Timothy McVeigh

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Timothy McVeigh Biography

Plotted an attack that killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.

He worked as a security guard, where he would often tell his co-workers how much he disliked the government.

He was a member of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force.

His parents are named William and Mildred.

He often recited quotes by Patrick Henry.

He was a top-scoring gunner with the 25mm cannon of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles used by the 1st Infantry Division and was promoted to sergeant. After being promoted, McVeigh earned a reputation of assigning undesirable work to black servicemen and used racial slurs. He was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, before being deployed on Operation Desert Storm.

Timothy McVeigh was born on April 23, 1968 in Lockport, New York, the only son and the second of three children of Irish Americans Mildred “Mickey” Noreen (née Hill) and William McVeigh. His parents divorced when he was ten years old, and he was raised by his father in Pendleton, New York.

Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist who perpetrated the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and injured over 680 others. The bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism in the United States prior to the September 11 attacks, and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in United States history.

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. Hanger had passed McVeigh’s yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis and noticed that it had no license plate. McVeigh admitted to the state trooper (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 supposed words shouted by John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln. 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.” Three days later, while still in jail, McVeigh was identified as the subject of the nationwide manhunt.

According to CNN, his only known associations were as a registered Republican while in Buffalo, New York, in the 1980s, and a membership in the National Rifle Association while in the Army, and there is no evidence that he ever belonged to any extremist groups.

McVeigh was raised Roman Catholic. During his childhood, he and his father attended Mass regularly. McVeigh was confirmed at the Good Shepherd Church in Pendleton, New York, in 1985. In a 1996 interview, McVeigh professed 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.” In McVeigh’s biography American Terrorist, released in 2002, he stated that he did not believe in a hell and that science is his religion. In June 2001, a day before the execution, McVeigh wrote a letter to the Buffalo News identifying himself as agnostic. However, he took the Last Rites, administered by a priest, just before his execution. Father Charles Smith ministered to McVeigh in his last moments in death row.

While in high school, McVeigh became interested in computers and hacked into government computer systems on his Commodore 64 under the handle The Wanderer, taken from the song by Dion (DiMucci). In his senior year, McVeigh was named Starpoint Central High School’s “most promising computer programmer,” but he maintained relatively poor grades until his 1986 graduation.

In May 1988, at the age of 20, McVeigh enlisted in the United States Army and attended Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training at the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. While in the military, McVeigh used much of his spare time to read about firearms, sniper tactics, and explosives. McVeigh was reprimanded by the military for purchasing a “White Power” T-shirt at a Ku Klux Klan protest against black servicemen who wore “Black Power” T-shirts around a military installation (primarily Army).

McVeigh aspired to join the United States Army Special Forces (SF). After returning from the Gulf War, he entered the selection program, but washed out on the second day of the 21-day assessment and selection course for the Special Forces. McVeigh decided to leave the Army and was honorably discharged in 1991.

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. He said he wanted Reno to accept “full responsibility in deed, not just words.” Such an assassination seemed too difficult, and he decided that since federal agents had become soldiers, it was necessary to strike against them at their command centers. According to McVeigh’s authorized biography, he ultimately decided that he would make the loudest statement by bombing a federal building. After the bombing, he was ambivalent about his act; as he expressed in letters to his hometown newspaper, he sometimes wished he had carried out a series of assassinations against police and government officials instead.

In April 1993, McVeigh headed for a farm in Michigan where 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. Particularly, 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 was familiar with its effects. The disappearance of certain evidence, such as the bullet-riddled steel-reinforced front door to the complex, led him to suspect a cover-up.

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 bearing slogans such as, “When guns are outlawed, I will become an outlaw.” He told a student reporter:

A Gulf War veteran, McVeigh sought revenge against the federal government for the 1993 Waco siege that ended in the deaths of 76 people, many of whom were children, exactly two years before the bombing, as well as the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident and American foreign policy. He hoped to inspire a revolution against the federal government, and defended the bombing as a legitimate tactic against what he saw as a tyrannical government. He was arrested shortly after the bombing and indicted on 160 state offenses and 11 federal offenses, including the use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was found guilty on all counts in 1997 and sentenced to death.

McVeigh’s anti-government rhetoric became more radical. He began to sell Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) hats riddled with bullet holes and a flare gun, which, he said, could shoot down an “ATF helicopter”. 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.” He began experimenting with pipe bombs and other small explosive devices. The government also imposed new firearms restrictions in 1994 that McVeigh believed threatened his livelihood.

McVeigh’s accomplice 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 Terry Nichols’ federal trial that they had seen two trucks at Geary Lake State Park, 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. Terry Nichols is incarcerated at ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado.

On August 10, 1995, McVeigh was indicted on eleven federal counts, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction with the use of explosives and eight counts of first-degree murder.

On April 19, 1995, McVeigh drove the truck to the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building just as its offices opened for the day. Before arriving, he stopped to light a two-minute fuse. At 09:02, a large explosion destroyed the north half of the building. It killed 168 people, including nineteen children in the day care center on the second floor, and injured 684 others.

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 Paul Matsch.

On November 21, 1997, President Bill Clinton had signed S. 923, special legislation introduced by Senator Arlen Specter to bar McVeigh and other veterans convicted of capital crimes from being buried in any military cemetery. His body was cremated at Mattox Ryan Funeral Home in Terre Haute. His ashes were given to his lawyer, who “said that the final destination of McVeigh’s remains would remain privileged forever.” McVeigh had written that he considered having them dropped at the site of the memorial where the building once stood, but decided that would be “too vengeful, too raw, too cold.” He had expressed willingness to donate organs, but was prohibited from doing so by prison regulations.

On June 13, 1997, the jury recommended that McVeigh receive the death penalty. 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; they 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. Before the sentence was formally pronounced by Judge Matsch, McVeigh addressed the court for the first time and said:

On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on all eleven counts of the federal indictment. After the verdict, 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.”

Michael and Lori Fortier were also considered accomplices due to their foreknowledge of the bombing. In addition to Michael assisting McVeigh in scouting the federal building, Lori had helped McVeigh laminate a fake driver’s license which was used to rent the Ryder truck. Fortier agreed to testify against McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a reduced sentence and immunity for his wife. He was sentenced on May 27, 1998, to twelve years in prison and fined $75,000 for failing to warn authorities about the bombing. On January 20, 2006, Fortier was released for good behavior into the Witness Protection Program and given a new identity.

In a 1,200-word essay dated March 1998, from the federal maximum-security prison at Florence, Colorado, McVeigh claimed that the terrorist bombing was “morally equivalent” to U.S. military actions against Iraq and other foreign countries. The handwritten essay, submitted to and published by the alternative national news magazine Media Bypass, was distributed worldwide by the Associated Press on May 29, 1998. This was written in the midst of the 1998 Iraq disarmament crisis and a few months before Operation Desert Fox.

The BOP transferred McVeigh from ADX Florence to the federal death row at United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1999.

McVeigh’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 unsuccessfully sued for the right to broadcast it. At ADX Florence, McVeigh and Nichols were housed in “Bomber’s Row”, the same cell block as Ted Kaczynski, Luis Felipe and Ramzi Yousef. Yousef made frequent, unsuccessful attempts to convert McVeigh to Islam.

During an interview with Ed Bradley for television news magazine 60 Minutes in 2000, Bradley asked McVeigh for his reaction to the deaths of the nineteen children. McVeigh stated:

During an interview with Ed Bradley for television news magazine 60 Minutes in 2000, Bradley asked McVeigh for his reaction to the deaths of the nineteen children. McVeigh stated:

McVeigh was executed by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first federal prisoner to be executed by the United States federal government since Victor Feguer was executed in Iowa on March 15, 1963.

The execution date was reset for June 11, 2001. McVeigh invited conductor David Woodard to perform pre-requiem Mass music on the eve of his execution; while acknowledging McVeigh’s “horrible deed”, Woodard consented, intending to “provide comfort”. McVeigh also requested a Catholic chaplain. His last meal consisted of two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

McVeigh dropped his remaining appeals, saying that he would rather die than spend the rest of his life in prison. On January 16, 2001 the Federal Bureau of Prisons set May 16, 2001, as McVeigh’s execution date. McVeigh stated that his only regret was not completely destroying the federal building. Six days prior to his scheduled execution, 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.

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