Witnesses Place Merrell At Bombing Site Two Tell Jurors They Saw Suspect Near Bombed Planned Parenthood Clinic

Two witnesses Thursday told jurors they saw Verne Jay Merrell driving away after a bombing at Spokane Valley’s Planned Parenthood clinic last summer.

Valley Glass employee Leona Albertson testified that Merrell was the man who sped through her company’s Pines Road parking lot moments after a bomb exploded inside the clinic on July 12.

An alley separates the glass shop from Planned Parenthood. Another prosecution witness, identified in court only as “Mr. Evans,” said he’d been loading his car in that alley.

Evans said he heard the blast and saw two masked men in military fatigues walking toward a white van. In the driver’s seat was Merrell, the witness said.

“It was a major league explosion,” Evans told the U.S. District Court jury in Spokane. “At that time I knew they weren’t just playing paintball.”

Merrell, 51, Robert S. Berry, 42, and Charles H. Barbee, 45, are charged with three Spokane Valley bombings and two robberies at the same nearby U.S. Bank branch last April and July.

Prosecutors say the defendants were motivated by white-separatist, anti-government beliefs. Barbee and Berry allegedly did the bombings and robberies, while Merrell drove stolen getaway vans.

Earlier this week, two other witnesses placed Merrell near the scene of the April 1 bombing at The Spokesman-Review’s Valley office.

Defense attorneys have suggested the April and July bombings weren’t necessarily committed by the same people.

Attorney Roger Peven, representing Barbee, contends a key government informant - Post Falls gun dealer Christopher Davidson - committed the bombings with the help of unknown others who share his clients’ beliefs.

In other testimony Thursday, a man said he was in the U.S. Bank drive-through lane about 2 p.m. on July 12, when a teller gestured out the window, holding her hand in the shape of a gun.

“I knew it was a robbery,” Larry Myers said.

Myers said he passed a white van on his way out of the bank parking lot. He stopped at a Wendy’s restaurant and told customers to call 911. There, he watched until the van drove by.

He described the driver as a gray-haired, gray-moustached man with an angular, hairless chin.

On cross-examination, defense attorneys pointed out Merrell has a gray beard and wears glasses.

The defense attorneys also told Judge Frem Nielsen they’re still searching for another potential witness. That man told FBI officials he saw armed men in military-style garb at North Idaho’s Aryan Nations compound days before the April 1 bombings and robbery.

Defense attorney John Rodgers said outside court that the informant told authorities about a half-dozen men who visited the Hayden Lake compound in late March. The men were carrying weapons and left behind a U.S. Bank brochure. One of the men was described as having a gray beard.

“It’s sketchy right now,” Rodgers said. “We have to find the guy first.”

Barbee, Berry and Merrell are each charged with 12 felonies and face mandatory life sentences if convicted. Testimony in the domestic terrorism trial is expected to last up to six weeks.

, DataTimes