Were There Others?
May 30, 2001 -- The disclosure that the FBI failed to turn over more than 4,000 documents to the defense in the Timothy McVeigh case raises additional questions about whether there were others involved in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
It also raises the question of whether the FBI thoroughly investigated claims by a number of witnesses who claim they saw McVeigh with an accomplice.
Bill Maloney told the FBI he met Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. They came to Maloney's real estate office in the Ozarks in November, months before the bombing. They were with a man who called himself Robert Jacques.
"He was very articulate; he was smart," Bill Maloney described Jacques. "He did about all the talking, and during that period of time, he was in charge. He was the boss man."
Jacques said they wanted to buy some remote land.
"You know, he looked like a military guy," said Maloney. "I spent a long time in the service and I can pretty well spot 'em."
Five months later, Timothy McVeigh set off the truck bomb in front of the Murrah building. McVeigh and Nichols were soon in custody and the FBI announced it was looking for a man named Robert Jacks. Maloney was relieved. It seemed the FBI already knew about the connection between McVeigh and Jacques.
But when he saw who they arrested, a drifter named Robert Jacks, Maloney called the FBI and told them they had the wrong Jacques. The drifter was soon released, and the FBI went to see Bill Maloney.
He said the Robert Jacques with McVeigh and Nichols had brown eyes and olive skin. "He was real muscular," recalled Maloney. "He looked maybe like a weightlifter."
Sketch Never Released
A sketch was drawn for the FBI from Maloney's description. However, special agent Richard Marquise said, "The decision was made at that time not to release the sketch of Mr. Jacques."
The artist who drew the sketch, criminal profiler Jeanne Boylan, says plenty of other witnesses reported seeing the olive-skinned man with McVeigh in Oklahoma City, just before the bombing.
"My conclusion, after having interviewed these witnesses is that they did indeed see an olive-skinned man," said Boylan. "And that in each of these sightings, he was with a man that they were clearly able to identify as Tim McVeigh."
Postal worker Debbie Nakanashi told the FBI that just days before the April 19, 1995 bombing, McVeigh and the olive-skinned man walked into her post office, across from the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City.
"He walked with a military bearing," she recalled. "He had dark skin, olive skin.
"It was obvious to me this other man was the one that was in control of the situation," said Nakanashi. "He was the boss."
FBI Denies Existence
But the FBI says that after an intensive investigation by agents, "a decision was made that they didn't believe that person existed."
But many people, including the jury forewoman in the Terry Nichols trial, Niki Deutchman, have accused the government of stopping too soon. "Decisions were probably made very early on that McVeigh and Nichols were who they were looking for," said Deutchman, "and the same sort of resources were not used to try to find out who else might be involved."
Maloney, a former Marine, says he didn't quite trust Jacques when he met him and saved the map Jacques had handled. He said he gave it to the FBI.
The FBI says the map was sent to the national crime lab and no "fingerprints of any value" were found. As for the case of Robert Jacques, that, they say, is "case closed."