Paper: Nichols confessed to key role in bombing
Sunday, November 28, 2004 Posted: 7:35 PM EST (0035 GMT)
Terry Nichols, left, has received two life sentences for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) -- Convicted conspirator Terry Nichols admitted to prosecutors he played a key role in gathering and assembling the components of the bomb that destroyed an Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168, the Daily Oklahoman reported Sunday.
The paper said it obtained a statement from Nichols made with state prosecutors during a secret 2003 plea agreement meeting. In the statement, Nichols said he helped bombing triggerman Timothy McVeigh obtain the components of the bomb that ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in 1995.
Nichols confessed to helping McVeigh assemble a fertilizer and fuel bomb in a truck that McVeigh would then drive to Oklahoma City. He told prosecutors McVeigh did the planning and was involved in all aspects of the bombing, including carrying out the deadly mission, the paper said.
"I was involved in the gathering and storing of the components of the bomb, the testing of some of the components, going to Oklahoma City on Easter Sunday to pick up McVeigh, and the actual making of the bomb," Nichols reportedly told prosecutors.
Nichols has not spoken publicly about his role in the bombing.
Nichols told prosecutors he even provided a last-minute fix when the pair ran out of one of the bomb's components while packing barrels by a lake.
"Prior to finishing, it was obvious that there would not be enough nitromethane, so diesel fuel was siphoned out of my truck and used to finish the barrels," Nichols said, according to the paper.
Nichols, 49, is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole based on a 1997 conviction in federal court in the deaths of eight federal officials in the blast.
Earlier this year, Nichols was convicted of murder by an Oklahoma court, where prosecutors charged him for the other people killed in the blast. He received a life sentence after the jury that convicted him deadlocked on the decision of whether to execute him. He was then handed back to federal prison authorities.
Attorneys who represented Nichols in this trial were not immediately available for comment.
McVeigh was executed in 2001 for driving the truck to the front door of the federal building and setting off the deadly blast.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/11/28/cr...eut/index.html