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Lea McGown, the proprietor of the Dreamland Motel, also in Junction City, is another witness who links McVeigh to a Ryder truck. On April 14, McVeigh showed up at the Dreamland and registered under his own name. It is a mystery why, after previously using aliases, McVeigh would have chosen this moment not to hide his identity. McGown has a theory, though. In a recent interview with author Gerald Posner, she said in her years managing a motel frequented by prostitutes, she learned how to spot men registering under false names. "People are so used to signing their own name," she said, "that when they go to sign a phony name, they almost always go to write, and then look up for a moment as if to remember the new name they want to use. That's what [McVeigh] did, and when he looked up I started talking to him, and it threw him."
McGown has said she saw McVeigh drive a Ryder truck into the Dreamland parking lot on April 17. At around 4 a.m. on April 18, McGown recalled, she saw McVeigh sitting in the cab of the truck with the light on. However, her testimony could have a complication to it--she has also said she saw McVeigh in a Ryder truck on the 16th, and that this one looked different from the one he drove on the 17th. Prosecutors may also call McGown's son Eric, who has said he saw McVeigh and the truck. According to Eric, when McVeigh was driving the truck on April 18, he was going very slowly.
Nichols owned a home in Herington, Kansas, about 20 miles south of Junction City. The prosecution contends that on April 16 McVeigh parked his Mercury in Oklahoma City and then Nichols drove him back to the Dreamland. Several people saw the car parked near the Murrah building before the bombing. Prosecutors will introduce a handwritten note McVeigh left on the car saying it had a bad battery, ensuring that no one would tow it.
No witness at the Dreamland saw McVeigh leave with the truck for good, but Fred Skrdla will be called to testify that between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. on the day of the bombing, he saw McVeigh drive it into gas station where Skrdla worked. That was in Billings, Oklahoma, about two-thirds of the way between Junction City and Oklahoma City.
MAKINGS OF A BOMB
Having established that McVeigh was in possession of the truck, the prosecution will seek to reinforce its case by establishing that McVeigh was also in possession of a bomb. The most direct way to do that will be to call an FBI expert who will testify that McVeigh's clothing, tested after his arrest, showed traces of nitroglycerin and pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or petn, an explosive used in detonator cord. Prosecutors will also present evidence to show how, in the months before the bomb exploded, McVeigh set out to gather materials for it.