May 1, 1995 and After: FBI Investigator Finds Receipts from Fertilizer Purchased to Make Oklahoma City Bomb

FBI Special Agent Louis Michalko is given the task of sorting through the last 15 months of sales receipts from the Mid-Kansas Cooperative grain elevator in McPherson, Kansas. FBI investigators have found a September 30, 1994 receipt from this company in the home of suspected Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and May 1, 1995), and believe that the 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer used in the bomb (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) were purchased from this company (see September 23, 1994, September 30, 1994, and October 18, 1994). Michalko goes to the company headquarters in Moundridge, Kansas, and sorts through 132,000 receipts. He learns that during that 15-month period, only one person, Mike Havens, paid cash for over 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate. Only two other customers bought more than 1,000 pounds of the fertilizer during that time period, a local experimental field and a school district, and Havens is the only one to have paid in cash. The FBI will later learn that “Mike Havens” was an alias used by Nichols to buy the fertilizer. Michalko determines that “Havens” bought some 4,000 pounds of fertilizer. Mid-Kansas employee Jerry Showalter will later testify that he took part in the September 30 sale to “Havens,” but cannot identify Nichols as the person who bought the fertilizer. Showalter will tell authorities that “Havens” told him he wanted to fertilize a field with a drill apparatus. [Chicago Tribune, 5/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 221-; Associated Press, 5/30/2004]