PROSECUTION WRAPS UP CASE MCVEIGH'S DEFENSE TEAM WILL BEGIN TELLING

Their case began four weeks ago with victims, and it ended Wednesday with victims.

In between, prosecutors in the Oklahoma City bombing trial put on swift, tough and compelling evidence as they sought to show that Timothy J. McVeigh is the worst mass murderer in U.S. history.

At 11:50 a.m. Wednesday, prosecutors rested their case - a case built largely on circumstantial evidence that also deftly tied McVeigh to the bombing that rocked Oklahoma City and blasted the nation's confidence that it was safe from domestic terrorism. The government's chief witness, Michael Fortier, delivered even more than expected, telling a rapt jury that McVeigh was so intent on killing federal workers he was prepared to crash a bomb-laden Ryder truck into the front doors of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The defendant's sister, Jennifer McVeigh, identified his handwriting on a series of letters he had written, many of them railing against the government, one even threatening federal law enforcement officials with this epithet: "Die, you cowardice bastards." And dozens of receipts collected by FBI agents seemed to pin McVeigh to large purchases of ammonium nitrate, leases on storage lockers and the rental application for a 20-foot-long Ryder truck. Added to that were a dozen survivors and relatives of the 168 people killed in the explosion. They took the witness stand one at a time, bringing the tears and agony of April 19, 1995, into the U.S. District Courthouse here. But the government's case was not fail-safe. Prosecutors skipped over the weak points, avoiding testimony on how, where or when the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb was mixed and placed into the truck. Nor did they have any witnesses who could place McVeigh in Oklahoma in the hours or minutes before the blast. There are other key discrepancies in the government's case, all of which the defense is likely to try to exploit when it opens its case today. For example, Lea McGown, owner of a Junction City, Kan., motel where McVeigh stayed before the bombing, insists that she saw him with a Ryder truck the day before the owner of the agency said it was rented. Tom Kessinger, a Ryder employee, testified that he was sure McVeigh was accompanied by a second, shadowy man who came to be known as John Doe No. 2. What was his role in the bombing? Stephen Jones, McVeigh's lead defense attorney, needs only to raise a reasonable doubt in jurors' minds about the government's case. He has said in the past that may require no more than simply confusing the jurors about what really happened at 9:02 a.m. that day. In the center of the action sits U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch. He has run a tight schedule, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, sometimes ordering prosecutors to bring in another witness with just minutes left before the court recesses for the day. And he has shown irritation when the trial, usually moving at the government's clip-clip speed, seemed to slow. On Tuesday, when defense attorney Chris Tritico, asked FBI lab official Steven Burmeister to quietly examine a document on the witness stand, the judge grew impatient. Two minutes of quiet time was too long for Matsch. "What are we doing, reading every page of this?" the judge snapped. To many courtroom observers, Matsch seems to be sending a clear message about how he believes a trial should be run. Some thought it was directed at Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, who presided over the O.J. Simpson double-murder criminal trial, where Simpson was acquitted after his defense attorneys seemed to steal the show. But in this case, the United States vs. Timothy McVeigh, it is the government that has taken center stage. The government's case included hi-tech computer graphics, video presentations, chunks and bits and pieces of a blasted-away Ryder rental truck, hundreds of pages of documents, tiny individual phone records, motel receipts, ammonium nitrate receipts, storage locker receipts - even, for several days, a snappy large-scale model reproduction of downtown Oklahoma City where the landmark Murrah building once stood. Using McVeigh's letters and recollections from his former friends, prosecutors strongly indicated that the 1993 FBI raid at Waco, Texas, was the primary force behind McVeigh's anger against the government. But the coup de grace seemed to be Michael and Lori Fortier. The Kingman, Ariz., couple, once friends of McVeigh's, turned against him after the bombing. In a deal with the government, Michael Fortier pleaded guilty to reduced charges and agreed to testifying against McVeigh in return for the promise of a reduced sentence. Lori, his wife, was granted immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony. The Fortiers, also anti-government activists, were cleaned up for their courtroom appearances; he in a new brown suit, she in sharp business-like attire. They separately provided the most intimate details of McVeigh's hatred for the government and his plans to avenge the deaths of Branch Davidian cult members at Waco. But it was one line in the 160 hours of government witness testimony that chilled the courtroom, and captured the essence of why prosecutors want McVeigh to pay with his life for the lives of so many they say he ruined. "If he had to," Michael Fortier testified, "he was going to drive the truck down the stairs and crash it through the front doors."

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