Sources: FBI looking at handling of OKC evidence
Report: Documents might have showed if bombers had help
From Susan Candiotti
CNN
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Terry Nichols, 48, is serving a federal life sentence for the deaths of eight federal officers.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI is looking into a report that documents related to the Oklahoma City bombing may have been destroyed and others may never have been turned over to the head of the FBI probe or to the defense, government sources told CNN on Saturday.
The action comes just days before jury selection is scheduled to begin in McAlester, Oklahoma, in the state trial of Terry Nichols for his role in the bombing on April 19, 1995.
District Judge Steven Taylor said Friday night the development would not delay the process -- set to start Monday at 9 a.m.
But Saturday he decided to hold a hearing at 7 a.m. Monday, apparently to consider the matter, said Cheryl Camp, his court administrator.
Dan Defenbaugh, the now-retired FBI supervisory agent who led the investigation into the bombing, applauded the move.
"It's about time the FBI put integrity back into the 'I,' " he said.
Defenbaugh said he is angry and concerned he was never informed about evidence that might have answered whether Timothy McVeigh and Nichols had help pulling off the bombing. (Full story)
"We should have seen them, looked at them, and we should see them now," Defenbaugh said, referring to the documents.
Yet he did not think the information -- some of which he was shown last year by The Associated Press -- would have changed the outcome of the government's case.
"I suspect, in the end, we would have come up with the same answer."
McVeigh was convicted on federal murder charges and was executed in June 2001.
Defenbaugh said he believes McVeigh and Nichols carried out the bombing without significant help.
"I'm still not buying into any conspiracy theories," he said.
Nichols, 48, is serving a life sentence without the chance for parole after being convicted in federal court in 1997 on charges of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of eight federal agents in the bombing.
He now faces 161 state murder charges for the other victims, including a fetus whose mother died in the explosion.
Possible links to bank robbery probe
Defenbaugh made his comments after the AP reported Wednesday that it had shown him documents about a simultaneous investigation into a series of bank robberies in the 1990s that had possible links to the Oklahoma City bombing investigation.
The documents cite evidence that was destroyed long ago, a fact that angered Defenbaugh.
"They broke every rule in the book when they destroyed that evidence," he told CNN.
The documents obtained by the AP and shown to Defenbaugh reportedly indicate the FBI in January 1996 found blasting caps in a hideout used by bank robbers who were members of the Aryan Republican Army, a white supremacist group.
Defenbaugh said the documents indicate that mercury switches, a duffel bag and two items described as "a Christmas package" were also found.
The last reference raises interest because of testimony in McVeigh's trial involving a Christmas package.
Witness Lori Fortier told jurors that McVeigh had asked her to wrap in Christmas paper two packages of blasting caps for him, and that McVeigh put the packages in the trunk of his car.
The FBI never found the packages.
"Those packages should have been processed for fingerprints to see whether there was any link to McVeigh and the blasting caps analyzed in the FBI laboratory," Defenbaugh said.
The caps and presumably the packages were reportedly destroyed by a fire department in Ohio with the FBI's blessing.
Defenbaugh also questioned a possible connection between the bank robbers and the home robbery of a key witness in the bombing trial.
At trial, federal prosecutors presented evidence that McVeigh and Nichols used proceeds from the 1994 holdup of gun dealer Roger Moore's home in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
The FBI recovered property from that robbery in Nichols' home, including guns and gold coins. The government's theory was that the masked robber who pulled off the heist was Terry Nichols, though Moore never identified him.
New documents reviewed by Defenbaugh show a driver's license belonging to a Robert Miller, one of Moore's aliases, that was found in the possession of one of the convicted bank robbers, Richard Guthrie, who has since committed suicide.
The AP reported the government also had a videotape shot by the Aryan Republican Army bank robbers that included surveillance of several properties. Defenbaugh said the tape was never brought to his attention.
One of the gang members told the AP some of the robbers lied to the FBI about their whereabouts after the Oklahoma City bombing when they said they were in Elohim City, a white supremacist compound about three hours' drive from Oklahoma City in a mountainous area on the Arkansas border.
Doubt cast on link to supremacists
Defenbaugh said he does not believe McVeigh had any help from anyone at Elohim City.
"In all the calls we traced from McVeigh's phone card, we only had one to Elohim City," Defenbaugh said.
He said his FBI team found no connection between McVeigh and Elohim City, though the FBI did show that McVeigh had contact with the Aryan Republican Army.
In Defenbaugh's view, that contact led nowhere.
Defenbaugh said he believes McVeigh was alone when he drove the truck bomb to Oklahoma City and after the bombing. He was alone when he was arrested.
Defenbaugh said it would have been out of character for the frugal McVeigh to have stayed in a motel 20 miles from the compound if he had been receiving help from anyone in Elohim City.
Defenbaugh questioned why if McVeigh and Nichols indeed had access to the robbers' loot, they were scraping by. McVeigh was doing everything on the cheap, including stealing some of the bomb ingredients.
Nevertheless, Defenbaugh said, the FBI needs "to exhaustively investigate this and let [the] public know what the results are."
CNN's Kelli Arena contributed to this story.
