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McVeigh, Timothy
Identification Domestic terrorist responsible for
the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing
Born April 23, 1968; Pendleton, New York
Died June 11, 2001; Terre Haute, Indiana
McVeigh committed the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S.
soil up to that time and the deadliest example of domestic
terrorism ever in the United States.
Timothy McVeigh was the middle child born to Wil-
liam McVeigh and Mildred Noreen Hill in Pendleton,
New York. His parents divorced when he was ten, and
he went to live with his father while his two sisters went
to live with their mother in Florida. In May of 1988, he
enlisted in the Army. He served in the Gulf War and
was awarded a Bronze Star. He then began training
for the Army’s Special Forces (Green Berets) but
dropped out after a couple of days.
On April 17, 1995, in Junction City, Kansas,
McVeigh rented a Ryder truck, which he and Army
friend Terry Nichols packed with a two-ton bomb.
McVeigh then drove to Oklahoma City, where he
parked the truck a few blocks from the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building. On the early morning of
April 19, McVeigh drove to the federal building, lit
the five-minute fuse, and parked the truck in a drop-
off zone. At 9:02a.m., the truck bomb exploded, hit-
ting the northern face of the building and leaving a
third of the building in ruins and downtown Okla-
homa City devastated. The blast was felt over fifty
miles away and measured about 3.0 on the Richter
scale, damaging over three hundred surrounding
buildings.
Preparation for this event began around Septem-
ber, 1994. McVeigh was angry at the government’s
handling of the incidents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in
1992 and Waco, Texas, in 1993. He had traveled to
Waco during the siege to distribute antigovernment
pamphlets. McVeigh thought that certain Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents whom
he blamed for the Waco incident had their offices in
the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and felt that
that building was an easy target.
About an hour after the bombing, a police officer
pulled over McVeigh about sixty miles from Okla-
homa City for not having a rear license plate. When
the officer approached the car, he noticed a bulge in
McVeigh’s jacket, which was the gun McVeigh
brought with him in case the bomb failed to ignite.
He admitted to the officer that he had a concealed
weapon and was arrested. When they searched his
car, police discovered documents that revealed the
motivations behind the bombing. They connected
the vehicle identification number on the Ryder
truck to McVeigh, then began searching for his ac-
complices.
In the largest criminal case ever, McVeigh was
convicted on all eleven counts against him, includ-
ing eight counts of first-degree murder, use of a
weapon of mass destruction, destruction by explo-542 McVeigh, Timothy The Nineties in America
Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh is escorted by
law-enforcement officials on April 21, 1995. In 1997, he was
found guilty on eleven counts of murder and conspiracy and was
sentenced to death by lethal injection.(AP/Wide World Photos)