On April 19, 1995, a massive truck bomb destroyed Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 men, women and children. The terrorists were homegrown.
In the blast debris, the FBI found a twisted truck axle and traced its identification number to a nearby rental agency. Employees there described two men who had rented the Ryder truck used in the attack. A flyer with likenesses of the fugitives - John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 – was distributed nationwide.
The FBI conducted what was then its largest ever manhunt. More than a dozen eyewitnesses put the John Does together in the days before the attack. Some told field agents they were in the same bomb-laden truck as it drove to the Murrah building.
John Doe 1 turned out to be the plot’s ringleader, Timothy McVeigh, a decorated 26-year-old army veteran of the first Gulf War. But the FBI never found John Doe 2. The Bureau eventually decided that all the eyewitnesses were mistaken and no such person existed.
Was the FBI right? Or did the Bureau miss critical evidence and overlook credible eyewitnesses in order to quickly close the case?
The Third Man is long form journalism. Gerald Posner, an award winning investigative reporter, was assigned to answer those questions by The New Yorker. Posner’s article was submitted only weeks before the start of McVeigh’s trial, but the magazine did not publish it, worried that the FBI probe might not be complete.
The Third Man is Posner’s 1997 New Yorker draft (including some brief updates). Based on dozens of original interviews, and access to then confidential FBI files and secret grand jury testimony, The Third Man was then, and remains, one of the largest private reexaminations into the question of whether there was a John Doe 2.
In weighing the credible evidence, The Third Man ultimately highlights disturbing failures in the official investigation and in the process raises the real possibility that a bomber got away.
In the blast debris, the FBI found a twisted truck axle and traced its identification number to a nearby rental agency. Employees there described two men who had rented the Ryder truck used in the attack. A flyer with likenesses of the fugitives - John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 – was distributed nationwide.
The FBI conducted what was then its largest ever manhunt. More than a dozen eyewitnesses put the John Does together in the days before the attack. Some told field agents they were in the same bomb-laden truck as it drove to the Murrah building.
John Doe 1 turned out to be the plot’s ringleader, Timothy McVeigh, a decorated 26-year-old army veteran of the first Gulf War. But the FBI never found John Doe 2. The Bureau eventually decided that all the eyewitnesses were mistaken and no such person existed.
Was the FBI right? Or did the Bureau miss critical evidence and overlook credible eyewitnesses in order to quickly close the case?
The Third Man is long form journalism. Gerald Posner, an award winning investigative reporter, was assigned to answer those questions by The New Yorker. Posner’s article was submitted only weeks before the start of McVeigh’s trial, but the magazine did not publish it, worried that the FBI probe might not be complete.
The Third Man is Posner’s 1997 New Yorker draft (including some brief updates). Based on dozens of original interviews, and access to then confidential FBI files and secret grand jury testimony, The Third Man was then, and remains, one of the largest private reexaminations into the question of whether there was a John Doe 2.
In weighing the credible evidence, The Third Man ultimately highlights disturbing failures in the official investigation and in the process raises the real possibility that a bomber got away.
