Nichols shown as terrorist, family man

DENVER (AP) - Terry Nichols helped mastermind the Oklahoma City bombing and arranged to be "at a very safe distance" at home in Kansas when the deadly explosion went off, a prosecutor said in opening statements yesterday.

Nichols and Timothy McVeigh left a trail of evidence from Arizona to Oklahoma, lead prosecutor Larry Mackey said, emphasizing Nichols "was there at the beginning and there at the end."

But attorneys for Nichols countered that he was "building a life, not a bomb," describing him as a committed family man.

Nichols sat with his jaw taut, his glance bouncing between the prosecutor and jurors, who sat in rapt attention. Nichols' mother, Joyce Nichols Wilt, sat quietly in the front row.

The prosecutor described McVeigh and Nichols as two Army buddies who shared a hatred of the government and plotted the April 19, 1995, bombing to avenge the FBI raid on the Branch Davidians compound near Waco, Texas, two years before.

AP PHOTO U.S. attorney Larry Mackey, lead prosecutor in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of suspect Terry Nichols, leaves the Federal Courthouse in Denver on Friday.

"This is a case about two men who conspired to murder innocent people," Mackey said. "Their plan succeeded. The bomb went off and people died."

Nichols is accused of robbing an Arkansas gun dealer to finance the bombing helping McVeigh acquire components, such as ammonium nitrate and explosives that he stole from a Kansas quarry, Mackey said.

Nichols faces the death penalty if convicted of murder, conspiracy and weapons-related counts. McVeigh was convicted of identical charges in June and sentenced to die. His appeal is pending.

On a cold rainy morning the day before the bombing, Nichols and McVeigh constructed the device in a Ryder rental truck at Geary Lake State Park near Herington, Kan., Mackey said.

"Terry Nichols had been side by side with Timothy McVeigh," Mackey said.

According to the plan, Nichols remained in Kansas and McVeigh delivered the truck to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and set off the explosion, the prosecutor said.

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