A NEWSWEEK investigation has uncovered new details about the testimony Fortier is expected to deliver at the trial, including McVeigh’s alleged motives and methods. Among the most damning details: Fortier says McVeigh mapped out the attack with meticulous care, selecting the Murrah building because it was an ““easy’’ target near an interstate. Fortier will also confirm that the plot included a plan for McVeigh and codefendant Terry Nichols to leave a getaway car behind the YMCA–precisely where officials say McVeigh’s yellow Mercury was parked before the blast. Fortier’s wife, Lori, will testify as well. She’ll say that McVeigh stacked soup cans in her kitchen to demonstrate how he’d arrange the barrels of explosives in the Ryder truck. The Fortiers’ testimony won’t close the case. McVeigh’s attorney, Stephen Jones, is expected to argue that the FBI’s investigation was so shoddy that some physical evidence is contaminated. Attacking slipshod gumshoes sometimes works–ask O.J. But homey details like soup cans and the YMCA will be tough for a jury to forget.
Fortier is in jail now. In August 1995, he admitted to peripheral involvement in the case, primarily prior knowledge of McVeigh’s intentions. In exchange for cooperating with the Feds, Fortier faces a maximum 23 years in prison–a much lighter sentence than he might have gotten at trial. He’s already answered many questions that dogged the early investigation. Sources close to the case say he’ll testify that he sold guns for McVeigh, who told him that Nichols robbed an Arkansas gun dealer of thousands of dollars’ worth of weapons and precious metals in November 1994. That would solve the mystery of how two cash-strapped knockabouts could afford their months-long, multistate effort to assemble a truck bomb. Nichols once threatened to back out entirely. NEWSWEEK has learned that Fortier says McVeigh once boasted that he could ““make’’ Nichols participate, though McVeigh never explained how. While that testimony could help Nichols make a case for be- ing McVeigh’s pawn, it might underscore the conspiratorial nature of the crime. The men will be tried separately on charges that they conspired to blow up the Mur- rah building. Proving collusion will be especially important in convicting Nich- ols, against whom the Feds’ evidence is weaker.
One chink in the prosecution’s case may come from the FBI itself. Armed with documents prosecutors recently turned over to the defense, Jones plans to attack the government’s crime lab as sloppy and susceptible to pressure from agents pushing to skew evidence in their favor. It’s an argument that’s been circulated by Frederic Whitehurst, a renegade FBI analyst who claims he has 35 witnesses who will corroborate his charges, including two who say the lab may have allowed bomb residue from other investigations to contaminate evidence in the Oklahoma City case. Justice Department sources tell NEWSWEEK that an internal report expected to be made public early next year will not substantiate Whitehurst’s most serious charges. But it will harshly criticize the work of FBI explosives expert Dave Williams, a key Oklahoma City investigator. He will be rapped for giving biased and misleading testimony at the World Trade Center bombing trial. As a result, prosecutors have decided not to call him to testify in Oklahoma City. ““Dave Williams and the problems in the FBI lab may turn out to be the Mark Fuhrman of the Oklahoma City trial,’’ Jones says. Williams declined to comment.
Still, the government’s stockpile of forensic evidence is impressive. Among the most important findings are trace amounts of PETN, an explosive used in detonation cords, allegedly removed from McVeigh’s shirt and from the five-inch knife he was carrying when he was arrested. That evidence comes on top of the receipt for ammonium nitrate found in Nichols’s home, explosives discovered in his basement and McVeigh’s violent and explicit anti-government scribblings. Some of those documents came from Jennifer McVeigh, Tim’s sister. As he prepares to go on trial for his life, McVeigh is slowly discovering that the people closest to him–his friends and family–are working with his worst enemy: the government.
