Biography
James Douglas Nichols, a farmer in Decker, Michigan, was held as a material witness during the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and separately faced charges concerning earlier alleged explosives activity. He was jailed from April 21 until May 23, 1995. He was never charged with committing the Oklahoma City bombing, and the separate explosives charges were dismissed. He was born April 3, 1954 and died February 14, 2017.
James Douglas Nichols, a farmer in Decker, Michigan, was held as a material witness during the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and separately faced charges concerning earlier alleged explosives activity. He was jailed from April 21 until May 23, 1995. He was never charged with committing the Oklahoma City bombing, and the separate explosives charges were dismissed. He was born April 3, 1954 and died February 14, 2017.
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The May 24 Associated Press report explicitly describes actual release Tuesday, May 23, and states he had been jailed since April 21. This independently supports admission rather than substituting arrest for custody. The preceding AP report distinguishes the Monday release order from the Tuesday discharge it anticipated. BOP register 20299-039, Milan, records the same May 23 actual release. The exact transfer day into FCI Milan is not established. An earlier report that described him as already freed on Monday is retained as conflicting reporting; the subsequent physical-release account and BOP resolve the day. The court opinion confirms material-witness detention and dismissal of the separate explosives case; he was not convicted of the bombing. The funeral-home obituary independently supplies exact vitals and the named portrait. The 32-day elapsed custody total is computed from independently documented admission and release, not a sentence or backcalculated admission.
