Bomb Suspect Hid Cash, Ex-Wife Testifies (original) (raw)

U.S.|Bomb Suspect Hid Cash, Ex-Wife Testifies

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/20/us/bomb-suspect-hid-cash-ex-wife-testifies.html

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Nov. 20, 1997

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November 20, 1997

Section A, Page

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Terry L. Nichols and his former wife both sobbed today as she told a Federal jury how, worried for his safety, she opened a package he gave her and found letters and evidence that prosecutors say tie Mr. Nichols to the Oklahoma City bombing.

The woman, Lana Padilla, said Mr. Nichols gave her the package before he left for the Philippines, six months before the bombing on April 19, 1995. Mrs. Padilla said he told her not to open the package unless he failed to return. He instructed her to wait at least 60 days.

''I was concerned that there was something awful, that he was not coming back,'' Mrs. Padilla testified in Mr. Nichols trial on charges of murder and conspiracy in the bombing that killed 168 people.

She said she opened the package the day after he left. Inside were two envelopes, one address to her and one addressed to Jennifer McVeigh, the sister of Timothy J. McVeigh, who has been convicted on identical charges in the bombing and sentenced to death.

The letter to her explained how to gain entry to a storage unit Mr. Nichols had rented in Las Vegas, Nev. It also told her how to find a bag of valuables hidden behind the back panel of a drawer in her kitchen. All of the items in storage, the letter said, were for their son, Joshua, now 15. The items in the kitchen were for his daughter, Nicole, ''if for any reason my life insurance doesn't pay.''

''There is no need to tell anyone about the items in storage and at home,'' Mrs. Padilla read from the letter, beginning to sob. ''Again only the three of us will know. I have the most trust in you here in the U.S. to do as I've written.''

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