July 4, 1995
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (CNN) - CNN has confirmed that a man who sold a stolen gun linked to Timothy McVeigh is in Oklahoma City to testify before the grand jury hearing evidence in the Oklahoma City bombing case.
Prosecutors want to know what James Rosencrans of Kingman, Ariz. knows about the gun and any others that may have been used to finance the bombing.
Rosencrans, who has not been named as a suspect, received a subpoena to appear before the grand jury at 9 am Wednesday morning, according to a well-placed source. He arrived in Oklahoma City alone early this afternoon on a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas.
"James was very nervous," his stepfather, Charles Rosencrans, said.
Rosencrans lives next door in Kingman to McVeigh army buddy and possible conspirator Michael Fortier. Fortier, who has not been spotted in Kingman since leaving several weeks ago, is currently trying to cut a deal with federal prosecutors. Before Fortier's most recent departure, he had been spied going back and forth from Rosencrans' trailer to his own.
With Fortier gone and Rosencrans now safely delivered to Oklahoma City, it appeared Tuesday the FBI is preparing to end the around-the-clock vigil it has maintained outside the two trailers that stand side-by-side since just after the bombing.
According to his stepfather, Rosencrans received the stolen gun from Fortier about six months ago in return for past favors.
The gun, a rare model Winchester .22-caliber rifle with a custom walnut stock, has been confirmed by federal law enforcement sources as one of 66 guns, along with silver bars, gold coins and jewels, taken last Nov. 5 from an Arkansas gun dealer. After the unsolved heist, estimated at $60,000, the victim told police he suspected McVeigh, who he had met at least twice at various gun shows and who had visited him in Arkansas sometime before the bombing.
Some of the weapons taken, along with a safe deposit box key that belonged to the robbery victim, were recovered from other main bomb suspect Terry Nichols' Herington, Kans. home when agents searched it after Nichols' turned himself in last April.
Last December, according to federal law enforcement sources, Fortier accompanied McVeigh from Kingman to Oklahoma City to case the federal building. The McVeigh-Fortier trail next leads to Kansas, where the pair may have met up with their friend from the army, Nichols.
Fortier then returned to Arizona. Car rental records show Fortier rented a Ford Crown Victoria in Manhattan, Kansas on Dec. 17 and dropped it off in Kingman two days later on Dec. 19. Agents are now investigating the possibility that Fortier transported the Winchester, along with some other guns from Kansas to Arizona just days after Fortier and McVeigh were in Oklahoma City.
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