Leg in Military Garb Found at Blast Scene

A leg clad in a military-style boot and olive drab was discovered in the rubble of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, a find that Timothy J. McVeigh’s lawyer says raises the possibility that the real bomber died in the blast.

The leg, which has not been matched to any of the known victims or survivors of the April 19 bombing, was discovered May 30. Bodies of the last three known victims were recovered May 29.

“We just haven’t been able to associate it with anyone yet,” said Ray Blakeney, chief of operations for the state medical examiner’s office.

The additional victim would raise the death toll to 169 people, including a nurse who died during rescue efforts.

The discovery of the leg was not disclosed by investigators until Monday, after Stephen Jones, the head of McVeigh’s defense team, told reporters about it.

“It just doesn’t fit into the government’s neat theory that they are packaging that three people with little or no formal training in explosives carried this off,” Jones said, adding that recovery of the leg raises the possibility the bomber died in the blast.

A grand jury is expected to indict McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols on federal terrorism charges by Friday. Michael Fortier, an Army friend of the two men, is trying to make a deal with prosecutors.

Fortier’s wife, Lori, has been cooperating with authorities through her attorney and may testify before a grand jury this week under immunity, sources said.

The limb belonged to a light-skinned, dark-haired man younger than 30, Chief Medical Examiner Fred B. Jordan said. On the leg was the boot, two socks and an olive-drab elastic cuff-strap.

A number of law enforcement sources told the Washington Post that no conclusions can be drawn about the leg, and some were highly skeptical that it will prove significant.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Steve Mullins, a spokesman for the prosecution team, refused to comment on the leg, saying that discussing it would violate grand jury secrecy rules. The FBI referred calls to the medical examiner.

Investigators had searched for “John Doe No. 2,” a dark-haired white man depicted in FBI sketches as someone visiting an office in Junction City, Kan., where McVeigh is believed to have rented the truck used to carry the 4,800-pound bomb.

Eventually, federal officials admitted that the sketches resembled Todd Bunting, a soldier from South Carolina who had been in the rental shop the same day.