FBI: John Doe #2 Doesn't Exist (But We're Still Looking For Him)

The story of John Doe #2 has yet to be told, in full, without errors of fact or missing key details. Almost all accounts of the Oklahoma City bombing—large and small—get the story wrong, most through errors of omission.

The basic facts are simple and straightforward: on Monday, April 17^th, 1995, two men entered Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City Kansas to pick up the large 20 foot Ryder truck used by Tim McVeigh to deliver the carnage to the heartland on April 19^th, 1995.

McVeigh and his stocky companion were observed by several witnesses: Tom Kessinger, Vicki Beemer, owner Eldon Elliott, and mechanic Fernando Ramos. The witnesses from the body shop were interviewed about the April 17^th rental just days after it occurred, when their memories of the event were fresh. It is important to highlight that the body shop was a small venture, with only a few customers per day which gives the witnesses better reason to recall each of their customers with more accuracy than if the place had more traffic.

Upon being interviewed, all of the witnesses universally described Tim McVeigh coming into the body shop with a second man who was short, stocky, wearing a baseball cap, and smoking a cigarette.

It was through the combined descriptions of Eldon Elliott, Tom Kessinger and Vickie Beemer that a couple of sketches were produced by FBI artist Ray Rozicki. These drawings are presented below:

McVeigh’s presence at the body shop is easy to pinpoint via records consisting of a paper trail and a surveillance camera recording from a nearby McDonalds. These records, introduced at trial, show that at 3:29 P.M., McVeigh placed a phone call to the Bell Taxi Service from a pay phone at Grandview Plaza in Junction City. McVeigh was picked up at Grandview Plaza by cabbie David Ferris, who drove McVeigh to a nearby McDonalds. It wasn’t very far—the fare was just $3.65. At the McDonalds, McVeigh was recorded on a security camera that was time-stamped 3:57 P.M. This time stamp establishes that McVeigh would next show up at Elliott’s body shop some time shortly after 4:15 P.M: the body shop was about 1.5 miles from the McDonalds where he was recorded exiting the restaurant.

Elliott’s mechanic Fernando Ramos said that McVeigh and another individual arrived at the body shop in a blue Jeep Grand Cherokee. Meanwhile, Tim McVeigh suggests in his biography that he got a ride—alone—to the body shop from an anonymous “good Samaritan” – highly unlikely, and very much at odds with what Ramos said he saw.

Ramos was interviewed on April 23^rd, 1995, by SA Ronald J. Koziol and Sergeant Robert Story of Junction City Kansas PD with assistance from Spanish-speaking FBI agent SA Jose Jiminez. When interviewed, Ramos told the agents that a blue Jeep Cherokee entered the lot and two men exited. Ramos said that the man in the passenger seat of the Cherokee bore a resemblance to the description of John Doe #1.

Regardless of McVeigh’s method of transport, we know that McVeigh was in the body shop no later than 4:15 P.M., with the rental paperwork timestamp showing the truck was picked up at 4:21 P.M.

The witnesses who recalled the duo provided a good description of their recollections that afternoon, especially owner Eldon Elliott who checked the truck out to the pair. At the Nichols Federal trial, Elliott testified that he was positive that McVeigh was with another man that afternoon. Elliott testified that he “walked up to [McVeigh] and asked him about insurance. Another person was standing there. I glanced at him.”

Elliott further recalled that he “walked between the two of them” when they went out to inspect the truck. Elliott said that the second man was wearing a ''white hat with blue lightning bolts on the side.'' In spite of these recollections, the FBI pressured Elliott to change his story, quoted in the newspaper saying that “they wanted me to change my mind that there was a second person there. And I wouldn’t change my mind.”

Why did the FBI pressure Elliott to change his story? Well, that’s because the FBI came up with a nonsensical “misidentification theory” that they foisted upon the public to try to do away with entirely the second suspect.

For many people following the story, myself among them, this was where the official narrative began to veer off-course and venture into the implausible.

The John Doe #2 Myth

On June 15, 1995, the FBI announced that they had identified the second suspect in the bombing, the man seen with McVeigh when the bomb truck was picked up. What they said, reported in newspapers nationwide, was that the second man was an innocent Army private named Todd Bunting.

Associated Press report IDing Bunting, typical of the stories ran nationwide on June 15th, 1995.

Bunting was at Elliott’s body shop on Tuesday, April 18^th, with a friend named Michael Hertig. The FBI contended that the whole thing was a simple case of mistaken identity and confused memories.

According to the FBI, the witnesses mixed-up the Tuesday April 18 customers—Hertig and Bunting—with McVeigh who had been there the previous day. The newspaper accounts universally declared that Todd Bunting matched the description of John Doe #2, and asserted that he looked like the sketch. Realistically, however, there is little to no resemblance between Bunting and the sketch.

Owner Eldon Elliott was absolutely positive that McVeigh had a second person with him when he checked the truck out to the pair on Monday the 17th. Putting the final nail in the coffin of the FBI’s bogus narrative, Eldon Elliott wasn’t even at work on April 18th, 1995: therefore he has no memory of Todd Bunting with which to confuse with anyone. Indeed, Elliott testified that he had never seen Todd Bunting in his rental shop. So much for mistaken identity.

However, the FBI’s “misidentification theory” went a long way in furthering a lone-wolf narrative. Headlines boldly declared “Investigators Identify and Clear John Doe #2.” The press was largely incurious, with few journalists noting that the witnesses’ description(s) of John Doe #1 were so close to McVeigh’s appearance, to raise the question of how the witnesses could be so wrong about John Doe #2 when they got John Doe #1 so right. Similarly, few outlets reported that Elliott never saw Bunting, or how he wasn’t at work on April 18^th. The latter detail was glossed over quickly at trial and it wasn’t reported on widely until the Nichols State trial in 2004 where Elliott testified and again affirmed that McVeigh wasn’t alone the day he picked up the truck.

Irrationally – perhaps intending to sow confusion or placate disbelievers – the FBI declared in the same June 15 press reports about Bunting that the Bureau was still looking for a second suspect! In fact, a full seven months after declaring the man nonexistent, Justice Department spokesman Steve Mullins told NPR (in January of 1996) that “we believe there were other people involved with the bombing. We do believe that we should still look for them.”  Mullins then addressed John Doe #2 in particular, saying “The FBI has not recalled this sketch [of John Doe #2] that we've drawn up. We do have an ongoing investigation with a number of FBI agents assigned to the investigation on all phases, including what was known as John Doe #2."

What “was known” as John Doe #2?  Mullins’ use of the past tense only further confounds matters, seemingly speaking as if the suspect doesn’t exist while at-once declaring that the FBI was still following his trail.

Meanwhile, the myth persists to this day. News reports and contemporary accounts of the bombing almost universally describe John Doe #2 as merely a case of mistaken identity.

The discerning reader can tell from the testimony of Eldon Elliott – and the FBI’s behavior towards him in trying to get him to change his story – where the full truth may reside. That truth, an essential truth, is that Tim McVeigh was not alone when he picked up the bomb truck on April 17^th, just as he wasn’t alone the morning of April 19^th, 1995.