I'm from the Okla City area, and was pretty close to this situation, obviously. John Doe #3 was never thought to be of Middle Eastern descent. He was thought to be caucasion (whatever that means) and perhaps part Hispanic or Native American. Very early in the police activity after the bombing, a man of Middle Eastern descent was detained and questioned, but this was before McVey, John Doe #3, or any other perp emerged as a suspect. He was not involved at all, and was cleared very quickly. By that time, the FBI had traced the Ryder van and got descriptions of who rented it. McVey. Nichols, and John Doe #3. Mc Vey was stopped driving out of Olka City on I 35 for no tag on his rattletrap, and was found to have no ID. To jail he went. Warrant search turned up the search for one matching his description, for the bombing. Police and FBI traced his activities and turned up Nichols. As to John Doe #3, many responsible people reported seeing him with the other two in places and at times that coincided with their known movements. Contrary to legend, the authorities did look for John Doe #3. They even questioned an acquaintance of mine just because of his looks (he was of course innocent), and he is of English descent!

It would make a better story to have a ring of Middle Eastern terrorists involved, but that's not the way it happened. What we had were home-grown anarchists, or whatever you want to call them. And John Doe #3 is merely the man wh got away (so far).

Thanks,
Richard