Thwarted Suicide Bombing at Oklahoma University Football Game?

When I saw this story initially, I just thought it was weird, then I did a google search on the story last night, and it seemed as if it was just some sick kid committing suicide. But then via WhatReallyHappened, I found this blog entry which is quite fascinating:

In a development that brought back tragic memories of the 1995 Murrah Building bombing, it was reported on OKC News 9 that Joel Henry Hinrichs III, the suicide "victim" who blew himself up less than 100 yards from Oklahoma University's Memorial Stadium while 84,000 people watched the football game between OU and Kansas State, tried to buy fertilizer from a Norman feed store just four days before killing himself. According to an employee of Ellison Feed & Seed, Hinrichs asked to buy fertilizer, and was very specific as to the type of fertilizer that he needed - ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the exact same fertilizer used by Murrah Building bomber Timothy McVeigh over ten years ago. He wouldn't respond to the employee's questions about how much fertilizer he needed, or why he needed it. The employee told Hinrichs that they didn't carry ammonium nitrate fertilizer, but Hinrichs wasn't interested in any other type of fertilizer - only ammonium nitrate. The employee also said that he became suspicious when he noticed that Hinrichs was "wearing a green vest that appeared to have wires in it."

News 9 also reported that four differnet sources confirmed that a Norman plain clothes officer was in the feed store at the same time as Hinrichs, and followed him into the parking lot and copied down his license plate number. Neither the store employee or Norman police would confirm that information, and the FBI's not talking either.

Here we go again. We still don't have all of the facts on the Murrah Building bombing, and already this latest incident is beginning to look like a flashback. While the official report is still that it was simply a suicide, why did Hinrichs use a bomb to do the deed? Why did he do it right outside of a crowded football stadium during the game? And why did he leave behind in his apartment enough explosives that it took "several trips" to remove them, if he only meant to kill himself? Where is his Pakistani roommate? And finally, the most telling question of all, why would anyone planning a simple suicide try to buy ammonium nitrate, the same material used in the tragic Murrah Building bombing?

Terrorist act? Who knows, but less than three days after the bombing, it is already obvious that this was much more than a suicide. This was a suicide bomber who, thankfully, blew up only himself, and not the thousands of fans who went to Memorial Stadium last Saturday, wanting only to cheer their team on to victory.

Quite bizarre and not surprsingly, this story has gotten little national attention. But if it had been the guy's PAKISTANI ROOMMATE who had blown himself up (yes, his roommate was Pakistani), then that would be an entirely different story, I'm sure.