PIML 96052008 / Forwarded to Patriot Information Mailing List: Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 01:33:49 -0700 (MST) From: Free Speech Subject: [FreeSpeech-NewsWire] Oklahomans smell a cover-up Oklahomans smell a cover-up By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Oklahoma City IN ONE of the most bizarre twists in the history of America's criminal justice system, a couple are co-operating with the man who allegedly murdered their grandchildren. They have a common purpose: to prove that the government is covering up crucial evidence about the most deadly terrorist attack the country has ever witnessed. The couple are Glenn and Kathy Wilburn, and the alleged murderer Timothy McVeigh, accused of planting the bomb that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City a year ago this week. The nerve centre of the network of Oklahoma dissidents struggling to reveal the truth is the Wilburns' kitchen. He is a chartered accountant, she a former employee of the Internal Revenue Service. The couple were just normal citizens, respectful of the authorities, until their two grandchildren were blown up in the day-care centre of the Murrah Federal Building on April 19 last year. Their house has been turned into a shrine for the dead boys, Colton and Chase, three and two, who lived there along with their mother, Eyde Smith. Teddy bears are stacked on the little beds in their room. Tiny clothes hang in their place. "It's just like it was the day they left for school that day," says Kathy Wilburn. The Wilburns, both in their mid-forties, spend their free time conducting their own private investigation into the Oklahoma bombing The most poignant memento is a ticket found in Chase's pocket in the rubble. It was for a Sesame Street Live show entitled "When I Grow Up". The Wilburns, both in their mid-forties, spend their free time huddled around a kidney-shaped table, conducting their own private investigation into the Oklahoma bombing. They are also collaborating with McVeigh's defence team. With the help of their house guest, a retired lawyer called Johnny "J. D." Cash, they have amassed more than 300 hours of tape-recorded interviews with witnesses. Their archive includes confidential documents leaked to them by silent helpers inside the local and federal police agencies. "[The authorities] are hoping that we'll all get tired and give up, but it isn't going to happen," says Glenn Wilburn. "I'm as tenacious as hell, and I'm not going to stand idly by while some of the murderers are allowed to get off." Piece by piece the family is building a case that accuses the US government of mounting a cover-up. For some inexplicable reason, the FBI and the federal prosecutors appear determined to confine their case to Tim McVeigh and his partner, Terry Nichols, who was hundreds of miles away in Kansas on the day of the bombing. The FBI now says it made a mistake when it issued a sketch of the infamous John Doe II According to the Wilburns, the FBI has ignored a series of witnesses who spotted the tall, gangling McVeigh with at least two other men in Oklahoma City on April 19. Kyle Hunt, the vice-president of a Tulsa bank, was driving through downtown Oklahoma City about 8.35am when he noticed a Ryder van followed by a car with three men inside. They looked lost. (The bomb went off in a Ryder van at 9.02am.) He was about to offer help when the driver warned him off. "I'm certain it was McVeigh . . . I got an icy cold, go-to-hell look from him and it unnerved me," he told Mr Wilburn in a taped interview. David Snider, a warehouse worker, saw a heavily-loaded Ryder van crawling along the road shortly after 8.30am. He was expecting a delivery so he went out and gesticulated to the two men in the cabin of the van. They drove within a few feet of him. He later told the FBI that the passenger was Tim McVeigh. The driver was dark-skinned and stocky. Several other witnesses tell similar tales. None was ever called before the federal Grand Jury investigating the bombing. What is more, the FBI now says it made a mistake when it issued a sketch of the infamous John Doe II, the stocky, swarthy suspect seen with McVeigh in a Ryder rental office in Kansas. The $2 million reward for the man has been withdrawn. The US federal judge originally in charge of the bombing case, Wayne Alley, did not come to work on April 19 because he had been warned "The prosecutors were very careful not to let us hear anything from witnesses who saw McVeigh at the crime scene," said Hoppy Heidelberg, a Grand Juror so angry about the case that he decided to risk prosecution by speaking out. "It wasn't an investigation of the bombing at all. They wheeled in witnesses who'd seen McVeigh at gun shows, as if it was illegal to go to gun shows in the United States." The Wilburns embarked on their crusade when they started hearing rumours that some government employees had prior warning of the bombing. Glenn Wilburn was told by the Dispatch Chief of the Oklahoma City fire department, Harvey Weathers, that "they had received a message from the FBI on the Friday before the bombing that they should be on alert for a terrorist act". He learned that the US federal judge originally in charge of the bombing case, Wayne Alley, did not come to work on April 19 because he had been warned. Judge Alley, from Oregon, admitted as much to a newspaper there the day after the blast. It was not long before he began to suspect that the bombing might have been a government "sting" operation that had gone disastrously wrong. This is not far-fetched. Trial documents show that the conspiracy to bomb the New York World Trade Centre in 1993 was penetrated by the FBI. According to the New York York Times, the FBI had been planning to substitute harmless powder for the explosives at the last moment but failed to do so. Did the government have an informant among the conspirators? Did it have prior warning of the atrocity? McVeigh's trial, expected to open later this year, is certainly going to be one of the most sensational court cases this century. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 01:42:40 -0700 (MST) From: Free Speech Subject: [FreeSpeech-NewsWire] Oklahoma City shockwaves rumble on Oklahoma City shockwaves rumble on By Hugh Davies One year after the bomb, the grief is still touched by anger "IT'S not vengeance we're after. We are just going to make sure the truth comes out. They killed two precious little boys who were the whole focus of our family. The guts were ripped out of our house; out of our hearts." Glenn Wilburn has been on a crusade almost from the moment a year ago when he learned that his two grandsons were among the 168 victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. But his quest for the truth has caused alarm among the law-enforcement authorities - both in the methods he has used and the conclusions he has reached. Mr Wilburn, 45, an accountant, and his wife, Kathy, were devoted to their daughter, Edye, 23, and grandchildren - Chase, 3, and two-year-old Colton. They lived together in a bungalow not far from the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building, which was hit by a two-ton bomb. Their home is now part-shrine. The boys' bedroom remains untouched since their deaths in the day-care centre - "That room's gonna stay that way either until we have other grandkids, or it will be that way forever," said Mr Wilburn - and prominent on a wall is a picture depicting the children as angels. Mr Wilburn said: "The boys were so close to us. I must know who killed them. For months I watched my wife sit in the living room with her face to the wall and a blanket over her head, crying night and day." But, in their grief, the Wilburns have not fallen to pieces. They recognise no rules in their relentless pursuit of the truth and have used hidden microphones to record people. Mrs Wilburn has been to a white supremacist outpost near the border with Arkansas chasing up suggestions that Timothy McVeigh, who has been charged with the bombing, was involved with the occupants. It might appear far-fetched that two middle-aged, amateur sleuths could uncover information that has eluded the weight of a federal investigation but Mr Wilburn is convinced of an official cover-up on two major points. He claims that two men, allegedly associates of McVeigh at the scene of the bombing half-an-hour before the explosion, are still at large. "I have a strong hunch they are members of a radical, Right-wing organisation." He suspects a neo-Nazi connection with ties to a German national. There is dark talk of a federal informer. The authorities have long abandoned a search for the so-called "John Doe 2", a swarthy, tattooed man with a bad temper who was allegedly seen with McVeigh renting the truck in which the explosives were packed. Beth Wilkinson, the prosecution lawyer, said: "As of today, we have no information showing that anyone other than Mr McVeigh and Mr [Terry] Nichols were the masterminds of this bombing." Nichols, who is charged with explosives offences, is a former army colleague of McVeigh's. "If anyone knew there was danger in that area and it was not disseminated, then I am mad" However, a credible witness has supposedly come forward to tell the authorities that at 8.35am on April 19, 1995 - the bomb went off at 9.02am - he saw McVeigh driving the car the FBI says was used in the "getaway". McVeigh was at the wheel. A man was alongside him in the passenger seat. Another man, with long hair, was sitting in the middle of the back seat. Mr Wilburn's other main claim is that the authorities had prior knowledge of a bomb threat. He claims at least six people saw a bomb squad in the downtown area more than an hour before the blast and one spotted a white van marked "bomb disposal". Mr Wilburn said: "If anyone knew there was danger in that area and it was not disseminated, then I am mad. I'm awfully damned mad. We took babies to that building. Our babies didn't work there. They didn't have to go there. They went there to be cared for and protected. Other perpetrators are out there, somewhere." With his home overloaded with documents, tapes and evidence on video, Mr Wilburn said he had done everything to authenticate his claims. "I feel this whole thing is going to blow open real soon. Witnesses fear retribution from the federal government. I say to hell with that." Mrs Wilburn said: "People are scared for their jobs. I grew up to trust your government. I still believe this is the greatest country in the world. But I am shocked by what we have discovered." The authorities assure the Wilburns they had no inkling of danger. "We're not the bogeymen here," said one federal agent. "I am 23, but I feel old" The federal prosecutors are trying to delay until after the trial a $30 million civil suit that Edye Wilburn has filed against McVeigh. Ironically, Steven Jones, McVeigh's lawyer, is trying to use the procedure to obtain more information about the case, relying on the different rules governing the civil case. The judge who is to try the criminal action in Denver is examining a request from Mr Jones that he be shown all US intelligence data gathered overseas about the bombing. Like Mr Wilburn, the attorney says that he has sources who have told him of information that points to other suspects. He contends that the explosion may have been financed and executed by a foreign state or terrorist group. He wants information on Iran, Iraq and Sudan, and their connections with men in Britain, Germany and the US. Three Britons have been named as people he wants to interview. All this is unfolding as bulldozers clear the last of the rubble of the bombing in preparation for a ceremony on the site next week when, exactly a year on from the blast, the names of the 168 dead will be read out. Nothing is left of the building. Turf has been laid to create a field for remembrance. Those at the ceremony will include Aren Almon, whose daughter Baylee was photographed being carried dead from the rubble in the arms of a fireman. That picture, taken by an Oklahoma City Bank employee, was awarded a Pulitzer prize this week, something about which Aren has mixed feelings. She has had to endure much unwelcome publicity, especially when she found the picture being used to illustrate bombing "souvenirs". She said: "I am 23, but I feel old. I feel I could be 80, I have been through so much in a year. It's so hard." A family's personal pursuit of the truth The Alfred P Murrah building housed federal offices and a day care centre for children It was torn apart by a two-ton car bomb parked immediately in front The government wasted little time wiping the office block off the map with a controlled explosion After the dust had settled, the site was turned into a field of remembrance * Patriot Information Mailing List * http://constitution.org/piml/piml.htm * A service to help inform those who have an active interest in * returning our federal and state governments to limited, * constitutional government * Send messages for consideration and possible posting to * butterb@sagenet.net (Bill Utterback). * To subscribe or unsubscribe, send message with subject line * "subscribe patriot" or "unsubscribe patriot" * Forwarded messages sent on this mailing list are NOT verified. * See World's Smallest Political Quiz: www.self-gov.org/quiz.html * Libertarian is to LIBERTY as librarian is to library (DePena) * PIML grants permission to copy and repost this message * in its entirety with headers and trailers left intact.