McALESTER, Okla. – An FBI lawyer testified Tuesday that barrels and fuses like those used to build the bomb that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building were found at Terry Nichols' (search) home just days after the deadly blast.
Nichols smiled as prosecutor Lou Keel dragged the empty 55-gallon barrels, white with blue rims, to an area in front of jurors hearing the first-degree murder case.
The 48-year-old defendant then took notes as Keel balanced one of the barrels on the witness stand while FBI lawyer Mary Jasnowski testified she found it and three pieces of Primadet detonation cords (search) at Nichols' home in Kansas three days after the April 19, 1995, bombing.
Jasnowski also said FBI agents recovered 30 firearms, as many as 60 gold and silver coins, and $10,000 in cash stored under a mattress and in a bag in a bedroom closet.
In his opening statement to the jury Monday, defense attorney Brian Hermanson said Nichols attended gun shows and was trying to establish a gun show business.
Jasnowski also testified agents found a videotape in Nichols' home, titled "Waco — The Big Lie," chronicling the government siege at the Branch Davidian (search) compound in Texas. Authorities maintain the Oklahoma City bombing was a plot to avenge the siege exactly two years earlier.
On Monday, Jasnowski testified agents found a receipt for 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer at Nichols' home and discovered traces of the fertilizer. The receipt, dated Sept. 30, 1994, was issued by the Mid-Kansas Cooperative Association to Mike Havens, one of several aliases prosecutors allege that Nichols used to gather bomb components.
In other testimony Tuesday, former FBI agent Jerry Tucker said he discovered a pamphlet entitled "Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist Right" during the search of Nichols' home.
Tucker said he also discovered bottles containing ammonium nitrate fertilizer that contained price tags. The bottles were labeled "explosive." Under cross-examination, Tucker said it was possible Nichols was trying to make money by repackaging and selling the material.
Nichols is on trial for 161 state counts of first-degree murder for the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building (search), which killed 168 people.
He is already serving a life sentence on federal changes for the deaths of eight federal law officers. The state charges are for the 160 other victims and one victim's fetus.
Prosecutors brought the state charges hoping to send Nichols to the death chamber for his role in the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil at the time. Timothy McVeigh (search) was executed in 2001.
The defense plans to show Nichols was a patsy for a shadowy group of conspirators, possibly including members of a white supremacist and anti-government group, the Aryan Republican Army.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox