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Victims family members suspect larger conspiracy Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Posted on Mon, Apr. 18, 2005
Nichols hints at more detail
BY KEVIN MURPHY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - (KRT) - In an ongoing exchange of letters with convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, the grandmother of two young victims is hoping to find answers and perhaps forgiveness.
Jannie Coverdale said Monday that she wrote Nichols after he was found guilty of murder by a state jury in Oklahoma last summer and sentenced to life in prison. A federal jury convicted him of conspiracy to commit murder in 1997, for which he also received a life sentence.
"I told him that since God had seen fit to spare his life again, it was time for him to tell us what really happened," said Coverdale, who lives in Oklahoma City. Nichols has written several times promising to tell her more, she said.
An exhaustive federal investigation led to the arrest and conviction of Nichols and Timothy McVeigh in the making and detonation of the bomb. During plea negotiations with state prosecutors last year, Nichols reportedly said he knew of no other conspirators. McVeigh was convicted and executed.
Coverdale thinks others were involved.
"I believe he will tell me sooner or later; I hope it is sooner," Coverdale said.
In a letter that Coverdale said she received from Nichols on Saturday, he advised her to be patient and said "a process has begun" to reveal the truth. Nichols has become a Christian and reader of the Bible in prison, according to statements he has made in court.
"The devil right now is twisting the truth, but we need to be patient a little longer and let him play out his hand and God will reveal the truth, the whole truth," Nichols wrote, according to Coverdale.
Nichols was referring to recent speculation involving the FBI discovery March 31 of blasting caps buried in a crawl space under the house where Nichols lived in Herington, Kan., at the time of the bombing on April 19, 1995.
Last week The Associated Press reported that the FBI received a tip about the blasting caps from convicted mobster Gregory Scarpa Jr., who is serving time in the same federal prison in Colorado as Nichols and reportedly exchanged notes with him.
The Scarpa tip, relayed through an advocate of his on the outside, included concern that someone might use the blasting caps in an attack on the bombing anniversary.
In the letter to Coverdale, Nichols said there were "fabrications and outright lies" about the discovery of the blasting material.
"There was never any plan to do a second bombing that was to occur on the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing or at any other time," Nichols wrote, according to Coverdale. He also said his brother, James Nichols, had no involvement in the 1995 bombing.
Coverdale said that she was angry at Nichols for years after the bombing and that writing him was difficult. But she said his letters had eased her hostility.
"I don't feel the anger toward him I used to, and I know I don't hate him anymore," Coverdale said. "I'm not saying, and I don't think, I have fully forgiven him. That I'm working on because I know I have to."
In a statement after his state trial last year, Nichols encouraged relatives of victims or survivors to write to him in "an effort to assist in their healing process."
Kathy Sanders of Arkansas, who also lost two grandchildren in the bombing and has written a book suggesting a larger conspiracy, exchanges letters with Nichols as well. Neither she nor Coverdale knew who else might be writing to Nichols.
"He wants to talk," Sanders said. "I think he is guilty, but there is a lot more to this story, and I am anxious to find out what it is."
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© 2005, The Kansas City Star.
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