>>17384645
>>17384610
>>17384601
>>17384521
By the time McVeigh was arrested — a bit over an hour after the bombing — he was alone in the Mercury Marquis. What became of his passenger, and where McVeigh might have dropped him off, is a mystery. Also unknown today is what became of McVeigh’s other accomplices who were at the time subjects of a nationwide manhunt.
Dozens of newspaper accounts were published in the days immediately following the bombing that detailed the escape of the other suspects. Information about the bombing investigation was provided to journalists by federal agents assigned to the case, illustrating key details that today are conveniently forgotten.
April 28, 1995 Los Angeles Times front-page story on the bombing.
For example, an April 28th, 1995 Associated Press account declares that “authorities now believe that four or five people were involved” and that “investigators have an Oklahoma City videotape that shows both the Ryder truck believed to have carried the bomb and a vehicle other than the Marquis bearing Arizona license plate LZC646.”[2]
Additional reports would add detail, reporting that “Timothy McVeigh’s missing Arizona license plate appears on a mystery vehicle in a videotape taken just before the Oklahoma City bombing, and authorities believe the elusive “John Doe 2” may have used that vehicle for his getaway.” [3]
Preceding the press accounts of the mystery vehicle, an FBI teletype dated April 20th, 1995 says that “several leads are outstanding relative to a brown pickup truck.” [4]
According to law enforcement sources cited in the press accounts, the FBI’s search for this brown truck was based on surveillance footage from the scene. In addition to the press accounts there is also testimony from multiple eyewitnesses, recorded by the FBI in 302 reports. Taken together, the evidence for additional suspects and corresponding vehicles is more than compelling. What became of this mystery vehicle, and the videotape(s) so widely publicized just one week after the blast?
The second vehicle was a key component of the FBI’s early investigation but has long since disappeared from the FBI’s official narrative of the bombing. However, if you look at the historical record you will find abundant detail concerning the truck: it is referenced in newspaper accounts, FBI teletypes and 302 reports, and in court records. It is through these records that a reconstruction of what might have happened can be illustrated.
This is the story of the brown pickup truck, as told by the records from this case.
Downtown Oklahoma City Witnesses
The first appearance of the brown truck in the available records comes about an hour before the bombing. Near 8:00 AM, motorist Leonard Long was traveling down 5th street, adjacent to the Murrah building, when he had to swerve his vehicle to avoid an accident. Long reported that he watched as a brown pickup truck with tinted windows raced out of the parking garage of the Murrah building onto 5th street, changing lanes at a high rate of speed.
Long said that the driver, who he identified as Timothy McVeigh, had sitting next to him in the passenger seat a dark-skinned stocky man wearing a camouflage jacket. Long, who is African-American, said that the passenger spewed racist language at him as the vehicle sped past in a reckless and erratic manner. [5]
Indiana State University professor and criminologist Mark S. Hamm speculates that Leonard Long may have observed Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice performing a “last-minute security check” in the Murrah parking garage that morning. It’s hard to know precisely what was going on here; however, Long’s sighting won’t be the only one involving McVeigh and other vehicles in downtown Oklahoma City that morning.
The next significant account involving the brown truck comes from a handful of witnesses who were in front of the Murrah federal building just minutes before the blast. A few minutes before 9:00 AM, the brown pickup truck was parked along 5th street, with the engine idling. The vehicle was parked offset from the curb, described as being “in the lane of traffic” by witness Rodney Johnson [6]. Meanwhile, witnesses Ann Domin and Margaret Hohmann were on their way to the Murrah Building for a meeting. The pair drove down 5th Street mere minutes before the blast, pulling into a parking space in front of the Murrah building. As they arrived, Domin and Hohmann spotted the brown truck parked along 5th street. Domin and Hohmann would tell the FBI that they watched the truck suddenly accelerate away from its parking spot, “peeling out.” [7] Just a few minutes later, Domin and Hohmann would be inside of the Murrah building’s restroom when the bomb detonated at 9:02 AM. Based on the timing, it’s estimated that they must have arrived and spotted the brown truck peeling out mere minutes before the blast.
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