The Oklahoma City Bombing

On April 17, 1995, Timothy McVeigh picked up a 20-foot Ryder truck from Elliott's Body Shop in Junction City, Kansas. The truck was filled with roughly 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertilizer, and nitromethane, a highly volatile motor-racing fuel-a mixture also known as Kinepak or ANFO. At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, the truck exploded in the street in front of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in downtown Oklahoma City. About 90 minutes later, Timothy McVeigh (pictured) was stopped by an Oklahoma state trooper who arrested him on a firearms charge. Two days later, shortly before he was to be released, McVeigh was charged in the bombing. His friend Terry Nichols was arrested in Kansas and on May 10, 1995, was formally charged with the bombing. Both men were indicted on murder and conspiracy charges and the case was moved to Denver where McVeigh and Nichols were to be tried separately. The bombing was the worst terrorist attack ever undertaken on American soil up to that date. The blast killed 168 people - 19 of them children - and injured hundreds. McVeigh was found guilty on 11 counts of murder and conspiracy on June 2, 1996, and on August 14 he was formally sentenced to death. On December 23, 1997, Terry Nichols was found guilty of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter but not guilty of use of a weapon of mass destruction and destruction by explosive. Judge Richard Matsch told Nichols he would consider some leniency toward him if he cooperated in helping the government learn more about the conspiracy. But Nichols rejected the offer and in June 1998 he was sentenced to life in prison. In July 1999 McVeigh was moved to the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. In December 2000 he asked for, and was granted, permission to drop all appeals. An execution date of May 16, 2001, was set. But less than a week before the scheduled execution it was revealed that the FBI had failed to make available all documents on the case to McVeigh's attorneys before the trial. The execution was delayed for 30 days to allow for an investigation. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection at the Federal Penitentiary at Terre Haute on June 11, 2001.