Nichols Involved ‘From Get-Go,’ Jury Told

McALESTER, Okla. -- From buying 2,000 pounds of fertilizer to mixing it with fuel in order to create a giant bomb, the evidence is “overwhelming” that Terry L. Nichols was the principle conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing, prosecutors told jurors Monday at his state murder trial.

“He was in it from the get-go,” prosecutor Lou Keel said during closing statements. “He had the money to purchase the bomb components and to store them. If we’re adding up who contributed most to the planning, Terry L. Nichols gets a big No. 1.”

Nichols, 49, already is serving a life sentence in federal prison for the deaths of eight government agents killed in the 1995 explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. In the current trial, Nichols is charged in the deaths of 160 others who died in the attack -- as well as the fetus of one victim. If convicted, Nichols could face the death penalty.

Prosecutors contend that Nichols and his friend, executed bomber Timothy J. McVeigh, plotted to blow up the Murrah building to avenge the 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Nichols and McVeigh worked as a team, prosecutors said, buying parts for the homemade bomb in the seven months before the blast.

Overwhelming circumstantial evidence linked Nichols to the bomb plot, prosecutors said during the two-month trial.

A receipt for ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the chief component of the bomb, was found at Nichols’ home. Explosives, blasting caps and detonation cord like those used in the attack had been stolen from a nearby Kansas rock quarry. A man rented a storage unit under a name that Nichols used as an alias. On the concrete floor were dark circles that authorities said were caused by containers of ammonium nitrate. And a prosecution witness testified that McVeigh had told him that Nichols raised money for the bomb by robbing an Arkansas gun dealer.

“Nichols did each of these things. He drove all over the country, stored items, he was out all this money, time and effort,” Keel said. “Isn’t it obvious the level of commitment Terry Lynn Nichols had to this conspiracy? He invested more than McVeigh.”

Keel portrayed Nichols as an antigovernment fanatic who conspired with McVeigh to make sure the Ryder truck containing the bomb was positioned to cause maximum damage to offices of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on the eastern side of the Murrah building.

“They believed that was where orders regarding Waco came out of,” Keel said.

Defense lawyers, who will give their closing statements today, contend that Nichols was at most a bit player, set up by McVeigh and other unknown conspirators to take the blame for the attack. During the trial, several witnesses reported seeing a second person, who did not resemble Nichols, with McVeigh in the weeks before the bombing.

Keel told jurors Monday that even if the witness accounts were true, it would not make Nichols any less culpable. “If you’re contributing to a common cause, it doesn’t matter if there are two or 22 people. You’re guilty,” he said.

The trial, being held 130 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, has been sparsely attended -- partly because many Oklahomans think it is a waste of time and money.

But the courtroom was almost full Monday as victims’ family members shared the wooden pews with Oklahoma City’s mayor and with Bob Macy, the former Oklahoma County district attorney who -- unhappy with the federal life sentence -- had sought a state trial for Nichols.

Paul Howell, whose daughter died in the blast, said he believes this jury “thinks like other Oklahomans about what happened.... There’s a real good chance that we’ll get to have the death penalty.”

The jury of six men and six women will begin deliberating charges of conspiracy, arson and first-degree murder after the state responds to closing arguments by the defense. Judge Steven Taylor earlier rejected a bid by defense attorneys to allow jurors to consider charges less serious than first-degree murder.

If Nichols is convicted, jurors will hear a second round of testimony meant to help them decide whether to sentence him to life in prison or to death by lethal injection.