JAMES BEATY
[OKC BOMBING[ Nichols' ex-wife admits McVeigh affair
Fri Apr 9, 2004 15:43
63.228.145.202

Nichols' ex-wife admits McVeigh affair
By JAMES BEATY, senior editor
Friday, April 9, 2004 11:30 AM CDT
http://mcalesternews.com/articles/2004/04/09/news/local_news/news04.txt

Terry Nichols' second wife, Marife Torres, admitted in court Thursday she had an affair with Timothy McVeigh.

McVeigh, once her husband's best friend, has already been executed for his role in the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Torres testified at the Pittsburg County Courthouse in McAlester. Nichols is standing trial on state charges of murder, conspiracy and arson in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

During direct examination, Torres told Oklahoma County Assistant District Attorney Sandra Elliott she and McVeigh had an affair in mid-1994.

orres said she never told Nichols about the affair, so Nichols never had a reason to be angry with McVeigh about it.

Torres married Nichols in 1990 when she was 17 and he was 35. She said she returned to the Philippines, her native country, in September 1994.

Nichols followed her to the Philippines that November, she said. Torres said she told Nichols she would return to the United States under one condition.

"There won't be any more Timothy McVeigh visiting our house," she said. Torres said she felt jealous of the time Nichols spent with McVeigh.

"He's the kind of person that maybe would just stay," she said. "He takes over."

Torres said Nichols agreed to keep McVeigh away and she returned to the U.S. on March 16, 1995.

Torres also testified about how two years earlier, in Decker, Mich., Nichols and McVeigh watched on television as federal authorities stormed the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas.

"They weren't happy about it," Torres said.

She also told Elliott about a phone call Nichols received in Kansas on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1995.

"When he got off the phone he told me Timothy McVeigh's car had broken down in Omaha and he needed to go pick him up," Torres said.

She said Nichols left the house within 10 or 20 minutes of receiving the call.

Torres said Nichols told her he was scared after the Oklahoma City bombing.

"He told me he was on the news ... and he was supposed to be armed and dangerous."

Torres said a short time later Nichols had "machinery" scattered on the garage floor and said "I've got to do something about that." Torres said she didn't know if the machinery was a fuel meter.

She said she went with Nichols when he turned himself in to police.

Nichols told police "My name's on the news and I'm supposed to be armed and dangerous," Torres said.

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.
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OKC BOMBING FALLOUT
Was FBI early arrival in Oklahoma City?
Hotel receipt shows top terror man showed up 9 hours before blast

By Jon Dougherty
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26115

The FBI's top counterterrorism agent checked into an Oklahoma City hotel nearly nine hours before a truck bomb nearly leveled the Alfred P. Murrah Building, according to a receipt obtained by WorldNetDaily, despite claims that he was in Texas the morning of the attack.

The Embassy Suites Hotel receipt of Danny Coulson, then-director of the FBI's Terrorist Task Force and founding commander of the bureau's Hostage Rescue Team was dated April 19, 1995, with a check-in time of "00:20" – military time for 12:20 a.m. (Editor's note: His last name is spelled "Coulsen" on the receipt, but it indicates he is with the "FBI," located at "50 Penn Place, Suite 1600; OKC, OK.")

The truck bomb exploded at 9:03 a.m., devastating half the building and killing 168 men, women and children.

According to the receipt, Coulson checked out of his hotel – room 406 – April 27 at 11:16 a.m.

The existence of the receipt and subsequent questions it raises surrounding the FBI's official denial of prior knowledge of the OKC bombing was first reported by J.D. Cash of the McCurtain (Oklahoma) Daily Gazette – a small-town paper that has been out in front of scores of OKC-related stories.

"Since the bombing, officials at the Department of Justice have repeatedly assured victims that the FBI had no prior knowledge of any plot to bomb the Murrah federal building," the paper said Wednesday. However, "evidence of Coulson's clandestine trip fits squarely with a substantial body of details found in hundreds of pages of other official documents obtained [via Freedom of Information Act requests] by" the paper – "evidence revealing weeks of planning by an elite corps of drug and counterterrorism experts who were closely monitoring members of various far-right groups they considered religious extremists and threats to the safety and security of the nation."

WorldNetDaily reported June 1 that Ricardo "Rick" J. W. Ojeda, a former FBI special agent involved in the original Oklahoma City bombing investigation, was given details of a relationship between convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh and members of a white supremacist group that may have helped McVeigh carry out the attack.

McVeigh was put to death 10 days later. His accomplice, Terry Nichols, is facing state charges in Oklahoma for his role in the bombing after having been convicted in 1997 on federal charges.

In his 1999 book, "No Heroes: Inside the FBI's Secret Counter-Terror Force," authored with Time magazine's Elaine Shannon, Coulson said he was in Dallas the morning of the Murrah attack. He said he and his wife were house-hunting and staying with friends:

We were finishing up breakfast with some old friends in Fort Worth when we heard the first news bulletin, something about a big explosion up in Oklahoma. ... My pager went off, displaying a number I knew by heart. "It's the SIOC," I said. The Strategic Information and Operations Center at the Hoover Building in Washington. John O'Neil, the headquarters official in charge of domestic terrorism investigations, answered. His voice was flat. "I guess you heard a bomb went off in Oklahoma City. 9:02 a.m." "Yes, it's all over the news." "A lot of people have been killed and injured. We don't know what we have. Ricks needs help. Can you catch the next flight?" "We're right in the middle of thunderstorms," I said. "Nobody in Texas is getting on a plane. I'll drive. ..."

But according to the Gazette's investigation – aided by the discovery of the hotel receipt – Coulson was apparently already in OKC, "tied to an FBI investigation that ... was part of a highly sensitive operation that few outside the criminal division of the FBI knew existed until long after it was disbanded."

That operation, allegedly begun by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in August 1994, was dubbed VAAPCON, assigned the number MC-111 (Major Case 111) and was aimed at investigating "the so-called religious right in America and possible ties to violent acts," the paper said.

Cash said he was unclear what VAAPCON meant, but he believes it has something to do with a Reno initiative to investigate violence against abortion providers.

The paper also noted that Coulson referred to MC-111 as his initial reason for going to Oklahoma City, using the case number in a May 16, 1995, report filed he filed with the bureau.

Others have also tied McVeigh and Nichols to white supremacist groups. WND reported June 27 that Indiana State University criminologist Mark Hamm, in a book published last fall, named former Aryan Republican Army member Mark Thomas, originally of Pennsylvania, and other members of his group as alleged coconspirators.

Based on court records and other evidence, WND also reported similar connections May 30.

Others, however, have said they believe McVeigh and Nichols were tied to Middle Eastern terrorists.

Jayna Davis, a former investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly May 14 that she had gathered massive evidence pointing to a conspiracy between McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.

Davis said last year that she took her evidence – including hundreds of court records, 24 sworn witness affidavits and reports from law enforcement, intelligence and terror experts – to the FBI, which refused to accept the material or the leads.

Some details may never be revealed. For example, travel records and vouchers for Coulson and fellow FBI agent Larry Potts, also assigned to investigate the OKC bombing, were listed as "missing," according to documents examined by WND. One for Coulson, in the amount of $1,313.80, was dated the day of the explosion – "4-19-95."

"After this many years, the National Archives regularly disposes of these kind of records," FBI spokeswoman Barbara Miller told the Gazette.

Coulson could not be contacted for comment.
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