McVeigh Trial Prosecutors May Call 9 Eyewitnesses

DENVER — Court records unsealed here Wednesday show that government prosecutors now have nine eyewitnesses who may be called to testify against accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh, including a Kansas man who says that McVeigh tried to buy racing fuel like that used in the bomb.

Chief prosecutor Joseph H. Hartzler declined to say exactly how many other eyewitnesses might be called at McVeigh’s trial, which is to start here March 31. But he suggested that the number might be still higher, saying: “There may be others who saw him [McVeigh] at different times.”

The number of eyewitnesses prosecutors will produce at trial has been the subject of pretrial sparring, with defense attorneys arguing that the government’s case is weakened by the small number of witnesses. And of those, defense attorneys contend, some should be barred from testifying because they have been biased by the prosecution or now say that they remember details they could not recall earlier.

Documents filed by McVeigh’s attorneys and made public in U.S. District Court here indicate that prosecutors have nine eyewitnesses they may call to try to tie McVeigh to the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which killed 168 people and injured 850 others.

One newly revealed government eyewitness may be Glynn Tipton, a sales manager for VP Racing Fuels in Manhattan, Kan.

The court records state that Tipton met a man calling himself “John” at a Topeka, Kan., drag race in October 1994 who asked “about purchasing anhydrous hydrazine and nitromethane.” Tipton later identified the man as McVeigh, the documents said. A similar blend of fuel oil allegedly was used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Another potential eyewitness is David Ferris, a Junction City, Kan., taxi driver. The government contends that Ferris drove McVeigh partway to the truck rental company where he picked up the Ryder truck allegedly used in the bombing.

But the documents add that Ferris at first did not believe McVeigh was his passenger, insisting “that he never picked up McVeigh.”

Only later, the documents said, did Ferris believe that McVeigh was indeed his fare on April 17, 1995--two days before the bombing.

“Ferris said that he was scared and panicked after realizing that he may have transported McVeigh,” the defense documents said. “He was very emotional and cried.”