Discovery Linked To Okla. Bombing

Tipped they may have missed evidence a decade ago, FBI agents searched the former home of convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and found blasting caps and other explosive materials apparently related to the 1995 attack, officials said Friday.

FBI officials said the material was found buried in a crawl space of the house in Herington, Kan., which wasn't checked by agents during the numerous searches of the property during the original investigation of Nichols and Timothy McVeigh.

"The information so far indicates the items have been there since prior to the Oklahoma City bombing," Agent Gary Johnson said in a telephone interview from Oklahoma City.

FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said in Kansas the materials were found in boxes, much of them wrapped in plastic, and were being sent to the FBI lab for analysis. The FBI is operating on the assumption the evidence was from the original Oklahoma plot, he said.

In coming days, agents will be looking for any fingerprints and other clues on the evidence that might show where the explosives originated and who may have possessed them before they got into Nichols' home.

The extraordinary discovery, just three weeks from the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people, is likely to prove a new embarrassment to an FBI already burned by missteps in this case and the pre-Sept. 11 period.

"This may be an embarrassment for the FBI but it is NOT legally significant," said CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. "Nichols hasn't lived in that house for nearly 10 years, since he walked into a police to talk to authorities just days after the Oklahoma City bombing. In the meantime, many other people have lived in and visited that house so there is no way to tell really even if the stuff belonged to Nichols."

Nichols, who is serving multiple life prison sentences on federal and state charges, hasn't lived at the property in years, and FBI officials said the information that led to the discovery indicated Nichols had buried the evidence before the attack on April 19, 1995.

"The two juries that considered Nichols' role in the Oklahoma City bombing both knew that he had helped Timothy McVeigh build the bomb that blew up the building. So it is hard to see how THIS information would have made a difference, especially during the penalty phases of those trials," Cohen added.

One of Nichols' attorneys said Friday the discovery was either a hoax or a major failure by the FBI to find all evidence after searching the home numerous times.

"They were there often," said attorney Brian Hermanson, who represented Nichols in last year's Oklahoma state murder trial that ended with Nichols' conviction. "It's surprising. I would think they would have done their job and found everything that was there."

"But I'm still suspicious that it could be something planted there," Hermanson said. "The house was empty for several years and if somebody wanted to put something there to incriminate Terry they had plenty of time to have done it."

Dan Defenbaugh, the retired FBI agent who ran the Oklahoma City investigation, said he was dismayed that his agency may have missed the evidence. "When you do a search warrant of that importance, you have to make sure it's thorough," he said.

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[HardnoseMP]

The search was actually conducted by the Ft. Riley bomb squad while the FBI looked on behind their cars, I called the FBI several weeks before this and asked them where all the explosives were at , the people that owned the quarry had stopped by my shop and talked to me after the bombing, I worked with the FBI and ATF on the investigation for months assisting every effort that I could, the people said Nichols had stole enough gel explosives to blow up 3 or 4 federal buildings, so I called the FBI and asked them where all the rest of the explosives were since the militia was big on anniversaries !