Arizona Arrest Ends Manhunt in Ventura County : Bombing: Authorities had scoured the area for Steven Colbern, a former Oxnard resident. His father expresses disbelief.

The Oklahoma City manhunt came to Ventura County with a vengeance.

It started Thursday, when federal agents descended on a quiet middle-class neighborhood in central Oxnard in search of a man wanted for questioning in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing.

It kicked into high gear Friday, when authorities scoured the county for Steven Garrett Colbern, convinced that the Oxnard High and UCLA graduate was in the area.

And even before it concluded Friday with Colbern’s arrest on a federal firearms charge in Oatman, Ariz., the manhunt had thrust the county into the national spotlight.

No longer was the worst terrorist act on U.S. soil unrelated to this community. And no one saw that relationship closer than Robert J. Colbern, the man’s father.

His phone started ringing early Friday morning, just hours after federal authorities had questioned him and other family members about Steven Colbern. By noon, television station satellite trucks were parked in front of his home and cameras were trained on his front door. A news helicopter hovered overhead.

The neighborhood was crawling with reporters going door-to-door to extract the smallest details from anyone who knew the family. Robert Colbern, 60, a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a dentist for the state Department of Corrections, initially refused comment to all who knocked on his door.

Half a dozen police officers came to escort his daughter into the house and ensure that no one stepped foot on Colbern’s property.

But as more and more reporters showed up, as the pleas for a statement mounted, he decided to hold an impromptu news conference on his front lawn Friday afternoon.

“We have read the news articles on Steve, and we do not believe them,” he said, choking back tears. “Steve is 35 years old and has been gone for 12 years. We know nothing.”

Colbern said the last time he saw his son was in September, at his sister’s wedding in Oxnard. And he said the first he heard of his son’s possible involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing was Thursday, when federal agents came calling.

“We have not heard from him since (the wedding) and we know nothing of his activities since that time,” Colbern said. “We are just parents who are surprised by all the activity.”

It wasn’t only Robert Colbern who was affected. His Carty Drive neighbors peeked through the curtains at all the activity mounting on their ordinarily quiet street.

Luz Gonzalez and her mother, Eva Bravo, were among those taking in the media circus.

“We mostly keep to ourselves,” said Gonzalez, who was shocked when she learned that Steven Colbern was wanted in connection with the bombing.

Her mother added: “This is a quiet neighborhood, no problems. It’s always quiet.”

The frenzied activity surrounding the manhunt also extended across the city. At Oxnard High School, officials also decided to hold a news conference to talk about Colbern’s time there.

“When I got the call (Friday) morning, I couldn’t believe it,” said school district Supt. Bill Studt, shaking his head and later remembering Colbern as a “good student.” “I never in a thousand years thought something like this could happen. This is all we need.”

Meanwhile, for police and law enforcement officials who had searched the county for Colbern, his arrest in Arizona brought an end to a busy week. Even up until the last minute, authorities were seeking him.

While his connection, if any, to the Oklahoma bombing is unclear, there is some suspicion among federal officials that Colbern could be John Doe No. 2, the elusive dark-haired man depicted in sketches after the tragic April 19 blast.

Although Colbern was arrested on weapons charges last year, federal agents said the intensive search for him began after learning that the chief suspect in the bombing case, Timothy McVeigh, tried to contact him last fall.

Federal officials--speaking not for attribution--made it clear that their interest in Colbern now is based on information that McVeigh tried to contact him in Kingman, Ariz., which authorities believe may have been a planning site for the Oklahoma bombing.

It was from Arizona Friday that the most detailed information came about the most recent activities of the former Oxnard student, who was remembered by classmates as a youth who had always been fascinated with bombs.

Maybelle Hertig, 70, of Bullhead City, Ariz., said Colbern lived off-and-on in a mobile home near her and that he was frequently seen in Army-like fatigues.

FBI agents Thursday night showed Hertig a picture of Colbern, and she said she identified him as her occasional neighbor.

The agents then searched a brown pickup truck outside Colbern’s trailer--a truck that, Hertig said, had not been moved for years. She described Colbern as aloof, eccentric and unfriendly.

“Have you ever been around someone so smart they don’t think they have to talk to you? That’s the type of person he is. He was not friendly at all. He didn’t talk to anyone--not one person.”

Hertig said she was particularly annoyed that Colbern had a large box of ammunition sent to her by parcel post one time--and another box was delivered to another neighbor--because he wasn’t around to accept delivery.

She said Colbern, who raised snakes as a boy in Oxnard, was obsessed with snakes and other reptiles, and that his father once had to remove 30 animal cages from the double-wide trailer during one cleanup session.

Colbern’s father “told me he couldn’t communicate with his son. It was his mother who gave in to him all the time,” Hertig said.

Robert Colbern said at his news conference Friday that he believed that his son was in the process of getting his life back together. He said his son seemed to be recovering from a bankruptcy and a failed marriage.

But in July of last year, Colbern was arrested in the San Bernardino County city of Upland on a weapons charge. During a routine traffic stop, police said Colbern was found carrying a knife with a two- to three-inch blade, an illegal weapon under California law. When an officer attempted to arrest Colbern, he put up such a struggle that five other officers were needed to subdue him, according to court records.

In Colbern’s car, officers subsequently found a chrome silencer, a Jennings .22-caliber pistol, a Sig Sauer P-226 9-millimeter pistol, order lists for gun parts and a mechanism used to convert a semiautomatic rifle to full automatic, which would make the weapon illegal.

In a compartment covered by carpet in the rear of the car, officers found an SKS assault rifle, several boxes of ammunition and a videotape showing Colbern holding a Browning M2 .50-caliber machine gun, according to court records.

Last Aug. 12, Colbern was charged by a federal grand jury with possession of a silencer, which is illegal under federal law.

The elder Colbern said he and his wife were emotionally supporting their son through the court proceeding and were shocked when he didn’t show up one day for his trial.

“My wife and I both took him to court and supported him in court,” Robert Colbern said. “All of the sudden he was just gone one day.”

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