Sketchy Picture Emerges About Suspect’s Moves

He traveled the heartland towns in beat-up sedans, quick with a “yes sir” manner alien to urban America. He paid cash for almost everything. To the delight of motel maids--and now the frustration of investigators--he left rooms as neat as he found them.

Much is yet to be learned about Timothy J. McVeigh, the one person in custody who is charged in the Oklahoma City bombing. Asserting that he is a “prisoner of war” McVeigh has refused to answer questions from federal authorities and has not yet entered a plea to the charges.

But 11 wrenching days after the worst terrorist act ever committed on U.S. soil, McVeigh’s movements during at least some of the period before the blast now can be traced. Indeed, what is known about McVeigh is beginning to help answer fundamental questions facing investigators:

What was McVeigh--enraged by federal authorities’ April 19, 1993, confrontation with the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Tex.--doing during the crucial run-up to the bombing?

Where was he?

With whom did he associate?

Here, based on public and business records and interviews with people who dealt with him, is a chronology of McVeigh’s movements, starting at the time of his arrest and tracing backward.

*

Wednesday, April 19, 10:20 a.m. CDT: The prairie sun was climbing high when McVeigh eased his faded, 1977 Mercury Marquis to the side of Interstate 35 about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City. McVeigh hopped out and faced state Trooper Charlie Hanger, who pulled him over because the car had no license plate.

The trooper asked McVeigh for his driver’s license. He reached around for his billfold. But then the trooper noticed a bulge under his jacket. Hanger ordered him to slowly pull the jacket back. Then McVeigh spoke.

“I have a gun under my jacket,” he said.

He was carrying a loaded .45-caliber semi-automatic Glock. The military-style pistol was chambered, locked and loaded with so-called cop-killer bullets. Another live clip hung in the shoulder holster. Around his waist he wore a single-blade, 5 1/8-inch knife in a brown leather scabbard.

McVeigh, two days shy of his 27th birthday, spoke again.

“I have a right to carry a gun for my own protection,” he said.

Thus ended the last moments of freedom for McVeigh, a decorated Army veteran of the Persian Gulf War, a man with cold steel eyes and buzz-cut hair who, later on the trip to the Noble County Jail, claimed that he was homeless, out of work, just an aimless country drifter.

He was merely moving from Arkansas to Kansas, he said.

But it didn’t quite make sense. Why do you spend hours behind the wheel and never remove your jacket? Why no luggage?

Still McVeigh persisted, even after Trooper Hanger stuck his service revolver to the back of his head and arrested him for carrying an unlawful firearm, transporting the loaded weapon in a motor vehicle, and--the sorriest charge of all--for driving without a rear license plate on the yellow Mercury.

Even at the county courthouse in Perry, Okla., McVeigh stuck to his simple story. “I’m just a nobody,” he told the local prosecutor. “I’m headed nowhere.”

Yet McVeigh already had provided investigators with at least one promising lead: Somehow, a crumpled business card carried by the handcuffed McVeigh had fallen into Hanger’s cruiser. On it was the name of David Paulsen, an Antigo, Wis., military surplus dealer.

Subpoenas have now been issued demanding that Paulsen appear Tuesday before a federal grand jury investigating the Oklahoma City bombing. Also subpoenaed to appear before the same panel are Paulsen’s father and mother, Ed and Linda Paulsen, who own a military supply store. All three Paulsens, who have disavowed any connection with the bombing, are licensed gun dealers.

*

April 19, 9:02 a.m.: A bomb devastates the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing at least 124 people, including 15 children, with many others missing. The blast damaged buildings and cars within a four-block radius.

April 19, shortly before 9 a.m.: A man believed to be McVeigh is observed speeding away from the federal building in a yellow sedan.

April 19, sometime in the early morning: Witnesses report seeing a man resembling McVeigh driving a Ryder truck in downtown Oklahoma City.

A downtown parking meter maid claimed that she saw McVeigh driving the boxy yellow truck slowly toward the front entrance to the federal building on N.W. 5th Street. She thought that he seemed lost and expected him to stop and ask for directions.

The truck eased into the building’s circle driveway. It was left out front in a no-parking, no-standing zone. Security cameras for the building were turned inward and would not record its presence. But other cameras, including one from the nearby Regency Apartments, had caught the Ryder’s approach.

A woman driving on N.W. 5th slammed on her brakes to avoid hitting McVeigh as he walked--slowly--away from the building.

A man stepping out of the nearby Journal Record newspaper offices saw two men speeding away in McVeigh’s yellow Mercury. He would later identify McVeigh as the driver. He never got a good look at the passenger.

Three witnesses later failed to pick McVeigh out of a lineup; another witness did successfully identify him. And, authorities gathered a serial number from a blown-apart truck axle to identify McVeigh’s Ryder as the vehicle used for the 4,800-pound bomb.

Tuesday, April 18, sometime in the morning after 5 a.m.: McVeigh borrowed a pickup truck from the home of his old Army buddy, Terry Lynn Nichols, who lives about 25 miles south of Junction City, Kan. in Herington. According to a sworn affidavit in the subsequent bombing case, McVeigh returned the truck several hours later, along with an instruction for Nichols.

“If I don’t come back in a while,” McVeigh told his friend, “go clean up the storage shed.”

In subsequent court testimony, an FBI agent portrayed Nichols as having been in frequent contact with McVeigh in the days before the bombing. Nichols and his older brother, James D. Nichols, are both under investigation in connection with the bombing. Federal authorities already have brought other, as-yet unrelated charges against the brothers, for allegedly conspiring to make and possess illegal explosive devices.

The lawyer representing James Nichols told reporters in Michigan last week that prosecutors “intend to present some allegations from outside the state” against her client. McVeigh lived for periods of time at the farm of James Nichols, in Decker, Mich. Neighbors said the farm has been used over the last several years as a testing ground for bottle bombs and other explosive devices.

April 18, sometime before 5 a.m.: Having paid cash, McVeigh checked out of the Dreamland Motel, in Junction City, a town bordering his former Army base, Ft. Riley. It is about 260 miles north of Oklahoma City, a 3 1/2-to-4-hour hour drive.

One of the motel managers noticed that McVeigh left, along with a Ryder truck, between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. About 4 a.m. the manager saw McVeigh sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck--with the light on and studying what appeared to be a map. By 5 a.m. he was gone.

Monday, April 17: Two men, one of them believed to be McVeigh, rented a 1993 Ryder truck from Elliot’s Body Shop in Junction City. The pair paid cash and used a fake driver’s license. Earlier that day, at 1:30 a.m., McVeigh and Nichols arrived in Herington. Authorities suspect that the pair had returned from Oklahoma City, where Nichols had driven to pick up McVeigh.

*

Sunday, April 16, late: McVeigh told Terry Nichols that “something big is going to happen,” according to a federal prosecutor. McVeigh allegedly made the comment while he and Nichols were driving back to Herington from Oklahoma City.

According to FBI Agent Scott R. Crabtree, Nichols asked McVeigh what “something big” meant. “Are you going to rob a bank?” Nichols asked. To which McVeigh responded: “Something big is going to happen.”

Sunday, April 16, 3 p.m.: McVeigh called Terry Nichols and asked Nichols to drive south and pick him up from Oklahoma City.

Saturday, April 15: From his room at Dreamland, McVeigh called Terry Nichols at his house in Herington. In one of the rare instances in which McVeigh did not pay cash for a recent service, he charged the call to a debit card owned by someone identified only as “Bridger,” according to court testimony.

Friday, April 14: McVeigh checked into the Dreamland motel in Junction City, Kan., registering under his own name and listing as his address the farm of James D. Nichols, at 3616 N. Van Dyke Road, Decker, Mich. McVeigh paid $88.65 in cash for his four-night stay in Room 25 and drove a Mercury Marquis, with an Arizona license plate of LCZ646.

Employees of the motel told the FBI that the plate was old, bent and nearly illegible. Some said that it was hanging on by only one screw.

Lea McGown, owner of motel, which fronts on Interstate 70, said she noticed the rear license plate on McVeigh’s car was dangling precariously from a bolt on the driver’s side.

“I’m a small place and I pay a lot of attention to safety,” she said. “Normally, I’d talk to one of my clients about such a thing, but I had too much to do that day. How strange that somebody who does something so horrible could be so sloppy about details.”

McVeigh used the alias of Bob Kling, which he also used at the Ryder office, to order Chinese take-out while at the Dreamland. With his buzz-cut hair, polite manner and clean-shaven appearance, motel workers said that McVeigh said he resembled many young men assigned to nearby Ft. Riley.

April 14: After a 995-mile mile drive to Junction City from Kingman, Ariz., McVeigh went to a used-car lot run by the local Firestone dealer and traded in his road-weary Pontiac for the 1977 Mercury Marquis.

Wednesday, April 12, between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.: After a 12-night stay, McVeigh drove out of the Imperial Motel in Kingman, Ariz., the desert town where federal investigators suspect that the bombing in Oklahoma City was planned.

“He was driving a two-door Pontiac,” said the motel’s owner, Helmut Hofer. “It was greenish in color. It was a real rust bucket.”

McVeigh was a low-key tenant at the motel on old U.S. Route 66, demanding nothing beyond what the basic quarters of Room 212 had to offer: push-button telephone, color TV, king-size bed, table-top refrigerator and microwave and a bathroom with a shower and tub.

The FBI has searched the motel’s records and even rented Room 212 for two days, scouring the unit for physical evidence. Hofer said he does not think that agents could have found much.

“I don’t think so,” Hofer said, “because the maid has cleaned that room four times since he was here.”

If McVeigh placed any toll or collect calls from his room, none appear in the motel’s records, Hofer said. Local calls are free at the Imperial, with no records kept on which numbers are dialed.

*

Early April, 1995: McVeigh showed up for the last time to pick up his mail at a letter-drop in Kingman, according to Lynda Willoughby, manager of the The Mail Room. Willoughby said that she has told the FBI that two men, one of them resembling the sketch of “John Doe No. 2” once picked up McVeigh’s mail, sometime in February or March of this year.

Willoughby, whose business is located in a pink-stucco strip mall in Kingman, told The Times that two men showed up during a period of up to 10 days when McVeigh had told her he would be out of town.

*

Friday, March 31: McVeigh checked into the Imperial Motel, where Hofer said he appeared to be alone at all times. He dressed in the camouflage gear so popular with anti-government militia enthusiasts and carried only one visible piece of luggage, Hofer said, “a green duffel bag.”

McVeigh was unfailingly polite and booked his room on March 31 on the pretext of being an active member of the military.

“He came in here and said, ‘I’m in the military’ and can I give give him a discount,” Hofer said. “He claimed to still be active in the military.”

McVeigh listed his address as “Ft. Riley, Kansas,” even though he was discharged honorably from the Army on Dec. 31, 1991.

The motel granted him the discount and McVeigh paid $136.88 cash, in advance, for the first seven nights. For the remaining five nights, Hofer said, McVeigh paid $19.95 in cash, each day.

*

Friday, Feb. 17: Again appearing to be alone, McVeigh checked out of the Hilltop Motel, across the street from the Imperial on old Route 66 in Kingman after a five-night stay.

Tuesday, Feb. 14: McVeigh prepaid, in cash, for the rental until July 1 of his mail box in Kingman. According to Willoughby, The Mail Room’s manager, McVeigh did so even though his existing rental agreement with the private mail center was not scheduled to expire until April 1.

Many of the letters and parcels that McVeigh continues to receive at The Mail Room are addressed to “T. Tuttle,” according to Willoughby.

She said that she has known McVeigh over the last two years as a polite, even friendly, customer who typically wore combat boots and camouflage shirts. She said that McVeigh always acknowledged her with “either a nod or a hello.”

Investigators are now trying to determine whether McVeigh used the mail drop to finance illegal weapons dealings or to contact others potentially responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Saturday, Feb. 12: McVeigh checked into the Hilltop with a Kansas-issued driver’s license, driving what appeared to be a gray, 1983 Pontiac station wagon, with an Arizona plate. According to Fred Paulson, owner of the motel, McVeigh “was an excellent customer.”

“He would make up the bed in the morning,” Paulson said. “The maids loved him.”

McVeigh’s Spartan habits are apt to be of little joy to investigators trying to reconstruct his movements, who would like to pin them down to the minute. McVeigh paid cash for his $24.10-a-night room; the motel’s records show no toll or collect calls placed during his stay in Room 119.

“He was never a problem,” Paulson said. “No noise. No drinking. He took a nonsmoking room. . . . If we had 29 customers (a night) like that, we’d be the happiest innkeepers in the world.”

Paulson said he contacted the FBI after the Oklahoma City bombing because his business partner remembered that McVeigh had been a guest at both the Hilltop and, later, across the street at the Imperial.

*

February through April, 1994: McVeigh worked as a yard hand at the Tru Value hardware store in Kingman, a $5-an-hour job that he got through the help of a friend, Michael Fortier, with whom he occasionally lived on the town’s outskirts.

Fortier, 26, lived for three years in the same Ft. Riley barracks as McVeigh before the Persian Gulf War. The two have shared a fondness for what Fortier recently called the “pro-Constitution” bent of the far-right militia cause.

Fortier said that the FBI questioned him over a period of four days, following the Oklahoma City bombing. He said that neither he nor McVeigh, to his knowledge, had any role in the tragedy.

“I know my friend,” Fortier said. “Tim McVeigh is not the face of terror as reported on Time magazine. Everyone just assumes he did it, automatically. Everyone wants to know why he did it, what he was thinking and stuff like that. . . . In America we believe people are innocent until proven guilty. Everyone must remember that.”

At Tru Value, McVeigh and Fortier worked in different departments but were clearly friends, according to store owner Paul Shuffler. He said he hired McVeigh, based on Fortier’s recommendation and a brief interview, during which Shuffler saw that McVeigh was physically fit and more prone to courtesy than profanity.

“It was, ‘Yes sir, no sir,’ ” Shuffler recalled. “No profanity--that offends some of my customers. He was a young, strong kid. I needed somebody in the back (to load lumber and other supplies into customers’ trucks and cars). Hired him on the spot.”

Shuffler said that McVeigh always showed up on time for his eight-hour shifts and gave at least a week’s notice when he quit.

“He was a guy who just showed up and did the job,” Shuffler said.

*

August, 1993: A classified ad placed in an Arizona publication sympathetic to the militia cause offered military-style launchers and flares for sale. Those interested were instructed to send their “money orders only” to “T. Tuttle,” at McVeigh’s mail drop in Kingman.

*

May, 1993: McVeigh first visited the mail-box business in Kingman, where he paid cash for a one-year rental of a 3-by-5-inch box. In the application for the mail slot, McVeigh listed as his home the address of his Ft. Riley Army buddy, Fortier.

*

February and March, 1992: A small newspaper near McVeigh’s boyhood hometown, near Buffalo, N.Y., publishes two letters written by McVeigh. One them includes what historians may conclude was a prophetic note.

“What is it going to take to open up the eyes of our elected officials?,” McVeigh wrote in a letter published on Feb. 11, 1992, by the Union-Sun & Journal, of Lockport, N.Y. “AMERICA IS IN SERIOUS DECLINE. We have no proverbial tea to dump; should we instead sink a ship full of Japanese imports?

“Is a civil war imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that! But it might.”

*

If convicted of the charges prosecutors already have made against him, McVeigh, who turned 27 years old on April 23, could be executed.

Willman reported from Washington and Serrano from Oklahoma City. Contributing to this article were Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington, Louis Sahagun in Junction City, Kan., Sara Fritz in Oklahoma City, Tina Daunt in Kingman, Ariz., and researcher D’Jamila Salem in Washington.

* KINGMAN’S OBSESSION: The bomb probe stirs memories and rivalries in town. A21

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