When he came down from Decker, Mich., to buy a bungalow in this quiet town two months ago, Terry Lynn Nichols told a local real estate agent that he didn’t pay taxes, didn’t have a Social Security number and didn’t want to deal with banks.
“We all thought he was just a little bit different; he did everything in cash,” said real estate agent Georgia Rucker, 41, who handled the sale. Federal agents searched the sky-blue bungalow on 2nd Street all day Saturday for clues to the deadly Oklahoma City blast.
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In Junction City, 27 miles northeast of Herington, beautician Valerie Ridley shuddered when she recognized the faces of the grainy sketches investigators showed her last week.
“I got this creepy feeling,” said Ridley, 24. “All of a sudden, I felt like, right here in Junction City, you could be talking to anybody.”
As the investigation into the bombing quickened Saturday, rural residents of remote central Kansas recoiled as they recalled seeing in their recent midst Timothy McVeigh, 27, Nichols, 40, and the still-unidentified “John Doe No. 2,” the fugitive suspect in the bombing whose drawing the FBI released last week.
McVeigh, a former soldier once stationed at the U.S. Army base at Ft. Riley, Kan., was in custody in Oklahoma City after being charged in the attack Friday.
Handcuffed and surrounded by federal agents, his close friend Terry Nichols appeared Saturday before U.S. District Judge Monti Belot in Wichita, Kan. He was ordered held as a material witness and possible suspect; his arrest warrant and a supporting affidavit were sealed in Oklahoma City.
A federal judge in Detroit also ordered his brother, James Douglas Nichols, held as a material witness and possible suspect in the bombing.
Authorities alleged the Nichols brothers and McVeigh gathered less than two weeks before the bombing at the Nichols’ farm in Decker, Mich., where James reportedly kept large quantities of fertilizer and fuel oil, key ingredients in the attack.
While rescue workers dug through the wreckage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, federal agents combed the convenience stores, gun shops and farm supply outlets that dot the sloping green hills around Junction City.
For the last few days, cashiers who never had ventured far from central Kansas found themselves part of a worldwide dragnet. They studied pictures of their former customers with a mixture of recognition and terror.
“Nobody likes to have somebody like this pass through your hometown,” said Greg Junghans, owner of the Texaco Travel Center in Junction City. Junghans provided authorities security surveillance tapes from his store.
The main street of that Middle American town descends into a cluttered strip of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. It was there-between the Sirloin Stockade and the Dairy Queen-that authorities believe McVeigh and the fugitive suspect, the one with the square jaw, angry eyebrows and curly dark hair pictured as “John Doe No. 2,” stocked up on gas before setting off for Oklahoma City.
“They were just regular customers like everybody else,” said Sylvia Niemczyk, manager of the Texaco Food Mart on the other end of town. Just two friendly young men who came in twice a week or so to buy cigarettes and beer, she said.
Drugs have come to Junction City, a town of 21,000, and there was a double murder earlier this year, but Geary County Sheriff Bill Deppish said he’s never seen anything like the gaggle of reporters who crowded into his lobby at week’s end.
The manhunt that captivated the nation came to Kansas on Thursday when FBI agents arrived at Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, where authorities say McVeigh rented the truck used in the bombing.
The employee who handled the transaction said McVeigh paid cash for four days’ rental and signed papers saying he would deliver the truck to Omaha.
“McVeigh presented a South Dakota’s drivers license that showed his birth date was April 19, 1970-exactly 25 years before the day of the blast. His license bore the name Robert D. Kling.
McVeigh was a former U.S. Army soldier once stationed at nearby Ft. Riley, Kan., according to FBI documents. Terry Nichols told people in Herington that he had retired from the military and was selling surplus munitions at gun shows.
Nichols purchased the home on 2nd Street in mid-February, but did not move in until last month.
People familiar with the sale said Nichols paid close to the asking price of $28,000 for the home, putting down an undisclosed amount of cash and paying the seller, Kenneth Siek, the rest in monthly installments.
He made his payments “ahead of time,” said Richard Kramer, president of Central Bank in Herington, which handled the escrow papers. Kramer said Nichols did not have an account at the bank.
Nichols also paid about $220 cash for homeowner’s insurance and did not provide a Social Security number, said American Family Insurance agent Jeff Hallam.
To complete the home sale, Nichols gave Siek a list of references, but Siek said Saturday that he had lost the list and was not able to provide the names to federal agents. “I checked out his references, and they were excellent,” said Siek, 68, of Abilene.
Besides those references, Nichols offered few details about himself.”We had to pry any information out of him,” real estate agent Rucker said. “He just basically told me he was retired military and that he bought and sold military supplies. He said he had a lot of empty ammunition containers he’d bought and was selling at gun shows.”
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Nichols moved into this railroad town of 2,810 at night, neighbors said, unpacking boxes and buckets from a pickup truck. “It was kind of odd,” said Debbie Goodyear, 38, who lives on 2nd Street. “When he moved in it was sleet and rain out, that’s what was funny about it.”
Leroy Hodson, 75, watched from his home across the street. “I asked him if he wanted help moving in, but he said he didn’t and I never really talked to him again,” Hodson said. “I often wondered what kind of job he had-no one seemed to know. When he was gone, his wife had the curtains pulled and no lights on.”
The house is titled to Nichols and his wife, Marife, who is Filipino, a person familiar with the title records said. A girl 3 or 4 years old lived with them, and periodically a boy of about 12 would stay with the family, neighbors said. The boy told neighborhood children that he was Nichols’ son and lived in Las Vegas.
On Nov. 22, 1993, Nichols’ 2-year-old son suffocated on their family farm in Decker, Mich., in what was ruled an accidental death, according to published reports.