TIM TALLEY
Fertilizer Purchases Focus in Nichols Case
Tue Mar 30 09:31:27 2004
63.228.144.66

Fertilizer Purchases Focus in Nichols Case
By TIM TALLEY
The Associated Press - March 30, 2004 6:22 AM
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/1-03302004-273571.html

McALESTER, Okla. - FBI agent Louis Michalko testified that a man using an alias linked to Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols bought more ammonium nitrate fertilizer from a Kansas co-op than almost anyone else in the year before the blast.

Such fertilizer was a key ingredient in the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people. Prosecutors said Nichols bought 4,000 pounds of the material more than six months prior.

FBI agent Louis Michalko testified at Nichols' murder trial that he reviewed about 132,000 sales tickets from the Mid Kansas Cooperative Association to find others who bought fertilizer from Jan. 1, 1994, up to the date of the bombing.

Michalko said his analysis determined that a man named Mike Havens bought a total of 4,000 pounds of fertilizer during the period, ranking him the third-largest buyer behind a local experimental field and a school district.

And, he said, Havens was the only major fertilizer purchaser who paid cash.

A receipt for one 2,000 pound transaction was discovered in Nichols' Herington, Kan., home during a search by FBI agents three days after the bombing. It listed the purchaser as Mike Havens.

Nichols is on trial on 161 state charges of murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. He is already serving a life sentence on federal charges in the attack.

Prosecutors allege Nichols and Timothy McVeigh gathered components for the fertilizer-and-fuel-oil bomb and built it. McVeigh was convicted of federal murder charges and executed in 2001.

The defense plans to show that Nichols was a patsy for a shadowy group of conspirators, possibly including members of the white supremacist and anti-government group Aryan Republican Army.

A worker at the co-op, Jerry Showalter, testified that he took part in the Sept. 30 sale to Havens. But neither Showalter nor Frederick Schlender Jr., who ran the co-op's branch in McPherson, Kan., and testified on Friday, could identify Nichols as the buyer.

Showalter said he asked the buyer how he planned to use the fertilizer, which is not generally used in agriculture in the area. The buyer said he planned to fertilize a field with a drill apparatus.

"He left me with the impression that he knew what he was doing," Showalter said.

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Posted on Tue, Mar. 30, 2004

Nichols Trial-Glance
Associated Press
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/8311167.htm?1c

McALESTER, Okla. - Developments Monday in the Oklahoma City bombing trial:

FERTILIZER BUYS: An employee of a Kansas farmer's co-op, Jerry Showalter, testified that a man calling himself Mike Havens, an alias linked to bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, purchased one ton of the type of fertilizer used in the bomb that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building.

BIG SPENDER: An FBI agent, Louis Michalko, testified that Havens purchased 4,000 pounds of the material from the co-op in the year preceding the bombing, more than almost anyone else. Havens was the only major fertilizer purchaser who paid cash. Others placed the buys through accounts.

WHAT'S NEXT: Paul Rydlund, an explosives expert, will testify about the destructiveness of ammonium-nitrate-and-fuel-oil bombs like the one used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
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Eight British Citizens Arrested On In Terror Raid
ClickonSA.com, TX - 4 minutes ago
... bombs. It's the same substance that was used in the Oklahoma City bombing. The fertilizer was found in a storage facility. Police ...
http://www.ksat.com/news/2959759/detail.html 

 

• [okbomb] The Primary Scapegoat Scenario — Brian Downing Quig, Tue Mar 30 11:37