Witnesses recall seeing McVeigh with others at Terry Nichols' murder trial

Wednesday, May 5th 2004, 10:44 am

By: News On 6

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) _ Jurors at Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols' state murder trial heard more testimony Friday from defense witnesses who recalled seeing Timothy McVeigh with others in the days prior to the deadly bombing.

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

Defense attorneys began questioning their witnesses on Thursday. Nichols faces the death penalty if convicted on first-degree murder charges for the bombing, which killed 168 people.

Joan Rairden, assistant manager at a McDonald's restaurant in Junction City, Kan., when the April 19, 1995, bombing occurred, 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 security videotapes 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 reviewed the tapes.

Nichols' jurors also heard testimony from witnesses who said they saw a Ryder truck at times other than those prosecutors allege one was involved in the bombing conspiracy.

Georgia Rucker, a real estate agent in Herington, Kan., said she and her young sons saw a Ryder truck parked along Geary Lake near Junction City on April 10, 11 and 12, the week before the bombing. She said as many as three cars were parked around the truck.

``By the third day, it began to seem a little queer,'' she said.

Rucker said she also saw a Ryder truck at the lake on April 18, the day before the bombing, but saw no other vehicles.

Prosecutors allege that Nichols helped McVeigh pack the homemade ammonium-nitrate-and-fuel-oil bomb into the Ryder truck at the lake on April 18.

Rucker and other witnesses testified about Nichols' activities in the days leading up to the bombing.

Rucker said Nichols contacted her about buying some property in January 1995. He eventually offered to purchase a house in Herington where he lived when the bombing occurred. She put his driver's license number of the purchase offer instead of a Social Security number, which is routine.

``He informed me he didn't have a Social Security number and that this was the only number that he could give me,'' Rucker said.

Cathy Dezago, who worked as the video department manager at a grocery store in Herington, testified that Nichols set up an account at the store two days before the bombing.

Prosecutors introduced records showing that Nichols rented three videos from the store on April 19 a few hours after the bombing, including one entitled ``Armed Response.''

Nichols was at home on the day of the bombing, but prosecutors allege he helped McVeigh gather bomb components and build the bomb.

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.