.
The day after the Oklahoma City bombing, two police sketches were faxed to media organizations and law enforcement offices across the country. They depicted two men who were believed to have detonated the Ryder truck, John Does No. 1 and No. 2. Timothy McVeigh, who was taken into custody 90 minutes after the bombing for driving without a license plate and carrying concealed weapons, was quickly identified as John Doe No. 1. John Doe No. 2 has never been identified by the FBI.
Nor does the agency seem to have expended much energy on the task. Shortly after the bombing, Shawnee County, Kansas, Sheriff Jake Mauk says he nearly fell out of his chair when he compared the John Doe No. 2 sketch to the photo of a known antigovernment activist in his area. Shawnee County is about 50 miles east of Junction City, where the Ryder truck was rented and where Tim McVeigh stayed overnight at the Dreamland Motel with another man who has never been identified. It’s also close to the small town of St. Mary’s, home to the same clan of Freemen in which Farley’s man from Geary Lake claimed membership.
Mauk says he quickly alerted the FBI. Yet, for reasons that will likely never be fully known, the FBI apparently failed to respond to Mauk’s information.
Nor did the agency heed similar tips from Suzanne James, an employee of the Shawnee County District Attorney’s office who had information about the same individual. The FBI told her that they’d already investigated Mauk’s John Doe look-alike.
So did they?
What is known about Scott P. Roeder, the person of interest in shooting Dr. Tiller, who was taken into custody this afternoon near Gardner, KS?
A Kansas City Star article from May 3, 1996 tells how Scott Roeder was first arrested because of someone’s memory and anxiety over the Oklahoma City bombing on 4/19/1995. Roeder’s first arrest was on 4/16/1996, just days before the first anniversary:
- Motorist’s report led to arrest Police also were tense around anniversary of fatal blast, deputy says,
The Kansas City Star – Friday, May 3, 1996
Author: SCOTT CANON , Mid-America Correspondent
TOPEKA – Anxiety over the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, plus a tip to police, led to the arrest of a man who is suspected of having ties to a Montana “freemen” group, a Shawnee County sheriff’s deputy testified Thursday.
A preliminary hearing was held Thursday for Scott Roeder , 38, of Silver Lake, Kan., who is charged with criminal use of explosives.
Sgt. Larry Crady of the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Department testified that on April 16 a motorist flagged him down and reported seeing a car with a license plate that read: “Sovereign Private Property Immunity Declared at Law Non-Commercial American. ” Crady said he saw the car, staked it out and eventually pulled it over.
“We were in a heightened state of awareness in light of the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing,” Crady testified.
Roeder was arrested on charges of driving without registration, insurance or a valid driver’s license.
Police impounded the car and searched it. They found a blasting cap; two six-volt lantern batteries, one wired with a clothespin and a cigarette wrapper; and a 1-pound can of black gunpowder. Explosives experts testified these were the makings of a bomb.
Later that day, officers searched Roeder ‘s home and found two pages of instructions titled “Underground Cookbook: Clothes Pin Time-Delayed Switch.” James Carlson, an agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, testified that the instructions could produce a device like the one in Roeder ‘s trunk.
Roeder’s attorney argued that the evidence was improperly obtained because authorities never should have impounded the vehicle in the first place.
“They just wanted to search his car,” said public defender Ronald Evans. “But they had no right. ” Roeder is being held on $60,000 bond. He did not testify at the hearing and declined to answer questions afterward.
Shawnee County Sheriff Dave Meneley has said Roeder is listed by the FBI as a member of the freemen group that has been locked for more than a month in a standoff with federal authorities near Jordan, Mont.
Case 08LA08663. Midland Funding LLC vs. Scott P Roeder.
FILE STAMP 4/10/2009, ORDER OF GARNISHMENT JO CO KS, SERVED COMMUNITY AMERICA CREDIT UNION 04-07-09 C/S.
Sticker Roeder had on his back window of vehicle
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
