Timothy McVeigh

Thanks for reminding us SGT (Join to see) that on April 21, 1995 former U.S. Army soldier Timothy James McVeigh was arrested by FBI agents for his role in the April 19, 1995 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.
At that time, I was a consultant in the Mathematical Modeling Group of LMI. The news hit members of our group hard because we/they had worked with an office in that building.

Mugshots: Timothy McVeigh - Home Grown Terrorist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak9sPgyBnvI

Images
1. Timothy McVeigh mugshot April 19, 1995
2. Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building immediately after McVeigh’s attack
3. April 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, after the bombing
4. Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh with his lawyers Rob Night on left, and Stephen jones in prison June 23, 1995 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Background from {[http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/mcveigh717.htm}]
Timothy James McVeigh

Executed June 11, 2001 at 7:14 a.m. CDT by Lethal Injection by U.S. Government at Terre Haute, Indiana
34th murderer executed in U.S. in 2001
717th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st murderer executed by U.S. Government in 2001
1st murderer executed by U.S. Government since 1963


Summary:
On April 19, 1995, around 9:03 a.m., just after parents dropped their children off at day care at the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, the unthinkable happened. A massive bomb inside a rental truck exploded, blowing half of the nine-story building into oblivion. A stunned nation watched as the bodies of men, women, and children were pulled from the rubble for nearly two weeks. When the smoke cleared and the exhausted rescue workers packed up and left, 168 people were dead in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. (Prior to 09-11-01) It was the second anniversary of the fire at the home of David Koresh's Branch Davidian followers in Waco, Texas.
Just 90 minutes after the explosion, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer pulled over 27-year-old Timothy McVeigh for driving without a license plate. Shortly before he was to be released on April 21, McVeigh was recognized as a bombing suspect and was charged with the bombing. When McVeigh's ex-Army buddy, Terry Nichols, discovered that he, too, was wanted for questioning, he voluntarily surrendered to police in Herington, Kansas, and was later charged in the bombing.
The federal raids at the Branch Davidian compound at Waco and the cabin of white separatist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge brought McVeigh's anti-government hatred to a head. He decided it was time for action, not words. He packed a Ryder truck with explosives, lit the fuses, parked it outside the federal building and walked away without looking back.
McVeigh was sentenced to death. Nichols was tried separately, convicted of Involuntary Manslaughter and Concpiracy to Use a Weapon of Mass Destruction, and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
McVeigh was unrepentant to the bitter end, claiming that the true terrorist was the U.S. Government, and referring to the killing of scores of innocent children in Oklahoma City as "collateral damage." He waived his final appeals.
Citations:
U.S. v. McVeigh, 918 F.Supp. 1452 (W.D.Okl. 1996)(Media request to unseal documents).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 918 F.Supp. 1467 (W.D.Okl. 1996) (Change of Venue).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 923 F.Supp. 1310 (D.Colo. 1996) (Discovery).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 931 F.Supp. 753 (D.Colo. 1996) (Motion to Stop Trial Audiotape).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 931 F.Supp. 756 (D.Colo. 1996) (Gag Order).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 940 F.Supp. 1541 (D.Colo. 1996) (Motion to Suppress).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 940 F.Supp. 1571 (D.Colo. 1996) (Motions to Dismiss).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 944 F.Supp. 1478 (D.Colo. 1996) (Motion to Dismiss DP/Disqualify AG).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 169 F.R.D. 362 (D.Colo. 1996) (Motion for Separate Trials).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 954 F.Supp. 1441 (D.Colo. 1997) (Discovery).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 954 F.Supp. 1454 (D.Colo. 1997) (Discovery).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 955 F.Supp. 1278 (D.Colo. 1997) (Motion to Exclude Lab Testing).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 955 F.Supp. 1281 (D.Colo. 1997) (Motion for Change of Venue/Continuance).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 958 F.Supp. 512 (D.Colo. 1997) (Separation of Victim/Witnesses).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 964 F.Supp. 313 (D.Colo. 1997) (Gag Order).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 118 F.Supp.2d 1137 (D.Colo. 2000) (Motion for New Trial).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 153 F.3d 1166 (10th Cir. 1998)(Direct Appeal), cert. denied, 119 S.Ct. 1148 (1999).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 2001 WL 611163 (D.Colo. 2001) (Stay of Execution).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 106 F.3d 325 10th Cir. 1997) (Separation of Victim/Witnesses).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 119 F.3d 806 (10th Cir. 1997) (Motion to Unseal), cert. denied, 118 S.Ct. 1110 (1998).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 157 F.3d 809 (10th Cir. 1998) (Removing Gag Order).
U.S. v. McVeigh, 9 Fed.Appx. 980 (10th Cir. 2001) (Stay of Execution - Documents).
Final / Special Meal:
Two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Last Words:
McVeigh did not say a word in the final minutes before his execution, but left a handwritten statement quoting Invictus, a 19th century poem by British poet William Ernest Henley. It ends with the lines "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
Timothy McVeigh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born April 23, 1968(1968-04-23)
Lockport, New York, U.S.A.
Died: June 11, 2001 (aged 33)
Terre Haute, Indiana, U.S.A.
Motive: Retaliation for the Waco Siege, Ruby Ridge and other government raids, as well as general U.S. foreign policy
Convictions: Weapon of mass destruction, conspiracy, explosives, first-degree murder
Penalty: Death penalty
Occupation U.S. Army soldier, security guard
Parents William McVeigh, Mildred Noreen Hill[1]
Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was a United States Army veteran and security guard who was convicted of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the Waco Siege, as revenge for, or to inspire a revolt against what he considered a tyrannical federal government. The bombing killed 168 people and was the deadliest act of terrorism within the United States prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks.[2] He was convicted of 11 federal offenses, sentenced to death and executed on June 11, 2001.
Childhood
McVeigh was born into an Irish Catholic family in Lockport, New York to William McVeigh and Mildred Noreen "Mickey" (née Hill).[3] His parents divorced when he was 10 years old and he was raised by his father in Pendleton, New York. His mother and 2 younger sisters moved to Florida.
McVeigh claimed to have been a target of bullying at school,[4] and that he took refuge in a fantasy world where he retaliated against those bullies; he also stated that he believed the United States government to be the ultimate bully.[5] Those who knew McVeigh remember him as being withdrawn. He is said to have had only one girlfriend during his childhood. He stated to journalists that he did not know how to impress girls.[6] According to his authorized biography, "his only sustaining relief from his unsatisfied sex drive was his even stronger desire to die."[7] A few childhood friends described him as having been outgoing and playful as a young child, and only subsequently becoming withdrawn as an adolescent.
While in high school, he became interested in computers and he hacked into government computer systems on his Commodore 64, under the handle "The Wanderer", which was borrowed from the song by Dion DiMucci. In his senior year, McVeigh was named the school's "most promising computer programmer."[8] McVeigh graduated from Starpoint Central High School on June 2, 1986, with grades relatively poor.[1]
McVeigh was introduced to firearms by his grandfather and became increasingly fascinated by them. McVeigh told people he wanted to be a gun shop owner and sometimes took firearms to school to impress his classmates. McVeigh became intensely interested in gun rights after he graduated from high school, as well as the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and read magazines such as Soldier of Fortune. He briefly attended Bryant & Stratton College before dropping out.[9][10]
Military career
In May 1988, McVeigh enlisted in the United States Army, at the age of twenty.[11] He had little interest in the bar scene, preferring to use his spare time to read about firearms, sniper tactics, or explosives.[12] He purchased a "White Power" T-shirt while attending a Ku Klux Klan protest against black servicemen who wore what he viewed as "Black Power" T-shirts around his army camp,[13] for which he was reprimanded.
He served in the Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star. He had been a top-scoring gunner with the 25mm cannon of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles used by the U.S. 1st Infantry Division to which he was assigned. He served at Fort Riley, Kansas, before Operation Desert Storm. At Fort Riley, McVeigh completed the Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC). McVeigh later would say that the Army taught him how to switch off his emotions.[6] He had special lifesaving training and may have saved the life of a comrade who had life-threatening shrapnel wounds.[14]
McVeigh wanted to join the United States Army Special Forces. After returning from the Gulf War, he entered the selection program for United States Army Special Forces to become a SF soldier, but was quickly dropped from the program after failing to meet the physical fitness requirements. Shortly thereafter, McVeigh decided to leave the army. He was discharged on December 31, 1991.[15] McVeigh was given an honorable discharge from the Army Reserve in May 1992.
Post-military activities and lifestyle
After leaving the army in 1992, McVeigh grew increasingly transient. At first he worked briefly near his hometown of Pendleton as a security guard, where he sounded off daily to his co-worker Carl Lebron, Jr. about his loathing for government. Deciding the Buffalo area was too liberal, he left his job and began driving around America, seeking out his old friends from the Army.[16]
McVeigh wrote letters to local newspapers, complaining about taxes: “ Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight... Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might.[17] ”
McVeigh also wrote to Congressman John J. LaFalce, complaining about the arrest of a woman for carrying mace: “ It is a lie if we tell ourselves that the police can protect us everywhere at all times. Firearms restrictions are bad enough, but now a woman can't even carry Mace in her purse? ”
The long hours in a dead-end job, the feeling that he did not have a home and his failure to establish a relationship with a woman brought McVeigh to the breaking point. He sought romance, but was rejected by his co-worker Andrea Peters and still felt nervous around women. He felt he brought too much pain to his loved ones.[18] He grew angry and frustrated at his difficulties acquiring a girlfriend and took up obsessive gambling.[19] Unable to pay back gambling debts, he took a cash advance and then stiffed the credit card company. He then began looking for a state without heavy government regulation or high taxes.
He became enraged when the government informed him that he had been overpaid $1,058 while in the army and he would need to pay back the money. He wrote an angry letter to the government inviting them to: “ Go ahead, take everything I own; take my dignity. Feel good as you grow fat and rich at my expense; sucking my tax dollars and property.[20] ”
McVeigh introduced his sister to anti-government literature, but his father had little interest in these views. He moved out of his father's house and into an apartment that had no telephone, which had the advantage of making it impossible for his boss to contact him. He also quit the NRA, viewing its stance on gun rights to be too weak.[21] He became fascinated with the syndicated TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation, admiring Jean-Luc Picard for his knowledge and diplomacy; Worf for being the consummate warrior; Data for his logic; and Geordi La Forge for his proficiency.[22]
In 1993, he drove to Waco, Texas during the Waco Siege to show his support. At the scene, he distributed pro-gun rights literature and bumper stickers, such as "When guns are outlawed, I will become an outlaw." He told a student reporter: “ The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control.[23] ”
For the five months following the Waco Siege, McVeigh worked at gun shows and handed out free cards printed up with Lon Horiuchi's name and address, "in the hope that somebody in the Patriot movement would assassinate the sharpshooter." He wrote hate mail to the sniper, suggesting that "what goes around, comes around," and later considered putting aside his plan to target the Murrah Building to target Horiuchi, or a member of his family instead.[24]
McVeigh spent more time on the gun show circuit, traveling to 40 of the 50 states and visiting about 80 gun shows in all. McVeigh found that the further west he went, the more anti-government sentiment he encountered, at least until he got to what he called "The People's Socialist Republic of California."[25] McVeigh sold survival items and copies of The Turner Diaries. One author said: “ In the gun show culture, McVeigh found a home. Though he remained skeptical of some of the most extreme ideas being bandied around, he liked talking to people there about the United Nations, the federal government and possible threats to American liberty.[26] ”
McVeigh had a road atlas with hand-drawn designations of the most likely places for nuclear attacks and considered buying property in Seligman, Arizona, which he determined to be in a "nuclear-free zone." McVeigh lived with Michael Fortier in Kingman, Arizona, for a spell and grew so close to him that he served as best man at Fortier's wedding. McVeigh experimented with cannabis and methamphetamine, after first researching their effects in an encyclopedia;[27] but he was not as interested in drugs as Fortier. One of the reasons they parted ways was McVeigh's boredom with Fortier's drug habits.[28]
McVeigh defended the practice of owning multiple guns, saying it was like the common practice of keeping an assortment of screwdrivers in one's toolbox; one needed to be sure of having the right tool for the job. He said that five particular guns were essential: a semiautomatic, magazine-fed rifle (for defending against large mobs); a bolt-action hunting/sniper rifle (for killing large game or defending against an entrenched marauder); a shotgun (for fowl hunting); a .22 caliber rifle (to hone shooting skills and bag small game); and a pistol (for close-in self defense). He viewed guns as the first tool of freedom, necessary to protect supplies in the event America fell into chaos.[29]
In April 1993, McVeigh headed for a farm where convicted co-conspirator Terry Nichols lived. In between watching coverage of the Waco siege on TV, Nichols and his brother began teaching McVeigh how to make explosives out of readily available materials; specifically, they combined household chemicals in plastic jugs. The destruction of the Waco compound enraged McVeigh and convinced him that it was time to take action. The government's use of CS gas on women and children angered McVeigh; he had been exposed to the gas as part of his military training and thus was familiar with its effects. The disappearance of certain evidence, such as the bullet-ridden steel-reinforced front door to the complex, led him to suspect a cover-up. He believed that even if David Koresh had committed crimes, his followers did not deserve to be executed.
McVeigh's anti-government rhetoric became more radical. He began to sell ATF hats riddled with bullet holes and a flare gun, which, he said, could shoot down an "ATF helicopter."[30][31] He produced videos detailing the government's actions at Waco and handed out pamphlets with titles like "U.S. Government Initiates Open Warfare Against American People" and "Waco Shootout Evokes Memory of Warsaw '43." He began changing his answering machine greeting every couple of weeks to various quotes by Patrick Henry such as "Give me liberty or give me death."[32] He began experimenting with pipe bombs and other small explosive devices for the first time. The government also imposed new firearms restrictions in 1994 that McVeigh believed threatened his livelihood.[28]
McVeigh dissociated himself from his boyhood friend, Steve Hodge, by sending a 23-page farewell letter to him. He proclaimed his devotion to the United States Declaration of Independence, explaining in detail what each sentence meant to him. McVeigh declared that: “ Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly. It also stands to reason that anyone who sympathizes with the enemy or gives aid or comfort to said enemy is likewise guilty. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and I will. And I will because not only did I swear to, but I believe in what it stands for in every bit of my heart, soul and being. I know in my heart that I am right in my struggle, Steve. I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause. Blood will flow in the streets, Steve. Good vs. Evil. Free Men vs. Socialist Wannabe Slaves. Pray it is not your blood, my friend.”
McVeigh felt the need to personally reconnoiter sites of rumored conspiracies. He visited Area 51 in order to defy government restrictions on picture-taking and went to Gulfport, Mississippi to determine the veracity of rumors about United Nations operations. These turned out to be false; the Russian vehicles on the site were being configured for use in U.N.-sponsored humanitarian aid efforts. Around this time, McVeigh and Nichols also began making bulk purchases of ammonium nitrate fertilizer for resale to survivalists, since rumor had it that the government was preparing to ban it.[33]
According to McVeigh, he had a two-week affair with Marife Nichols, although she denies that it happened. McVeigh told Fortier of his plans to blow up a federal building, but Fortier declined to participate. Fortier also told his wife about the plans.[34] McVeigh composed two letters to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the first titled "Constitutional Defenders" and the second "ATF Read." He denounced government agents as "fascist tyrants" and "storm troopers" and warned: “ ATF, all you tyrannical mother fuckers will swing in the wind one day for your treasonous actions against the Constitution of the United States. Remember the Nuremberg War Trials. But...but...but...I only followed orders...Die, you spineless cowardice bastards.[35] ”
McVeigh also wrote a letter of recruitment to a customer named Steve Colbern: “ A man with nothing left to lose is a very dangerous man and his energy/anger can be focused toward a common/righteous goal. What I'm asking you to do, then, is sit back and be honest with yourself. Do you have kids/wife? Would you back out at the last minute to care for the family? Are you interested in keeping your firearms for their current/future monetary value, or would you drag that '06 through rock, swamp and cactus...to get off the needed shot? In short, I'm not looking for talkers, I'm looking for fighters...And if you are a fed, think twice. Think twice about the Constitution you are supposedly enforcing (isn't "enforcing freedom" an oxymoron?) and think twice about catching us with our guard down – you will lose just like Degan did – and your family will lose.[36] ”
McVeigh began announcing that he had progressed from the "propaganda" phase to the "action" phase. He wrote to his Michigan friend Gwenda Strider, "I have certain other 'militant' talents that are in short supply and greatly demanded."[37]
McVeigh later said he considered "a campaign of individual assassination," with "eligible" targets including Attorney-General Janet Reno, Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. of Federal District Court, who handled the Branch Davidian trial and Lon Horiuchi, a member of the FBI hostage-rescue team who shot and killed Vicki Weaver in a standoff at a remote cabin at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992.[38] He said he wanted Reno to accept "full responsibility in deed, not just words."[39] However, such an assassination seemed too difficult,[40] and he decided that since federal agents had become soldiers, it was necessary to strike against them at their command centers.[41] Moreover, according to American Terrorist, ultimately he decided that he would make the loudest statement by bombing a federal building. After the bombing, he would come to have some ambivalence about his act, as expressed in letters to his hometown newspaper that he sometimes wished he had carried out a series of assassinations against police and government officials instead.[42]
Oklahoma City bombing
Working at a lakeside campground near McVeigh's old Army post, he and Nichols constructed an ANNM explosive device mounted in the back of a rented Ryder truck. This site was regarded as suitable because a moving truck would not seem out of place, given the transient population of the area. The bomb consisted of about 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of ammonium nitrate (an agricultural fertilizer) and nitromethane, a motor-racing fuel.
On April 19, 1995 McVeigh drove the truck to the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building just as its offices and day care center opened for the day. Prosecutors said McVeigh ran away from the truck after he ignited two time fuses; one was a two-minute fuse and another was a backup of five minutes. At 9:02 a.m., a large explosion destroyed the north half of the building. The explosion was so powerful that McVeigh, who was jogging away from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, was lifted off the ground. The explosion killed 168 people and 450 were injured.[43] Nineteen of the victims were small children in the day care center on the ground floor of the building.[44]
McVeigh did not express remorse for the deaths of the children, what he referred to as "collateral damage", but said he might have chosen a different target if he had known the day care center was open.[45] According to Michel and Herbeck, McVeigh claimed not to have known there was a day care center in the Murrah Building and said that if he had known it, in his own words: “ It might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage. ”
Michel and Herbeck quote McVeigh, with whom they spoke for some 75 hours, on his attitude to the victims: “ To these people in Oklahoma who have lost a loved one, I'm sorry but it happens every day. You're not the first mother to lose a kid, or the first grandparent to lose a grandson or a granddaughter. It happens every day, somewhere in the world. I'm not going to go into that courtroom, curl into a fetal ball and cry just because the victims want me to do that. ”
According to the Oklahoma City Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), more than 300 buildings were damaged. More than 12,000 volunteers and rescue workers took part in the rescue, recovery and support operations following the bombing. In reference to theories that he had assistance from others, McVeigh responded: “ You can't handle the truth. Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building and isn't it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind o hell?[46] ”
Arrest, trial, conviction and sentencing
By tracing the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of a rear axle found in the wreckage, the FBI identified the vehicle as a Ryder Rental Junction City agency truck. Workers at the agency assisted an FBI artist in creating a sketch of the renter, who had used the alias "Robert Kling". The sketch was shown in the area. That day manager Lea McGown of the Dreamland Hotel identified the sketch as Timothy McVeigh.[47][48]
Shortly after the bombing, while driving on I-35 in Noble County, near Perry, Oklahoma, McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma State Trooper Charles J. Hanger from Pawnee, Oklahoma.[49] Hanger had passed McVeigh's yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis and noticed that it had no license plate. McVeigh admitted to the police officer (who noticed a bulge under his jacket) that he had a gun and McVeigh was subsequently arrested for having driven without plates and illegal firearm possession; McVeigh's concealed weapon permit was not legal in Oklahoma. McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt at that time with a picture of Abraham Lincoln and the motto: sic semper tyrannis ('Thus, always, to tyrants'), the state motto of Virginia and also the words shouted by John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln.[50] On the back, it had a tree with a picture of three blood droplets and the Thomas Jefferson quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."[51] Three days later, while still in jail, McVeigh was identified as the subject of the nationwide manhunt.
On August 10, 1995, McVeigh was indicted on 11 federal counts, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction by explosives and eight counts of first-degree murder.[52] On October 20, 1995, the government filed notice that it would seek the death penalty.[citation needed]
On February 20, 1996, the Court granted a change of venue and ordered that the case be transferred from Oklahoma City to the U.S. District Court in Denver, Colorado, to be presided over by U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch.[citation needed]
McVeigh instructed his lawyers to use a necessity defense, but they ended up not doing so,[53] because they would have had to prove that McVeigh was in "imminent danger" from the government. (McVeigh himself argued that "imminent" did not necessarily mean "immediate.") They would have argued that his bombing of the Murrah building was a justifiable response to what McVeigh believed were the crimes of the U.S. government at Waco, Texas. The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian complex resulted in the deaths of 76 Branch Davidian members.[54] As part of the defense, McVeigh's lawyers showed the jury the controversial video Waco: The Big Lie.[55]
On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on all 11 counts of the federal indictment.[56] McVeigh tried to calm his mother by saying, "Think of it this way. When I was in the Army, you didn't see me for years. Think of me that way now, like I'm away in the Army again, on an assignment for the military."[57]
On June 13, 1997, the jury recommended that McVeigh receive the death penalty.[58] The U.S. Department of Justice brought federal charges against McVeigh for causing the deaths of eight federal officers leading to a possible death penalty for McVeigh; it could not bring charges against McVeigh for the remaining 160 murders in federal court because those deaths fell under the jurisdiction of the state of Oklahoma. Because McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death, the State of Oklahoma did not file murder charges against McVeigh for the other 160 deaths.[59]
Before the sentence was formally pronounced, McVeigh addressed the court for the first time and said simply:[60] “ If the Court please, I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me. He wrote, 'Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.' That's all I have. ” When the sentence was pronounced, he flashed a peace sign.[citation needed]
During his time in prison, McVeigh wrote various essays. An Essay on Hypocrisy describes the U.S. Government as hypocritical for justifying its attack on Iraq by stating that Iraq should not be allowed to stockpile weapons of mass destruction because it had used them in the past. He cited Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples of the U.S. using nuclear weapons in the past.[61] On April 26, 2001 he wrote a letter to Fox News, I Explain Herein Why I Bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which explicitly laid out his reasons for the attack.[62] McVeigh read Unintended Consequences and noted that if it had come out a few years earlier, he would have given serious consideration to using sniper attacks in a war of attrition against the government instead of bombing a federal building:[63] “ If people say The Turner Diaries was my Bible, Unintended Consequences would be my New Testament. I think Unintended Consequences is a better book. It might have changed my whole plan of operation if I'd read that one first. ”
Incarceration and execution
Florence ADMAX USP, where McVeigh was incarceratedMcVeigh's death sentence was delayed pending an appeal. One of his appeals for certiorari, taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, was denied on March 8, 1999. McVeigh's request for a nationally televised execution was also denied. An internet company also sued for the rights to broadcast it.[64] At ADX Florence, McVeigh was housed in the same cell block as Ted Kaczynski, Luis Felipe and Ramzi Yousef. Ramzi made frequent, unsuccessful attempts to convert McVeigh to Islam.[65] McVeigh maintained an upbeat attitude, noting that even after his execution, the score would still be "168 to 1" and thus he was the victor.[66]
He also said: “ I am sorry these people had to lose their lives. But that's the nature of the beast. It's understood going in what the human toll will be.[67] ” He said that if there turned out to be an afterlife, he would "improvise, adapt and overcome,"[67] noting that: “ If there is a hell, then I'll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war.[68] ” He also said: “ I knew I wanted this before it happened. I knew my objective was state-assisted suicide and when it happens, it's in your face. You just did something you're trying to say should be illegal for medical personnel.[69] ”
McVeigh dropped his remaining appeals, giving no reason for doing so and was set to be executed on May 16, 2001. Six days prior to that date, the FBI turned over thousands of documents of evidence it had previously withheld to McVeigh's attorneys. As a result, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced McVeigh's execution would be stayed for one month.[70] His execution date was set for June 11, 2001. He was executed by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh stated that his only regret was not completely leveling the federal building.[71]
McVeigh invited California conductor/composer David Woodard to perform a pre-requiem (a Mass for those who are about to die), on the eve of his execution. He had also requested a Catholic chaplain.
McVeigh chose William Ernest Henley's poem "Invictus" as his final statement.[72][73] His last meal was two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream. McVeigh was the first convicted criminal to be executed by the United States federal government since Victor Feguer in Iowa on March 15, 1963. Jay Sawyer, relative of one of the victims, noted, "Without saying a word, he got the final word." Larry Whicher, whose brother died in the attack, described McVeigh as having "A totally expressionless, blank stare. He had a look of defiance and that if he could, he'd do it all over again."[74]
Congress passed special legislation to bar McVeigh from being buried in any military cemetery.[75] His body was cremated at Mattox Ryan Funeral Home in Terre Haute. The cremated remains were given to his lawyer, who scattered them at an undisclosed location. McVeigh had earlier written that he considered having his ashes dropped at the site of the memorial where the Murrah building once stood, but decided that would be "too vengeful, too raw, cold." He had expressed willingness to donate organs, but was prohibited from doing so by prison regulations.[42] "Psychiatrist John Smith concluded that [McVeigh] was a decent person who had allowed rage to build up inside him to the point that he had lashed out in one terrible, violent act." - from a BBC story on McVeigh[6] McVeigh's IQ was assessed at 126.[76]
Political and religious views
McVeigh's only known political affiliations were his voter registration with the Republican Party of New York when he lived in Buffalo, New York, and a membership in the National Rifle Association while in the military.[77] McVeigh self-identified as a libertarian in a statement that was reported by MSNBC.com and The Washington Post;[78] and while in federal prison, he voted for Libertarian candidate Harry Browne in the 1996 United States presidential election.[79]
In a recorded interview with Time magazine[80] McVeigh professed his belief in "a god", although he said he had "sort of lost touch with" Catholicism and "I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs." Throughout his childhood, he and his father were Roman Catholic and regularly attended daily Mass at Good Shepherd Church in Pendleton, New York. The Guardian reported that McVeigh wrote a letter to them claiming to be an agnostic.[81] McVeigh once said that he believed the universe was guided by natural law, energized by some universal higher power that showed each person right from wrong if they paid attention to what was going on inside them. He had also said, "Science is my religion."[82]
Motivations for the bombing McVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge for "what the U.S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge."[83] McVeigh visited Waco during the standoff, where he spoke to a news reporter about his anger over what was happening there.[77]
McVeigh frequently quoted and alluded to the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries. It described acts of terrorism similar to the one he carried out. While McVeigh openly rejected the book's racism (a roommate said that McVeigh was not a racist and was basically indifferent to racist matters),[84] he claimed to appreciate its interest in firearms. Photocopies of pages sixty-one and sixty-two of The Turner Diaries were found in an envelope inside McVeigh's car. These pages depicted a fictitious mortar attack upon the U.S. Capitol in Washington.[85]
In interviews before his execution, documented in American Terrorist, McVeigh stated he decapitated an Iraqi soldier with cannon fire on his first day in the war and celebrated. But he said he later was shocked to be ordered to execute surrendering prisoners and to see carnage on the road leaving Kuwait City after U.S. troops routed the Iraqi army. In interviews following the Oklahoma City bombing, McVeigh said he began harboring anti-government feelings during the Gulf War. In 1998, while in prison, McVeigh wrote an essay that criticized US foreign policy towards Iraq as being hypocritical:
“ The administration has said that Iraq has no right to stockpile chemical or biological weapons (“weapons of mass destruction”) – mainly because they have used them in the past. Well, if that’s the standard by which these matters are decided, then the U.S. is the nation that set the precedent. The U.S. has stockpiled these same weapons (and more) for over 40 years. The U.S. claims that this was done for deterrent purposes during the “Cold War” with the Soviet Union. Why, then is it invalid for Iraq to claim the same reason (deterrence) — with respect to Iraq’s (real) war with and the continued threat of, its neighbor Iran?
If Saddam is such a demon and people are calling for war crimes charges and trials against him and his nation, why do we not hear the same cry for blood directed at those responsible for even greater amounts of “mass destruction” — like those responsible and involved in dropping bombs on the cities mentioned above. The truth is, the U.S. has set the standard when it comes to the stockpiling and use of weapons of mass destruction.[86] ”
McVeigh had contemplated suicide on many occasions. Anticipating that he would probably be caught and executed, he referred to the bombing as "state-assisted suicide."[87]
Accomplices
In addition to McVeigh, Terry Nichols was convicted and sentenced in federal court to life in prison for his role in the crime. At Nichols' trial, evidence was presented indicating that others may have been involved. Several residents of central Kansas, including real estate agent Georgia Rucker and a retired Army NCO testified at the Terry Nichols federal trial that they had seen two trucks at Geary State Lake, where prosecutors alleged the bomb was assembled. The retired NCO said he visited the lake on April 18, 1995, but left after a group of surly men looked at him aggressively. The operator of the Dreamland Motel testified that two Ryder trucks had been parked outside her Grandview Plaza motel where McVeigh stayed in Room 26 the weekend before the bombing. Testimony suggested that McVeigh may have had several other accomplices, but no other individuals have been indicted for the bombing.
An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) informant, Carolyn Howe, told reporters that shortly before the bombing she had warned her handlers that guests of Elohim City, Oklahoma were planning a major bombing attack. McVeigh was issued a speeding ticket there at the same time. Other than this speeding ticket, there is no evidence of a connection between McVeigh and members of the Midwest Bank Robbers at Elohim City.
In February 2004, the FBI announced it would review its investigation after learning that agents in the investigation of the Midwest Bank Robbers (an alleged Aryan-oriented gang) had turned up explosive caps of the same type that were used to trigger the Oklahoma City bomb. Agents expressed surprise that bombing investigators had not been provided information from the Midwest Bank Robbers investigation. McVeigh was given a one-week delay prior to his execution while evidence relating to the Bank Robbers' gang was presented to a court.
McVeigh declined further delays and maintained until his death that he had acted alone in the bombing.
Alternative theories
Inside job
In 2007, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols said that a high-ranking FBI director, Larry Potts, directed Timothy McVeigh in the plot to blow up a government building and might have changed the original target of the attack, according to a new affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Utah on February 9, 2007.
The suit, which seeks documents from the FBI under the federal Freedom of Information Act alleges that authorities mistook Kenneth Trentadue for a bombing conspirator and that guards killed him in an interrogation that got out of hand. Trentadue's death a few months after the April 19, 1995, bombing was ruled a suicide after several investigations. The government has adamantly denied any wrongdoing in the death. Trentadue's brother, attorney Jesse Trentadue is suing for FBI teletypes to support his belief that Federal authorities were tipped to McVeigh's plans, but failed to stop the bombing and let others walk away from prosecution. A US District court judge Dale A. Kimball ruled on September 21, 2007 that Trentadue can question and videotape David Paul Hammer and Terry Nichols.[88] The FBI has opposed these videotapings. The FBI claimed "there no longer existed any 'case or controversy' sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction" to the court after the agency's previous document disclosures.
In his affidavit of February 2007, Nichols says he wants to bring closure to the survivors and families of the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which took 168 lives. McVeigh and Nichols were the only defendants indicted in the bombing. However, Nichols alleges others were involved. McVeigh told him he was recruited for undercover missions while serving in the military, according to Nichols.
José Padilla
Conspiracy theorists have speculated that José Padilla was an accomplice of McVeigh, based on a resemblance between Padilla and police sketches of an Oklahoma City bombing suspect known as "John Doe No. 2" and the resemblance in name with Lana Padilla, the former wife of Terry Nichols. Asked about the alleged "John Doe No. 2", an FBI official was quoted as saying: "We couldn't find any evidence to indicate there was a John Doe 2 despite what people were saying," then asked specifically about a possible link with Padilla he reacted, "You're kidding, right?"[89]
References and notes ^ a b http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/oklahoma/bg/mcveigh.htm ^ Shariat, Sheryll; Sue Mallonee and Shelli Stephens-Stidham (December 1998). "Summary of Reportable Injuries in Oklahoma". Oklahoma State Department of Health. Archived from the original on January 10, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/ [login to see] 3748/http://www.health.state.ok.us/PROGRAM/injury/Summary/bomb/OKCbomb.htm. Retrieved June 5, 2009. ^ Ancestry of Tim McVeigh ^ [1] ^ [2] ^ a b c http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1321244.stm ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 371. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 31–32. ^ Chase, Alston. A Mind for Murder. p. 370. found at Google Books; accessed July 22, 2009. ^ Smith, Brent L., Damhousse, Kelly R. and Roberts, Paxton, Pre-Incident Indicators of Terrorist Incidents: The Identification of Behavioral, Geographic and Temporal Patterns of Preparatory Conduct, Document No.: 214217, May 2006, p. 234, found at NCJRS Government website, Scribd website and DHS Government website. Accessed July 22, 2009. ^ Douglas O. Linder, "The Oklahoma City Bombing & The Trial of Timothy McVeigh,", online posting, University of Missouri–Kansas City, Law School faculty projects, 2006, accessed August 7, 2006; cf. People in the News: Timothy McVeigh: The Path to Death Row, transcript of program broadcast on CNN, June 9, 2001, 11:30 p.m. ET. [Specific citations to both of these sources and other unidentified sources are still needed throughout the above article.] ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 61. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 87–88. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 73. ^ See Hoffman, "'The Face of Terror'"; Hoffman finds many speculations published in the media about this episode in McVeigh's life as a soldier inaccurate and based on false information. ^ [3] ^ [4] ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 102. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 114. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 117–118. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 111. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 112. ^ Domestic Terrorism 101 - Timothy James McVeigh ^ Michel, Lou. "American Terrorist", 2001. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 121. ^ Handlin, Sam (2001) "Profile of a Mass Murderer: Who Is Timothy McVeigh? Court TV Online. ^ [5] ^ a b http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/mcveigh/transit_6.html ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 125–126. ^ Editor (March 29, 2001) "Timothy McVeigh: Convicted Oklahoma City Bomber." CNN.com. ^ Editors (2000) "Gun Shows in America." Violence Policy Center. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 136–140. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 156–158. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 161–162. ^ [6] ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 184–185. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 195. ^ [7] ^ [8] ^ [9] ^ [10] ^ a b http://newsok.com/article/700006/ ^ Global Terrorism Database ^ Romano, Lois and Tom Kenworthy, "Prosecutor Paints McVeigh As 'Twisted' U.S. Terrorist", The Washington Post, April 25, 1997; Page A01 ^ See Michel and Herbeck; cf. Walsh: ^ [11] ^ [12] ^ [13] ^ See "Officer of the Month - October 2001: Second Lieutenant Charles J. Hanger, Oklahoma Highway Patrol," National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, copyright 2004-2006, accessed August 8, 2006. ^ "The Timothy McVeigh Story: The Oklahoma Bomber". Crime Library. http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/mcveigh/turner_7.html. Retrieved 2007-07-12. ^ CNN - 'Turner Diaries' introduced in McVeigh trial - April 28, 1997 ^ Count 1 was "conspiracy to detonate a weapon of mass destruction" in violation of 18 USC § 2332a, culminating in the deaths of 168 people and destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. ?? Count 2 was "use of a weapon of mass destruction" in violation of 18 USC § 2332a (2)(a) & (b). Count 3 was "destruction by explosives resulting in death", in violation of 18 USC § 844(f)(2)(a) & (b). Counts 4 through 11 were first-degree murder in violation of 18 USC § 1111, 1114, & 2 and 28 CFR § 64.2(h), each count in connection to one of the 8 law enforcement officers who were killed during the attack. ^ CNN.com - Transcripts ^ Douglas O. Linder, "The Oklahoma City Bombing & The Trial of Timothy McVeigh,", online posting, University of Missouri–Kansas City, Law School faculty projects, 2006, accessed August 7, 2006. [Specific citations to this source are still needed throughout the above article.] ^ "People in the News: Timothy McVeigh: The Path to Death Row", transcript of program broadcast on CNN, June 9, 2001, 11:30 p.m. ET. [Specific citations to this source are still needed throughout the above article.]. For a description of the video by its director, Linda Thompson, see Waco: The Big Lie, hosted by wfmu.org, a New Jersey FM radio station via serendipity.li, accessed August 8, 2006. ^ Mark Eddy, George Lane, Howard Pankratz and Steven Wilmsen, "Guilty on Every Count," Denver Post Online June 3, 1997, accessed August 7, 2006: Although 168 people, including 19 children, were killed in the April 19, 1995, bombing, murder charges were brought against McVeigh only for the eight federal agents who were on duty when the bomb destroyed much of the Federal Building. Along with the eight counts of murder, McVeigh was charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, using a weapon of mass destruction and destroying a federal building. Oklahoma City District Attorney Bob Macy said he would file state charges in the other 160 murders after McVeigh's co-defendant, Terry Nichols, was tried. ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 347. ^ See "Sentenced to Die," The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Online NewsHour, PBS, June 13, 1997, accessed August 8, 2006. ^ People in the News: Timothy McVeigh: The Path to Death Row, transcript of program broadcast on CNN, June 9, 2001, 11:30 p.m. ET]. ^ [14] ^ [15] ^ [16] ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 304. ^ [17] ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 360–361. ^ The Death of Timothy McVeigh ^ a b McVeigh faces day of reckoning | World news | The Guardian ^ [18] ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 358. ^ [19] ^ McVeigh brushes aside deaths | World news | The Guardian ^ Catherine Quayle (2001-06-11). "Execution of an American Terrorist". Court TV. http://www.courttv.com/news/mcveigh_special/0610_pm.html. Retrieved 2008-04-15. ^ Rita Cosby (2001-06-12). "Timothy McVeigh Put to Death for Oklahoma City Bombings". FOX News. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,26904,00.html. Retrieved 2008-04-15. ^ [20] ^ [21] ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 288. ^ a b Profile of Timothy McVeigh, CNN, March 29, 2001, accessed August 8, 2006. ^ Libertarian Party (2001-04-17), Libertarians rebuke Timothy McVeigh ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 298. ^ Patrick Cole, "A Look Back in TIME: Interview with Timothy McVeigh," March 30, 1996, accessed August 8, 2006, ^ Julian Borger,"McVeigh faces day of reckoning: Special report: Timothy McVeigh,", The Guardian Online, June 11, 2001, accessed July 1, 2009 ^ Michel, Lou and Herbeck, Dan. American Terrorist. pp. 142–143. ^ See "McVeigh Remorseless About Bombing," newswire release, Associated Press, March 29, 2001, reposted on rickross.com, accessed August 8, 2006. ^ [22] ^ Michel and Herbeck; cf. Walsh. ^ [23] by Timothy McVeigh, March 1998 ^ Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh: the making of a mass murderer ^ "Salt Lake Attorney Can Question Terry Nichols on Videotape." KSL-TV. September 22, 2007. Retrieved on May 23, 2009. ^ Jay Krall and Jonathan Eig (June 17, 2002). "Conspiracy Buffs See Similarities Between Jose Padilla, John Doe 2". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on June 17, 2002. http://www.okcbombing.net/News%20Articles/Padilla/padilla_wsj.htm. Retrieved February 18, 2008.
Further reading
Hoffman, David. The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror. Los Angeles: Feral House, 1998. ISBN 0-922915-49-0. (Complete book accessible online; Chap. 2: "'The Face of Terror'" concerns Timothy McVeigh.) Jones, Stephen and Peter Israel. Others Unknown: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing Conspiracy. Rev. ed. (paperback). 1998; New York: PublicAffairs, 2001. ISBN 1-58648-098-7. Michel, Lou and Dan Herbeck. American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing. New York: ReganBooks (A Division of HarperCollins Publishers), 2001. ISBN 0-06-039407-2. Vidal, Gore. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated, Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2002. ISBN 1-56025-405-X. Walsh, David. "Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh: the making of a mass murderer." April 19, 2001, World Socialist Web Site. Accessed August 8, 2006. Davis, Jayna. "The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing" (WND Books ISBN 0-7852-6103-6). [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Timothy McVeigh Interview with Dan Herbeck, author of American Terrorist - the only book authorised by McVeigh. "Bad Day Dawning" in "Criminals and Methods: Timothy McVeigh" at Court TV: Crime Library "Grand Jury Indictment of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols" Transcript of April 25, 2005 Indictment hosted on the University of Missouri-Kansas City website Timothy McVeigh's April 19, 2001 letter to conductor/composer David Woodard Jpg file of handwritten letter posted on juniperhills.net "In Concert at a Killer's Death" About David Woodard's "Prequiem," Ave Atque Vale (from Los Angeles Times) Timothy McVeigh's April 27 2001 letter to reporter Rita Cosby, Explains why he bombed the Murrah Federal Building (posted on independence.net) Timothy McVeigh's Prison Dossier at The Smoking Gun Timothy McVeigh's Time Magazine interview The Timothy McVeigh Story: The Oklahoma Bomber at Court TV: Crime Library The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh by Gore Vidal
CNN.Com (June 13, 1997)
McVeigh Sentenced to Die for Oklahoma City Bombing
DENVER (CNN) -- Despite an emotional last-minute plea from his parents, Timothy James McVeigh was sentenced to death Friday for his role in the worst case of terrorism in U.S. history -- the Oklahoma City bombing. The seven-man, five-woman panel unanimously chose death by lethal injection for the 29-year-old Gulf War veteran, after deliberating for 11 hours over two days. Anything less than a unanimous verdict would have meant life in prison without parole. The jury also could have opted to send the case back to the judge and let him determine the sentence.
Penalty is for killing federal agents
The same federal jury who sentenced McVeigh convicted him of murder and conspiracy last week in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building that killed 168 people. He was tried for conspiracy to commit the attack and for the deaths of eight federal law agents who were in the building when a massive diesel fuel-fertilizer bomb ripped the front off the nine-story building. McVeigh was charged along with his Army buddy Terry Nichols, who will be tried at a later date. Testimony for the penalty phase in McVeigh's trial ended Wednesday, and deliberations began Thursday after the completion of closing arguments.
Jurors never heard from McVeigh himself during the four-day penalty phase of the trial. Instead, 27 witnesses were called to portray him as a friendly child and first-rate soldier who left the Gulf War disillusioned and restless. Supporting a contention made by the prosecution, the defense argued that the 1993 siege near Waco, Texas, became a source of bitter anger for McVeigh. About 80 members of the Branch Davidian cult were killed during a federal assault exactly two years before the Oklahoma blast.
At times, jurors were in tears
Prosecutors, citing vivid testimony from blast survivors and victims, argued that the blast was so lethal and destructive that McVeigh deserved death. Several prosecution witnesses brought jurors to tears with their accounts of mayhem, heroism and random death in Oklahoma City. Although all of the jurors, before they were selected, told the court they would be willing to consider the death penalty, Colorado juries have tended to be reluctant to sentence defendants to death. The state has five people on death row, and hasn't executed anyone since 1967.
A passion for weapons
The trial was moved to Denver by U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch because he said McVeigh could not "obtain a fair and impartial trial at any place" in Oklahoma.
The son of a General Motors auto worker from a rural area near Buffalo, New York, McVeigh went on to become an Army platoon leader, serving in a Bradley Fighting vehicle during the Gulf War. After his return to the United States, he was discharged from the Army and took a series of odd jobs, drifting across the country and spending time with militia groups. Both sides offered testimony during the trial on his passion for weapons and his zealous opposition to gun control.
The Lamp of Hope (Chicago Tribune)
June 11 2001, 8:01 AM CDT
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- Timothy James McVeigh, who murdered 168 people and maimed hundreds of others in what he believed was an act of patriotism, was put to death by lethal injection early today. The 33-year-old decorated Persian Gulf War veteran who masterminded America's worst act of domestic terrorism was pronounced dead at 7:14 a.m. CDT.
Strapped to a gray padded execution table inside the federal government's sterile, sea green-tiled death chamber, McVeigh received a lethal combination of drugs that rendered him unconscious, arrested his breathing and stopped his heart. In minutes, the small-town boy who became an army of one and ultimately this country's worst mass murderer was forever silenced.
McVeigh made no final remarks but gave witnesses a handwritten copy of English poet William Ernest Henley's 1875 poem, "Invictus": "In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed..." "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
Survivors and family members took solace in McVeigh's death. Janice Smith, whose 46-year-old brother, Lanny Scroggins, died in the bombing, prayed with her children at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, then left after getting word that McVeigh was dead. ``It's over,'' she said. ``We don't have to continue with him anymore.'' Earlier, a silent vigil began without fanfare -- 168 minutes, one minute for each victim killed in the tragedy.
McVeigh's execution was witnessed by 10 survivors and victims' relatives from the bombing of Oklahoma City's Murrah federal building on April 19, 1995. Meanwhile, about 600 miles away, an estimated 300 people gathered in a large, square room of a federal prisoner transfer facility near Will Rogers World Airport to watch the execution unfold on a large video screen. McVeigh was permitted to choose six witnesses and selected five: his lawyers, Robert Nigh Jr. and Nathan Chambers; Cate McCauley, a former member of his defense team; and Buffalo (N.Y.) News reporter and biographer Lou Michel. A fifth witness, author Gore Vidal, announced he could not attend. The execution took place inside the federal government's death chamber at Terre Haute's sprawling, red-brick U.S. penitentiary complex. It was the federal government's first execution since 1963, when Victor Feguer was hanged for the crime of kidnapping.
McVeigh's execution came nearly four years to the day from his conviction. McVeigh at first appealed, but by last December, he decided to waive any further appeals and await his execution. He initially was scheduled to be executed May 16. Then, just five days before he was supposed to die, U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft postponed the execution to give McVeigh's lawyers time to sift through 4,400 pages of investigative documents that had never been turned over to McVeigh's defense team before his 1997 trial. The embarrassing disclosure led Ashcroft to reschedule the execution to today, angering survivors and victims' relatives who had prepared themselves emotionally and logistically for the May 16 date. Once ready to die, McVeigh asked his lawyers to request a stay from the trial judge in his case, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch. Last week Matsch refused, and when the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Matsch's ruling, McVeigh told his lawyers he had no desire to appeal to a higher court.
Two other men were convicted for their involvement. Terry Nichols was convicted of manslaughter and conspiracy for helping McVeigh and was sentenced to life in prison. He still faces state murder charges. Another friend of McVeigh's, Michael Fortier, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn law enforcement authorities about McVeigh and Nichols' plans.
The Buffalo News published letters from McVeigh on Sunday that had the guise of apology, but repeated the same rationalizations he has clung to since he rigged a Ryder rental truck into a 7,000-pound fertilizer bomb and detonated it in front of the Murrah building. McVeigh wrote that taking 168 lives, including those of 19 children, was a "legit tactic." He previously has described the bombing as revenge for a mission to avenge the 1993 siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. "I'm sorry these people had to lose their lives," McVeigh wrote to the News, his hometown newspaper. "But that's the nature of the beast. It's understood going in what the human toll will be."
Tom Kight, whose 23-year-old daughter, Frankie Merrell, died in the bombing, viewed McVeigh's words as hollow and inconsequential. "I don't see it as an apology," Kight said from Oklahoma City. "His act spoke for itself. He knew innocent men, women and children were going to be killed. "There are a lot of ways of dealing with the government," Kight continued, "but you're never going to change government through terrorism. Whatever his justification might be, 168 people died. Nineteen children died. That just won't do it with me."
McVeigh's parents and two sisters were not at the prison. His father, William McVeigh, has said he wants to remember his son as the boy who played Little League, and the marksman soldier who received a medal for killing two Iraqi soldiers with a single shot from his Bradley vehicle, not the embittered drifter who embraced so-called patriot groups.
At 4:10 a.m. Sunday, McVeigh was moved from the federal prison's special confinement unit into the execution building, where he remained in a 9-foot by 14-foot beige cinder-block cell with a bunk, television, stainless steel sink and toilet. "He's been cooperative through the entire process, and things have gone pretty much as planned," said U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Richard Russell. During McVeigh's transfer to the execution building, his condemned client looked up into the night sky and gazed at the moon, something he hadn't been able to do in years, said his lawyer, Nigh. McVeigh not only seemed resigned to his fate, he seemed relatively comfortable with it. He caught a couple of hours of sleep early Sunday morning, and had planned to sleep again Sunday night, said Nigh's co-counsel, Chambers. He watched television on a small black-and-white set in his cell. When he spoke with Chambers and Nigh on Sunday, he appeared at ease and talked freely. "I'd say he is in amazingly good spirits," Chambers said. "He is pleasant to talk to, he continues to be affable. He continues to be rational in his discourse, He maintains his sense of humor." He was allowed visits with his lawyers or a spiritual adviser up until two hours before the execution. McVeigh had his last meal at noon Sunday: two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Terre Haute, a city of 60,000, expected legions of demonstrators, but by nightfall Sunday only about 200 had gathered at the prison. Death penalty opponents sat in a circle on dewy grass and, vigil candles in hand, prayed for 168 minutes to represent the 168 victims of the bombing, as well as for McVeigh. "Yes, we find ourselves praying for Timothy McVeigh and his family, and for all those who sit on death row," said Sister Ann Casper, a Sister of Providence from St. Mary-of-the-Woods College near Terre Haute. "I just feel anything I can do to raise my voice against the death penalty is important, and this is how I chose to do it."
Chosen as the site for federal executions because of its central location in the U.S., Terre Haute may be the site of another federal execution in just eight days, when Juan Raul Garza is scheduled to die for his involvement in three drug-related murders. Garza, 43, was the leader of a drug ring that smuggled tons of marijuana into the U.S. between 1983 and 1993. Garza has appealed his death sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court.
New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish Death Penalty
"Witnesses Describe McVeigh's Last Minutes," by Mark K. Matthews, Sentinel Staff.
The witnesses pressed their faces to the glass wall of the death chamber, holding photos of their loved ones as they faced Timothy McVeigh just a few feet away. They could see McVeigh as he lay strapped to a gurney, wrapped in a sheet, waiting to die. They heard the orders for the execution. They watched the fluids flow into his body, and they saw the color of his face change as his life slowly ebbed away.
But the 33-year-old mass murderer could not see the families of his victims. Maybe, they hoped, he would feel their presence. Ronald Brown of Keystone Heights, near Gainesville, was one of the 10 survivors or relatives of McVeigh's 168 victims chosen by lottery to attend the execution in Terre Haute, Ind. "I had one thing on my mind," said Brown, 37, who lost his father-in-law, Robert Westberry, in the blast. "And that was to get through this." When Brown caught sight of McVeigh, the killer was dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants, an IV already inserted in his right leg. Warden Harley Lappin, standing with his arms crossed, almost at attention, asked McVeigh if he had any final words. There was a one-minute pause. McVeigh's head remained fixed, his eyes still staring in the camera, rarely blinking. "He could not see us, but I was pretty sure he knew what window he was looking into," Brown said. "He looked toward us first -- nonchalant, like -- and then nodded at his attorneys."
The Associated Press' Rex Huppke, one of the media witnesses, said that minutes before McVeigh took his final breath, he raised his head, strained his neck slightly and tried to acknowledge everyone who would watch him die. Once Lappin issued the order to proceed with the execution, McVeigh swallowed hard. His eyes moved slightly from side to side. His chest moved up and down, and his lips twice puffed air out, as if he were trying to maintain consciousness.
A guard in the witness room announced the first drug had been administered. Ten minutes had passed: It was 8:10 a.m. EDT. McVeigh's eyes remained open, but they began to glass over, started rolling up just slightly. His pale skin began to turn slightly yellow. At 8:11 a.m., the guard said the second drug had been administered. The warden looked straight ahead, glancing down at McVeigh just occasionally. The convicted bomber's lips began to turn the slightest tinge of blue. He was still.
It was 8:14 a.m.
Fight the Death Penalty in the USA
Remaining silent and showing no emotion, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed Monday morning. McVeigh died by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. (8:14 a.m. EDT) at the Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh was executed for the April 19, 1995, attack in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and wounded hundreds more. The bombing was the deadliest terrorism act ever on U.S. soil. McVeigh's death was the first federal execution since 1963.
The 33-year-old Gulf War veteran did not say a word in the final minutes before his execution. Media witnesses said McVeigh lifted his head and looked at them and then looked at the ceiling. He died with his eyes open. McVeigh left a handwritten statement quoting Invictus, a 19th century poem by British poet William Ernest Henley. It ends with the lines "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." McVeigh's body was removed immediately after his execution in a government van, Justice Department officials said. They would not give any information about its destination. McVeigh's body is to be cremated, but his lawyers said information about his remains and any resting place would remain privileged.
'Just a big relief,' witness says
Ten people -- members of the victims' families and survivors of the bombing -- also witnessed the execution from a room beside the death chamber. Paul Howell, whose daughter was killed in the bombing, said McVeigh was expressionless. "What I was hoping for is that we could see some kind of 'I'm sorry,' but we didn't get anything like that. My emotions were that it was just a big relief. Just a big sigh came over my body and it felt real good," Howell said.
More than 650 miles away in Oklahoma City, 232 survivors and family members watched on closed-circuit television. "He actually lifted his head and looked directly in the camera, and it was as if he was looking directly at us," said Larry Whicher, who lost his brother. "His eyes were unblinking. They appeared to be coal black. I truly believe that his eyes were telling me ... that if he could, he would do it all over again."
Bush: 'Not vengeance, but justice'
U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft met with victims' families in Oklahoma City for about a half-hour before the execution. Ashcroft spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said he wanted to be in Oklahoma City to "thank them for their guidance through this process, to thank them from their patience and to again express sorrow for their loss." He did not stay for the closed-circuit viewing.
About a half-hour after the execution, President Bush said that McVeigh had "met the fate he chose for himself six years ago. "The victims of the Oklahoma City bombing have been given not vengeance, but justice," the president said. McVeigh's attorneys, who had sought a new sentencing hearing after the FBI revealed last month it had withheld thousands of pages of documents during the trial, decried the execution and said it would not end the pain. "If killing McVeigh does not bring peace or closure to them, I suggest to you that it is our fault," said Robert Nigh, who witnessed his client's death with colleague Nathan Chambers. "We have made killing a part of the healing process."
Execution draws international criticism
Following the execution, a steady stream of visitors could be seen at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center. Some family members could be seen praying and hugging each other in front of the 168 chairs representing the victims of the attack. Fewer people than expected turned out for protests supporting and opposing the execution. About 75 anti-death penalty protesters had participated in a two-mile march from St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church to the prison on Sunday.
The execution has drawn international criticism. The president of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly called it "sad, pathetic and wrong. "It demonstrated the futility of capital punishment to act as a deterrent, giving him the notoriety he sought in committing this horrendous crime," Lord Russel-Johnson said in a statement. "It is high time the United States rethought its attitude to the death penalty and aligned its position with the great majority of the free and democratic world."
Mayhem.Net
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh
Classification: Mass Murderer - Patriot Bomber
Date of Attack: April 19, 1995
Dead: June 11, 2001, by lethal injection, Terre Haute Federal Prison, Terre Haute, Indiana
No. Victims: 268
Victim Profile: Government workers, 18 children
Weapons:Truck Bomb made with ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel
Twisted reasoning: At war with the government, victims were collateral damage
Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
September 6, 2001 - Oklahoma City's new district attorney said he will press ahead with state murder charges against Timothy McVeigh's co-conspirator, Terry Nichols. District Attorney Wes Lane said he would pursue 160 first-degree murder charges and other counts against Nichols and will seek the death penalty. Nichols, 46, was convicted in federal court of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter and is serving a life sentence for his role in the blast, which killed 168 people and injured more than 500 others. The deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers were the focus of the federal trial. The state charges, which involve the other 160 victims, were filed in 1999 by Lane's predecessor, Bob Macy, who retired in June. Since then, Lane has been re-evaluating the case.
June 29, 2001 - U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch, who presided over McVeigh's trial, released the bill accrued by the U.S. Justice Department in the defense of Oklahoma City bomber. According to the figures, the federal government spent $13.8 million in public funds to defend McVeigh during his trial in Colorado as well as other cost that were incurred up to his death. Stephen Jones, who represented McVeigh at trial, said before the figures were released that the expenses were justified and that McVeigh got a good defense.
June 12, 2001 - The McVeigh Virus: Hours after the execution of Timothy McVeigh, a computer virus popped up throughout the internet offering a video of his execution. Instead, the virus downloaded a malicious program that allowing hackers to take control of the infected computer.
June 12, 2001 - Prison authorities said the black hearse seen leaving the execution chambers of the Terre Haute prison following the McVeigh execution was a decoy used as a security measure. The body of the unrepentant Oklahoma City bomber was actually removed from the U.S. Penitentiary in a van shortly after the execution. Explaining the use of the decoy Dan Dunne, the spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, told the Associated Press: "Someone could have tried an ambush or something. There are all kinds of possibilities that could have happened." McVeigh's body was taken to a local funeral home, where he was cremated and his ashes given to one of his attorneys, said the Rev. Ron Ashmore of St. Margaret Mary Church.
June 11, 2001 - Unrepentant Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh died at 8:14 a.m. with his eyes open after receiving a lethal drug cocktail of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride from federal prison authorities. Instead of making an oral statement, McVeigh, 33, issued a copy of the 1875 poem "Invictus", by William Ernest Henley. According to witnesses McVeigh acted as if he was in control, was cooperative, and defiantly stared straight into close circuit TV camera. The execution was broadcast from Terre Haute to Oklahoma City were 232 survivors and victims' relatives watched the encrypted feed. No hacked versions of the execution have yet surfaced on the Internet.
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
In a recent letter to The Buffalo News, McVeigh said his body would be released to one his attorneys and cremated, and his ashes would be scattered in an undisclosed location. In the letter he added that he thought the bloodshed was unfortunate, but he was not sorry about the bombing which he saw as a "legit tactic" in his solitary war against the federal government. Prison officials said McVeigh spent his last day on planet Earth writing letters, sleeping, watching television and meeting with his lawyers. His final meal consisted of two pints of mint-chocolate chip ice cream. According to his lawyers Mcveigh was "upbeat" about his date with death, saying that he preferred dying to life in prison.
June 8, 2001 - Ending three weeks of legal turmoil, Timothy McVeigh said he wanted to stop all further appeals on his behalf and is prepared to die. McVeigh's decision, which clears the way for his execution, came minutes after a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his request for an execution delay. He could have petitioned for the full appeals court to consider his request, taken the case to the U.S. Supreme Court or asked President Bush for clemency. Instead, McVeigh was prepared to die, said attorney Rob Nigh.
June 6, 2001 - The judge in the Oklahoma City bombing case refused to delay the execution of Timothy McVeigh, saying newly released FBI documents do not change the fact that he is guilty. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch issued the ruling even though he had commented to lawyers that he found it "shocking" that the documents had been withheld until last month. He said the findings of the jury, which convicted McVeigh in 1997, still stood. The execution is scheduled in five days. Attorneys for McVeigh, 33, said they would appeal Matsch's ruling to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We are extremely disappointed in the court's ruling today," McVeigh attorney Rob Nigh told reporters outside the courthouse.
June 2, 2001 - Timothy McVeigh's attorneys asked for a delay of his execution so they will have enough time to review recently released FBI documents and possibly identify others who played major roles in the Oklahoma City bombing. In a brief filed in U.S. District Court, the attorneys also said the government continues to withhold evidence. "The overt acts alleged against Mr. McVeigh, together with the circumstantial evidence and absence of proof concerning the making of the bomb, created the impressions that Mr. McVeigh was the primary actor bearing full responsibility for the bombing," McVeigh attorney Richard Burr wrote. "In this context, any credible evidence that other specific individuals played a major role in the bombing, for example construction of the bomb, would have cast doubt on the overt acts committed by Mr. McVeigh. If Mr. McVeigh's execution is stayed and he is given access to the tools of civil discovery, there is reason to believe that a nexus between some of these individuals and Mr. McVeigh will be established"
May 30, 2001 - Furthering the Oklahoma bombing legal free fall, attorneys representing Michael Fortier said Federal prosecutors lied in an effort to get a harsher sentence for their client. Fortier, 31, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after testifying that he helped his army buddy Timothy McVeigh sell stolen weapons to raise money for the bombing.
During his sentencing hearing, prosecutors argued Fortier's sentence should exceed guidelines because of the magnitude of the crime. Prosecutors argued that Fortier knew profits from the sale of stolen guns would be used to help finance the bombing because he was present when his wife, Lori, and McVeigh discussed it. In a May 15 brief filed with the appeals court, prosecutor Sean Connelly conceded there was no evidence Fortier was present during the conversation between his wife and McVeigh or was told by either one of them what had been said.
May 23, 2001 - In a rush to be the first to publish a picture of Timothy McVeigh after his death, the Weekly World News came out with a photo on their cover showing the convicted Oklahoma City bomber on a "morgue slab." Curiously, Mcveigh is still very much alive and his execution date has been pushed a month back to June 11.
May 15, 2001 - In light of the FBI-documentgate Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols is asking for a new trial claiming that his defense was based on the existence of the elusive John Doe Number 2. Most of the documents that were not handed in to defense lawyers involve the John Doe investigation.
May 14, 2001 - President George "Witless" Bush and Attorney General John "Grand Wizard" Ashcroft met at Camp David to discuss the FBI's bungling of 3,135 pages of records in the Oklahoma City bombing. Thousands of miles away in Terre Haute, Indiana, Timothy McVeigh is said to be reconsidering his refusal to appeal his conviction and is leaving all options open. McVeigh's attorney, Rob Nigh, said his client, who had already come to terms with his imminent death, was frustrated and possibly reconsidering his earlier decision against challenging the execution order. "He's distressed about this in that he knows the impact that it has upon his family and those who care about him," Nigh said.
May 11, 2001 - After turning over thousands of withheld FBI documents to attorneys representing Timothy McVeigh, Attorney General John Ashcroft postponed his execution until June 11. Apparently, 3,135 documents from 46 FBI offices were "inexplicably"withheld from Tim's lawyers before his 1997 trial. Prosecutors said much of the material involved interviews and information about the suspected John Doe Number 2 which they later called a dead-enbd investigation. Lawyers representing Mcveigh have started the lengthy review of the documents to determine if there was any evidence pointing at the bombing being part of a larger conspiracy or a solitary act perpetrated by their client. Separately, lawyers for convicted conspirator Terry Nichols, who is serving a life sentence for his role in the bombing, told CNN he will file a new appeal for Nichols with the U.S. Supreme Court.
May 10, 2001 - The hollier than though eBay auction site issued a statement announcing a ban on all Timothy McVeigh related merchandise on their web site. "It has long been eBay's policy to disallow the sale of items that promote hatred, violence or racism. As the eBay community expands to include many nations, it is important that our policy regarding these items be consistent throughout our global marketplace", declared the new policy statement posted to the eBay marketing announcement board. Curiously the new rules are not set to take effect until May 17, the day after the scheduled McVeigh execution date. Until then eBay -- who in reality puts money way above policy -- will continue allowing the sale of McVeigh-related items.
May 9, 2001 - A Los Angeles composer has created a 12-minute musical "prequiem" that will, he hopes, escort Timothy McVeigh's soul to heaven when he is lethally injected on May 16. David Woodard said he has been in contact with McVeigh and is trying to coordinate a performance of the piece, called "Ave Atque Vale" (Onward Valiant Soldier), to be broadcast on an Indiana radio station just before his execution. Woodard, 33, said he does not support McVeigh's anti-government cause, but is "awed by who (he) is and his circumstances." Woodard originally composed the piece for Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan doctor who has assisted in numerous suicides. It was first titled "Farewell to a Saint."
April 22, 2001 - With thousands expected to travel to Terre Haute, Indiana, to participate in the Timothy McVeigh execution media circus, local entrepreneurs are hoping to cash in with T-shirt sales. The T-shirts available range from the commemorative, "Hoosier Hospitality/McVeigh/Terre Haute/May 16, 2001, Final Justice" with a picture of a syringe, to the pro-death-penalty, "Terre Haute Extra Hangin' Times, Die!, Die, Die!" and the anti-death-penalty "Stop the Killing, Let McVeigh Live" with an image of Mcveigh strapped to a gurney.
Rod Henry, president of the Greater Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce, said city officials frown on local residents profiting from McVeigh's death. "We just kind of hope that we can escape that kind of vendor activity," he said. Suzanne Carter, who chairs the Terre Haute chapter of Unitarian Universalists for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the shirts were in poor taste. "I just think it's completely inappropriate to create souvenirs for this event," she said. Still,residents, in true American fashion, have shunned good taste and have been printing shirts and selling them "like hotcakes."
April 18, 2001 - A web firm wants to show a live webcast of the McVeigh execution on a pay-per-view basis. Saying that people have a First Amendment right to watch, lawyers for Entertainment Network Inc. argued in court that they should be allowed send a cameraman to the executiuon chamber or to webcast the feed from the closed-circuit video that will be relayed to victims' families in Oklahoma City. ENI is know for the the web site VoyeurDorm.com in which, for a fee, viewers could watch the daily activities of female college students via 55 Webcams in their home. Derek Newman, the attorney for ENI, said they would charge viewers $1.95 for watching and the money would be donated to charities established for the 168 people killed in the bombing.
April 17, 2001 - In a letter to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Timothy McVeigh said the although he sympathises with their cause, he will not request that his last meal be vegetarian. PETA first wrote to the Warden of the prison in Terre Haute asking that McVeigh's last meal have no meat because "Mr. McVeigh should not be allowed to take even one more life." When the Warden refused, PETA wrote directly to McVeigh. McVeigh, enjoying his last moments on planet Earth, sent PETA a page-and-a-half, hand written letter, discussing his feelings on vegetarianism.
"Truth is, I understand your cause - I've seen slaughter houses myself - but I still believe in reasonable taking and eating of game (as an outdoorsman and hunter)," he wrote. "My one main problem with the 'veg' movement is this (besides the fact I'm a libertarian): Where do you draw the line and what standard is used to define that line?" McVeigh questions whether "grubs/worms/etc." suffer. He also argues that "plants are alive, too. They react to stimuli (including pain); have circulatory systems, etc... To me, the answer is as the Indians believed: respect for the life you take to sustain yourself, but come to terms with your place in the 'food chain'." He also congratulated PETA on the media attention generated by its request that his last meal be veggie. "You should have seen the local editorial response to your letter," he wrote. "You gotta remember, this is meat-eatin' farm country; still, good job getting the attention to your cause (like protesting dead rats on 'Survivor')." McVeigh ended the letter saying he could not "sustain a prolonged intellectual debate on the subject, as my time is short" but suggested they should contact his friend Ted Kaczynski who would be more likely to take up the vegetarian issue.
March 14, 2001 - Lawyers for Timothy McVeigh have asked a federal judge to approve the Tim's request that his body not be autopsied after his execution. The lawyers submitted request on the grounds that McVeigh has religious, ethical and philosophical objections to an autopsy.
February 2, 2001 - The U.S. government is sending out 1,100 letters to people asking if they want to attend the May 16 execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh is set to die by injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Eight seats in the death chamber are open to victims, but that number could expand, U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Dan Dunne. Some Oklahoma City residents want the government to put the execution on closed-circuit television. Eight bombing survivors have asked attorney Karen Howick of Oklahoma City to go to court if necessary to get the closed-circuit telecast. She said that she knows of no execution in the United States that was shown over closed-circuit television, but no law forbids it.
January 12, 2001 - Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh allowed a deadline for resuming his appeals expire, putting him one step closer to a date with the deadly needle. Barring a presidential pardon, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons will set a date - as early as May - for his injection.
December 28, 2000 - Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh had his request to drop all appeals and get a prompt execution date granted by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch in Colorado. McVeigh participated in the Denver hearing via closed-circuit television from the maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana where he is on death row. Most probably his execution date will be set for about May of 2001.
December 13, 2000 - Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh has decided to end his appeals and asked to have his execution date set within the next 120 days. McVeigh offered no explanation for his decision, but many believe he hopes to become a martyr for the patriot militia movement nationwide.
April 15, 1999 - - The attorney for Terry Nichols said that information given to them near the end of his Oklahoma City bombing trial contained enough leads about another suspect to warranted a new trial. "Government counsel argued that Mr. Nichols mixed the bomb and that he was with Mr. McVeigh for long periods on April 17 and 18," attorney Michael Tigar noted. "The withheld evidence contradicts this key government theory." During Nichols' trial, defense attorneys sought to show others were involved by calling witnesses who said they saw McVeigh with an unknown suspect identified as John Doe No. 2 or other people during key periods.
March 30, 1999 - Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols -- already serving a life prison term after being convicted in federal court in Denver -- has been charged with 160 counts of murder by state prosecutors who have vowed to seek the death penalty. Oklahoma prosecutors are vying for a state trial for convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh, but decided to try Nichols first and wait to see how McVeigh fares in the appeal of his federal death sentence.
March 8, 1999 - The Supreme Court rejected Tim McVeigh's appeal for a new trial, claiming his previous one had been improperly tainted by a juror who prejudged his guilt and by news reports he had confessed to his lawyers.
February 5, 1999 - Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh & Ramzi Yousef - Three of America's most notorious bombers -- Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski -- see each other during their daily one-hour exercise time at Colorado's "SuperMax"prison According to Yousef's attorney, Bernard Kleinman,his client and McVeigh talk about movies they've seen on television, prison food and other minor matters. Kaczynski "is there physically, but he really doesn't discuss what they discuss," Kleinman said. The attorney described the conversations as "innocuous" because guards are always within earshot.
Yousef has complained in a $1.1 million lawsuit against the federal government that McVeigh gets far more privileges than he, even though McVeigh is a death row inmate. Bureau of Prison officials say McVeigh and Yousef never have direct contact and are kept in their concrete and metal maximum-security cells 23 hours a day. Craig said the prisoners could "have incidental, verbal contact" while being escorted from place to place.
September 23, 1998 - Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh wants an appeals court to overturn his conviction on the grounds that one of the juror's remarked that "we all know what the verdict should be." A three-judge panel on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided earlier this month that there was no misconduct when a juror apparently decided McVeigh's guilt before his trial was over. The panel said the juror's comments were ambiguous. McVeigh's lawyer -- taking a different approach -- asked the court to rehear arguments that his conviction and death sentence should be overturned on grounds the remark may have influenced other jurors.
June 4, 1998 - - U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch citing that his actions "were a crime against the Constitution of the United States," sentenced Terry Nichols to life in prison. Matsch had indicated he would consider a lesser sentence if Nichols answered lingering questions about the bombing, but the grumpy assistant bomber refused to reveal new information about how he helped Tim McVeigh plan and pull off the Oklahoma City bombing.
June 2, 1998 - Dr. James S. Gordon , a defense psychiatrist, said Terry Nichols should be given a short prison sentence for the Oklahoma City bombing because he's not a threat to society. "It is clear he is a kind of libertarian and that he resents government interference in his private life. There is, however, no evidence that he is fanatical or was ever particularly preoccupied about Waco -- in the way that Tim McVeigh was," Gordon wrote.
March 16, 1998 - In a strange "the pot calling the kettle black" type scenario, Timothy McVeigh said the district attorney who may prosecute him on state charges in Oklahoma City was, "a bloodthirsty killer." In a two-page letter addressed to KOCO-TV reporter Terri Watkins, McVeigh complained about his appeal and called those who want him tried in Oklahoma "a lynch mob.". Not mincing words, McVeigh said District Attorney Robert 'Cowboy Bob' Macy was a "bow tie Bozo."
January 22, 1998 - Cheyne Kehoe, who is serving a sentence for a videotaped shootout with police, said he believes his brother, Chevie, was involved in the Oklahoma City bombing. He refused to elaborate, saying he feared his brother. Chevie Kehoe, described as a white supremacist, faces both a trial in the shootout and federal charges in Arkansas, where he and two other men are accused of planning a revolt against the U.S. government. FBI spokesman Ray Lauer said the agency was investigating claims by a former Spokane, Wash., motel manager who said Chevie Kehoe may have known in advance of Timothy McVeigh's plans to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building.
January 6, 1998 - Terry Nichols escaped the death penalty when a jury deadlocked over his punishment for his participation in the worst bomb act of terrorism on U.S. soil. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch dismissed the jury and will instead impose a sentence himself. Under federal law, the judge could give him life, but not the death penalty.
December 22, 1997 - A Denver jury, after deliberating 41 hours over six days, convicted Terry Nichols of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the Oklahoma City bombing. Nichols, who could recieve the death penalty for conspiracy, was safe in his Kansas farmhouse more than 200 miles away at the time of the blast. Jurors concluded that the circumstantial prosecution case built on fertilizer receipts, phone records and Ryder truck sightings was not enough to make him an equal to McVeigh. Still, there are 160 murder charges pending against him in Oklahoma.
December 18, 1997 - Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh told The Dallas Morning News in a letter that he expects his appeals to fail. "Because of the intense public pressure and demand for my blood, I do not see an appeals court ruling in my favor." Still living out some weird Soldier of Fortune fantasy, he wrote: "I have no fear of execution. If anything, death by execution is much more predictable than normal life or combat -- because I at least know when and how I'm checking out."
November 18, 1997 - Tears streamed down Terry Nichols' face as his former wife testified about a sealed letter he gave her nearly five months before the Oklahoma City bombing telling her how to distribute his belongings in the event of his death. In the November 1994 letter, Nichols asked Lana Padilla to clean out a storage locker and divide his assets -- including a life insurance policy -- between their son, Josh, and his new wife and daughter in the Philippines. "I was very concerned, real concerned," Mrs. Padilla testified. "I cared about Terry and I was concerned that there was something awful, that he was not coming back." In the storage locker she found a ski mask, wig and pantyhose in a bag. "I looked at the mask and said, 'What is he doing, robbing banks?'"
November 15, 1997 - In the second week of testimony in the Terry Nichols trial in Denver, Colorado, prosecutors called 46 witnesses and showed the members of the jury more than a dozen weapons -- including rifles and a gas grenade gun -- found in cabinets, cupboards and above the garage ceiling of Nichols' home in Herington, Kansas. During cross examination by lead defense attorney Michael Tigar key prosecution witness Michael Fortier said Timothy McVeigh told him that Nichols wanted to pull out of the plot a month before the explosion. "Tim told me that Terry no longer wanted to help him mix the bomb," he testified.
November 3, 1997 - After nearly two months of jury selection, the trial of suspected Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols opened in Denver with prosecutor Larry Mackey stating that Nichols was just as guilty as Tim McVeigh, although he was safely at home in Herington, Kansas, at the time of the blast. Nichols is accused of robbing a gun dealer to raise money for the bombing, helping McVeigh stow a getaway car in Oklahoma City and helping assemble the bomb. He faces the same murder, conspiracy and weapons charges for which a jury convicted McVeigh. Attorneys are expected to paint much different pictures of Nichols -- from a brooding former soldier unhappy with the federal government to an independent adventurer and devoted family man.
September 14, 1997 - According to Newsweek, Terry Nichols has been using the adjoining cell to his in Denver's Federal Correctional Institution as an office to help prepare his defense. He has the cell jammed with documents aswell as a VCR which he uses to view footage related to the bombing. With a keen eye for detail, Nichols -- through his attorneys -- challenged the seating arrangements at the trial. Apparently he wants the two seats next to the jury box to be kept open so he can make eye contact with the jurors.
September 8, 1997 - Attorneys for suspected bomber Terry Nichols feel they were duped by federal prosecutors into disclosing their legal strategies and want a federal appeals court to void the death penalty notice against their client.
August 28, 1997 - Adam Thurschwell, an attorney for Terry Nichols, "conceded" that Timothy McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City bombing "and did so for reasons that are crystal clear," but said there was no proof his client participated in the plot.
August 17, 1997 - In the first of a two-part jailhouse interview published in Sunday's edition of The Buffalo News, Tim McVeigh said his chances of avoiding the death penalty through an appeal were "slim to none." Discussing the government's case against him, McVeigh said: "Some of it (the evidence) was false or some could be reasonably explained by other phenomenon." According to the convicted bomber, lab tests could have shown that the traces of explosive materials found on his clothes when he was arrested came from his own handgun. "What does that tell you about the objectivity of the FBI lab?"
August 15, 1997 - Making no apologies, speed freak/bomber Timothy McVeigh made his first court statement before being formally sentenced to death by lethal injection. Quoting from a 1928 opinion written by Justice Louis Brandeis in a wiretapping case, McVeigh said: "In the words of Justice Brandeis, our government is the hope, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches people by its example. That's all I have, Your Honor." Unsaid was the remainder of Justice Brandeis's dissention which posits that when the government becomes a law-breaker, so should its citizens.
June 18, 1997 - The chairman of the Senate Veteran's Affairs Committee proposed to strip Tim of his veteran's benefits -- including his eligibility for burial in a national cemetery -- following his bombing conviction.
June 13, 1997 - Betraying no emotion Tim sat stoically in the courtroom as a federal jury sentenced him to death for masterminding the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. The jury, after deliberating for nearly 11 hours over two days, decided unanimously that the 29-year-old decorated Gulf War veteran should die by lethal injection. The decision is binding on U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch who, after reading the verdict, told the jurors, "You've done your duty and you've done it well."
June 12, 1997 - In a last-ditch attempt to save Tim's life, his lawyer abandoned all pretence that he was innocent, telling a Denver jury that, while the devastating terrorist attack was perhaps the ultimate in evil deeds, his client was "not a demon". The prosecution pointed out in their closing statement that after killing 168 people the jury had a moral obligation to make McVeigh pay with his life for his actions. "Look into the eyes of a coward and tell him you will have the courage... Tell him he is no patriot. He is a traitor and deserves to die."
June 10, 1997 - After showing a tearful video of Tim as a happy, young boy growing up in upstate New York, the defense rested their four-day penalty phase case in the trial against the convicted mass murdering bomber. Saving their trump card until last, the defense had Mildred Frazier and William McVeigh, Tim's parents, pleading for the life of their son. Choking back tears, Mrs. Frazier, who left her husband when McVeigh was 16, described the defendant as a human being who deserved to live. "I still cannot believe to this day he could have caused this devastation," she said. "Yes, I am pleading for my son's life. He is a human being, as we all are. He is not the monster he has been portrayed as." His father narrated a 15-minute compilation of home videos of the young McVeigh as an average boy growing up in suburban America. Mr. McVeigh then was shown a photograph taken in the family kitchen between 1989 and 1992 of him and his son in a one-armed embrace. "It's a happy Tim -- the Tim I remember most of my life," the father said. "He was good-natured, fun, always fun to be with, always in a good mood."
June 5, 1997 - Norman Olson, who leads the Northern Michigan Regional Militia, urged Tim McVeigh to demand to be executed. "Targeting noncombatants is wrong and cannot be condoned by honorable men," Olson said,. "As a soldier, you must die for your war crime." Olson, a Baptist minister, gun shop owner and co-founder of the Michigan Militia, made his appeal to McVeigh in a letter sent through McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones. "Do the right thing now, Tim," the letter states, "Die for Janet Reno's sins for allowing Waco. Here is your chance to tell the world the true cause of your action. Let her forever live with that!"
June 4, 1997 - In an emotional outpouring unlike anything seen in a U.S. court, prosecutors drew tears from at least six jurors as they paraded a series of bomb survivors and relatives of the dead in an attempt to win a death sentence for McVeigh. After hearing about headless babies and bloody carnage, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch decided to recess so the jurors had time to compose themselves. In an attempt at fairness the judge disallowed some of the more dramatic testimony so to not turn the hearing into a public "lynching." He also asked the jurors not to "seek revenge" or be guided by emotions when making what he called a "moral judgment" on the life of the 29-year-old Gulf War veteran.
June 2, 1997 - After deliberationg for four days a jury of seven men and five women found Tim McVeigh guilty of all 11 charges against him. The trial now enters its penalty phase in which both side will present additional testimony to determine whether the convicted bomber will get a life sentence or the death penalty.
May 29, 1997 - Lawyers for Timothy McVeigh rested their case after presenting only three and a half days of evidence. McVeigh did not take the witness stand in his defence and no alibi was offered. Nor did the defense come close to presenting "the rest of the story" that would establish absolute proof of Timmy's innocence, as promised by his chief lawyer, Stephen Jones, in his opening statement. McVeigh's legal aid defense spent most of their $10 million budget searching for an international terrorist conspiracy as well as investigating homegrown militia movements to blame. All the defense hopes crumbled when the judge ruled that alternate theories about a broader conspiracy were irrelevant to the trial. Saving their biggest salvo until last, the defense sought to discredit Michael and Lori Fortier, star prosecution witnesses, who said McVeigh told them in detail about bombing the federal building. The Fortiers, who admitted under oath that they had lied to the Feds, were portrayed by Jones as drug users trying to save their white-trash butts and cash in on film and book rights to their stories. He played FBI wiretaps in which Fortier bragged of making $1 million from the tabloids by concocting a story to mislead agents.
May 22, 1997 - Attorneys for Tim McVeigh, in their first day of testimony, tried to shift blame for the bombing on a stray leg found in the ruins of the Oklahoma City federal building. "We have one left leg which we don't know where it belongs," Oklahoma State Medical Examiner Fred Jordan said under questioning from defense attorney Stephen Jones. While Jones never said the leg could have belonged to the real bomber, he implied it. Thomas Marshall, the former chief pathologist for violence-torn Northern Ireland, testified that the leg likely belonged to someone who was near the bomb when it went off. Marshall also said it was telling that no missing person's report was filed about someone near or in the bombed building: "If nobody misses them, then it reinforces the suggestion that the deceased is involved in the bombing."
May 21, 1997 - Government prosecutors rested their case against Timothy McVeigh after four weeks of testimony in which they presented a mountain of largely circumstacial evidence that they hope will prove that Timmy was the perpretator of the worst act of terrorism in US soil in modern history.
April 25, 1997 - After much fanfare McVeigh's trial beganin the Denver federal courthouse. Joseph Hartzler, the wheelchair-bound leading prosecutor, emotively described McVeigh's intent to declare war on the American Government. The prosecutor told the jury of McVeigh's disaffection with the US Army after the Gulf War and his failure to join the elite Green Berets. His anger and dissafection led him into the murky world of guns and militias which, in turn paved his way to become the worst mass murderer in US history.
Having striken a deal with the prosecution, the government's main witness, Michael Fortier, told the jury had staked out the Alfred E. Murrah Federal Building with McVeigh and that his buddy was so intent on killing federal workers that he was prepared to crash a bomb-filled Ryder truck into the front doors of the building. McVeigh's sister, Jennifer, identified her brother's handwriting on a series of letters he had written in which he expressed his hate for the government and promised retaliation for the Waco massacre. Other evidence included receipts linking the suspect to large purchases of ammonium nitrate (one of the main components of the bomb). Authorities where able to extract a latent print of the suspect from a rental application for a 20-foot Ryder truck. Prosecutors also presented a piece of video evidence from a surveillance camera near the federal building placing a Ryder truck in it's vicinity minutes before the blast.
April 19, 1995 - Speed freak Timothy McVeigh and fellow white-trash-neo-nazi-ex-soldier Terry Nichols decided to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people, including 20 children. With a twisted sense of logic, McVeigh and Co. decided the assault on the Branch Davidian compound by federal authorities in 1993 was a step towards civil war and it was their duty to act accordingly. To avenge this transgression by the feds, McVeigh, Nichols, and perhaps other paramilitary freaks decided to blow up a government building. On the two-year anniversary of the fiery assault in Waco they parked a Ryder rental truck full of gas and fertilizer in front of the federal building and blew it to smithereens, thus perpetrating the worse act of terrorism in the United States.
Famous Trials by Douglas O. Linder (2010), Univeristy of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
Famous Trials: Oklahoma City Bombing Trial (Timothy McVeigh)
Chronology; Maps; Images; McVeigh in Waco; Arrest & Searches of McVeigh; Three Prosecuted Conspirators; Doe #2 & Other Conspirators; Preliminary Hearing; Transcript & Indictment; Trial Transcript; Sentencing & Appeals; Last Words & Death Certificate; Bibliography & Links.
Chronology
April 23, 1968 Timothy James McVeigh is born.
June 1984 Tim's parents, Bill and Mickey, permanently separate.
May 24, 1988 McVeigh, already with developed "survivalist" inclinations (having read, among other books, the Turner Diaries), joins the army. He meets Terry Nichols in basic training in Georgia. They both serve later at Fort Riley, Kansas.
May 15, 1989 Nichols receives an honorable discharge.
March 1991 McVeigh returns from four months service in the Persian Gulf War. He begins 30 days of Special Services training at Fort Bragg, before returning to Fort Riley.
April 1991 McVeigh moves into an off-base home in Herrington, Kansas, where he will live for the next eight months.
December 1991 McVeigh leaves his army unit and moves to upstate New York, near Buffalo, to live with his father. He begins working for a security company.
1992 McVeigh becomes increasingly disenchanted with politicians, taxes, anti-gun activists, and U. S. foreign policy. He experiences bouts of serious depression, including thoughts of suicide. He writes angry letters to newspapers and to his congressman on subjects such as his objection to inhumane slaughterhouses and a proposed law prohibiting the possession of "noxious substances." He urges friends to read the Turner Diaries, a book urging violent action against the United States government.
Summer 1992 McVeigh has a long stay at the Michigan home of Terry Nichols, who shares McVeigh's growing hatred of the federal government.
August 21-31, 1992 McVeigh follows with great interest news stories about the government's 10-day effort to arrest Idaho survivalist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge. A deputy marshal and Weaver's 14-year-old son are killed the first day. The next day Randy Weaver is wounded. The incident ends with a federal agent shooting and killing Weaver's wife, leading to Weaver's surrender. McVeigh finds the government's conduct appalling.
October 1992 McVeigh moves out of his father's home and into a Lockport, New York apartment.
January 26, 1993 McVeigh quits his job at the security company, sells most of his belongings, and begins a series of long road trips. He begins selling guns and military items at gun shows, including one show where he meets and befriends a gun dealer named Roger Moore.
February 28, 1993 The U. S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), using about 80 armed agents, attempts to execute a search and arrest warrant (for possession of illegal weapons) against the Branch Davidians, a religious community headed by David Koresh and based in central Texas, near the city of Waco. The raid ends unsuccessfully and badly, with six Branch Davidians and four agents killed. What will turn out to be a 51-day stand-off begins at the Mount Carmel compound.
March 1993 McVeigh, incensed by reports of the siege at Mount Carmel, travels to Texas to visit the site. He is blocked at a checkpoint three miles from the Branch Davidian's compound. On March 30, an interview with McVeigh about the siege and his feelings toward the government, including a photo, runs in the S.M.U. college newspaper.
April 19, 1993 The FBI and army attack the Mount Carmel compound of the Branch Davidians. Tanks ram holes in the building and CS gas is pumped inside. Pyrotechnic devices are fired into the building, igniting a fire that soon became an inferno. Seventy-four men, women, and children are found dead inside the building. McVeigh watches reports on the dramatic events from the Nichols family farm in Michigan.
May-September 1993 McVeigh meets Andreas Strassmeir, security head for the militant, far-right compound "Elohim City", at at Tulsa gun show. McVeigh, visiting Michael Fortier in Kingman, Arizona, tells Fortier it is time to take violent action against the United States government. McVeigh stays in Kingman for five months, working a security job for minimum wage. During this time, McVeigh and Fortier discuss forming a militia for battle against "the New World Order," represented--they thought--by the government's actions at Waco. McVeigh continues to sell weapons at gun shows. In the fall, he leaves for Michigan to see Nichols.
October 12, 1993 McVeigh and Nichols drive to Elohim City, a compound for members of the militant right in eastern Oklahoma. The meeting at Elohim City includes person later to be convicted for a series of bank robberies in the Midwest. (A speeding ticket two months later, for an infraction just a few miles from Elohim City, indicates that McVeigh made repeat visits to the compound.)
February 1994 McVeigh takes a job in lumberyard in Kingman, Arizona.
Spring-Summer 1994 McVeigh's behavior moves increasingly out of the mainstream. He turns his Arizona home into a bunker and begins making and exploding small bombs. On March 16, he renounces his U. S. citizenship. He openly promotes his apocalyptic world view and begins using methamphetamine. In July, he and Fortier steal various items from a National Guard armory and McVeigh trespasses on top secret government land, "Area 51" near Roswell, New Mexico.
August-September 1994 In August, McVeigh cases a bank in Buffalo, Oklahoma, but decides not to rob it. In early September, McVeigh travels to Gulfport, Mississippi to investigate a rumor that the town had become a staging area for United Nations troops and equipment.
September 12, 1994 McVeigh participates in military maneuvers at Elohim City. (A September 13 hotel receipt confirms his presence in the area.).
September 13, 1994 McVeigh begins plotting to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On the same day, and not coincidentally, a new ban on assault weapons becomes law. (According to the government's complaint filed after the bombing, this date represents the beginning of the McVeigh-Nichols conspiracy to destroy the federal building.)
September 22, 1994 McVeigh rents a storage unit in Herington, Kansas, which he uses to store explosive ingredients.
September 30, 1994 McVeigh buys his first ton of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertilizer that is a key ingredient in McVeigh's bomb, at a farm cooperative in McPherson, Kansas.
October 3, 1994 McVeigh burglarizes a quarry near Marion, Kansas, and steals dynamite and blasting caps. He and Nichols drive to Arizona, where they stay for two weeks.
October 18, 1994 McVeigh and Nichols buy a second ton of ammonium nitrate in McPherson, Kansas.
October 20, 1994 McVeigh and Nichols drive by the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. They get out of their car, and time the distance to a place McVeigh would be at the time the bomb would go off.
October 21, 1994 Wearing a biker disguise, McVeigh purchases nearly $3,000 worth of nitromethane, a racing fuel used in bomb construction, from a Dallas, Texas track. After purchasing the fuel, they travel to Kingman, where McVeigh and Fortier test the explosives mixture.
November 1994 In a plan arranged by McVeigh, robbers breaks into the home of Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore, and makes off with guns and valuables.Meanwhile, Andreas Strassmeier and (Elohim City) and Dennis Mahon (Tulsa, associated with KKK) make the first of three trips to Oklahoma City to investigate possible bombing targets. The ATF, through the reports of undercover agent Carole Howe, is aware of their plans.
December 1994 McVeigh and Michael Fortier drive to Oklahoma City, where McVeigh points out his target. FBI documents also point to McVeigh's participation this month in bank robberies, along with other criminal elements from Elohim City.
January 1995 McVeigh and Nichols discuss bombing plans while living out of rented rooms in Kansas.
February 1995 Explosive material is moved from Arizona into McVeigh's Herington, Kansas storage unit. In the middle of February, McVeigh moves into Fortier's Arizona home, where he will stay for one month.After a meeting involving officials of the ATF, FBI, and U.S. Attorney's Office, a planned raid of Elohim City is called off.
March 1995 Terry Nichols thinks about backing out of the bombing plan. McVeigh obtains a fake ID. By the end of the month, he is clear that he doesn't want to be involved on the day of the bombing, now set to coincide with the second anniversary of the attack at Waco.
April 5, 1995 McVeigh places a 15-minute phone call to Elohim City.
April 5-12, 1995 McVeigh lives out of a rented motel room in Kingman, Arizona. Fortier tells McVeigh he doesn't want to participate further in the bombing plot. On April 8, McVeigh is videotaped by a security camera in a Tulsa strip club. He is at the club with Andreas Strassmeir and Michael Brescia, two residents of Elohim City. McVeigh can be heard on the tape telling a dancer at the club, "On April 19, you'll remember me for the rest of my life."
April 13, 1995 McVeigh visits Oklahoma City and finds a place to leave a car to use after the bombing. He inspects his storage shed in Herington, Kansas.
April 14, 1995 McVeigh buys a 1977 Mercury Marquis in Junction City, Kansas. He also calls a rental shop in Junction City to reserve a Ryder truck. He meets with Terry Nichols at Geary Lake (Nichols gives McVeigh some cash) before checking into the Dreamland Motel in Junction City.
April 15, 1995 McVeigh, using the name "Robert Kling," puts down a deposit for a Ryder truck at Elliot's Body Shop.
April 16, 1995 McVeigh meets Nichols at a Dairy Queen in Herington. They drive in separate cars to Oklahoma City, where McVeigh leaves his getaway car. The two men then drive back to Kansas.
April 17, 1995 McVeigh picks up the Ryder rental truck in Junction City and drives the truck back to the Dreamland Motel.
April 18, 1995 McVeigh leaves the Dreamland Motel in the Ryder truck in the early morning. McVeigh drives to his storage unit where he meets Nichols. The men load bags of fertilizer and drums of nitromethane into the truck. McVeigh and Nichols drive separately to Geary Lake park in Kansas, where the two men mix the explosive components. In the afternoon, McVeigh heads south toward Oklahoma in the Ryder truck. He parks the truck for the night near Ponca City, Oklahoma, and sleeps in his truck.
April 19, 1995 McVeigh awakes near Ponca City and about 7 A.M. begins driving toward Oklahoma City. He wears a T-shirt with a drawing of Abraham Lincoln and the words (shouted by John Wilkes Booth) "SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS" ("thus ever to tyrants"). About 8:50 A.M., McVeigh enters Oklahoma City. As he drives the Ryder truck up NW 5th Street shortly before 9:00, he lights two bomb fuses. He parks the truck at a drop-off point in front of the Murrah Federal Building, locks the truck, and walks quickly toward a nearby YMCA building. At 9:02 A.M., the truck explodes, taking with it much of the Murrah Building and seriously damaging many nearby buildings. Eventually, it will be determined that 167 people died, and over 500 were injured, in the explosion. McVeigh hops into his Mercury and heads north out of the city. At 10:20 A.M., while driving north on I-35, McVeigh is stopped for having no license plates on his vehicle. He is arrested for having no vehicle registration, no license plates, and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. He is booked and lodged in the county jail in Perry, Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, federal agents find the vehicle identification number of the Ryder truck, and head off to Junction City, Kansas to determine who might have rented it.
At 9 P.M., white supremacist Richard Snell is executed in Arkansas after having told prison officials for four days that there would be a big bombing or explosion on the day of his execution (Denver Post story). Snell is connected with several of the men in Elohim City involved in a plot to attack federal buildings.
April 21, 1995 A former co-worker in New York identifies Timothy McVeigh as the "John Doe No. 1" depicted in police drawings. A warrant is issued for McVeigh's arrest. Authorities discover that McVeigh is still in Perry, where he is scheduled to appear before a judge on his misdemeanor charges. McVeigh is taken to Tinker Air Force base near Oklahoma City. McVeigh is arraigned in the evening.
Terry Nichols turns himself in to authorities in Herington, Kansas. He consents to a search of his home.
April 28, 1995 A U. S. magistrate orders McVeigh held without bail.
May 4, 1995 Due to the instability of the remaining structure, the search for additional bodies at the explosion site is called off.
May 10, 1995 Terry Nichols is charged in connection with the bombing.
June 14, 1995 Authorities call off the search for "John Doe No. 2," concluding the sketches are of an innocent person.
August 8, 1995 Michael Fortier and his wife testify before a grand jury investigating the bombing.
August 11, 1995 A grand jury indicts McVeigh and Nichols on murder and conspiracy charges.
October 20, 1995 Attorney General Janet Reno authorizes prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
December 1, 1995 The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals removes Oklahoma District Judge Wayne Alley from the case and assigns the case to Judge Richard Matsch of Denver.
February 20, 1996 Citing the defendant's right to an impartial jury, Judge Matsch moves the trial from Oklahoma City to Denver.
October 25, 1996 Judge Matsch orders separate trials for McVeigh and Nichols, with McVeigh to be tried first.
February 28, 1997 Newspapers publish reports that McVeigh has confessed.
March 31, 1997 Jury selection begins in the McVeigh trial.
April 24, 1997 Opening statements are presented in the McVeigh trial.
May 21, 1997 The prosecution rests after having presented 137 witnesses.
May 28, 1997 The defense rests after having presented 25 witnesses. Closing arguments are set for the next day.
June 2, 1997 McVeigh is convicted on all eleven counts.
June 13, 1997 After hearing arguments in the penalty phase of the trial, the jury unanimously decides that McVeigh should be sentenced to death.
September 29, 1997 The Terry Nichols trial opens.
December 23, 1997 Nichols is convicted of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and involuntary manslaughter. He is found not guilty of use of a weapon of mass destruction.
January 7, 1998 The jury deadlocks on the sentence for Nichols.
May 27, 1998 Michael Fortier, who failed to warn authorities of the bombing plan but testified against McVeigh and Nichols, is sentenced to 12 years in prison.
June 4, 1998 Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison.
September 8, 1998 The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds McVeigh's conviction.
March 9, 1999 The U. S. Supreme Court refuses to hear McVeigh's appeal of his conviction.
July 13, 1999 McVeigh is transferred to the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
March 12, 2000 McVeigh is interviewed by Ed Bradley on the CBS program 60 Minutes.
April 19, 2000 Dedication ceremonies are held at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. The event marks the fifth anniversary of the bombing.
January 16, 2001 After McVeigh says he wants to drop all appeals of his death sentence, an execution date of May 16 is set.
May 10, 2001 Six days before the scheduled execution, the Justice Department admits that it found over 4,000 pages of evidence that should have been turned over to the defense before trial, but wasn't. Attorney General Ashcroft postpones the execution for 30 days to allow defense attorneys to review the newly released documents.
June 1, 2001 McVeigh changes his mind and allows his attorneys to file appeals to delay the execution.
June 7, 2001 An appeal court denies McVeigh's request for a stay of execution, and McVeigh announces that he is ready to die.
June 11, 2001 McVeigh is executed as survivors and relatives of victims watch on closed-circuit television. McVeigh is pronounced dead at 7:14 A.M.
May 26, 2004 After being tried in state court in Oklahoma on 160 charges of first-degree murder, Terry Nichols is found guilty of all charges. The jury deadlocks on the death penalty, thus sparing his life.
January 20, 2006 Michael Fortier is released from prison after serving 10½ years of his 12-year sentence.
Other Chapters: Chronology; Maps; Images; McVeigh in Waco; Arrest & Searches of McVeigh; Three Prosecuted Conspirators; Doe #2 & Other Conspirators; Preliminary Hearing; Transcript & Indictment; Trial Transcript; Sentencing & Appeals; Last Words & Death Certificate; Bibliography & Links.
TruTV Crime Library: Timothy McVeigh & Terry Nichols - Oklahoma Bombing
The Oklahoma City Bombing by Ted Ottley.
Bad Day Dawning That we can learn a lot about a man from the books and films he chooses is borne out by Timothy McVeigh. One of his favorite films: the 1984 Patrick Swayze epic Red Dawn. It follows a group of small town teens' conversion to guerilla fighters when a foreign army invades America.
Like McVeigh, the teens stock up on survival gear - mainly guns and ammo - in order to defend their country from annihilation. And one of McVeigh's favorite books: The Turner Diaries written by former American Nazi Party honcho William L. Pierce, under the pen name Andrew Macdonald. Its hero - Earl Turner - responds to gun control by making a truck bomb and blowing up the Washington FBI Building. Two scenarios - all too familiar.
It was April 19, 1995 - a perfect, sun-drenched Oklahoma morning in springtime. Against a perfect blue-sky background, a yellow Ryder Rental truck carefully made its way through the streets of downtown Oklahoma City. Just after 9 am, the vehicle pulled into a parking area outside the Alfred P. Murrah Building and the driver stepped down from the truck's cab and casually walked away. A few minutes later, at 9:02, all hell broke loose as the truck's deadly 4000-pound cargo blasted the government building with enough force to shatter one third of the seven-story structure to bits. Glass, concrete, and steel rained down. Indiscriminately mixed in the smoldering rubble were adults and children alive and dead.
The perpetrator, twenty-seven-year-old Timothy James McVeigh, by now safely away from the devastation was convinced he acted to defend the Constitution, for he saw himself as crusader, warrior avenger and hero. But in reality, he was little more than a misguided coward. He never even heard clearly the sound of the initial sirens of emergency vehicles rushing to the scene. Because, blocks away, he was wearing earplugs to protect himself from the roar of a blast so powerful it lifted pedestrians off the ground.
One Japanese tourist no stranger to powerful earthquakes called the blast "worse than the worst quake. Because there was no initial warning, no noise to say 'something terrible is going to happen'; it just hit." When it did, a massive ball of fire momentarily outshone the sun and the north side of the building disintegrated. Traffic signs and parking meters were ripped from the pavement. Glass shattered and flew like bullets, targeting and maiming pedestrians blocks away.
Inside the broken building, survival depended on location at zero hour. Some of the lucky ones had left their usual posts to get a coffee, deliver documents or simply visit nearby offices. As they did, their offices and fellow workers were blown away. In the children's day-care center directly above the mobile bomb, devastation was horrific. Upper floors collapsed on those beneath them, setting up a chain reaction that crushed everything and everyone below.
Rescue workers rushed to the scene almost immediately. Professionals and volunteers alike clawed through the rubble to help dig out the wounded and remove the dead. Temporary silences were observed so listening devices that can detect even human heartbeats were employed to locate anyone still living. In one instance, sounding devices finally located a buried woman - Dana Bradley - as she cried for help. The twenty-year-old lay bleeding in a foot of water. For five hours, her leg had been pinned under a pile of cement.
The massive pile of rubble trapping her could not be shifted, so the rescue team's only hope of getting her out alive was to amputate her crushed limb. She pleaded with them to try another way, but to delay posed a double threat. She could bleed to death, or the building could collapse on Dana and the rescue team - the rescuers had been driven out once before when the building had begun to shake. On returning, volunteer Dr. Gary Massad faced one of the hardest decisions of his career. Because anesthetic could trigger a fatal coma, the operation would have to be done while the patient was fully conscious.
There was no other way. Once the operation was done, she was finally dragged from the ruins and hospitalized. Dana Bradley lost more than part of her leg in the bombing; she also lost her mother and two young children. Hundreds of stories of tragedy and heroism were to emerge as the days passed as were endless tales of incredible selflessness and extreme generosity.
But what may never come is a child's ability to understand a cruelty that deprived them of a parent or a parent's comprehension of the bitterness that took the life of an innocent child. Gone in one cataclysmic blast were one hundred and sixty eight lives. Wounded were more than five hundred others. Destroyed were the hopes and dreams of countless friends and relatives.
And lost that moment although nobody knew it yet was the innocence of America. Homegrown terrorism had arrived with a vengeance, and the terrorist was the kid next door. And he was cruising away from the carnage down Interstate 35."

FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick SGT Denny Espinosa SPC Matthew Lamb LTC (Join to see)Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Woody Bullard TSgt David L. SPC Michael Terrell SFC Chuck Martinez CSM Charles HaydenSSG Bill McCoy SMSgt Tom Burns

May that fucker burn in hell for eternity.

Not missing him.