Prosecutors Focus Bombing Case on 6 Key Items

Confident that scientific findings from the troubled FBI crime lab will hold up in the Oklahoma City bombing trial, federal prosecutors plan to use six pieces of forensic evidence that they believe positively link Timothy J. McVeigh to the crime--including a pair of earplugs he allegedly wore to soften the deafening noise of the blast.

Other pieces of evidence that the government believes are central to its case against McVeigh include traces of residue allegedly found in the pockets of his jeans and on two T-shirts he was wearing, his knife and the knife’s sheath, according to documents and sources involved in the case.

Prosecutors believe these “positive hits” not only prove that McVeigh helped mix the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil that made up the bomb but also that he helped stack barrels containing the bomb ingredients into the back of a rented Ryder truck, the documents and sources said.

In addition, prosecutors plan to use bomb residue discovered by FBI laboratory technicians inside pieces of the back of the truck. That finding, prosecutors contend, puts to rest any doubt that the truck McVeigh allegedly rented delivered a deadly mixture of explosives to the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building on the morning of April 19, 1995.

Beth Wilkinson, a special assistant U.S. attorney from the Department of Justice’s Anti-Terrorism Unit, has told the federal court that the government’s forensic evidence is not tainted by sweeping allegations of contamination and other control problems at the FBI lab, documents show.

Out of 404 high-explosive tests conducted on evidence at the lab, “there are only six reports of positive residue, high-explosive residue in this entire case,” Wilkinson told the court. Those numbers demonstrate, she said, that there was no widespread contamination of evidence at the lab--as McVeigh’s lead defense attorney, Stephen Jones, has alleged.

Jones is mounting a vigorous legal and public relations challenge to the scientific evidence collected against his client. He is arguing that there was broad contamination of evidence in the FBI lab.

The claim is borne out in a general way by some senior Justice Department officials who said that an ongoing Justice inspector general’s investigation will document shortcomings at the lab. But those officials have not said that the investigation turned up problems linked specifically to the evidence in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

Wilkinson has advised the court that the government’s forensic findings came after hundreds of detailed tests were completed on materials taken from McVeigh, as well as from debris found at the scene of the blast.

She admitted that the number of positive findings is small but added that the government has 32 experts prepared to testify that the lab results are conclusive.

According to sources and documents, the pieces of evidence include:

* A pair of earplugs, recovered by authorities after McVeigh was arrested about 80 minutes after the bombing.

The prosecution hopes to show at the trial that the plugs tested positive for NG, or nitroglycerine, which is used in high explosives and the production of dynamite, and EGDN, or ethylene glycol dinitrate, also used in dynamite.

In addition, they plan to provide testimony that the residue traces found on the plugs are “consistent with” PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a high-explosive compound that frequently has been found in bombings.

* McVeigh’s jeans. The left pocket reportedly gave a positive “identification” for NG and a finding “consistent with” PETN. The right pocket tested positive for both NG and PETN.

* McVeigh’s T-shirt with blue sleeves. Steven Burmeister, a chief analyst in the lab’s chemistry and toxicology units, who is expected to be a key expert witness for the government, confirmed that PETN was identified on the shirt, according to the documents.

* A second T-shirt worn that day by McVeigh. It too was identified by Burmeister as carrying traces of PETN.

* McVeigh’s knife and the knife’s sheath. Lab reports show that the knife blade gave a test result “consistent” with PETN and that the sheath registered “consistent” with NG.

* Pieces from the inside of the rented Ryder truck box. The back of the truck allegedly carried 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixed into barrels, with the barrels wrapped by a detonator cord. Debris from the bombing scene allegedly proved positive for NG and other compounds.

The prosecution team here Friday was adamantly refusing to discuss any details about the case or even to offer opinions on how their evidence is holding up in light of the weeklong series of allegations about problems at the FBI lab.

Leesa Brown, the team spokeswoman, cited Judge Richard P. Matsch’s protective order instructing both the prosecution and the defense to refrain from publicly discussing the case. “We’re not going to talk about our evidence,” she said.

Likewise, the judge has carefully safeguarded the disclosure of the government’s forensic evidence.

But the identity of the items emerged this week both in interviews and documents, some of which remain sealed under Matsch’s protective order.

The Oklahoma City bombing, considered the worst terrorist attack in the United States, killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others.

McVeigh was arrested a little more than an hour after the explosion when an Oklahoma state trooper stopped him because his 1977 yellow Mercury Marquis did not have a license plate. He was held for two days on traffic and gun charges in a county jail in Perry, Okla.

He remained there for two days. The FBI then realized that he was a prime suspect and took him into custody there.

The handling of McVeigh’s belongings, which were transferred from local authorities to the FBI, is crucial to determining whether any of the materials were contaminated.

According to court records, an inventory of McVeigh’s property was reviewed by FBI fingerprint examiner Louis Hupp when he arrived at the Perry jail.

Hupp then signed for the property and, after fingerprinting McVeigh, took the prisoner’s clothes and other belongings to the local airport and flew with the items to Washington, delivering the materials to the FBI lab.

But according to Jones, the items were mishandled, placed in wrong containers and exposed to other possible contamination in the lab.

“We have reviewed 15,000 pages of lab material the judge has ordered them to give us and we have taken depositions,” Jones said Friday. “And we are challenging the admissibility of their evidence on the grounds of contamination and unqualified personnel either misusing or inappropriately using scientific methods to reach conclusions not supported by the data.”

Ultimately Judge Matsch will rule on Jones’ assertions and make a determination on whether the government’s forensic evidence will be allowed when McVeigh stands trial in 60 days.