Continuing my ongoing timeline of this event. For more check these out:
OCT 1ST, 1920HRS – OCT 4TH, 0359HRS
OCT 5TH, 0444HRS – OCT 5TH, 1935HRS
OCT 5TH, 2004HRS – OCT 8TH, 1104HRS
OCT 9TH, 1122HRS – OCT 15TH, 0750HRS
Plus I have a brief synopsis here.
Oct 16th, 1102HRS PST
NORMAN – The University of Oklahoma student who died in an explosion Oct. 1 left a message on his computer that he was going to quit living, his father said.
The FBI read the message to the father Friday, after he came to Oklahoma to clear out his son’s university-owned apartment.
Joel “Joe” Henry Hinrichs III, an engineering student, died when his bomb went off about 100 yards from the packed football stadium during the second quarter of OU’s night game against Kansas State.
Hinrichs, 21, was from Colorado Springs, Colo. He had a reputation as a loner and had struggled at times with his grades. His parents had begun divorce proceedings.
Joel Hinrichs Jr. said he understood investigators found the message on the computer screen when they arrived at the apartment.
“It was a single line of text on his computer,” said the father, who lives in Colorado Springs. “The cursor was still blinking at the end.”
The father said he could not recall the exact wording but said his son used profanity in the message and was obviously very angry. “He wrote he was dissatisfied with the situation and was going to quit living,” the father said.
His description of the message is consistent with the recollection of others who have been briefed about the investigation by the FBI.
No links to terrorist groups
FBI officials have said they may never know whether the student wanted to get inside the stadium. The student did not have a season ticket.FBI officials also have said the investigation has not found any links between the student and terrorist organizations.
His father said he thinks his son was just committing suicide and never intended to hurt anyone else.
The father said the FBI on Friday showed him the fractured bench where his son was sitting when the bomb exploded and photos of his son’s headless body and a tattered backpack.
The father said when cleaning out the apartment, he learned his son apparently had been having trouble sleeping and had bought Sominex, a sleep aid.
The younger Hinrichs had a long fascination with ammunition and bombs, his relatives and friends said. Inside his bedroom in Norman were several used metal artillery shells — the largest about 2 feet long. He had belts of used brass shell casings, a box of spent bullets and military ammo containers.
He also had items more typical of many college students — textbooks, empty liquor bottles, magazines and a martial arts movie videotape.
The father allowed two reporters from The Oklahoman into the bedroom briefly Thursday.
Bomb experts removed explosive-related materials from the apartment Oct. 2.
Does “suicide message” close OU bomber case?
If it does, then we can expect to see the FBI and Joint Task Force on Terrorism leaving the case and the U.S. Department of Justice asking the federal court to unseal the search warrant authorities used to begin the investigation of Joel Henry Hinrichs Oct. 1 death.
If the Task Force goes on to other work and the search warrant is unsealed, then it will be difficult not to accept the official explanation that Hinrichs was a lone, disturbed young man who killed himself and had no links to terrorist activities or organizations.
If those two actions don’t quickly occurr, then critics of the official explanation will want answers to these questions raised by The Sunday Daily Oklahoman’s report of a Hinrichs “suicide message:”
* Why did the FBI and Joint Task Force on Terrorism insist virtually from the outset that Hinrichs was a lone suicide, but then waited nearly two weeks before disclosing the existence of the message allegedly left by Hinrichs on his computer?
* How does the FBI know the message was typed on the computer by Hinrichs and not another individual? In the absence of convincing proof that Hinrichs was the author, the message could have been typed by anybody.
* The message was only one sentence long, according to the Oklahoman, but Hinrichs father was unable to remember the wording, which the newspaper said was read to him by the FBI. Why wasn’t he shown a photo of the screen with the message?
In addition, if federal anti-terrorist investigators do not promptly withdraw from the case and the search warrant remains sealed, then critics will also want to know why:
* The standing federal policy for several years has been that all explosions are treated as terrorist acts until proven otherwise, according to former FBI Assistant Director Pat D’Amuro who is now a CNN security analyst. Why was the Hinrichs death so quickly pronounced a non-terrorist act?
* D’Amuro also said during the CNN interview “once it’s determined that it is a terrorist event, the Joint Terrorism Task Force would take primary jurisdiction.” Was such a determination made when the Joint Task Force became the lead agency in the investigation within 48 hours of the incident? If no such determination was made, why was the Joint Task Force brought in as the lead agency?
* D’Amuro further stated in the CNN interview that if authorities decide “it was a lone bomber, it will be turned over to Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.” At no point have authorities indicated the Joint Task Force was withdrawn and replaced by ATF. Why is the standing policy not being followed in the Hinrichs case?
* If Hinrichs was a lone suicide and not a terrorist-related case, what is in the search warrant that cannot be disclosed to the public and the media?
Gotta tell ya, the fact the FBI is just now releasing this information is quite suspicious. The Father had earlier stated that there was no suicide note (Thanks to Jason at Generation Why for reminding me) but now states there was. How can we know that this was left by the bomber and not his Pakistani roommate? If he was gonna commit suicide why would he attempt to buy enough bomb material to blow up wayyyyyyy more then just himself. Why was there more bomb material left in the apartment? Why is the search warrant sealed?
He may indeed have been a loner depressed with the world, who better to recruit into a fanatical group?
From a article in the Tulsa Times on Oct 4th: (h/t Generation Why)
(Norman, OK) — The University of Oklahoma engineering student who blew himself up didn’t have a political agenda and wasn’t trying to hurt anyone else. Joel Hinrichs (HEIN-ricks) Jr. says his son, Joel Hinrichs the Third, was “checking out” as he put it. Hinrichs says he told the FBI his son was disengaged from politics and says agents told him they did not find a suicide note. Hinrichs used hydrogen peroxide to construct the bomb and had the device strapped to his body when he detonated it. He was sitting on a bench outside the botany-microbiology building, which is about 100 yards from OU’s Memorial Stadium. Thousands of people heard and even felt the blast during the second quarter of Saturday night’s game.
The father of an OU student who died Oct. 1 when a bomb exploded outside of Oklahoma Memorial Stadium said his son left a very disturbing suicide note on his computer.
Joel Henry Hinrichs Jr. said the FBI showed him evidence that his son Joel acted alone in the explosion and never intended to hurt other people. Hinrichs said he doesn’t remember the exact text.
?The line of text on his computer was short, but it was to the point, very vulgar, and it was a sort of farewell,? Hinrichs said.
Joel ?Joe? Henry Hinrichs III, 21, was a mechanical engineering junior who kept to himself and had a long fascination with ammunition and bomb-making materials, his father said.
?My son was just a disturbed young man, and he felt it was necessary to end his life,? he said. ?I was shown pictures of the bench he was sitting on at the time of the explosion, as well as a backpack and photos of his body.?
Hinrichs was sitting on a bench Oct. 1 outside of George Lynn Cross Hall when the bomb went off.
The blast could be heard during the second quarter of OU-Kansas State University football game where nearly 84,000 spectators were in attendance. The stadium is fewer than 100 yards from Cross hall.
The Chief Medical Examiner?s Office has yet to make a positive identification of the body. DNA tests were performed to determine a positive ID.
FBI officials are still unclear as to Hinrichs? motives for the location he chose, but Hinrichs Jr. said he was upset with some of the media and how the story has turned into a conspiracy theory.
?Joe was sitting on a bench away from the crowded stadium and away from people; it?s as simple as that,? he said. ?People seem to forget that. His intentions were to end his life; he was trying to destroy himself and nothing else. I don?t like the way it has been written, especially if people can?t get the facts right.?
Hinrichs said the Internet stories have bothered him the most.
?The print media have been very accurate with what they are coming out with, no doubt about it,? he said. ?The networks? coverage has been very suspect at best, probably because they get most of their information from the Internet.?
Hinrichs insisted that the stories saying his son was involved with terrorist organizations are simply not true.
The FBI said last week they found no link between Hinrichs and terrorism and that he did not try to enter the stadium or purchase a ticket for the game.
FBI spokesman Gary Johnson and OU President David L. Boren said that no Islamic or Jihadist materials were found during the search of the Parkview Apartments, where Hinrichs lived.
Officials did find bomb-making materials in the apartment and went to a Norman Police Department firing range to detonate the materials.
Hinrichs said he visited Norman on Thursday and Friday to clear out his son?s apartment and met with the FBI and university officials, including Boren.
?I spoke with Boren, and they did everything in their power to make sure my stay was comfortable and expressed their deep concern about my family?s well-being,? he said.
Hinrichs said he wanted to thank OU and will never forget how OU officials have tried to make the situation easier for him and his family.
?My family has been through a rough stretch the past couple of weeks, but we are all doing well,? Hinrichs said.
CBN.com ? OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma – Has terrorism returned to the Oklahoma City area? That is what folks in Norman have been asking, ever since a 21-year-old student at the University of Oklahoma killed himself in what some are calling an attempted homicide bombing.
On Saturday, October 1, engineering major Joel Hinrichs detonated a homemade bomb near Memorial Stadium, where 84,000 fans were watching the hometown Sooners take on Kansas State.
That was just a hundred yards from a newly replaced bench — it was there, just before halftime, that a powerful explosion ripped through the entire area, taking Hinrichs with it.
From the outset, both the FBI and University of Oklahoma President David Boren have insisted that Hinrichs acted alone. They say his death was a random suicide, carried out by a troubled young man, and that Hinrichs had no intention of hurting anyone but himself. But others who have followed the case closely are not so sure.
Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation remarked, ?There are about 30,000 suicides in America–unfortunately–every year. And you can go back a decade, and you will not find a single one of those suicides who blew themself up in proximity, close proximity, to 84,000 people at a football game.?
Tapscott and other online bloggers have questioned Hinrichs’ true intentions. They point to his Pakistani Muslim roommate and the location of his apartment–just one block from the Norman Mosque.
It is the same mosque that convicted 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui attended when he lived in Norman. As for Hinrichs, a spokesman for the mosque told us he had never seen him there.
?The first time we’ve seen his picture is when the news and the media put his pictures in the papers and on TV. Other than that, we’ve never seen him here,? stated Mohamed Elyazgi, a spokesman for the Norman Mosque.
But in a CBN exclusive, a former neighbor of the mosque, who wishes to remain anonymous, told us she did see Hinrichs there–not once, but several times.
?I did see Joel on several occasions outside of the mosque, actually, in the parking lot of the mosque,? the neighbor said. ?It wasn’t in the yard, it wasn’t behind the fence, it was always in the parking lot when I would see him. And there was one time when I passed him, actually, on the sidewalk. As soon as I saw the picture of Joel Hinrichs on TV, not the clean-shaven one, but the one with the beard, I knew immediately that that was the gentleman I had seen on several occasions.?
Hinrichs’ father says his son never would have converted to Islam, and that young Joel was no terrorist. Joel Hinrichs Sr. declared, ?My pride is under challenge somewhat, by the fact that he took his life. But in terms of a terrorist, a terrorist is somebody who tries to scare other people. And there was nobody around when Joel did what he did.?
But the FBI has admitted that it still is not sure whether Hinrichs tried to enter Memorial Stadium.
And why did Hinrichs attempt to buy ammonium nitrate fertilizer at a local feed store just days before killing himself? That is the same deadly material Timothy McVeigh used to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995.
?We don’t have a lot of people who come in and actually specifically state that they need ammonium nitrate,? Dustin Ellison of Ellison Feed & Seed said. ?When it’s used in that terminology now, it’s kind of…it just catches your attention when somebody asks for that.?
Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole understands the concerns surrounding Hinrichs’ death. But he is confident that the FBI’s findings are correct, and that Hinrichs only meant to harm himself.
Rep. Cole stated, ?We do have a person that has a long documented history of having a very troubled past. It’s a person that had been isolated, who seemed a little bit odd. Who, according to his brother, had frequently been teased and tormented as a young person by fellow students. Sort of classic loner, who didn’t fit in.?
Law enforcement authorities found additional explosives during a search of Hinrichs? apartment. Some news outlets have reported they also found jihadist literature. The FBI denies this claim.
But anyone looking to dig deeper will not have much luck–the Department Of Justice has sealed the search warrant for Hinrichs’ apartment.
Although it has grabbed most of the attention, Hinrichs’ suicide is not the only troubling incident to take place on America’s college campuses these past few weeks.
At UCLA, authorities discovered what they called “an improvised explosive device.” Near the University of California’s San Diego campus, authorities found a homemade chemical lab in the bathroom of a student’s apartment. The student killed himself as police attempted to enter the residence.
At Prairie View A & M in Texas, a student was arrested when authorities found bombmaking materials in his dorm room. He is also charged with trying to buy a handgun with counterfeit money.
And at Georgia Tech, in what officials now say was a prank, a student planted three explosive devices on campus.
As for the University of Oklahoma, it has tightened security at all home games in the wake of Hinrichs’ death.
The Oklahoma City Memorial is a daily reminder of the deadly effects of domestic terrorism. And for many here, questions still linger about Hinrichs’ death. Was it just a lone suicide? Or was it part of a larger conspiracy to bring terrorism back to America’s heartland?
He may indeed have been a loner depressed with the world, who better to recruit into a fanatical group?
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