McVeigh, Timothy (1968–2001)

Biographical Details

McVeigh is described as having a high IQ and a relatively normal childhood involving comic books, football, student council, computer hacking, and a job at Burger King. He played war with the children he baby-sat and enjoyed variations like Star Wars: “What seemed to attract him was the battle of good and evil” in which McVeigh ‘always took the side of the good guys’ (Michel & Herbeck, 2001, p. 26). In a pattern consistent through his later years, he could be charming when he wanted, but he rarely dated. His growing fascination with guns and survivalism led him to enlist in the Army in 1998. He excelled in basic training, where he met Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, both of whom were also convicted for participating in the Oklahoma City bombing. While in the military, McVeigh first read the Turner Diaries (McDonald, 1996), a fictional racist account of Earl Turner's resistance to the “Zionist Occupied Government” that overtakes the United States and disarms white citizens. McVeigh claims he did not share the book's racism, but identified with “the Diaries' obsession with guns and explosives and a final all-out war against the ‘System’” (Vidal, 2001, p. 409).

The First Gulf War

During Operation Desert Storm, the military decorated McVeigh with a Bronze Star for valor, among other commendations (Hamm, 1997, p. 149). After the Persian Gulf War, he failed Special Forces training. With a “postwar hangover,” posttraumatic stress, and possibly Gulf War Syndrome, McVeigh spent the next years leading up to the bombing traveling the gun show circuit, making contacts in the survivalist right, discussing the Turner Diaries, spending time with Nichols and Fortier, and taking methamphetamine.

The Case

Police arrested McVeigh near Oklahoma City because his car had no license plate and the officer found several weapons. McVeigh was wearing a shirt with a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson: “The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” While he was held, authorities connected him to the bombing, and the trial would be shown via closed circuit TV to an overflow crowd of survivors of the bombing and victims' relatives. The jury convicted him on all 11 counts after four days of deliberations, and after the hearings in the penalty phase, the jury deliberated two more days before handing down the death sentence.

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