The key to the Ryder truck used in the Oklahoma City bombing was found in an alley near the federal building where Timothy McVeigh allegedly parked his getaway car, an FBI photographer testified Tuesday.
Prosecutors introduced the evidence to bolster the account of star witness Michael Fortier, who said he was with McVeigh when he cased the building and picked out the alley where he planned to park his getaway car. The key was found in the same alley."I photographed a key," FBI photographer Dawn Hester testified. "I wrote in the log I always keep what it was."
McVeigh attorney Rob Nigh challenged the evidence, presenting Hester with a duplicate set of keys from the Ryder truck. But she said they appeared different from the ones she photographed.
U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch rejected the photo, saying the only way they could be identified was by comparing key cuts with the photo.
But he admitted the key into evidence after Hester testified she saw an agent pick it up in the alley and log it into evidence.
In his second day of cross-examination Tuesday, Fortier stuck by his plea-bargained testimony that McVeigh spent months planning the April 19, 1995, federal building blast that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.
But he acknowledged that his story has changed since the blast, and so have his looks and his speech. "Of course I'm changing my language. I'm not going to sit here and curse in front of all these people," said Fortier, wearing a suit, his hair neatly cut, his beard shaved off and his earring gone.
McVeigh attorney Stephen Jones portrayed Fortier as a frequent drug user who cut the plea deal in part to escape drug charges. Fortier acknowledged he talked about drugs while he was recorded in FBI phone surveillance after the bombing.
In nearly an entire day on the stand Monday, Fortier said McVeigh carefully cased the federal building months before the blast and even considered crashing his truck bomb through the glass front doors in a suicide attack.
Fortier said he refused to join the plot and learned of the bombing while watching television: "Right away I thought Tim did it."