The Oklahoma City Bombing, Part 1

Summary

Small Town Dicks: The Oklahoma City Bombing, Part 1

Release Date: June 19, 2026
Hosts: Yeardley Smith, Detectives Dan and Dave, Paul Holes
Special Guest: Retired FBI Agent Scott Crabtree

---

Episode Overview

This episode launches a special three-part series delving into one of America’s most significant crime cases: the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. The discussion centers around the rapid, detailed response and investigation, as told by retired FBI agent Scott Crabtree, who shares a ground-level perspective of the early stages of the federal investigation. The hosts aim to provide both context and procedural insight, offering listeners a nuanced view of how a historic act of domestic terrorism forever changed American law enforcement’s understanding and approach to such threats.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing the Case & Context

• The bombing is described as a “heartbreaking and historic” case that stands out from the show’s usual focus on lesser-known small-town crimes.
• Yeardley Smith sets the scene, noting the wide-reaching consequences of the bombing (“forever changed our understanding of domestic terrorism in the United States”) [03:00].

2. Scott Crabtree’s Background

• Crabtree’s circuitous path from the Marine Corps, to accounting, then into the FBI by way of New York and finally to a solo office in Salina, Kansas:
  • “I would never have in a million years assumed that I'd ended up here... two years later, I'm sitting in a one-person office in an interior office in Salina, Kansas, by myself.” — Scott Crabtree [07:39].

3. The Bombing: April 19, 1995

• The team asks Crabtree to recall how he learned of the bombing:
  • He saw people crowded around TVs, watching the devastation. Initially, law enforcement speculated about possible causes (gas main, etc.) but “it was ghastly...hard to believe that something like that could happen.” — Scott Crabtree [10:20].
• The Murrah Building’s composition:
  • “Basically federal offices … the United States Army had an office in there … an ATF office … DEA office and … some other more civilian-type government agencies.” — Scott Crabtree [10:49].
• The destruction and casualties, notably among children in the onsite daycare [11:13].

4. Early Investigation & Initial Leads

• Evidence Response Teams (ERT) painstakingly collected evidence at the scene, quickly determining ammonium nitrate (“prill,” fertilizer beads) as the explosive [12:27].
• A critical breakthrough: the truck’s rear axle was recovered and traced to a rental from Junction City, Kansas [13:21].

5. Agent Crabtree’s Involvement

• Crabtree was asked to retrieve the rental documents from Elliot’s Body Shop, where helpful staff were told not to consult with each other to protect the integrity of their testimony [15:57].
  • “I need you all to be as clear about it as you possibly could.” — Scott Crabtree [16:49].
• The conversation includes a humorous interlude about Crabtree’s “bag phone”—a bulky early mobile device that became unexpectedly essential for rapid comms [14:50].

6. Rental Transaction Details

• Timothy McVeigh, using the alias Robert Kling, rented the 20-foot Ryder truck, paying in cash and requesting extra rental days (a detail meant to throw off investigators).
  • “McVeigh wanted the truck to stay gone ... unfortunately for him, they found the axle...had any of these things not happened...he was close to being able to get back out on the road free.” — Scott Crabtree [19:17].
• Vicki, the front desk clerk, noted McVeigh’s unusual focus on payload weight rather than destination size, which became significant only in retrospect [22:47].
  • “Nobody ever rents a truck that way. They say, ‘I have a two-bedroom apartment…’” — Vicki via Scott Crabtree [22:58].
• McVeigh conspicuously gave April 19 as his birthday (it wasn’t) and used a non-existent address and phone number, all to muddy the trail [24:28].
  • The date was tied to the Waco siege anniversary, which later emerged as a motivation for McVeigh [25:27].
  • “This is a finger in your eye type of thing.” — Scott Crabtree [27:05].

7. Eyewitness Accounts & Composite Sketch

• Mechanic Tom Kessinger, prompted by an offhand remark about McVeigh’s (fake) birth date, became the most helpful eyewitness for a suspect sketch [28:09].
  • Crabtree notes the importance and pitfalls of eyewitness testimony—critical but easily contaminated [16:49].
• Efforts to rush a sketch artist out to Kansas were hampered by logistical hurdles, delays, and even fog, with Crabtree pushing hard to minimize lost time [45:03].
  • “If they had a sketch artist that could properly draw sketches and we could do it in an hour ... that to me, was much better...” — Scott Crabtree [34:35].

8. Suspect Profiling & Investigation Strategy

• Discussion about McVeigh’s deliberate misdirection—using a pseudonym, targeting a small rental agency near a major army base, and requesting extra days to ensure the truck wouldn’t be reported missing too soon [32:09].
• The investigation probed whether a military transfer could point to the suspect due to the proximity of Fort Riley and the large number of military personnel renting trucks [41:00].
  • “He fits the type of probably 90% of the people that come through that office to rent a truck.” — Scott Crabtree [42:31].

9. Procedural Hurdles & Investigative Culture

• Extensive paperwork and documentation requirements in federal investigations, even under pressure:
  • “If it's not on paper, it didn't happen. So if you don't document it, they don't want to hear about it.” — Scott Crabtree [44:41].
• Leads on addresses and aliases provided by McVeigh went nowhere—each proved false [43:00].
• Despite all setbacks, Crabtree maintains focus:
  • “I wasn't going to let go of this. I mean, it was like, what’s the next logical thing to do?” — Scott Crabtree [37:53].

10. Managing False Leads & Avoiding Tunnel Vision

• The team acknowledges, and pushes back on, early law enforcement bias toward foreign suspects; Crabtree remains steadfast in following physical evidence and leads from the truck rental [36:46].

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the devastation:
  “It was ghastly. I mean it was just unbelievable. It was hard to believe that something like that could happen.” — Scott Crabtree [10:20]
• On McVeigh’s calculated deception:
  “In hindsight, that's exactly why he did it.” — Scott Crabtree (on paying cash for the truck and leaving no paper trail) [19:17]
• On procedural roadblocks:
  “There's nobody more disappointed than me.” — Scott Crabtree (on missing the sketch artist connection) [45:03]
• On following the trail:
  “I am following this path where it’s taking me.” — Scott Crabtree [36:46]
• On the impact of rural trust:
  “Being from the Midwest...people out here are more trusting than they need to be.” — Scott Crabtree [31:43]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Background on the bombing & Crabtree’s involvement: 05:07 – 08:10
• First learning about the bombing: 08:25 – 10:13
• Building details and devastation: 10:41 – 12:04
• Initial evidence collection at the scene: 12:27 – 13:00
• Breakthrough via vehicle identification: 13:21 – 13:59
• Retrieving rental documents and instructing witnesses: 15:57 – 16:49
• Rental process and oddities (including McVeigh’s tactics): 19:17 – 28:09
• Composite sketch creation and logistical setbacks: 30:23 – 47:39
• Military proximity and investigation tactics: 39:57 – 42:02
• Address leads and the culture of documentation: 43:00 – 44:41
• Pushes to avoid bias and ‘tunnel vision’: 36:41 – 36:46

---

Tone and Style

• The discussion is informal, filled with camaraderie, law enforcement jargon, humor (especially around the “bag phone” and Midwest culture), and empathy for both crime victims and the bystanders unwittingly swept into the case.
• The hosts balance earnest inquiry with reflection, pushing Crabtree to clarify how big cases differ from “small town” investigations.

---

Conclusion & Lead-In to Part 2

• The episode ends right as Crabtree receives the first composite sketch, suggesting the investigation is about to accelerate.
• Yeardley Smith teases the continuation in Part 2, promising more insight into the breakthrough moments that led to McVeigh’s eventual capture.

---

For those curious about the Oklahoma City bombing case or fascinated by the granular realities of federal investigations, this episode offers an invaluable, tightly focused view into the first 48 hours of one of America’s darkest crime stories—reminding listeners how even the largest cases hinge on small town details and decisions.

Transcript

[Yeardley Smith]

This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance engineer at a beverage manufacturing plant, he starts his day knowing every line is ready to run. Because Grainger delivers the industrial grade products he needs to keep mixers, conveyors and packaging equipment moving. With Grainger's vast selection of bearings, belts and motors, he keeps operations running smoothly so nothing grinds to a halt. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.

[Scott Crabtree]

I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly.

[Yeardley Smith]

Real offer down to the penny.

[Scott Crabtree]

They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.

[Yeardley Smith]

So what's the problem?

[Scott Crabtree]

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch.

[Yeardley Smith]

Maybe there's no catch.

[Scott Crabtree]

That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

[Yeardley Smith]

Wow. You need to relax.

[Scott Crabtree]

I need to knock on wood.

[Dave]

Do we have wood?

[Scott Crabtree]

Is this table wood?

[Yeardley Smith]

I think it's laminate.

[Dave]

Okay.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, that's good.

[Dave]

That's close enough.

[Yeardley Smith]

Car selling without a catch. Sell your car on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. Hey small town fam. It's Yardley. I wanna remind you that if you want access to bonus episodes and regular episodes a day early and ad free and our community forum and other behind the scenes goodies, you gotta go to smalltowndicks.com superfam and then in the top right hand corner, hit that little tab that says join. And then listen to the end of today' episode for a sneak peek at today's new bonus episode. Hey, small town fam. It's Yeardley. How are you guys? I'm so happy you're here. I hope all is wonderfully well in your worlds. As we near the end of season 18, we're embarking on a very special, heartbreaking and historic case. Today is part one of a three part series about the Oklahoma City bombing. This is obviously a little different than our usual stories where we typically cover cases you may not have heard of unless you're from the small town where they happened. But the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building three decades ago forever changed our understanding of domestic terrorism in the United States. I often joke that nobody just listens to a podcast. We're all doing something else while we listen to our favorite podcast. So you may be familiar with the broader arc of the events that happened on April 19, 1995, but for this trilogy, I predict you may also be using that 15 second rewind button more than usual as former FBI agent Scott Crabtree, who's on the microphone today, gives us an incredible amount of detail about this lightning fast investigation. So saddle up. Here is the Oklahoma City bombing, part one. Hi there. I'm Yardley.

[Scott Crabtree]

I'm Dan.

[Dave]

I'm Dave.

[Paul Holes]

And I'm Paul.

[Yeardley Smith]

And this is Small Town Gigs.

[Dave]

Dave and I are identical twins and retired detectives from Small Town, usa.

[Paul Holes]

And I'm a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

[Dave]

Between the three of us, we've investigated thousands, thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder. Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare personal account of how they saw the crime.

[Paul Holes]

Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

[Dave]

And although we're aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved out of respect for what they've been through. Thank you.

[Yeardley Smith]

Today on Small Town Dicks, we have the usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

[Dave]

Hello there.

[Yeardley Smith]

Hello. Hello. We have Detective Dave.

[Dave]

Hello.

[Scott Crabtree]

T Heler.

[Yeardley Smith]

Hello. And we have the one and only Paul Holes.

[Paul Holes]

Hello, all.

[Yeardley Smith]

Hello, Pete, as I like to call you. And Small Town Fam. You know, on this podcast, when we started this podcast, we covered crimes in small towns really exclusively. And oftentimes there were crimes you had not actually already heard or read about on Wikipedia. But once in a while, we get a law enforcement veteran on the microphone who covered a really well known crime. In fact, we have Paul here every week and he's one of those. So he's the outlier, the constant outlier with Golden State Killer. But today we are very happy to welcome retired FBI agent Scott Crabtree with us today. Hi, Scott.

[Scott Crabtree]

Good morning. How are you?

[Yeardley Smith]

We're so well. Thank you so much for sitting down with us. Scott is bringing us a case that is really significant, actually in the history of the United States and our experience with terrorism, domestic terrorism. And we are actually, in fact, talking about the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Building that happened on April 19, 1995. And so I guess before we get into that day, Scott, give us a little background on how you ended up at the FBI.

[Scott Crabtree]

Out of high school, I went to the Marine Corps and somehow assigned a job in an accounting field. I guess in boot camp. I showed them that I could count past the number of digits on my body. So they gave me an accounting field and ended up being Assigned to the finance Center, Marine Corps Finance center in Kansas City. And I realized kind of right then that if I got some kind of a post education in accounting, I'd probably always be able to get a job. So when I got out, went to college, came out with one of my degrees being accounting. And it just so happened, my senior spring, I had a friend of mine who saw the FBI was coming, and she signed me up for an interview with the FBI agent and didn't tell me until the night before when we were at dinner that, hey, you need to be over here in the morning with your resume. So the next morning I showed up. At that time, being an attorney or being an accountant was one of the easiest and fastest ways to get in the FBI.

[Yeardley Smith]

Really.

[Scott Crabtree]

That's also about the time when a lot of banks started to fail around the country. We had a lot of banks and savings and loans start to fail in the late 70s and particularly in the early 80s, so kind of their need for accountants increased. So it was crazy. I went to New York after that and spent three years on the white collar crime branch working assorted fraud and identity intellectual property cases. Went to headquarters after that for a couple of years. If I'd stayed, I probably could have gone on and become a supervisor out of there, moved onto the career path. But I had some health issues with my mother back out in the Midwest. And at the time of the bombing, I was assigned to a one person office in Salina, Kansas for the FBI. The agent that had been there for 12 years retiring and said they were trying to staff it. And nobody on the list of people that wanted to go to Kansas City wanted to go to Salina. The calls dropped way down to me very fast. And I wasn't excited about it myself, but it did give me a chance to get back close to Omaha. It's about four hours away.

[Yeardley Smith]

So Salina is actually in Kansas.

[Scott Crabtree]

It's in pretty much in the middle of Kansas, a little more to the east than the west, but pretty much in the middle of the state. I would never have in a million years assumed that I'd ended up there based on where I'd been, even though I was from that area. I was born and raised initially in Harrington, but, you know, New York's got a thousand agents and has a huge office. And then two years later, I'm sitting in a one person office in an interior office in Solina, Kansas, by myself. And it was a different experience to go kind of get whipsawed like that.

[Paul Holes]

And Scott, just to clarify Even though you got into the FBI because of your accounting background, you were a full blown agent, you went to the academy, you did all of that training, right?

[Scott Crabtree]

Correct.

[Yeardley Smith]

So, Scott, take us to that day. April 19, 1995.

[Scott Crabtree]

On April 19, 1995, at a minute or so after 9 o', clock, the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed with a Ryder truck bomb that was put together by Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

[Yeardley Smith]

And when did you first learn the bombing had happened?

[Scott Crabtree]

So I stepped out of my office, and as I passed by one of the offices in the building that I shared mine with, I saw a number of people standing around a tv.

[Yeardley Smith]

Before we go a little bit further, I'm most surprised by this, but I suppose we might have some younger listeners who weren't actually even alive when this bombing took place. So go into a little bit more detail of what you're watching on television or what you actually see.

[Scott Crabtree]

Well, you could see the rubble in front of the building, and the front part of the building, a good part of it had been brought down and law enforcement, fire department, all kinds of help there, digging through the rubble, trying to find survivors. And I tried to call my office in Kansas City, where I report to, to see if I could get involved, trying to offer my help. I'll go to Oklahoma City. Tell me what you need me to do. But they'd already sent a number of agents to Oklahoma City. They said, basically, just stay put. Not that I want to say it hurt my feelings, but I wanted to help. I wanted to be involved. I drove past Oklahoma City every time I came home from Midland to see my family up in Omaha and Kansas City. So I felt comfortable with it. So it was like it was in your own backyard. Even though it was four hours away, it was just like, this is here. I mean, this is in the Midwest. This is just unbelievable that this could be going on and hence my. I want to go do something about it. There seemed like something I could do, and apparently they didn't think so at that time.

[Dave]

We get that too. Like, you're just like chomping at the bit, trying to get in the game.

[Yeardley Smith]

Sure.

[Dave]

What was your initial reaction to the images that you were seeing on that tv? I mean, you obviously know that this is terrorism.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, you certainly have that feeling. I mean, there was people speculating, you know, it could have been a gas main, it could have been this, could have been that and everything. And. But if you're in law enforcement, you certainly want to keep a fairly wide aperture open and Seeing the building and the smoke and the damage, I mean it was ghastly. I mean it was just unbelievable. It was hard to believe that something like that could happen.

[Dave]

This target building, the Murrow building, can you explain to our listeners what that building housed? Who is occupying that building?

[Scott Crabtree]

Basically federal offices. United States army had an office in there. I think there was an ATF office in there and perhaps a DEA office and then maybe some other more civilian type government agencies. And it wasn't a huge building. It was, I think it was eight or nine floors, maybe 10 floors. It was much broader across than it was deep. So you didn't have like multiple offices deep. If you had an office, it was probably front to back.

[Paul Holes]

Scott, I remember I was about five years into my career and I remember the original, you know, news footage looking at the building and you described the building. It was a multi story building, but half the building was basically gone as a result of this blast.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yes. That building was worth nothing after that. There was nothing salvageable.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, it was obvious to me even just five years in my career this wasn't a pipe bomb going off.

[Scott Crabtree]

Right. The building being shallow but wide, the way the explosion hit would almost be like something had taken a bite out of the front of it because it kind of circled into the building from the right to the left. So in the middle of the building, the explosion took more floors than it did toward the corners. But the people closest to that blast were the kids in the daycare center.

[Yeardley Smith]

I remember hearing that about the daycare center. It's unimaginable.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah.

[Yeardley Smith]

And so, Scott, it was determined fairly quickly that this was an intentional bombing.

[Scott Crabtree]

Correct.

[Paul Holes]

Early on they didn't have a clue as to who committed this. So I imagine 95, the FBI did have ERT teams. Right.

[Scott Crabtree]

What's an ERT evidence response team? But it's basically people that are kind of specialized and they're taught how to collect evidence and how to maintain it and save it so that it, it doesn't get contaminated. So when you use it in court, when they were looking for what kind of bomb this might be, I mean, they combed through, literally comb through everything. And I'm not sure how much, but it may have been as little as one or two pieces of ammonium nitrate or pryl that showed that that's what was used.

[Yeardley Smith]

What's prill?

[Scott Crabtree]

It's like a little bead, it's like

[Dave]

a little pellet they use in fertilizer.

[Yeardley Smith]

Oh, I see, okay. So they comb through everything at the crime scene, they Find these little pellet beads, and that tells them what the explosives were made of. But how did they figure out that the explosives had been inside a truck?

[Scott Crabtree]

They had found the rear axle of the truck down the street from the bombing. And one of the local law enforcement there was kind of aware of where he could look for a partial VIN number on the axle and was able to trace it back to something that was produced by Ford Motor Company. So they checked with Ford. Ford said, oh, yeah, we sold that truck to the Writer Corporation out of Miami as one of their trucks for their fleet. They called the Rider Corporation down in Miami, and they provide information that says, hey, that truck was rented out of Junction City, Kansas, on Monday.

[Yeardley Smith]

I see. So the truck was rented on a Monday, and then the bombing was two days later on Wednesday?

[Scott Crabtree]

Correct. So I got a call from an agent from the Miami division. He said, what we need you to do is basically drop what you're doing, go get the documents, fly them to headquarters, get them to the lab so we can try to pull some prints.

[Yeardley Smith]

So you were going to go get the rental truck documents, and this is the truck that actually had the bomb in it?

[Scott Crabtree]

Correct. So I call the Kansas City office and tell them I've been tasked with a lead. And it just so happened that I had finally been able to coach my office and to let me buy a cell phone. And it's not a cell phone like you think of today. That's one of those that comes in a bag. Looks like the size of a toaster.

[Dave]

A bag phone.

[Yeardley Smith]

I don't know what that is.

[Dave]

You never saw one of those?

[Yeardley Smith]

No.

[Scott Crabtree]

The big bag was part of it

[Dave]

was the battery, right?

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah.

[Yeardley Smith]

So this is an old mobile phone.

[Dave]

It's like a brick gen 5 cell phone.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah.

[Yeardley Smith]

Okay. And it comes in a bag?

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah. It looks really nice. It sits on the floor of your car. When you need it, you flip the bag open and you grab the phone and you. It took me a long time to convince him that I needed this cell phone, my bag phone. But it just so happened that that Monday, the same day the truck was rented, I'm over picking up a phone and had it in my car for Wednesday. So as I left the office, I started making calls from my car. First call was to my wife, who thankfully was home. And I told her, hey, I'm leaving. I've got a flight to D.C. pack me a bag of clothes for a couple of days. I then called a couple of the sheriff's offices, were between where I was and where I was going to go in Junction City and basically says, hey, I'm going to be flying. I said, please, if you see me, please don't stop me. Just let your people know I'm coming

[Yeardley Smith]

through and don't give me a traffic ticket.

[Dave]

There's a white Caprice. It's going to be going 100 right through your downtown.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, so I went out, met my wife, got my clothes, took off for Junction City. And while I'm on the way, I called the people at Elliot's Body Shop, which is where the truck was rented out of. I talked to Vicki, who was the front desk clerk. I said, I'm coming over there to get the documents for this truck that was rented on Monday, and I'm going to ask you that, that anybody that would have had any contact of that transaction, could you please keep them around? She said they'd be fine. And she let me know that Ryder in Miami had called them to say, hey, you're going to be contacted by the FBI, so don't be surprised. I told them, stay there. Don't talk to each other, don't watch the news, don't do anything that might, you know, cloud what you remember from that transaction. I need you all to be as clear about it as you possibly could.

[Yeardley Smith]

So you ask them specifically not to watch the news or speak to each other so that their memories are specific to them.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, eyewitness testimony is kind of a blessing and a curse. It can either be extremely helpful or somebody might have a great idea and they talk to somebody else and they hear it and say, you know, you might be right. I didn't want any of that. I wanted to talk to each of them. If they all had a different story, that's fine. But at least I was getting their recollection. I knew that was going to be critical. And with that, then I just sped on over to Junction City, Kansas.

[Dave]

One thing I've realized is that a security camera is only useful if somebody is actually paying attention to it. That's one of the reasons I like Simplisafe. Most security systems send you an alert and then leave it up to you to figure out what to do next. But with Simplisafe, there's another layer of protection. Their outdoor camera Series 2 uses advanced AI alerts. And if something suspicious is happening outside your home, the US based live monitoring agents can step in and respond. They can talk to a person through the camera, let them know they're being watched, and help deter them before the situation has a chance to escalate. That's a big difference from systems that simply record what happened. SimpliSafe has been a game changer for me. I like knowing that if I'm asleep, traveling or busy at work, there's still somebody looking out for my home. And with monitoring plans starting at around a dollar a day, it's protection that makes sense for a lot of people. I want you to experience the same peace of mind I do, which is why we've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com smalltown that's half [e-mail] smalltown there's no safe like SimpliSafe. What was the atmosphere like at the body shop when you arrived?

[Scott Crabtree]

I think they were like, how can that event be somehow connected to something we've done in this office?

[Yeardley Smith]

I'm sure. And who's the first person in the body shop that you interview?

[Scott Crabtree]

The first person I talked to is Elvin Elliott, and he is the owner of the office. He's the one that had possession of the documents. So I got the documents from him, placed them in an envelope, and sealed them shut.

[Yeardley Smith]

And that's how you're first introduced to Timothy McVeigh, through this documentation of when he actually rented the truck.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, on that Saturday, McVeigh came in, and using the name Robert Kling was the name he rented the truck under. So McVeigh basically paid for the rental cost in full, and this allowed him to not have to pay any kind of deposit or provide any further information or a credit card or anything like that. Now, in hindsight, that's exactly why he did it, so there would be no more trail back to him. But Eldon took the money, was looking at the contract, and had a discussion with McVeigh that apparently when McVeigh talked to Vicki, the clerk the day before and reserved the truck, McVeigh was offered extra days to get to your destination. Or we can give you extra miles. McVeigh said, I want extra time. Eldon said, well, what you're describing to me is you want to go to Omaha and you're going to take a little side trip into Iowa. He says, I think you're going to end up short on miles. The trip's not going to take you that long. But McVeigh didn't want that truck to show up as being not delivered or not returned. He wanted it to stay gone. So McVeigh was asking for extra days. You Know, unfortunately for him, they found the axle of the truck. Had they not found the axle, it could have worked for him. And as the way the rest of the investigation goes, you'll see how close he was to being able to get back out on the road free had any of these things not happened the way they happened.

[Paul Holes]

Scott, at this point, you're interviewing the collision facilities staff. You're getting a description of a white male. You have a document that is signed with a pseudonym. I think you said it was Robert Kling.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yes. That was the alias he used there? Yes.

[Paul Holes]

Okay, so at this point in the investigation, that's really all you've got. And the hope is, is that you have latents on these documents that Robert Kling had handled that could possibly identify who he actually is.

[Scott Crabtree]

Right. I don't know long term, if they had found the lab actually found fingerprints on those documents, but if they did, they would have found out who it was because he had served in the military, and he would have had his prints taken, and they would have been able to determine that he, in fact, was the one that had been there under the alias Robert Kling.

[Paul Holes]

He would have been identified as McVeigh if they got some latent prints off of these documents.

[Scott Crabtree]

Right. So Elliot sees him again on Monday when he started to rent the truck. And Elliot's the one that goes out and does the inspection of the truck to make sure that if there's any damage or whatever. So he goes out and hands the examination paperwork to Vicki on the way back in. And then my next interview there was with Vicki, who was the one who took the call from McVeigh when he was trying to rent the truck. He basically used the parameters for what he wanted to rent based on what the weight of the truck could hold. And Vicki immediately thought that was very weird because nobody ever rents a truck that way. They say, I've got a two bedroom apartment, I've got a three bedroom house. She said that's always the way her conversations went. And she said she had to keep going back and forth from her chair out in front of the counter to look at the diagram they had on the wall that kind of just explained what level truck you had to have to get it. And so that was the basis of the weight that he wanted to carry, that they decided that he needed a 20 foot truck. So she went ahead and said, okay, I'll make the reservation, but if you want to keep this and make sure that it's here on Monday, the reservation I make today is only good for 48 hours, and we're not here on Sunday. So if you want to make sure this truck's waiting on you on Monday, you've got to come in and pay for it by tomorrow.

[Paul Holes]

Scott, I was under the impression that the truck was more of your smaller, like, conversion style van. But this is a 20 foot box truck.

[Scott Crabtree]

Correct. He was talking tonnage that he needed to carry.

[Dave]

Will this hold 20 pallets of fertilizer and some 55 gallon drums?

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things. In hindsight, you say, I've never had this happen before. Somebody's wanting to rent a truck, and it's based on that. And then after it happens, it's like, oh, my God, I know exactly why he was asking. Because he's wanting to put all these explosives in the back of it. So it was just like, oh, my gosh, I should have been more explicit in why he was looking for it that way or what he was trying to do.

[Yeardley Smith]

Scott, you speak to eldon elliott and this woman vicki. Are they able to give you a physical description of mcveigh, who's going as robert kling?

[Scott Crabtree]

Not really, to be honest with you. No. Fort Riley base is maybe 10 miles away. It's a huge army base in central kansas. So they have a steady stream of military people in their office all the time. Like I said, I probably had a short haircut. You look like you had them in the military. You might have been wearing a drag green shirt. You know, even though vicki talked to him, I think her head was down. She's doing paperwork. This was nothing about this transaction when it happened at the time, that made it special. So on Monday, when mcveigh comes in to rent the truck and she asks for, like, all his information. Mcveigh provided the information off his driver's

[Yeardley Smith]

license to vicki, but he didn't actually hand it to her. He was basically dictating it to her.

[Scott Crabtree]

He was reading it to her. Allegedly nobody there saw a driver's license. They just took his word for it.

[Yeardley Smith]

Oh, wow.

[Scott Crabtree]

So mcveigh was using the name robert kling with a home address in redfield, south dakota. And the address he provided as his destination was an omah. So she put it in the system. And what was kind of funny was is that vicki asked, what's the phone number of the place you're going to in omaha? So if we need to get a hold of you, we can call. He says, well, I don't have one to give you. And she said, well, I need One. And so she turns and asks Eldon Elden, this guy does not have a phone number to use for this. Says, do you care if I just put our shop phone number into the form? And he said, fine. And that's what they do. So obviously there's no lead there to go check because I'm going to call right back into where they are. But what happens is that as they are finishing the paperwork, he provides his birthday, which on his part, sure, he's trying to do it in protest or make some point out of it, but he has his birthday down as being April 19, and that's not his birthday.

[Yeardley Smith]

And Scott, what's the significance of that date?

[Scott Crabtree]

The events at Branch Davidian compound in Waco in 93, it was also April 19th.

[Yeardley Smith]

Oh, boy. For our younger listeners who may not even have been around when Waco happened, the short version is that on April 19, 1999, exactly two years to the day before the Oklahoma City bombing, there was a religious cult in Waco, Texas called the Branch Davidians. Some serious crimes were being committed on this compound. So the federal government raided the compound. It led to a 51 day standoff and ultimately the whole incident ended badly and violently on April 19, 1993. So, Scott, I'm jumping ahead a little bit here back to Oklahoma. I remember when Timothy McVeigh was caught, he actually cited Waco and the Branch Davidian incident as one of the main reasons he decided to bomb the Murrah Federal Building. And he wanted to do it on the anniversary April 19th, in this case, 1995.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, I remembered somewhere before I left the office, pretty certain I remember somebody actually throwing out the idea that, do you realize today is the two year anniversary of the incident at Waco? And what if this is maybe tied to that? And they didn't go a lot further than that, but somebody made that statement sometime during the day. You know, in hindsight, was brilliantly astute. It's like, yeah, okay, maybe that changes the dynamic of who we're looking for then. Because that would probably more have to be, you know, white supremacist or, you know, something like that, domestic terrorist. So as soon as she told me what it was that McVeigh said, April 19, I know exactly why he did this. This is a, this is a finger in your eye type of thing. Yeah, try to catch me. Here's my, here's my date of birth being the same day, then I'm going to bring this building down. Thankfully, that particular statement came back to haunt him because as he says, that she says basically, oh my gosh, I've been married longer than you've been alive. And they both kind of laugh about it. But that particular comment causes a mechanic drinking the soda on break that got his attention and caused him to look up and kind of study McVeigh a little bit. And it was because of that, when I got to him next, he was able to give me a very good description.

[Yeardley Smith]

What's the mechanic's name?

[Scott Crabtree]

Tom Kessinger. And it was based on that that I thought, you know, what with him, I think we have enough that if we have a sketch artist that we can put a sketch together and maybe do a canvas. And to me, that was the next best step. Getting the documents to headquarters and getting prints and having all that stuff go through and everything could take days. So my office, I had been back and forth doing these interviews because they were wanting to know what I was hearing. So I basically said, find me the sketch artist anywhere around here in law enforcement and I want to make these people come with me. We're going to go get my car, I'm going to bring them and we're going to go do the sketch. Today.

[Dave]

I've learned there are two kinds of people in the world. There are the people who spend Sunday meal prepping for the entire week and then there's me. That's one reason I like Home Chef. Home Chef makes cooking simple, fresh food delivered, easy recipe, recipes to follow and meals that actually taste great. What I appreciate most is that it saves me from those nights when it's six o', clock, I'm hungry and I have absolutely no plan. Whether you want a quick 30 minute meal or oven ready tray, Home Chef has you covered. They offer more than 30 meal options every week with choices for different tastes and dietary needs. Home Chef is rated number one by users for quality, convenience, value, taste and recipe ease. And Home Chef customers save an average of $86 a month on groceries. For me, it just takes one more thing off my plate. Less planning, less shopping, less stress and better dinners. For a limited time, Home Chef is offering our listeners 50% off and free shipping for your first box, plus free dessert for life. Go to homechef.com small town that's home chef.com.com smalltown for 50% off your first box and free dessert for life. Homechef.com smalltown must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert.

[Scott Crabtree]

So it's kind of late now. The business is shutting down. So we go out and we're getting ready to Take off. And at the point in time, our destination is Topeka. We were told that they had a sketch artist in Topeka, and it was only about an hour away. So we pile in the car and we're getting ready to go. And then my management calls me on my cell phone, my bag phone, and says, hey, stop. We've talked about this with headquarters, and they want an FBI sketch artist to be the one to do it. So don't take them to Topeka. You know, cut them free. And we'll get this sketch artist flown out to do these sketches as soon as we can.

[Dave]

I can just imagine these three getting into the car, looking at each other like, what the hell are we into right now?

[Scott Crabtree]

Exactly. Because like I said, they made the rental on Monday, and all of a sudden they get a call, and then I'm in there talking to them, and you're coming with me. I'm sure they were just shell shocked a little bit. Yeah.

[Dave]

You had talked about Elliot's body shop and all these other rental companies do thousands of these transactions a day, and then you get a call from a Miami FBI field office to your body shop in the middle of America, and you're like, how are we involved in this? So, you know, hindsight is 20 20, but I don't blame people, and I don't think you do either. But it's like in hindsight, you look back and you're like, that was kind of sketchy. Like, why didn't I ask more questions about that? But it's totally understandable. At the same time, it is.

[Scott Crabtree]

And I don't know, being from the Midwest one, I'm not going to say flaws, but one of the things people out here are is more trusting than they need to be. You know, I've spent time in New York, and I spent time in other places, and I wasn't as trusting of people there as I am with people out here. But if you have people coming in and you're seeing these people all the time, and they're probably in the military, and there's no reason. I mean, I'm sure there's a procedure that writer says to follow, but it's just like, oh, my gosh, come on, let's just move this rental along and get this guy on the road.

[Dave]

I mean, McVeigh chose this rental agency in this town for a reason, most likely. Yeah. He didn't go to the big one in Wichita. He went to the small one in Junction City.

[Scott Crabtree]

Right? Yeah.

[Paul Holes]

And kind of along those lines, Dave, you know, I'VE been looking at the map as Scott has been telling this story and have at least an understanding of the relationships of these various towns to each other. And part of kind of assessing this case is the pre offense behavior. And what mcveigh is doing is obvious. It's common sense to anybody listening to this is that he is trying to anonymize himself, using a pseudonym, going to this particular location. But then there's also the people that he's talking to at the collision shop. He's telling them that he's going to be up in Nebraska and south Dakota driving this rental truck. But where does he commit the crime? It's south of kansas, down in oklahoma city. So this is all part of that staging, that verbal staging to misdirect the investigation.

[Scott Crabtree]

Right. And I'm sure he thought about it.

[Dave]

So the FBI is going to fly one of their specialist sketch artists out, and you basically cut these folks loose with the caveat like, hey, expect to be in an FBI office in the next several hours, I'm guessing, or the next day.

[Scott Crabtree]

You're right on. They got out of the car and I thanked them for their help and their willingness to go with me. And I said, go home now and don't talk to anybody about this. Don't watch tv, don't read the paper. Do nothing with this information until we talk later.

[Dave]

It's like jury instructions.

[Scott Crabtree]

Pretty much. Yeah. I'll call you as soon as I need you, but if I won't bring you in any other than I have to. But when I call you, I need you right away. So that's the way we parted.

[Yeardley Smith]

Meanwhile, the sketch artist is on his way. How long till he gets to you?

[Scott Crabtree]

Well, the bureau has numerous planes, so I'm thinking we're talking hours. Maybe we'll see him yet this evening.

[Paul Holes]

And scott, I imagine the FBI wanted to use an FBI sketch artist to try to keep the information as controlled as possible as opposed to going to a local PD sketch artist where now the FBI possibly doesn't have as much control over who that sketch artist or entities that that sketch artist is talking to later. And now things could roll in such a high profile case, things could kind of get contaminated because next thing you know, the media has that sketch and is putting it out on the front page or on the news.

[Scott Crabtree]

I think you're giving the bureau a little too much credit there. Yeah, the bureau, I'm sure, didn't want to lose control, but if they had a sketch artist that could properly draw sketches and we could do it in an hour, and I could have the sketch three hours from now that we could begin showing around. That, to me, was much better than, hey, wait six hours or seven hours and then have this happen. We won't get to it till tomorrow. After seeing the damage and hearing about the people that are carrying out the buildings, I took it very personally, and I wanted to make sure that I did everything in my power to make sure that we were able to find these guys. So that's all I'm thinking is, let's speed it up.

[Yeardley Smith]

And was there any concerns, Scott, that there might be another bomb going off that after the Murrah building is so badly damaged, like, oh, God, is this some sort of spree?

[Scott Crabtree]

Well, that was another part of the reason I felt like, you know, I needed to move as quickly as possible because I had heard enough people like said watching it in Salina on the TV down the hall, that there was people on there speculating, like, is this the opening salvo of what could be multiple different attacks across the country? And if the person that did this is free, could they be going to do something else again? So there were a lot of pressures to move this along. Now, basically, once I got the call from Miami, I was on sin mode for the rest of my investigation. For the rest of the week, I was collecting information as fast as I could, and I was providing it to the people that I thought needed it. Now, I did hear later, I think there was some eyewitness testimony from Oklahoma City that says they thought they saw some Middle Eastern males fleeing from the area five minutes before and whatever. And I think the Oklahoma authorities, I think it might have been the state police, pulled a car over and because they looked like Middle Eastern males, and released him because they weren't related to it. There was another person that had tried to fly out of Oklahoma City that day and had been pulled off a plane when he tried to transfer, I think, in Chicago. And it was cleared there. And they let him fly on through London. And when they got him to London, they grabbed him again and flew him back to D.C. to question him again. But again, he had nothing to do with it.

[Yeardley Smith]

Geez, so much for your vacation.

[Dave]

The power of the government. Wow.

[Scott Crabtree]

I say that only in that lacking more information about who did it or who could have done it, and wanting to think that an American wouldn't do this. And we just had the World Train center bombing a couple years ago, and somebody sees a Middle Eastern male, I mean, it's an easy trap to fall into when you have nothing else to basically say. This is what we're dealing with. So over my next couple of times of investigation, as I did talk to people, and I'd tell them this is what I found, I would get questions, but what are you seeing regarding Middle Eastern males? And I'd say, I see nothing with them. I am following this path where it's taking me. I know nothing about that. If you want to look into that stuff, I feel for you, but I'm on a path now and it's taking me down a road that's one clue after another that seems to indicate that I'm heading in the right direction.

[Dave]

Following evidence. Yeah, I'm listening to it and I'm thinking, well, Scott here has the most information on the only, like, really viable suspect than anybody in the world right now. And I'm imagining that you're probably excited, like, this is something. I don't know what it is, but this is something. And you feel like you're on the right track.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah. Like I said, you throw a dog a bone or something like that. I wasn't going to let go of this. I mean, it was like, what's the next logical thing to do?

[Dave]

What was the next logical thing to do?

[Yeardley Smith]

You know what they say. Early bird gets the ultimate vacation home. Book early and save over $120 with Burbo. Because early gets you closer to the action. Whether it's waves lapping at the shore or snoozing in a hammock that overlooks, well, whatever you want it to so you can all enjoy the payoff coming summer with Verbo's early booking deals. Rise and shine. Average savings, $141. Select homes only.

[Scott Crabtree]

Ford is here for those who build America. Those who believe that giving everything we've

[Paul Holes]

got today will pay off tomorrow.

[Scott Crabtree]

Who will drive America forward for 250 years to come. If that's who you are, it's you. Value what we value now offering employee pricing American value. For American values, go to ford.com or your local Ford dealer for more information.

[Yeardley Smith]

Make your mornings effortless with the new Nespresso Vertuo up machine. From bold espressos to rich lattes, brew flavorful coffee hot or over ice in just three seconds. All it takes is a simple press to enjoy your perfect cup. Shop [e-mail]. there's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still. Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you. Keep going. Further, Capella University. What can't you do? Visit Capella Edu to learn more.

[Scott Crabtree]

So as I send these people with the threat that I'd be calling them in a few hours, one of the next things I needed to do was paperwork. I work for the Federal government agency and I've got tons of paperwork to do. I've interviewed three people. I've got all these paperworks, I've got paperwork to send the stuff back to the lab. I've got things like this to do. So I knew there was an Army Criminal Intelligence Division office at Fort Riley and that our office, the Topeka office, had a good relationship with. Because I hadn't talked to anybody else in Topeka or anything else. I called over there and they basically said, come on up, we'll help you. They were interested because like I said, army personnel had died in the blast. So they had every right to be interested and be involved and to hear about what was going on. But at that time, I couldn't really task them with anything else. I said, hey, if you have a way to go through and can give me a list of people that have checked out of Fort Riley in the last week, if you could provide me a list of those people and if you have pictures of them, that's even better, maybe we can take that back and show it to the witnesses and they'll say, oh yeah, yeah, that's the guy.

[Yeardley Smith]

And Scott, when you say, do you have a list of people from Fort Riley have checked out, you mean they've gone on leave?

[Scott Crabtree]

No. Been transferred, Checked out of the station to go to a new duty station or something?

[Yeardley Smith]

Not leaving Fort Riley and coming back in a week or later that day or anything like that.

[Scott Crabtree]

I probably should have thought about that. But my thought was if it's somebody that was here that is being transferred out, then maybe that'd be a place to look. So again, I started them on that and that was probably a horrendous undertaking for them. It's probably 6:30 at night now, and they're trying to do what they can, but everybody's going.

[Paul Holes]

But this is a smart move in the investigation because as Scott talked about earlier, the rental of these trucks is occurring when military personnel are transferring in or transferring out. And so you start thinking about now you have a limited suspect pool of these military individuals that are flowing through the collision shop to rent a truck because they're being transferred. They could be responsible for the bombing, one of them, or they could have been in the shop at the same time that McVeigh was in the shop. They could be a witness that Scott can now also get more information from.

[Scott Crabtree]

I think, to some degree, Paul, I think that might have actually factored into McVeigh's logic also of why he rented from this place. Not only is this a small rental office, but it is also at an office where a lot of people that look like him come through that office. How easy is it to get into the mixes and not stand out from anybody else? I mean, his haircut, his demeanor, everything he'd been in the military fit that.

[Yeardley Smith]

So McVeigh, at this point, he looks like he could still be in the military, Is that what you're saying?

[Scott Crabtree]

Yes. He fits the type of probably 90% of the people that come through that office to rent a truck.

[Dave]

So we're waiting on a sketch artist, but you have the documents. I got the feeling that you were gonna personally escort those out to Washington, D.C. but that's been on hold.

[Scott Crabtree]

Well, as we started having the discussions and I thought there was a chance we could get the sketch artist, I told the office to quit looking for flights for me and figure out another way to get the documents. I will give them credit for having had the thought that we're going to fly a sketch artist out. Why don't we just have that plane pick up the documents? So that was kind of the plan we resorted to. First thing I do is I start trying to run down the information that came from the rental. So I call the sheriff's office that handles Redfield, South Dakota, Give them the Robert Kling name, the address, and they basically got bupkis. They said, we don't know this person by this name, has never had a license in South Dakota. This address does not exist in Redfield, South Dakota. Well, okay, that's pretty disappointing. I was hoping maybe something would occur here. And then my next call was up to Omaha to run that address by. So I called up there next and ended up talking to a night clerk that I knew when I did my first six months. And she poured through the city directors do everything she could, and she was able to find out again that no such address that was provided by McVeigh in Omaha existed. So basically, what I thought was possible lead here, both of them, just nothing. With that information and all the interviews that I did of the first three witnesses, I kind of spent the rest of the time waiting on the plane to come in just doing paperwork. The bureau's got an attitude about it. If it's not on paper, it didn't happen. So if you don't document it, they don't want to hear about it. It's kind of like people say now if it's done on Facebook, it didn't happen. The bureau is out about documents. So I set off to try to dictate the interviews and the investigative summaries. Then around midnight, headquarters called me and said the plane's going to land in Manhattan, Kansas, which is maybe 15 miles away. So I jump in my car and go out there and meet the pilots. And they come in, I meet them on the tarmac and I hand them the documents and, you know, give them a little bit of what's going on while the plane's being serviced and then they turn around, take off, and that's it. But unfortunately they didn't bring the sketch artist with them.

[Yeardley Smith]

Ah, stop it.

[Scott Crabtree]

He had not been ready when they needed to go. And I couldn't believe it. If you're in D.C. and you live in Maryland and you've got to get across rush hour traffic to do whatever. I could see somebody not making a flight.

[Yeardley Smith]

Don't they have a helicopter? Scott, come on, what are we doing?

[Scott Crabtree]

I agree, I agree. There's nobody more disappointed than me. So I go back to cid, call up headquarters, and I'm not going to say I give anybody a riot act, but it's just like I was waiting on this guy, what's the plan now? And he says, okay, we got another plane. They're going to put him on it here in a couple hours. You should have him by 4 or 5 in the morning. So, okay, all right, that's a plan. We'll go with that plan. I get a call a couple hours later and they say that, well, it appears that fog has set in at Manhattan. And there was no hint of it when I had saw them at midnight, but they said they can't land there. Kind of surprised me a little bit because it's an airport that they land commercial jets and all that kind of stuff. And I know they got lights, but you're talking about FBI pilots, probably don't fly a tremendous amount and may not feel comfortable landing in it. So they diverted that flight to Kansas City, which is another hour and a half, two hours away. So add another layer of delay to this whole process. I'm telling Kansas City, this is what's going on. I need somebody to pick the sketch artist up at the airport and bring him out here. And I said, you know what? I'm going to see if I can get somebody from the Kansas Highway Patrol. To maybe meet him once they got to the turnpike on the western edge of Kansas City and basically lead them out. Lights and sirens, get them out here as fast as they can.

[Yeardley Smith]

You're not going to Kansas City to meet the plane. They're going to bring the sketch artist to you.

[Scott Crabtree]

That was my request of Kansas City office, was bring the sketch artist to me.

[Yeardley Smith]

I see.

[Scott Crabtree]

Again, I'm trying to save every minute I can. They called me back and said, the person that agreed to say, I'll meet him, he just basically called back and said, you know what? Just let me go all the way to the airport and get him. And I said, if he'll do that, he will be my hero. Do that, please. So that's exactly what he did. And I must say, I don't know exactly what speeds they were going, but I'm sure the sketch artist had some white knuckles because they're not used to that kind of stuff back in the East Coast. And you're out here, you can fly. You can literally fly down the interstate. But anyway, he had him out here in no time. And we were able to call in the three witnesses. I had briefed the sketch artist a little bit that I thought Tom Kessinger, the mechanic, would give us our best sketch. And I said, I think you should sit down with him first. And that's what we agreed to do. So I put him in a corner office there at cid, and they started talking. I actually went in there thinking that I might have something to offer, but once I heard about two minutes of the process, I said, I'm sorry, guys. I'm getting out of here. I can't contribute anything to what you're doing here. And if anything, I could probably screw it up by suggesting something to Tom. The. Hey, you said this before. Didn't you mean that or whatever? It was probably best that he was in there by himself.

[Yeardley Smith]

Can you give us a little idea of what that specialized process is for a sketch artist to get a description out of a witness?

[Scott Crabtree]

Well, I can give you a little bit again, I didn't stay in the room long, but it's basically, they start with, okay, let's talk about the shape of the face. And they show them different shapes. Okay, what about the eyebrows? What about the nose? What about. And they take each particular facet of what could make up somebody's face. What's the hair look like? It's. You know, you erase and come back and add something else. It's more of a mechanical process than you'd think. It'd be it's not like somebody just says, yeah, I'll just sit here and just tell me what you know and I'll just sketch it on my notepad here. That's not the way it is. They have a process to do it. So the sketch artist, he does the interview with Tom Kessinger. And meanwhile, Vicky and Eldon are showing up. So while they were waiting on Tom, I said, you know what? I'm going to interview both again and we're going to go through everything again and we're going to go through more detail. Did get more information. Unfortunately, because of interviewing them again, I had more paperwork to do, but that's the way that stuff works. Maybe an hour after I put Kessinger in with the sketch artist, he comes out of the office and basically says, okay, I think we've got a sketch here.

[Yeardley Smith]

Wow, you must have begun to feel like, okay, we're getting somewhere. That's amazing. All right, on that note, we're gonna put a pin in it for today and small town fam. We're going to pick up next week with part two. Now for a sneak peek at today's new bonus episode. And when you say people are on grand jury for a month, is that for one case or you're on grand jury for a month? And however many cases they can pass

[Dave]

through, it's however many cases they can get through. And so a common theme as you work in law enforcement and you develop relationships with certain DAs, and they'll say, hey, we just seated a new grand jury. I want to wait like a week or so before I grand jury this case. Because new grand juries, a lot of these people have never been exposed to this other side of society that these people that are out committing crimes. My dad famous. My dad tells a story, he was on grand jury in the first case that they ever had was a cop found meth in this guy's front pants pocket. And the guy told the cops, these

[Scott Crabtree]

aren't my pants,

[Dave]

which we all know is a lie. And my dad and all the other grand juries said, I mean, it's plausible.

[Yeardley Smith]

To listen to today's bonus episode and access hundreds more, go to smalltowndicks.com superfam and hit that little join button. Small Town Dicks was created by detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Sore Invasion, and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager, Our books are Cooked and Cats Wrangled by Ben Cornwell, and our social media maven is Monica Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Smalltown Day. We love hearing from you. Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you'd like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com superfam and hit that little join button there. For a small subscription fee, you'll find exclusive content you can't get, and the transcripts of this podcast are thanks to Speech Docs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com thank you speech Docs for this wonderful service. Small Town dicks is an audio 99 production. Small town fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.