichols, 49, was convicted in federal court of manslaughter and is serving a life sentence.

Fortier, a former Kingman resident, was sentenced to 12 years in prison following a plea agreement in which he testified against McVeigh and Nichols. McVeigh and Nichols are both believed to have lived briefly in Kingman before the bombing.