Timothy McVeigh

Timothy McVeigh after his arrest in 1995

Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001), considered by the FBI an American domestic terrorist, was executed for his part in the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing. Hundreds were injured and 167 men, women and children died when a truck loaded with improvised explosives was detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building as federal offices began business for the day. Later a 168th victim died when a huge chunk of concrete crushed a rescue worker.

Most accounts say the ANFO explosive device arranged in the back of a rented Ryder truck contained about 5,000 lb (2,300 kg) of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertilizer, and nitromethane, a highly volatile motor-racing fuel. Prosecutors said McVeigh strode away from the truck after he ignited a timed fuse from the front of the truck. Although a day care center was located on the ground floor of the building, there is no evidence that McVeigh knew about it or purposely targeted children. However, it is suggested from prison interviews that McVeigh would have dismissed these deaths as necessary collateral damage.

McVeigh was a self described libertarian [1] and an anti-government extremist, with a long background in the survivalist movement. He was known to be a keen reader of the controversial book The Turner Diaries, which describes acts of terrorism similar to the one he perpetrated. Photocopies of pages sixty-one and sixty-two of the novel were found in an envelope inside McVeigh's car. These pages depicted a fictitious mortar attack upon the US Capitol in Washington.

Biography

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McVeigh in the U.S. Army during the first Gulf War

McVeigh was born in Western New York State in Pendleton (near Buffalo) to an Irish-American Catholic family. His parents divorced when he was 10 years old. McVeigh and his siblings lived with their father, a devout Catholic who often attended Daily Mass. Although Timothy McVeigh claimed to be agnostic (http://www.guardian.co.uk/mcveigh/story/0,,504876,00.html), he was visited by a chaplain while he was in federal prison in Indiana. He attended the local public high school and after graduating joined the U.S. Army. McVeigh was a decorated veteran of the United States Army, having served in the Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal. He had been a top scoring gunner with the 25 mm cannon of the lightly armored 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. His superiors and friends thought of him as a model soldier. At Fort Riley, McVeigh completed the Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC), an Army school required for specialists and corporals to be promoted to sergeant. McVeigh had always wanted to join the Green Berets, the Army's Elite Special Forces. After his return from the war, he was given an opportunity to do this, but failed the grueling physical part of the indoctrination. McVeigh was devastated and decided to leave the Army.

Upon leaving the Army, McVeigh worked briefly near his native Pendleton as a security guard. But in the months before the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, he eventually returned to Junction City, which is outside Fort Riley, among other places. His lifestyle grew increasingly transient. Prosecutors said he made the bomb at a lakeside campground near his old Army post.

Through its serial number, the FBI identified a rear axle as coming from 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 Kling. The sketch was shown in the area and on the same day was identified by manager Lea McGown of the Dreamland Hotel as Timothy McVeigh.

While driving on I-35 in Noble County, Oklahoma, McVeigh was stopped by Charles Hanger, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper from Pawnee, Oklahoma. Hanger had passed McVeigh's yellow Mercury Marquis and noticed it had no license plate. McVeigh was arrested for driving without a license plate and carrying and transporting a loaded firearm. Three days later, while still in jail, McVeigh was identified as the subject of the nationwide manhunt.

In a book based on interviews before his execution, 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. Some question the veracity of this claim in light of McVeigh's attempts to become a Green Beret after returning from Iraq.

In the wake of the standoff between federal officials and militiamen at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992, McVeigh said he was further influenced by the 1993 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raid on the Waco headquarters of the Branch Davidians. He visited Waco during the standoff, where he spoke to a news reporter about his anger over what was happening there.

McVeigh had been a Republican until around 1993 and was a member of the National Rifle Association while he was in the Army. [2]

Death

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McVeigh's police mug shot

McVeigh was convicted on June 2, 1997 in a United States District Court for the murder of eight federal employees who died in the explosion. The same jury on June 13 recommended that McVeigh receive the death penalty (see [3]). The Justice Department brought federal charges on those few deaths to obtain a death penalty against McVeigh; they could not bring charges against McVeigh for most of the murders because those deaths fell under the jurisdiction of the state of Oklahoma.

His death sentence was delayed pending an appeal. One of his appeals made it to the Supreme Court of the United States, which denied certiorari on March 8, 1999. He was ultimately executed by lethal injection at 7:00 a.m. on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. He had dropped all of his existing appeals, whilst presenting no reason for doing so. He was 33 years old.

McVeigh invited California conductor/composer David Woodard to perform a prequiem (a Mass for those who are about to die) on the eve of his execution, and he had also requested a Catholic chaplain. Ave Atque Vale was performed under Woodard's baton by a local brass choir at St. Margaret Mary Church, located near the Terre Haute penitentiary, at 7pm on June 10, to a listenership that included the entirety of the next morning's witnesses. McVeigh chose William Ernest Henley's poem "Invictus" as his final statement. His final meal consisted of 2 pints of Ben and Jerry's mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was the first execution of a convicted criminal by the US Federal Government since the execution of Victor Feguer in Iowa on March 15, 1963.

His body was disposed of by cremation in the retort at Mattox Ryan Funeral home in Terre Haute under the direction of funeral director Kevin Nickles. The cremated remains were then given to his lawyer for disposition.

Alleged accomplices

Before his execution, some speculated McVeigh was framed, or that others were involved. Convicted co-conspirator Terry Nichols was sentenced in federal court to life in prison for his role in the crime, but at Nichols' trial, testimony suggested McVeigh had several other accomplices. McVeigh's original trial attorney wrote in a book, Others Unknown, about several other possible suspects, and continued to implicate Terry Nichols' brother, James, following McVeigh's execution.

Various analysts have suggested the government had a role in a conspiracy behind the bombing, or even planned the attack, so as to have grounds for persecuting right-wing organizations in a manner similar to Nazi prosecution of legislators after the Reichstag fire. Soon after the bombing an analysis by Brigadier General Benton K. Partin (Ret.) concluded that "the damage at the Murrah Federal Building is not the result of the truck bomb itself, but rather due to other factors such as locally placed charges within the building itself". Partin's report, released in the weeks following the bombing, was based on assumptions the bomb was fueled with diesel fuel, but did not account for the greater explosive strength of nitromethane in an improvised explosive device.

Some writers suggested that seismographic records from a nearby research station shortly after the explosion indicated the possibility of multiple explosions, but other analysts suggest multiple readings within seconds indicate shock waves from collapse of the building.

In February 2004, the FBI announced it would review its investigation after learning 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 bomb. There is no evidence that McVeigh was with members of the MidWest Bank Robbers at Elohim City in northern Arkansas at a time shortly before the attack. Such rumors are founded on nothing more than an indication that McVeigh's was in Arkansas at the time, having been issued a speeding ticket there. Shortly after the bombing, an ATF informant, Carolyn Howe, reportedly told reporters she had warned her handlers in the weeks before the bombing that guests of Elohim City were planning a major bombing attack, but there is no established link to McVeigh.

Agents in 2004 expressed surprise that the bombing investigators had not been provided information from the MidWest Bank Robbers investigation. Shortly before McVeigh's June 2001 execution evidence related to the Bank Robbers gang was presented to a court resulting in a delay of his scheduled execution by one week. McVeigh eventually declined any further delays, and maintained until his death that he had acted alone in the bombing.

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 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.

McVeigh's first trial attorney, Stephen Jones (attorney), also suggested in his book on the case that Terry Nichols had crossed paths with suspected Islamic terrorists during his frequent visits to the Philippines before the attacks. Nichols' father-in-law at the time was a Philippine police officer who owned an apartment building often rented to Arabic-speaking students with alleged terrorist connections. However, there is no credible evidence of an Islamist link to the Oklahoma City bombings.

Richard A. Clarke speculates on the improvement in Nichols's bomb-making techniques as a possible link to Philippines-based Islamic militants in Cebu and the southern islands, plus several telephone calls he made there long after he and his wife had come back to the US together, in his 2004 account of the work he undertook for several administrations, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror.

External links

Timothy McVeigh

Biography

Death

Alleged accomplices

See also

Further reading

External links