Mcveigh, Timothy (1968–2001)

Early Life

McVeigh grew up in the small, predominantly white, blue-collar, and overwhelmingly Christian town of Lockport, outside of Buffalo, New York. His parents first separated when he was 11; McVeigh staying with his father while his two sisters moved with his mother. At 13, his grandfather gave him his first gun. When McVeigh graduated from high school with honors, he was already a considerable gun enthusiast and budding survivalist.

After brief attendance at business school, McVeigh joined the Army in May 1988. He received basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he befriended Terry Lynn Nichols and Michael Fortier, then joined the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas. When the Gulf War broke out in 1990, McVeigh was deployed to the Gulf with the Bradley Fighting Vehicles. There, he distinguished himself as best shot in his platoon and was awarded a Bronze Star upon his return. He was invited to join the Green Berets; his brief three-day stint was followed by his resignation from the Army after 43 months of service.

In 1993, McVeigh began to travel state to state selling antigovernment literature and survival items on the gun show circuit. He also traveled to Waco, to protest the government siege of the Branch Davidian complex, believing that the members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) were violating the Davidians' Second Amendment rights. McVeigh watched the final fiery standoff, on April 19, 1993, on television. This moment solidified McVeigh's hatred of the federal government and initiated his quest to stop the ATF.

Planning the Attack

Over the following months, as new gun laws further enraged McVeigh, he plotted to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which he mistakenly believed housed the ATF. His plan was taken almost directly from the plot of The Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel that described not only a full-scale race war but also the plight of Earl Turner, who truck bombed the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., in protest of gun control laws. McVeigh had pushed the book on family and friends since he first read it, just after high school.

Evidence and testimony later showed that McVeigh and his former Army buddy, Nichols, bought and stole [Page 225]bomb-making materials, including ammonium nitrate fertilizer and race car fuel, and stored them in lockers rented under various aliases. McVeigh and Nichols also robbed a gun collector, Roger Moore, of guns, gold, silver, and jewels to fund their conspiracy. In December 1994, McVeigh drove Michael Fortier, another former Army friend, past the Murrah building, explaining his plans as well as his getaway route.

In early 1995, McVeigh and Nichols traveled to Kingman, Arizona, where Fortier lived with his wife, Lori. Lori Fortier later testified that McVeigh showed her how he planned to position the explosives, demonstrating with cans of soup. She also helped make McVeigh a fake driver's license under the name of Robert Kling. Within months, McVeigh would act on his plan—he would drive a rented truck filled with more than 4,000 pounds of explosives to the Murrah building on a workday morning, park, and calmly walk away.

The Investigation

McVeigh was arrested 80 minutes after the truck bomb exploded at the Murrah building. Oklahoma state trooper Charlie Hanger stopped a yellow 1977 Mercury Grand Marquis driving north on Interstate 35. At first, it seemed to be a routine traffic stop—the Marquis had no license plates. The driver, McVeigh, emerged from the car; when Hanger asked to see his license, he noticed a gun bulging from inside the driver's wind-breaker. Hangar confiscated the gun, a 9mm Glock, and handcuffed McVeigh before taking him to the Noble County jail in Perry, Oklahoma. McVeigh was booked on four misdemeanor charges: unlawfully carrying a weapon, transporting a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle, failing to display a current license plate, and failing to maintain proof of insurance. The address on McVeigh's driver's license was the Decker, Michigan, family farm of Terry Lynn Nichols.

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