The John Doe Times
Volume IV, No. 4
20 February 1997
IN THIS ISSUE:
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The John Doe Times is an on-line, electronic newsletter published by the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment (Constitutional Militia) and friends. We are a proud and active member of the "Right Wing Media Cabal", Internet Division.
We are working our way up the Clinton White House Enemies List as fast we can. Regular readers know the rest of drill, we're in a hurry.... Sic Semper Rodentia.
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WE WIN A GRAND JURY!!!
Americans for Responsible Media Responds to Supreme Court Ruling on Oklahoma City
Date: 97-02-19 18:02:34 EST
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla., Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The following news release was released on February 19, 1997 by Americans for Responsible Media of Arlington Heights, Illinois, on behalf of some of the victims of the Oklahoma Bombing Tragedy:
The Oklahoma State Supreme Court in a significant ruling late Tuesday unanimously ruled against Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy and in favor of the County Grand Jury petitioners, granting the right for a local County Grand Jury to be impaneled to conduct an independent investigation of the tragic April 19, 1995 bomb explosion of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
With the federal case against the suspects McVeigh and Nichols in question, and limited in the scope of its indictments, an independent local County Grand Jury provides an excellent opportunity to examine the evidence in this case that has been seemingly ignored by federal investigators.
Responding to the ruling Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key stated, "We are delighted that the highest court in Oklahoma ruled in favor of the people and in favor of the pursuit of truth. The cowardly and cruel bombing has not only affected the people of Oklahoma, but it has had far reaching implications worldwide. Now the families of those people who were killed across the street and not on federal property will be allowed to have their own investigation. Now the people of Oklahoma County will also be able to conduct a local investigation independent of the large federal government bureaucracy."
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NBC TIES ARYAN SHOOTERS TO MUELLER TRIPLE MURDER, ELOHIM CITY, AND (BY EXTENSION) OKLAHOMA CITY!!
In a broadcast of the NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw tonight (19 February 1997), ace NBC correspondent Mike Boettcher did a superb job of detailing the links between the Aryan shooters in Ohio, Richard Butler's Aryan Nation, the Mueller triple murder in Arkansas, and that lovely little neoNazi R&R center in Oklahoma: Elohim City. At the end of the piece, Boettcher also mentioned little Timmy McVeigh, his links to EC and the OKC bombing.
Not mentioned, but soon to follow I'm sure, will be other links to the Aryan Republican Army members who stayed, and trained at, Elohim City. Now Mikey "John Doe Two" Brescia wouldn't be one of those, would he? Of course we can't expect NBC to fit this entire huge story into one itty bitty segment, so be patient my children, all will be revealed. Give credit where it is due. From the cravenly cave-in on the Tulsa strip club story some months back, NBC has come a long way. ABC is still in coverup mode, it seems. Too bad. The story is coming out one way or the other and the only long-term damage the cover-uppers are doing now is to their reputations and individual economic well-being.
The transcript of the NBC show will be provided in an upcoming John Doe Times. For now, gentle readers, kindly call up NBC and give 'em a verbal pat on the back, encouraging them to pursue this story wherever it leads. "The Truth will out"
-- Mike Vanderboegh, Editor.
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"FREEZE!" (HEY, HE'S NOT FREEZING....)
"I Wondered How Come He Didn't Shoot Him..."
The Columbus Dispatch
19 February 1997
TROOPER'S VIDEO CAPTURES GUNFIGHT
The Dramatic Footage Shows How Two Suspects Escaped From Officers After Firing At Them.
By Jim Woods,
Dispatch Staff Reporter.
Wilmington, Ohio-- Frank Marsden yesterday watched a dramatic video released by the State Highway Patrol with great interest.
Marsden, 56, was wounded in the shoulder Saturday as he drove on Main Street while a man exchanged fire with a Wilmington police officer.
Just minutes before and not far away, the same man and a second suspect had been involved in a shooting with a trooper and a Clinton County deputy, a shooting caught on videotape by a camera in the trooper's cruiser.
"That really made me mad. I wondered how come he (the trooper) didn't shoot him (the driver) the first time," Marsden said. "If he got him, then I wouldn't have got shot."
Patrol policy prohibits using deadly force unless the trooper believed the driver posed a risk to someone's life, patrol Sgt. John Born said.
Marsden said he was stopped at a traffic light in the car with his wife and son when he saw an officer exchange shots with a man in a Chevrolet Suburban. The man fled on foot with a rifle.
The patrol plans to air portions of the 10 minute video this week on America's Most Wanted, Born said yesterday.
The trooper stopped the Suburban on Rte. 73, near Rt. 22 in Wilmington shortly after 1:30 P.M. Here is a portion of their videotaped conversation:
Trooper: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Could I see your driver's license, please sir?
Driver: To be honest with you, I ain't got it on men right now, sir.
Trooper: Do you have any kind of ID with you?
Driver: No sir, I don't.
Trooper: Do you own the vehicle?
Driver: No sir. I borrowed it from a friend up in Washington state.
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JDT NOTE: That friend, Sean Michael Haines, was arrested by SD authorities on 10 December for a traffic violation and was found to have a weapon belonging to the Muellers in his possession. On 12 December, Haines was bound over on $50,000 bail. On 20 December HE WAS "RECOGGED" without bail being posted and disappeared into the neoNazi wasteland again. The JDT, and other news organizations, are having trouble finding out which three-letter agency arranged this bit of short-circuited justice. Betting by "old hands" covering the Mueller case is evenly split between the FBI and ATF. In any case, we've probably got another "pet Nazi" roaming around out there. Your tax dollars at work. Go figure.
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Trooper: Do you have any registration with you?
Driver: No sir, I don't.
The trooper asks the driver to accompany him to his cruiser.
Trooper: Do you have any guns, knives, clubs, stuff like that on you?
Driver: I don't have anything on me.
Trooper: That's fine. I'm going to satisfy myself of that.
Driver: No, but I don't want to be violated like this.
Trooper: All right, sir, then I'll arrest you for not having a driver's license, and then I'll search you and then I'll put you in jail. How do you want to play it? You tell me. I'm not trying to make problems. We have two options...If you sit in my car, I'm going to search your person to make sure you have no dangerous or deadly weapons, or I can arrest you for not having a driver's license. Then I can search you. Then I can put you in jail....Those are your options you have, sir. Which would you like to exercise?
Driver: How long is it going to take for an out-of-state check on a valid driver's license?
Trooper: About as long as we've been standing here bullsh...... (pause)
Trooper: Now, what do you want to do, sir?
The driver runs back to the vehicle chased by the trooper and a Clinton County deputy.
Trooper: Watch it, boy, watch it, boy.......Watch him! (trooper to the deputy, referring to the passenger).
The passenger gets out of the vehicle and fires several shots from a handgun at the deputy and flees on foot.
Driver: Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I ain't got nothin'! I ain't got nothin'!
Trooper: Freeze! (as he points his weapon at the driver who jumped into the Suburban during the firing and sped off with the trooper partly clinging to the open door.)
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COLUMBUS DISPATCH
19 February 1997
SEARCH WARRANT SEALED FOR SHOOTOUT VEHICLE
By Jim Woods, Dispatch Staff Reporter
Wilmington, Ohio -- The State Highway Patrol yesterday had a Clinton County judge seal a search warrant for the blue 1977 Chevrolet Suburban involved Saturday in two shootouts with law enforcement officers.
Clinton County Prosecutor William Peele said the search warrant was sealed "because there is information in it which could affect the investigation."
He said he could not reveal what was found in the vehicle or predict when the details of the search warrant might be made public.
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JDT Commentary: What'd they find, an ATF snitch paystub?
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The vehicle was seized after the second shootout. The occupants, two white males, are being sought by the patrol.
The court order sealing the search warrant in Clinton County Municipal Court lists a Washington State license plate for the Chevrolet Suburban.
The license plate number was registered to Jacob Settle, whose address is listed as a post office box in Priest River, Idaho, according to Washington state motor vehicle records. Priest River is about 60 miles from Spokane, Wash., in the western part of the Idaho panhandle.
On a videotape made by a camera mounted in a patrol cruiser, the driver can be heard before the first shootout. He is explaining to the patrolman who stopped him that he was not the registered owner of the vehicle but borrowed it from a friend in Washington state.
The patrol has not released the names of suspects or filed charges.
The trouble began at 1:30 p.m. Saturday when a state trooper stopped the Suburban on Rte. 73 to check the registration. The driver broke away from the trooper and the passenger exchanged shots with the trooper and a Clinton County deputy sheriff. The trooper and the deputy were not identified for safety reasons, patrol Sgt. Brenda Collins said yesterday.
Minutes after the first shootout, a Wilmington police officer exchanged shots with the driver of a blue Suburban parked at the nearby Clinton Electric Company lot on Main Street. The gunman, armed with a rifle, fled on foot, eluding a manjunt by some 100 law enforcement officers.
Frank Marsden, 56, of Wilmington was shot in the shoulder as he drove past.
The FBI is assisting in the investigation.
Ed Boldt, a FBI spokesman, said if it turns out that these suspects had white supremacist ties, the FBI could investigate the case as domestic terrorism. He said the FBI doesn't automatically investigate white supremacist groups unless they are involved in criminal acts.
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JDT Commentary: Mostly because they are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the FBI and ATF and they know what goes on in them any way.
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Pope County, Ark., Sheriff Jay Winters said Monday that his agency was interested in an Ar-15 rifle seized by the patrol from the fugitives' vehicle.
Winters said his agency wants to know if the weapon could have been stolen from slain gun dealer William Mueller. The decomposed bodies of Mueller, his wife, Nancy, 28, and her daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Powell, 8, were found June 28 near Russellville, Ark.
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JDT Note: And NBC reported tonight, so we can now tell our readers, that the Muellers, bound, handcuffed, with plastic bags taped over their heads, were ALIVE when they were pitched into the Illinois Bayou. Oh, what "brave Aryan warriors" to mercilessly murder an 8 year-old girl! Hope you like it in Hell, boys.
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The Pope County Sheriff's office questioned Sean Michael Haines, 19, of Spokane, Wash., after his arrest Dec. 10 in Sioux falls, S.D. Haines had an AR-15 that had been stolen from Mueller's home. Winters said that Haines claimed the weapon came from another source.
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Philadelphia Inquirer
Wednesday, February 19, 1997
Aryan leader pleads guilty in robberies
Mark William Thomas said he would cooperate. Some call that a blow to the hate movement.
By Joseph A. Slobodzian and Mark Fazlollah
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Mark William Thomas, the guru of Pennsylvania white supremacists, stunned his supporters yesterday by pleading guilty to conspiring to rob Midwestern banks and promising to tell authorities everything he knows about criminal activity by racial extremists nationwide.
Brian Levin, director of the Center on Hate and Extremism at Stockton State College in Pomona, N.J., said Thomas' pledge to cooperate ``is by far the most significant catch of this decade.''
``It is hard to overstate just how trusted and respected Thomas is in the white-supremacist world,'' Levin said, asserting that Thomas has been especially effective at recruiting young people into the movement.
Thomas, 46, whose Berks County farm has long been a meeting place for neo-Nazis, Skinheads and other white right-wing groups, has been involved with such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation and the Aryan Republican Army over the last 25 years.
He was one of five men, three from the Philadelphia area, who were indicted last month on charges of conspiring to rob seven Midwest banks in 1994 and 1995 to generate money for their movement.
Thomas, who pleaded not guilty two weeks ago, reversed himself yesterday. At a hearing in federal court here marked by unusually tight security, he entered a guilty plea to conspiracy and to receiving proceeds of the bank robberies. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years.
In an eight-page plea agreement, Thomas promised to provide information about the bank heists and ``any other crimes about which he has knowledge.''
In return, the U.S. Attorney's Office said it would ask the sentencing judge to consider Thomas' cooperation and possibly impose a lesser term than called for under federal guidelines. Under the agreement, Thomas' sentencing will be ``postponed until his cooperation is complete.''
Thomas' attorney, David Maynard, said outside the courtroom that his client would ``cooperate fully.'' Thomas has been held without bail at an undisclosed location since he was arrested by the FBI Jan. 30.
Word of the plea and Thomas' promise to help the FBI jolted hate groups around the country -- and heartened organizations that oppose them.
``This is very significant. I'm shocked to hear this,'' said Richard Girnt Butler, leader of the Aryan Nation, a white-separatist movement based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. ``I don't know what they had on him. I sure don't understand it.''
Thomas was replaced as head of the Aryan Nation's Pennsylvania branch last year, when he became a target of the federal investigation. Butler vowed that the group would continue its work in Pennsylvania.
``We are fighting for the life of the white race,'' said Butler, 79.
``He'll drop everyone's name. I believe he'll drop my name,'' said Dennis Mahon of Tulsa, Okla., a former Ku Klux Klan leader in that state and now a national leader of the White Aryan Resistance.
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JDT Commentary: What are you trying to tell us here, Dennis?
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``How could he throw 25 years of this movement away?'' asked Mahon, who said he had sent money to help Thomas' wife after his arrest. ``It breaks my heart that he would break that fast. He's only been in jail for a week.''
Barry Morrison, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, was jubilant. ``It puts him out of the box,'' he said of Thomas. ``The effectiveness that he had in the hate movement will be no more.
``To the extent that he may choose to cooperate with law enforcement officials, that can make a dent in the hate movement,'' he said. ``His contacts are nationwide by virtue of his own travel, by virtue of communication and by virtue of his Internet connections.''
Thomas, a sometime truck driver with an eighth-grade education, has regularly hosted white-supremacist rallies at his farm in Longswamp Township, near Allentown, and has turned up regularly at places that have become icons to the extreme right. He has operated an Internet site called ``The Watchman.''
Authorities say Thomas had been to Butler's Idaho compound -- once frequented by Randy Weaver, the key figure in the bloody 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff with the FBI. He has also visited a right-wing Christian compound in Oklahoma known as Elohim City.
Thomas, a tall, haggard-looking man, spoke softly and apologetically during a hearing yesterday before U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter.
``I want to apologize for my appearance,'' the unshaven Thomas told the judge. ``I've been trying for days to get access to a razor.''
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JDT Commentary: Note to the Philadelphia Jail System-- You can give Thomas access to a razor. He hasn't got the guts to kill himself.
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A dozen U.S. marshals stood guard in the courtroom and in the hallway outside. Two were within a few feet of Thomas at all times. Anyone entering the 17th-floor courtroom had to pass through a metal detector.
Though he quibbled with some details of the seven bank robberies as described by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Schwartz, Thomas muttered ``I'm guilty'' several times when questioned by the judge about the charges and his plea.
Thomas' pregnant wife and their 1_1/2-year-old child sat quietly in the rear of the courtroom, flanked by several supporters.
Authorities say the robberies were among 22 Midwestern bank robberies committed by white separatists between late 1992 and late 1995. More than $250,000 was stolen.
Prosecutors say Thomas and others used some of the money to fund their movement and to buy guns and other equipment for future robberies.
Three of the men indicted with Thomas were already in prison on charges stemming from some of the Midwest robberies. They are: Peter Kevin Langan, 38, who was arrested in January 1996 at his home in Columbus, Ohio; Scott Anthony Stedeford, 28, of Ardmore; and Kevin William McCarthy, 19, of the city's Bustleton section.
The fifth suspect, Michael William Brescia, 24, of the city's Andorra section, was arrested Jan 30. He is being held without bail.
Langan was convicted earlier this month of bank-robbery charges in federal court in Columbus. Stedeford was found guilty in November, in Des Moines, of robbing two banks. McCarthy pleaded guilty to similar charges in July and agreed to testify for the prosecution.
Brescia, a part-time student at La Salle University and the son of a battalion chief in the Philadelphia Fire Department, has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Edward J. Daly, was at Thomas' hearing yesterday but said it was too early to comment on how the guilty plea would affect his client.
Opponents of the white-separatist groups were thrilled by the prospect of Thomas' cooperation, which they said could provide important information about the far-right across the county.
Morrison, of the Anti-Defamation League, said there were ``hundreds of people who have traveled through his compound and other people he has encountered.
``Obviously, he's cutting off all ties with the hate movement,'' he said.
Investigators are intrigued by Thomas' links to Elohim City, a right-wing Christian community in Oklahoma.
Authorities contend that Timothy McVeigh, the accused bomber of the Oklahoma City federal building, placed a call to the compound minutes after renting the Ryder truck used in the April 19, 1995, bombing. McVeigh has denied involvement in the explosion.
Three of Thomas' codefendants in the conspiracy indictment spent time in Elohim City. Brescia lived there for two years, according to the compound's founder, Robert Millar. Brescia's fiancee is distantly related to Millar and spent much of her life at Elohim City.
Floyd Cochran, a former white supremacist from central Pennsylvania who has repudiated the movement, said Thomas had extensive knowledge of activities, both legal and illegal, by members of different organizations.
``There are going to be people in the racist movement who are going to be shaking,'' said Cochran, now of Coudersport, Pa. ``This guy's connected.''
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THE DENVER POST
19 FEBRUARY 1997
Is John Doe No. 2 back?
By Chance Conner and George Lane
Denver Post Staff Writers
Feb. 19 - "John Doe No. 2," the elusive suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing who the government has tried to disavow, Tuesday reared his head again at a hearing in Denver federal court.
Two key prosecution witnesses who have identified bombing defendant Timothy McVeigh as having rented a Ryder truck yesterday admitted there was, indeed, a second person accompanying McVeigh two days before the April 19, 1995, explosion.
The problem is, neither witness Tom Kessinger nor Eldon Elliott could offer any tangible description of the mystery man during the hearing before U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch. They testified, however, that someone was inside Elliott's Body Shop with McVeigh in Junction City, Kan., on April 17, 1995.
Prosecutors had figured the pesky issue of John Doe No. 2, the square-jawed man wearing a baseball cap, had been resolved last month when it was disclosed that Kessinger had based his FBI sketch artist description on another man - Army Pvt. Todd Bunting, who visited the truck rental business the day after McVeigh.
Following that disclosure, prosecutors said they were comfortable that McVeigh is their main suspect, that John Doe No. 2 likely never existed, and that a second suspect with McVeigh had not escaped the largest dragnet ever in U.S. history.
After Kessinger and Elliott testified Tuesday about the second person with McVeigh at the rental shop, federal prosecutor Scott Mendelhoff denied the government ever doubted John Doe No. 2's existence.
"I don't believe the government ever said there was no John Doe No. 2," Mendelhoff told a crowd of reporters at a noon break.
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JDT Commentary: Pardon me? What was that big press conference with Jamie Gorelick at Justice a couple weeks back all about then? You withdrew the reward money, Mendelhoff. Is there no one in the media who is capable of remembering what they had for breakfast this morning to challenge this bozo on this breathtaking lie? What we have here is an Orwellian Ministry of Truth operating within the Justice Department where this week's "historical fact" may disagree with last last week's "truth" like night and day. It is all lies suited to the "party line." That the Clinton Administration lies is no surprise. That the media lets them get away with such an incredible and recent flip-flop of "fact" without challenge is contemptible.
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McVeigh's lead attorney, Stephen Jones, was quick with his own response on the infamous suspect, and poked fun at T-shirts Elliott's had printed up that read, "We remember our customers."
"I don't think they'll be reprinting those T-shirts," Jones said. "That boy (John Doe No. 2) has got more lives than a cat." Jones wants the eyewitnesses excluded from testifying at trial because he thinks their identifications are tainted from having seen pictures of McVeigh repeatedly in newspaper and television reports.
Michael Tigar, attorney for codefendant Terry Nichols, is challenging at least one other witness for the same reason.
McVeigh and Nichols are accused in the bombing that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring more than 500 others.
Matsch could rule this week whether any of the government's eyewitnesses should be excluded.
Jones even suggested that Kessinger's description of John Doe No. 1 - considered to be McVeigh - may have been based on his seeing a man who accompanied Bunting to Elliott's, Army Sgt. Michael Hertig. Kessinger earlier had said John Doe No. 1 had a "peculiar chin," which Jones said might resemble that of Hertig's.
Kessinger, who sat for most of the morning session with his hands tightly folded in front of him and his head thrown back, was repeatedly asked by Jones about his encounter with McVeigh and the second man at Elliott's - as well as his flawed description of John Doe No. 2.
Kessinger, a mechanic, stuttered and waffled in his answers, but never caved in to Jones' intense line of questioning.
"For one and one-half years, you maintained that the FBI sketch was not Todd Bunting, but today you maintain it is?" Jones asked.
"Yes sir," Kessinger replied. "I was in error."
Jones then quickly suggested, "Could it be you're changing you're mind because the government asked you to? Because you've met with the FBI and prosecutors 17 to 19 times? You've met with them a lot more than you've met with me, which is never."
During his cross-examination of Elliott, Mendelhoff suggested that the second man with McVeigh could have been another customer who simply had driven up in an unidentified car while the truck was being rented.
"If that car belonged to another truck-rental customer, you wouldn't have known it, would you?" Mendelhoff asked.
"No, sir, I wouldn't have," Elliott replied.
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JDT Commentary: Gentle readers, May we have a show of hands of the number of folks who ever rented a truck without having another person assist them, or without leaving their car at the rental agency? Did McVeigh walk to the rental place? Not even the government has suggested how McVeigh might have miraculously appeared at Elliott's without wheels, all by his lonesome. We know that McVeigh did not leave his other vehicle there. We know that he did not take a cab (yes, people have checked on that). We know that no uninvolved citizen reported giving him a lift. We know that Terry Nichols and Mike Fortier both seem to have been elsewhere when the truck was rented. I've got it! McVeigh, like many a good Nazi, believes in UFOs, right? Well, maybe, just maybe, Capt. Kirk or his Nazi equivalent beamed McVeigh into Elliott's. This would make the government's position perfectly logical. Of course! I may even come to believe it myself if the "Ministry of Truth", I mean the prosecution team, says it enough. "Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Eastasia is our ally. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia..." 1984, George Orwell.
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Several other witnesses that the government wants to testify at trial include:
** Tim Donahue, who owns a Kansas ranch where Nichols worked and rented a house to the bombing suspect. Donahue said he met McVeigh several times when he visited the ranch.
** Marion Charles Ogden, a health and physical education teacher and antique dealer from Marion, Kan., who purchased a lamp for $2 from McVeigh at a yard sale at the house from which Nichols was moving. Ogden also testified he spotted a gun on the floor, but McVeigh said it wasn't for sale. After the bombing, Ogden resold the lamp for $40.
** Glynn Tipton, a racing fuel dealer, said a man calling himself "John" and who looked like McVeigh, tried to purchase rocket fuel from him in October 1994.
