Secrets of Timothy McVeigh

At the time, the owner and his employee were focused on the plume of black smoke rising from the Murrah Building. “It was incredible. We felt the shock wave from the explosion,” the owner explains. “It rattled doors and windows throughout the motel.”

The owner says two men were in the SUV. They got out, and one of them appeared to throw something into the ditch. Then they drove back out. “I told the maintenance man to keep his eyes open for something that might have been tossed when he checked down there. He later found an Arizona plate in the grass and gave it to me.” The motel owner also discovered a T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag in that area. A motel guest told the owner and Davis he saw McVeigh wearing the same shirt on April 18. The owner wanted to give the plate and shirt to the FBI. “But they weren’t interested. I wrapped them in plastic and stuck them in my closet. I still have them.”

The FBI interviewed the motel owner several times. “I told them [the agents], if you don’t believe me, there are four other staff people who saw McVeigh here with those Iraqis. But they wouldn’t interview them.”

The Weekly interviewed two of those four witnesses. Only one of them still works there. The third, a female clerk, has died, and the fourth, her husband, declined to speak. Both told Davis that McVeigh and a group of Middle Eastern–looking men were at the motel on April 18. “I was with [the motel owner] when that third vehicle came back,” says the maintenance man. “We watched them go to the end of the property, get out and throw something in the ditch. Then they left. [The owner] sent me to see what it was. I found the Arizona plate and gave it to him.”

This witness says he saw the Ryder truck and McVeigh with some Middle Eastern–looking men, on April 18. The truck made a vivid impression. “It smelled real bad, and I kept walking around it looking for a leak. I was real concerned because diesel is hard to clean up and it would have been my job.” He says he was willing to talk to the FBI. “My boss gave them my name, but they never called.”

The second witness, an ex-employee, says he phoned the FBI several times after the attack before he finally set up an appointment. The motel owner was already being questioned when this second witness arrived at the FBI’s office for his interview. “They left me waiting,” he says. “I told the receptionist I had to go. But she asked me to stay. Finally, after three hours, I told her, ‘Tell the agents to call me when they want me back.’ But they never did.”

This witness is also sure he saw the Ryder, McVeigh and a group of “Middle Easterners” at the motel the morning of the attack. At 7:30 a.m., he began his trash detail. “That’s when I was overwhelmed by diesel smell from the truck. I worked seven years in oil fields, so I know diesel.”

He walked around the Ryder twice, looking for the leak. “Then I saw McVeigh and the Arabs head toward the truck.” And he insists, “I didn’t see someone who looked like McVeigh. I saw McVeigh. I was 10 feet away and recognized him when I saw him on TV.”

McVeigh and another man, this witness says, got into the Ryder and drove to the office. McVeigh, he adds, also stayed there months earlier. “I used to see him walking around. But we never said much, except hello.” When his arrest was broadcast, this witness says he told his wife, “‘I know him. He stayed at the motel.’ That’s when I decided to call the FBI.”

 

The most recent official scrutiny given to claims of a possible Middle Eastern conspiracy is the briefing the FBI held in October 2002, with Swanton, an assistant U.S. attorney, temporarily assigned to Specter’s staff and House committee investigators. The memo Kalisch wrote after the meeting attacks Davis’ investigation and the credibility of the motel owner. “Kalisch’s letter is filled with lies, omissions and disinformation,” responds the former KFOR reporter. “It’s the same old story with the FBI. Cover it up,” adds David Schippers, Davis’ attorney and former lead counsel spearheading the House impeachment of Bill Clinton. “Maybe they just don’t know the difference between truth and lies.”

The motel owner says Kalisch’s statements to Specter’s office made him angry. She distorted or omitted much of what he said, he alleges. Kalisch writes that the FBI first interviewed the owner in November 1995. “She implies I waited seven months to call,” the motel owner says. “But I called the FBI several times after McVeigh’s arrest, to say he was here. I just never heard back.” Finally, his business attorney told a retired federal judge who was a friend of McVeigh’s prosecutor. “And he arranged my first interview.”

Kalisch also claims the motel owner re-contacted the FBI in December 1995 and told agents the “Ryder truck was not at the motel, and he may have been influenced by the news media and a co-worker. That’s an outright lie,” the owner angrily counters. “I never said that or changed my information.”