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Cover of 'The Turner Diaries.' [Source: Associated Content]White supremacist and separatist William Pierce, a leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974), publishes a novel called The Turner Diaries under the pseudonym "Andrew Macdonald." Former College Professor - Pierce has a doctorate in physics from the University of Colorado, and taught at Oregon State University for three years before joining the American Nazi Party, taking over leadership of the group after its head, George Lincoln Rockwell, was assassinated. In 1970, Pierce and others left that organization and joined the National Youth Alliance, later renamed the National Alliance. He will later say that the violence and disruption of the civil rights movement prompted his decision to join Nazi and white supremacist organizations. "I became concerned with the general abandonment of standards and long-accepted values," he will write. "The standards of excellence that had prevailed at most universities were becoming abandoned ideas that were in the way of social progress for people of color. The old-fogey standards had to go, and now we had to judge students and professors by the new standards of social relevance and performance. That concerned me a lot." Genocidal 'Future History' - The novel is a "future history" of the US after the nation, and eventually the world, is "purged" of "inferior" races via an Aryan revolution that overthrows the US government and puts white "Aryans" in charge. Pierce actually began the book as a series of installments for the racist tabloid "Attack!" a publication of the National Youth Alliance. The Anti-Defamation League will term the book "[l]urid, violent, apocalyptic, misogynistic, racist, and anti-Semitic." The book is privately printed through the National Alliance's National Vanguard Press, but in 1998, independent publisher Barricade Books will begin publishing it as well. From 1975 through 1978, Pierce serialized the novel in the Alliance's newsletter, "Attack!" (later renamed "National Vanguard"). In March 1997, he will explain his rationale for writing the novel, saying: "In 1975, when I began writing The Turner Diaries… I wanted to take all of the feminist agitators and propagandists and all of the race-mixing fanatics and all of the media bosses and all of the bureaucrats and politicians who were collaborating with them, and I wanted to put them up against a wall, in batches of a thousand or so at a time, and machine-gun them. And I still want to do that. I am convinced that one day we will have to do that before we can get our civilization back on track, and I look forward to the day." Fictional Story Inspires Oklahoma City Bombing - The story hinges on the experiences and "recollections" of Earl Turner, an Aryan separatist who chronicles the extermination of minorities, Jews, and other "undesirables" via an armed insurrection. The book will become highly influential in far-right circles. One of the most notable scenes in it is that of Turner's guerrilla unit detonating a homemade "fertilizer bomb" at FBI headquarters, killing hundreds; the ADL will note it as "a passage that came to be seen as foreshadowing, and as an inspiration to, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh" (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The white supremacist guerrilla army of the book is called "The Organization"; its vocabulary and methodologies will be adopted to one extend or another by a number of white supremacist and separatist organizations. The novel begins by stating: "If the White nations of the world had not allowed themselves to become subject to the Jew, to Jewish ideas, to the Jewish spirit, this war would not be necessary. We can hardly consider ourselves blameless. We can hardly say we had no choice, no chance to avoid the Jew's snare. We can hardly say we were not warned.… The people had finally had their fill of the Jews and their tricks.… If the Organization survives this contest, no Jew will—anywhere. We'll go to the Uttermost ends of the earth to hunt down the last of Satan's spawn." The revolution of the "Organization" is triggered by the passage of the "Cohen Act," legislation which effectively bans Americans from owning weapons. Pierce writes that the forcible disarming of the citizenry results in anarchy: "Robberies of this sort had become all too common since the Cohen Act, with groups of Blacks forcing their way into White homes to rob and rape, knowing that even if their victims had guns they would probably not dare use them." The book depicts scenes of violence in gory, graphic detail (including torture and racially-motivated lynchings), and gives detailed explanations of how the characters construct a variety of explosive devices. The book gives the rationale for its fictional murder of hundreds at the FBI building: "It is a heavy burden of responsibility for us to bear, since most of the victims of our bomb were only pawns who were no more committed to the sick philosophy or the racially destructive goals of the System than we are. But there is no way we can destroy the System without hurting many thousands of innocent people.… And if we don't destroy the System before it destroys us… our whole race will die." In the novel, Turner dies during a successful suicide mission, when he detonates a nuclear weapon over the Pentagon. White domination of the planet is ultimately achieved by the massive deployment of nuclear weapons. Organizations such as The Order (which will carry out the murder of progressive talk show host Alan Berg—see June 18, 1984 and After), The New Order, and the Aryan Republican Army (see 1992 - 1995) will cite the novel as inspiration for their efforts. [New York Times, 7/5/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 99; Center for New Community, 8/2002 ; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2004; Anti-Defamation League, 2005] Inspiration for Texas Murder - In Texas in 1998, when African-American James Byrd Jr. is beaten and dragged to his death behind a pickup truck (see June 7, 1998 and After), one of his assailants, John King, will say, "We're starting The Turner Diaries early." Sparks Many Imitators - The novel will spark a number of imitations, including 2003's Angle Iron, about a right-wing attack on the US power grid; 2001's Dark Millennium, depicting a white supremacist president presiding over the extermination of African-Americans; 2004's Deep Blue, which transports the racial themes into a science-fictional presentation; 2001's Hold Back This Day, in which whites establish an Aryan colony on Mars; 1999's One in a Million, in which a white separatist declares war on the IRS; 2001's The Outsider, whose white hero goes on a murderous spree among African-Americans; and 1991's Serpent's Walk, in which a resurgent Nazi underground claims the planet for its own. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2004] Wide Influence - Both Pierce and his novel will become highly influential in white supremacist and anti-government circles. Jerry Dale, a West Virginia sheriff who monitors Pierce for years, says: "He's become a spiritual leader. He's not a nut. Looking at him and talking to him, you don't get a feeling he's crazy. He's not violent. But the way he incites people, to me, that is frightening." Pierce will go on to write a number of books (including comic books) and periodicals, and host a radio show that will be broadcast in a dozen states. However, he always publicly states that he does not advocate actual violence. [New York Times, 7/5/1995] Second Novel - Ten years later, Pierce will publish a second novel, Hunter, which depicts a lone assassin targeting Jews and African-Americans. Both this book and a reprint of The Turner Diaries will be released by a publishing house affiliated with the National Alliance, the National Vanguard Press (see 1988).
Entity Tags: William Luther Pierce, The Order, John William ("Bill") King, National Youth Alliance, American Nazi Party, Anti-Defamation League, Aryan Republican Army, Barricade Books, George Lincoln Rockwell, The New Order, National Alliance, James Byrd Jr., Timothy James McVeigh
Timeline Tags: US Domestic Terrorism
Timothy McVeigh during the time he served in the Army. [Source: Viceland (.com)]Sergeant Timothy McVeigh (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990) gives three months of military service in the Persian Gulf War as a gunner on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle before returning home; during his time there, he paints the name "Bad Company" on the side of the vehicle. "He was a good soldier," Sergeant James Ives, who serves with McVeigh, will later recall. "If he was given a mission and a target, it's gone." [New York Times, 4/23/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 34; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; CNN, 2001] McVeigh earns a Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal while overseas, along with a number of citations and ribbons. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 25-26] Staff Sergeant Albert Warnement, the commander of McVeigh's Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Kuwait, later recalls: "He was against the National Command Authority's decision to go to war. McVeigh did not think the United States had any business or interest in Kuwait, but… he knew it was his duty to go where he was told, and he went." [Stickney, 1996, pp. 110] Experiences in Kuwait, Iraq - Fellow soldier Todd Regier later recalls that McVeigh was "definitely excited about going to Desert Storm. He was a perfect gunner. He was the best gunner we had." McVeigh is part of a Bradley crew which spends its first few weeks sitting idly in the Saudi Arabian desert while American aircraft attack Iraqi defenses (see January 16, 1991 and After). Sergeant Anthony Thigpen later recalls that while the other soldiers play cards, write letters, and chat to relieve their boredom, McVeigh spends his time cleaning his weapons. The 2nd Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment, McVeigh's unit, is one of those that makes the initial drive into Kuwait when the invasion begins (see February 23, 1991 and After). McVeigh's unit sees less intense action than some, and fellow soldier Roger L. Barnett will later recall that McVeigh shows little interest in shooting unarmed and defenseless Iraqis. At one point, McVeigh shoots an Iraqi soldier from some 2,000 yards away in the head, using the Bradley's 25mm cannon. McVeigh wins a medal for the shot. He later recalls of the shooting: "His head just disappeared.… I saw everything above the shoulders disappear, like in a red mist." He becomes angry when he learns that many Iraqis do not want to fight, and are equipped with inferior gear. According to an aunt, McVeigh is deeply disturbed about the fighting in Iraq. "When he came back, he seemed broken," she later tells a reporter. "When we talked about it, he said it was terrible there. He was on the front line and had seen death and caused death. After the first [killing], it got easy." While posted in Kuwait, McVeigh writes to a friend in the US that he hates Saddam Hussein: "Chickensh_t b_stard. Because of him, I killed a man who didn't want to fight us, but was forced to." However, a fellow soldier, Kerry Kling, later recalls McVeigh being proud of the shot that killed the Iraqi. Sergeant Royal L. Witcher, McVeigh's assistant gunner on the Bradley, later recalls the soldiers' dismay at their experiences with Iraqi soldiers. "I think it kind of shocked most of us," he will say. "We had thought that they were our enemies, and then for us to encounter something like that with a mass of people giving up." After the offensive, McVeigh's unit is assigned to guard duty, and spends the remainder of the war relatively inactive. [New York Times, 5/4/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 113; Serrano, 1998, pp. 36-38; CNN, 12/17/2007] McVeigh will later recall being angry at the situation in Kuwait. In a letter to a reporter, he will write: "We were falsely hyped up [about the enemy]. And we get there and find out that they are normal like you and me. They hype you up to take those people out. They told us we were to defend Kuwait where the people had been raped and slaughtered (see October 10, 1990). War woke me up. War will open your eyes." Of the Iraqi soldiers, he will write, "I felt the army brainwashed us to hate them." [Serrano, 1998, pp. 36-37] Withdraws from Special Forces Training - After returning to the US, McVeigh begins 21 days of Special Services training at Camp McCall, west of Fort Bragg, North Carolina (see October 1990). He is thrilled to be joining Special Forces, and is confident that he will pass the grueling physical and psychological assessments. However, he leaves the training at Camp McCall during the second day. He later tells people he withdraws because of a leg injury. Some military officials will say that preliminary psychological screening shows him to be unfit for Special Forces, leading some reporters to conclude that McVeigh was kicked out of training, but those conclusions are inaccurate: McVeigh's screenings are not processed until long after he leaves, and his withdrawal is entirely voluntary. McVeigh later says that he begins training with a friend, Specialist Mitchell Whitmire (one source spells his name "Whitmyers," apparently in error), days after returning from overseas duty. He will say that he is in poor physical condition, mentally and physically exhausted from his time in combat, and unready for the physical demands of Green Beret training. He does not accept an offer extended to him and other combat veterans to take some time off and try again at a later date. Instead, after two arduous days of physical workouts, McVeigh and Whitmire leave the training program before McVeigh's assessments can be graded and reviewed. On his Statement of Voluntary Withdrawal, McVeigh writes, "I am not physically ready, and the rucksack march hurt more than it should." Ives will recall McVeigh as being "extremely disappointed." Thigpen later recalls: "Everybody knew he was highly upset. We never knew the reason why he didn't make it. We figured, you don't make it, you don't make it. But he was definitely angry. He was upset, very upset." Fellow soldier James Fox later tells a reporter that McVeigh's withdrawal from Special Forces training was a defining moment for him, saying, "Whether he withdrew or was kicked out, it still was a failure and very easily he could externalize blame." McVeigh then takes a 30-day leave to visit his sister Jennifer in Florida, and to spend some time in upstate New York, where he grew up (see 1987-1988). [New York Times, 4/23/1995; New York Times, 5/4/1995; New York Times, 7/5/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 115-119; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 41-42] Author Brandon M. Stickney later writes, "It was revealed in confidence to [me] that answers McVeigh gave on the psychological tests were apparently a bit off-center, not the answers of a man capable of long-term assignments with the exclusive and tight Special Forces." Stickney will also write that McVeigh may be suffering from "Gulf War Syndrome," a mysterious series of maladies apparently caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 117-118] In 1993, McVeigh will write a letter to his sister Jennifer giving a very different explanation of his reason for withdrawing from Special Forces tryouts (see October 20, 1993). After he returns from active duty, he begins displaying increasingly eccentric behavior (see March 1991 and After). McVeigh will go on to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995).
Entity Tags: Brandon M. Stickney, Timothy James McVeigh, Todd Regier, US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, US Department of the Army, Albert Warnement, Anthony Thigpen, Roger L. Barnett, Royal L. Witcher, Rick Cerney, Bruce Williams, Robin Littleton, James Fox, Catina Lawson, James Ives, James Hardesty, Mitchell Whitmire, John Edward Kelso
Combat engineering vehicles (CEVs) lined up outside the blazing Branch Davidian compound. [Source: PBS]The FBI and local law enforcement officials begin their planned assault on the besieged Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993, March 1, 1993, and April 17-18, 1993), despite indications that the Davidians inside the compound will retaliate either by firing on the gathered law enforcement officials, by torching the main residential building, or perhaps both (see April 18, 1993). [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Warning - At 5:55 a.m., Richard Rogers, the commander of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), orders two combat engineering vehicles (CEVs, unarmed modifications of Bradley fighting vehicles and the primary means for deplying CS "riot control agent" into the main building) deployed to the main building. One minute later, senior negotiator Byron Sage telephones the residence and speaks with Davidian Steve Schneider. At 5:59, Schneider comes to the phone. Sage tells him: "We are in the process of putting tear gas into the building. This is not an assault. We will not enter the building." Schneider replies, "You are going to spray tear gas into the building?" Sage says, "In the building… no, we are not entering the building." At the conclusion of the conversation, Schneider or another Davidian throws the telephone out of the building. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] Minutes later, Schneider slips out, retrieves the phone, and ducks back inside. [Time, 5/3/1993] Combat Vehicles Begin Deploying Gas, Davidians Open Fire - At 6:02 a.m., the two CEVs begin inserting CS gas into the compound, using spray nozzles attached to booms. The booms punch holes through the exterior walls of the building. The FBI uses unarmed Bradley Fighting Vehicles to deploy "ferret rounds," military ammunition designed to release CS after penetrating a barricade such as a wall or window. As the CEVs and the Bradleys punch holes into the buildings for the deployment of the gas, Sage makes the following statement over the loudspeakers: "We are in the process of placing tear gas into the building. This is not an assault. We are not entering the building. This is not an assault. Do not fire your weapons. If you fire, fire will be returned. Do not shoot. This is not an assault. The gas you smell is a non-lethal tear gas. This gas will temporarily render the building uninhabitable. Exit the residence now and follow instructions. You are not to have anyone in the tower. The [guard] tower is off limits. No one is to be in the tower. Anyone observed to be in the tower will be considered to be an act of aggression [sic] and will be dealt with accordingly. If you come out now, you will not be harmed. Follow all instructions. Come out with your hands up. Carry nothing. Come out of the building and walk up the driveway toward the Double-E Ranch Road. Walk toward the large Red Cross flag. Follow all instructions of the FBI agents in the Bradleys. Follow all instructions. You are under arrest. This standoff is over. We do not want to hurt anyone. Follow all instructions. This is not an assault. Do not fire any weapons. We do not want anyone hurt. Gas will continue to be delivered until everyone is out of the building." Two minutes later, Davidians begin firing on the vehicles from the windows. The gunfire from the Davidians prompts Rogers and FBI commander Jeffrey Jamar to decide to change tactics; at 6:07 a.m., the assault forces begin deploying all of the gas at once instead of dispersing it in a controlled manner over the course of 48-72 hours as originally envisioned. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996; USMC Weapons, 2002] (Jamar will later testify that before the assault even began, he was "99 percent certain" that the FBI would have to escalate its assault because the Davidians would open fire.) [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] As a CEV demolishes the back wall of the gymnasium area of the compound, negotiators broadcast: "David, we are facilitating you leaving the compound by enlarging the door.… Leave the building now." [Cox News Service, 1/30/2000] Jamar will later explain that the Bradleys do not carry military weaponry. "Of course we had all the firepower removed," he will say in a 1995 interview. "There were no cannons or anything on them. We used them for transportation. And they're more than a personnel carrier—they're a track vehicle. I mean it's mud, just thick mud there the whole time. And the agents learned how to drive 'em. But the idea was to protect them as best we could. And we didn't know—they talked about blowing a 50—did they have rockets? Who knows? Did they have explosives buried in various vicinities? Are they prepared to run out with Molatov cocktails? What's in their mind?" Jamar is referring to threats made by Koresh and other Davidians to blow up FBI vehicles. As for the CEVs, they are tanks modified for construction and engineering purposes, and are often used as bulldozers. Observers watching the events live on television or later on videotape will sometimes mistake the CEVs for actual tanks, though two M1A1 Abrams tanks are actually on site and take part in the assault. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995] House Report: Davidians Would Certainly Consider FBI's Actions an Assault - A 1996 report by a House of Representatives investigative committee (see August 2, 1996) will note that it is almost impossible for the Davidians not to consider themselves under assault, with tank-like vehicles tearing holes in the building, CS being sprayed everywhere, grenade-like projectiles crashing through windows, men in body armor swarming around the compound, and the sounds of what seems like combat all around them. "Most people would consider this to be an attack on them—an 'assault' in the simplest terms," the report will find. "If they then saw other military vehicles approaching, from which projectiles were fired through the windows of their home, most people are even more likely to believe that they were under an assault. If those vehicles then began to tear down their home there would be little doubt that they were being attacked. These events are what the Davidians inside the residence experienced on April 19, yet the FBI did not consider their actions an assault." Moreover, the FBI did not consider the close-knit, home-centered community the Davidians have long since formed. "Their religious leader led them to believe that one day a group of outsiders, non-believers, most likely in the form of government agents, would come for them," the report will state. "Indeed, they believed that this destiny had been predicted 2,000 years before in Biblical prophecy. Given this mindset, it can hardly be disputed that the Davidians thought they were under assault at 6 a.m. on April 19." [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] Monitoring from Washington - At 7:00 a.m., Attorney General Janet Reno and senior Justice Department and FBI officials go to the FBI situation room to monitor the assault. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Buildings Breached - At 7:30 a.m., a CEV breaches the side of one of the main buildings and injects large amounts of tear gas into the interior of the compound. At 7:58 a.m., gas is fired into the second floor of the back-right corner of the building. The FBI asks for more ferret rounds, and by 9:30 a.m., 48 more ferret rounds arrive from Houston. The assault is hampered by the FBI's dwindling supply of ferret rounds, a CEV with mechanical difficulties, and high winds dispersing the gas. Another CEV enlarges the opening in the center-front of the building, with the idea of providing an escape route for the trapped Davidians. A third CEV breaches the rear of the building, according to a later Justice Department report, "to create openings near the gymnasium." [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Clinton Told Assault Progressing Well - At about 11 a.m., Reno briefs President Clinton, tells him that the assault seems to be going well, and leaves for a judicial conference in Baltimore. During this time, a CEV breaches the back side of the compound. At 11:40 a.m., the FBI fires the last of the ferret rounds into the building. At 11:45 a.m., one wall of the compound collapses. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Transcriptionist Escapes - Ruth Riddle, the typist and transcriptionist sent inside the compound by the FBI to help Koresh finish his "Seven Seals" manuscript (see April 18, 1993), escapes the compound before the fire. She brings out a computer disk containing the unfinished manuscript. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995] Davidians Set Fires throughout Compound - At 12:07 p.m., according to the Justice Department and House reports, the Davidians start "simultaneous fires at three or more different locations within the compound." An FBI Hostage Rescue Team member reports seeing "a male starting a fire" in the front of the building. Later analyses show that the first fire begins in a second-floor bedroom, the second in the first floor dining room, and the third in the first floor chapel. Evidence also shows that the fires spread according to "accelerant trails," such as a trail of flammable liquid being poured on the floor. Some of the Davidians' clothing found in the rubble also shows traces of gasoline, kerosene, Coleman fuel (liquid petroleum, sometimes called "white gas"), and lighter fluid, further suggesting that the Davidians use accelerants to start and spread the fires. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] Within eight minutes, the main building is engulfed in flames. One explosion, probably from a propane gas tank, is observed. Later investigation will find a propane tank with its top blown off in the debris. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] After the compound burns to the ground, FBI agent Bob Ricks tells reporters, "David Koresh, we believe, gave the order to commit suicide and they all willingly followed." [New York Times, 4/20/1993] Some of the Davidians who survive the conflagration later claim that the Davidians did not start the fires, but arson investigators with the Justice Department and the Texas Rangers, as well as an independent investigator, will conclude that Davidians did indeed start the fires in at least three different areas of the main building. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] A 1993 Treasury Department report (see Late September - October 1993) will produce audiotapes of Davidians inside the compound and transcripts of conversations, secured via electronic surveillance, discussing the means of setting the fires. Voices on the tapes and in the transcripts say such things as: "The fuel has to go all around to get started." "Got to put enough fuel in there." "So, we only light 'em as they come in," or as a slightly different version has it, "So, we only light 'em as soon as they tell me." Once the fires begin, high winds and the breaches in the walls cause the flames to almost immediately begin consuming the compound. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995] In 1999, Colonel Rodney Rawlings, the senior military liaison to the HRT, will tell reporters that he heard Koresh give the orders to start the fires over FBI surveillance "bugs" (see October 8, 1999). Sage later describes the horror that goes through him and his fellow agents when they realize that the Davidians have torched the compound. He will recall "pleading" with the Davidians to leave the compound, and say: "I can't express the emotions that goes through you. I had to physically turn around away from the monitor to keep my mind focused on what I was trying to broadcast to those people." He will recall being horrified by the failure of people to flee the compound. "I fully anticipated those people would come pouring out of there," he says. "I'd been through CS teargas on numerous occasions [in training exercises]. And I would move heaven and earth to get my kids out of that kind of an environment. And that's frankly what we were banking on. That at least the parents would remove their children from that kind of situation." Of Koresh, he will say: "By him intentionally lighting that place afire and consuming the lives of 78 people, including over 20 young children, was just inconceivable to me. In 25 years of law enforcement I've never been faced with someone that was capable of doing that." [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Six years later, the FBI will admit to releasing two pyrotechnic grenades into the compound, but insists the grenades did not start the fires (see August 25, 1999 and After). Plea for Release - At 12:12 p.m., Sage calls on Koresh to lead the Davidians to safety. Nine Davidians flee the compound and are arrested [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] , including one woman who leaves, attempts to return to the burning building, and tries unsuccessfully to fight off a federal agent who comes to her aid. [New York Times, 4/20/1993] One of the nine runs out of the building at around 12:28 p.m., indicating that even 21 minutes after the fire, it is possible for some of the inhabitants to make their escape. However, most of the Davidians retreat to areas in the center of the building and do not attempt to get out. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] 'Systematic Gunfire' - At 12:25 p.m., FBI agents hear "systematic gunfire" coming from inside of the building; some agents believe that the Davidians are either killing themselves or each other. The House committee investigation later finds that FBI agents hear rapid-fire gunshots coming from the compound; while many of the gunshots are probably caused by exploding ammunition, "other sounds were methodical and evenly-spaced, indicating the deliberate firing of weapons." Fire Department Responds; Search for Survivors - At 12:41 p.m., fire trucks and firefighters begin attempting to put out the flames. HRT agents enter tunnels to search for survivors, particularly children. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] No fire trucks are at the scene when the assault begins, and it takes around 25 minutes for the first fire department vehicles to respond to emergency calls from their stations in Waco. Bob Sheehy, mayor of Waco, later says the city fire department "first got a call after the fire had already started." Ricks explains that fire engines were not brought to the compound earlier for fear that firefighters might have been exposed to gunfire from the compound, and because FBI officials did not expect a fire. "We did not introduce fire to this compound, and it was not our intention that this compound be burned down. I can't tell you the shock and the horror that all of us felt when we saw those flames coming out of there. It was, 'Oh, my God, they're killing themselves.'" [New York Times, 4/20/1993] Death Toll - In all, 78 Branch Davidians, including over 20 children, two pregnant women, and Koresh himself, die in the fire. Nineteen of the dead are killed by close-range gunshot wounds. Almost all of the others either die from smoke inhalation, burns, or both. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] The number is improperly reported in a number of media sources, and varies from 75 to 81. Even the House committee report does not cite a definitive total. [House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 8/2/1996] Some of the FBI negotiators involved in the siege later say that they feel continued negotiations might have saved many, perhaps all, of the lives of those inside the compound. In an interview later in the year, one negotiator tells a reporter, "I'll always, in my own mind, feel like maybe we could have gotten some more people out." [New Yorker, 5/15/1995] But HRT member Barry Higginbotham, one of the snipers who observes the Davidians throughout the siege, will later state that neither he nor anyone on his team believed the Davidians would ever willingly surrender. Higginbotham will say: "We just felt that if you make them suffer a little more, deny them perhaps a little more food, lighting, power, things like that inside, that would cause more pressure on their leadership inside. And perhaps their leadership would go to Koresh and pressure him to start negotiating in good faith. It was hard to believe that Koresh was ever negotiating in good faith." [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] In the hours after the conflagration, Ricks tells reporters: "We had hoped the women would grab their children and flee. That did not occur and they bunkered down the children and allowed them to go up in flames with them.… It was truly an inferno of flames." Ricks says that authorities receive reports, perhaps from some of the survivors, that the children had been injected with some kind of poison to ease their pain. This claim is never confirmed. [New York Times, 4/20/1993] In the Bunker - FBI investigators combing the building after the conflagration find an enormous amount of guns and other weaponry inside. Dr. Rodney Crow, the FBI's chief of identification services and one of the officials who examine the bodies of the Davidians, spends much of his time in the compound's underground bunker, where many of the bodies are found. Crow later says: "There were weapons everywhere. I don't remember moving a body that didn't have a gun melted to it, intertwined with it, between the legs, under the arm, or in close proximity. And I'd say 18 inches to 20 inches would be close proximity.… The women were probably more immersed in the weapons than anyone else, because there was so much weaponry inside the bunker. It was like sea shells on a beach, but they were spent casings and spent bullets. If you had rubber gloves and tried to smooth it away, you'd tear your gloves away from the bullet points that are unexploded, or unspent ammunition. Then as you went through layer after layer, you came upon weapons that were totally burned. Until we got down to the floor, and it was mint condition ammunition there. Ammunition boxes not even singed." The most powerful weapon Crow finds is a .50-caliber machine gun. Some of the bodies have gunshot wounds. Crow will say: "My theory is there was a lot of euthanasia and mercy killing. That group probably were just about as active as anywhere in the compound, mercifully putting each other out of misery in the last moments." In total, 33 bodies are found inside the bunker; almost all the women and children found inside the compound are in the bunker. Many are found to have died from suffocation or smoke inhalation (two died from falling debris), but some died from gunshot wounds, and one woman was stabbed to death. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Local medical examiner Nizam Peerwani later says he does not believe the people in the bunker committed suicide, saying: "There has been a lot of speculation if this is a mass suicide or not. And—did they all go there to die? Ah, we don't really think so. What I feel personally is that they tried to escape. A bunker was perhaps the safest area in the compound." [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Sage will say that he knew the children were dead sometime around 12:30 p.m. He recalls terminating the negotiations at that time, "because I didn't want the loudspeaker bank to interfere with instructions being given on the ground. At that point in time, I walked over to the site in shock, basically. And, uh, the first thing I asked is, 'Where are the kids?'" He is told, "Nowhere." Sage will say: "They had not come out. They had been consumed." [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Koresh's Fate - Koresh and Schneider are found in a small room the authorities call "the communication room." Koresh is dead of a single gunshot wound to the forehead. Schneider is dead from a gunshot wound in the mouth. Peerwani later says: "Did David Koresh shoot himself and Schneider shoot himself? Or did Schneider shoot David Koresh and then turn around and shoot himself? Certainly both are possible. We cannot be certain as to what really transpired." [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] No Ill Effects from Gas - Peerwani and his colleagues examine the bodies for damage caused by the CS gas used in the assault, and find none. While many of the Davidians were exposed to the gas, according to tissue and blood studies, none inhaled enough of it to cause anything more than short-term discomfort. Concurrently, Peerwani and his colleagues find no damage from the propellant used in the ferret rounds. A fire report later written by Texas-based investigators will call the tear gas operation a failure at dispersing the Davidians. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995; PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Medical examinations show that some of the children may well have been overcome by the gas, and rendered unable to escape, but the compound had not been gassed for an hour before the fires began, and CS has a persistence factor of only 10 minutes—in other words, the effects should have worn off by the time the fires broke out. The gas proves ineffective against the adults, because the adult Davidians are equipped with gas masks. [PBS Frontline, 10/1995] Wrongly Executed Plan - The plan as signed by Reno called on law enforcement forces to deploy tear gas into the compound at stated intervals, then have agents retreat to await evacuees before approaching again. This "passive," "restrained" approach was to have been followed for up to 72 hours before using assault vehicles to force entry. Instead, the agents wait only 12 minutes before beginning a motorized vehicle assault. [New Yorker, 5/15/1995] Taking Responsibility - One of the unlikely "heroes" of the debacle is Reno. She signed off on the attack (see April 17-18, 1993), and within hours of the attacks, she holds a televised press conference where she says: "I made the decision. I am accountable . The buck stops here" (see April 19, 1993). She repeats this statement over and over again on national television. [New Yorker, 5/15/1995]
Entity Tags: Bob Ricks, Bob Sheehy, Branch Davidians, David Koresh, FBI Hostage Rescue Team, Barry Higginbotham, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Janet Reno, Jeffrey Jamar, Byron Sage, US Department of Justice, Nizam Peerwani, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, Richard Rogers, Rodney Rawlings, Rodney Crow, Ruth Riddle, Texas Rangers, Steve Schneider
Timeline Tags: 1993 Branch Davidian Crisis
Wearing a biker disguise, future Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) purchases $2,775 worth of nitromethane, a racing fuel used in bomb construction, from an Ennis, Texas, drag-racing track, in three large drums. After purchasing the fuel, McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols travel to Kingman, Arizona, where McVeigh and his friend Michael Fortier (see February - July 1994) test the explosives mixture. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; New York Times, 8/29/1997; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Indianapolis Star, 2003] Reportedly, McVeigh buys the fuel with $3,000 obtained by Nichols from the sale of gold. It is unclear where Nichols obtained the gold. They had some trouble finding a venue for the purchase, even driving McVeigh to contact his hometown friend David Darlak (see 1987-1988), but McVeigh learned of a source on the Funny Car Racing Circuit by hanging around "pit" areas on local race tracks. The source is located in Manhattan, Kansas, but Nichols and McVeigh had to drive to Ennis to get the fuel. McVeigh goes to the track alone, letting Nichols out before driving to the track itself. Timothy Chambers, a VP Racing Fuels truck manager, sells McVeigh three drums of nitromethane for $925 each; McVeigh pays in cash. Chambers does not ask McVeigh his name, but does ask what he plans on doing with it. McVeigh responds that he and his friends like to race Harley-Davidson motorcycles around Oklahoma City, an explanation Chambers will later say he does not believe. Chambers will later identify McVeigh to federal investigators as the man who bought such a large amount of nitromethane for cash, saying he clearly remembers McVeigh's "possum face." McVeigh and Nichols take the drums of fuel to Kansas, storing them in one of the sheds they have rented in Herington. They also buy six black plastic barrels with full take-off lids, six white plastic barrels with smaller lids, and a blue plastic barrel. They obtain the white barrels free from the Hillsboro Milk Co-op, and pay $12 each for the black barrels. They obtain the blue barrel from a plastics manufacturing company in Council Grove. Afterwards, they drive to Kingman, Arizona, where McVeigh stays for four days with Fortier, and shows Fortier some of the materials. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 94-95] The New York Times will later state the date of the fuel-oil purchase as October 20. [New York Times, 8/29/1997] A chronology of events compiled by McVeigh's lawyers will give the date as October 22. In September, McVeigh attempted to buy similar racing fuel from a Topeka, Kansas, race track (see September 1994). McVeigh and Nichols stay in a room at the Amish Inn in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, before driving to Ennis to get the racing fuel. The room is rented with cash under the name of "Joe Kyle," an alias used by Nichols (see October 17, 1994). "Kyle"'s address is given as "Rt. 2, Box 28, Hillsboro, KS," the same information given by Nichols using the alias "Terry Havens" in an earlier motel stay (see October 16, 1994). [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996] McVeigh tries to persuade Fortier to take an active part in the bombing plot, but Fortier refuses, asking, "What about all the people?" Fortier is referring to the people who will die or be injured in such a blast. McVeigh advises Fortier to think of the victims as "storm troopers in Star Wars" who, although individually innocent, "are guilty because they work for the evil empire." Fortier makes it clear that he will not take an active role in the bombing. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 97; Douglas O. Linder, 2006]
Entity Tags: Michael Joseph Fortier, Timothy Chambers, Hillsboro Milk Co-op, Timothy James McVeigh, David Darlak, Terry Lynn Nichols
Jennifer McVeigh, the sister of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), will later testify that during this time, her brother gives her a "wad" of cash and asks her to "launder" it for him. He claims the money comes from a bank robbery. She will also testify that her brother discusses plans to conduct political assassinations. Later investigations will show that by this time Timothy McVeigh may be involved with a self-described "terrorist group," the Aryan Republican Army (see 1992 - 1995), which has staged numerous robberies and says its purpose is to conduct "terrorist acts against the United States." [Nicole Nichols, 2003] McVeigh comes back to their Pendleton, New York, home in the days after their grandfather dies (see November 2-7, 1994), and stays for a month. He shows his sister a videotape about the Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), and tells her he believes the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) were responsible for the deaths at the Davidian compound. He also says he does not believe the government will ever hold anyone accountable for the deaths. Letter to American Legion - McVeigh borrows his sister's word processor and types up a "manifesto" of sorts, a letter written to the American Legion and addressed to "Constitutional Defenders." The letter reads in part: "We members of the citizen's militia do not bear our arms to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow those who PERVERT the Constitution and when they once again draw first blood (many believe the Waco incident (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After) was 'first blood'). Many of our members are veterans who still hold true to their sworn oath to defend the Constitution against ALL enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC." He quotes English philosopher John Locke on the right to slay the tyrant if the government leaders force the people into a state of war. He attacks the BATF as a "fascist federal group" that attacks and kills innocent civilians. Militia groups alone, he writes, can defend the American people "against power-hungry storm troopers" (see October 21 or 22, 1994). He cites the Branch Davidian tragedy, the Ruby Ridge incident (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992), and the Gordon Kahl slaying (see March 13 - June 3, 1983) as examples of the government behaving as "fascist tyrants." He says the US military is being used overseas to fight for democracy "while at home [it is] used to DESTROY it (in full violation of the Posse Comitatus Act), at places like Waco." He concludes: "One last question that every American should ask themselves. Did not the British also keep track of the locations of munitions stored by the colonists, just as the ATF has admitted to doing? Why???… Does anyone even STUDY history anymore???" 'Now I'm in the Action Stage' - McVeigh's sister, though in agreement with much of her brother's beliefs, is alarmed by the letter, believing that her brother has gone far past where she is willing to go in her beliefs and his apparent willingness to act on those beliefs. McVeigh tells her: "I'm no longer in the propaganda stage. I'm no longer passing out papers. Now I'm in the action stage." Letter to BATF - McVeigh's second letter, written to the BATF and labeled "ATF Read," is even more alarming. It reads in part: "ATF, all you tyrannical motherf_ckers will swing in the wind one day for your treasonous actions against the Constitution and the United States. Remember the Nuremburg War Trials. But… but… but… I was only following orders.… Die, you spineless cowardice [sic] b_stards!" He prints the American Legion letter for mailing, but leaves the ATF letter in the computer, apparently for federal agents to find after he has launched his bombing attack. [New York Times, 5/6/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 114-115] Jennifer will write her own letter to her hometown newspaper warning of an impending government crackdown on its citizens' liberties (see March 9, 1995), a letter which will echo many of her brother's anti-government sentiments.
Entity Tags: US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Gordon Kahl, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jennifer McVeigh, American Legion, Aryan Republican Army, Timothy James McVeigh
During a Christmas party, Jennifer McVeigh, the sister of future Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), boasts to her friends about some dramatic action her brother intends to take against the government. "You'll see in either April or May something big is going to happen with my brother," she says. "I don't know what it is, but it's going to be big. There's going to be a revolution and you're either going to be with us or against us. I know I'm going to be ready." Jennifer believes in much the same anti-government ideology he espouses (see January 23, 1993 - Early 1994), has some knowledge of her brother's plans, and has helped him in the past (see November 1994). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 116]
Entity Tags: Timothy James McVeigh, Jennifer McVeigh
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see September 13, 1994, October 20, 1994, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) writes a letter to his sister Jennifer in Pendleton, New York, instructing her not to try to contact him after April 1, 1995. He sends her a box of memorabilia, including his high school yearbook and his military records, telling her, "They're yours now." He tells her that "something big is going to happen in the month of the bull," referring to the astrological sign Taurus, which begins on April 20 (see Mid-December 1994). He tells her to burn the letter, which she does. He has sent her letters before, some written in code, and has advised her that if she wants to write him, she should disguise her penmanship so the authorities cannot identify her as their author. He tells her that she can trust his friends Michael and Lori Fortier (see February 17, 1995 and After), and says that sometime soon he may have to go underground and disappear. "In case of 'alert,' contact Mike Fortier," he writes. "Let him know who you are and why you called.… If you must call him, Jenny, this is serious. No being lazy. Use a pay phone, and take a roll of quarters with you! They will, w/out a doubt, be watching you and tapping the phone—use a pay phone!… Note: Read back cover of Turner Diaries (see 1978) before you begin." The back cover of that book, McVeigh's favorite novel, reads in part: "What will you do when they come to take your guns? The patriots fight back with a campaign of sabotage and assassination.… Turner and his comrades suffer terribly, but their ingenuity and boldness in devising and executing new methods of guerrilla warfare lead to a victory of cataclysmic intensity and worldwide scope." McVeigh's letters continually warn her about being surveilled by government authorities, and not to trust anyone, even her friends. [PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 117-118, 123]
Entity Tags: Lori Fortier, Jennifer McVeigh, Timothy James McVeigh, Michael Joseph Fortier
Timothy McVeigh, preparing to execute the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), tells his friend and fellow co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see April 16-17, 1995), "Something big is going to happen." McVeigh had mailed two letters to his sister Jennifer (see March 9, 1995 and April 7, 1995) telling her that "something big is going to happen," and followed them with an envelope full of clippings from the novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978). When she learns of her brother's arrest in connection with the bombing, she will burn the clippings. [New York Times, 4/26/1995; New York Times, 5/7/1997; Anti-Defamation League, 2005] Press reports will say that Jennifer in turn has already told friends in December 1994 that "something big is going to happen in March or April, and Tim's involved" (see Mid-December 1994), but she will deny saying this. [New York Times, 8/4/1995] This information will later be included in an affidavit accompanying an arrest warrant for Nichols (see April 25, 1995).
Entity Tags: Timothy James McVeigh, Jennifer McVeigh, Terry Lynn Nichols
The Alfred P. Murrah Building after being bombed. [Source: CBS News]A truck bomb destroys the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people in America's worst domestic terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh, later convicted in the bombing, has ideological roots both in the Patriot world and among neo-Nazis like William Pierce, whose novel, The Turner Diaries (see 1978), served as a blueprint for the attack. [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; Clarke, 2004, pp. 127] Initially, many believe that no American set off the bomb, and suspect Islamist terrorists of actually carrying out the bombing (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After). Their suspicions prove groundless. Investigators will find that the bomb is constructed of some 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, carried in 20 or so blue plastic 55-gallon barrels arranged inside a rented Ryder truck (see April 15, 1995). The bomb is detonated by a slow-burning safety fuse, most likely lit by hand. The fuse is attached to a much faster-burning detonation cord ("det cord") which ignites the fertilizer and fuel-oil mixture. [New York Times, 4/27/1995] The Murrah Federal Building houses a number of federal agencies, including offices for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF); the Social Security Administration; the Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Veterans Affairs, and Agriculture departments; and the Secret Service. [Washington Post, 4/20/1995] It encompasses an entire city block, between 5th and 4th Streets and Harvey and Robinson Streets, and features a U-shaped, indented drive on 5th that allows for quick pickup and delivery parking. The entire building's facade on this side is made of glass, allowing passersby to see into the offices in the building, as well as into the America's Kids day care center on the second floor, which by this time is filling with children. It is in this driveway that McVeigh parks his truck. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 99-102] Entering the City - McVeigh drives into Oklahoma City, entering around 8:30 a.m. from his overnight stop in Ponca City, Oklahoma; the details reported of his entrance into the city vary (see 7:00 a.m. - 8:35 a.m., April 19, 1995). At 8:55 a.m., a security camera captures the Ryder truck as it heads towards downtown Oklahoma City [Douglas O. Linder, 2006] , a sighting bolstered by three people leaving the building who later say they saw the truck parked in front of the Murrah Building around this time. At 8:57, a security camera captures an image of McVeigh's Ryder truck being parked outside the Murrah Building in a handicapped zone. One survivor of the blast, Marine recruiter Michael Norfleet, later recalls seeing the Ryder truck parked just outside the building next to the little circle drive on 5th Street leading up to the main entrance of the building. Norfleet had parked his black Ford Ranger in front of the Ryder. McVeigh Lights Fuses - McVeigh drives the Ryder truck west past the Murrah Building on NW Fourth Street, turns north on a one-way street, and turns right on Fifth Street. He pulls the truck over and parks near the Firestone store, next to a chain-link fence. He then lights the five-minute fuses from inside the cab (see 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995), sets the parking brake, drops the key behind the seat, opens the door, locks the truck, exits, and shuts the door behind him. A man later claims to have hit his brakes to avoid someone matching McVeigh's description as he crossed Fifth Street around 9:00 a.m. McVeigh walks quickly toward a nearby YMCA building where he has hidden his getaway car, a battered yellow Mercury Marquis (see April 13, 1995), in the adjoining alleyway, crossing Robinson Street and crossing another street to get to the alleyway. He begins to jog as he approaches his car. He later says he remembers a woman looking at him as she is walking down the steps to enter the building; he will describe her as white, in her mid-30s, with dirty blonde hair. According to McVeigh's own recollection, he is about 20 feet into the alley when the bomb goes off. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 184-185; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996; Serrano, 1998, pp. 158; Douglas O. Linder, 2006; The Oklahoman, 4/2009] Truck Explodes - At 9:02 a.m., the truck explodes, destroying most of the Murrah Building and seriously damaging many nearby buildings. Eventually, it will be determined that 168 people die in the blast, including 19 children. Over 500 are injured. The children are in the second-story day care center just above the parking space where McVeigh leaves the Ryder truck. McVeigh will later tell his biographers that he is lifted off his feet by the power of the blast. Devastation and Death - When the bomb detonates, the day care center and the children plummet into the basement. The building, constructed with large glass windows, collapses, sending a wave of flying glass shards and debris into the building and the surrounding area. The oldest victim is 73-year-old Charles Hurlbert, who has come to the Social Security office on the first floor. Hurlbert's wife Jean, 67, also dies in the blast. The youngest victim is four-month-old Gabeon Bruce, whose mother is also in the Social Security office. One victim, Rebecca Anderson, is a nurse who runs towards the building to render assistance. She never makes it to the building; she is struck in the head by a piece of falling debris and will die in a hospital four days after the blast. Her heart and kidneys will be transplanted into survivors of the bombing. [Denver Post, 6/3/1997; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 153-154; Oklahoma City Journal Record, 3/29/2001] Sherri Sparks, who has friends still unaccounted for in the building, tells a reporter in the hours after the blast, "Oh, I can't stand the thought of… those innocent children, sitting there playing, thinking they're safe, and then this happens." The explosion leaves a 30-foot-wide, 8-foot-deep crater in the street that is covered by the wreckage of the building's upper floors. The north face of the nine-story building collapses entirely. [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; Washington Post, 4/22/1995] Mary Heath, a psychologist who works about 20 blocks from the Murrah Building, says the blast "shook the daylights out of things—it scared us to death. We felt the windows shake before we heard the noise." In a neighboring building, a Water Resources Board meeting is just commencing; the audiotape of the meeting captures the sound of the blast (see 9:02 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995). [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; The Oklahoman, 4/2009] Norfleet, trapped in the Marine Corps office, is thrown into a wall by the explosion. His skull is fractured, and a shard of glass punctures his right eye. Three separate arteries are pierced, and Norfleet begins bleeding heavily. Two supply sergeants in the office are far less injured; Norfleet asks one, "How bad am I hurt?" and one replies, "Sir, you look really bad." One of the two begins giving Norfleet first aid; Norfleet later recalls: "He immediately went into combat mode and started taking care of me. He laid me on a table and he started looking for bandages to administer first aid. And while I was laying on that table, I just knew that I was losing strength and that if I stayed in the building, I would die." Norfleet wraps a shirt around his head and face to slow the bleeding, and the two sergeants help him to the stairs, through the fallen rubble, and eventually out. Norfleet will later say that he follows "a blood trail of somebody that had gone down the steps before me" to get outside, where he is quickly put into an ambulance. He loses almost half his body's blood supply and his right eye. He will never fly again, and will soon be discharged for medical incapacity. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 161-162] Eighteen-month-old Phillip Allen, called "P.J." by his parents, miraculously survives the blast. The floor gives way beneath him and he plunges 18 feet to land on the stomach of an adult worker on the floor below, Calvin Johnson. Landing on Johnson's stomach saves P.J.'s life. Johnson is knocked unconscious by the blast and by the impact of the little boy falling on him, but when he awakes, he carries the toddler to safety. P.J.'s grandfather calls the child "Oklahoma's miracle kid," and media reports use the label when retelling the story of the miraculous rescue. P.J. is one of six children in the day care center to survive the blast. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 275-277] Some people later report their belief that the Murrah Building was rocked by a second explosion just moments after the first one, the second coming from a secure area managed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) that illegally stored explosives. Law professor Douglas O. Linder will later write, "Both seismic evidence and witness testimony supports the 'two blast theory.'" [Douglas O. Linder, 2006] That theory is later disputed (see After 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Explosion's Effects Felt Miles Away - Buildings near the Murrah are also damaged, seven severely, including the Journal Record newspaper building, the offices of Southwestern Bell, the Water Resources Board, an Athenian restaurant, the YMCA, a post office building, and the Regency Tower Hotel. Two Water Resources Board employees and a restaurant worker are killed in the blast. The Journal Record building loses its roof. Assistant Fire Chief Jon Hansen later recalls, "The entire block looked like something out of war-torn Bosnia." Every building within four blocks of the Murrah suffers some effects. A United Parcel Service truck 10 miles away has its windows shattered by the blast. Cars in parking lots around the area catch fire and burn. Millions of sheets of paper, and an innumerable number of glass shards, shower down for hundreds of feet around the building. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 28-30] Truck Axle Crushes Nearby Car - Richard Nichols (no relation to bomber Timothy McVeigh's co-conspirator Terry Nichols), a maintenance worker standing with his wife a block and a half away from the Murrah Building, is spun around by the force of the blast. They throw open the back door of their car and begin taking their young nephew Chad Nichols out of the back seat, when Richard sees a large shaft of metal hurtling towards them. The "humongous object… spinning like a boomerang," as Richard later describes it, hits the front of their Ford Festiva, smashing the windshield, crushing the front end, driving the rear end high into the air, and sending the entire car spinning backwards about 10 feet. Chad is not seriously injured. The metal shaft is the rear axle of the Ryder truck. Later, investigators determine that it weighs 250 pounds and was blown 575 feet from where the truck was parked. Governor Frank Keating (R-OK) points out the axle to reporters when he walks the scene a day or so later, causing some media outlets to incorrectly report that Keating "discovered" the axle. The scene will take investigators days to process for evidence. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 32; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 187-189] First Responders Begin Arriving - Within minutes, survivors begin evacuating the building, and first responders appear on the scene (see 9:02 a.m. - 10:35 a.m. April 19, 1995). McVeigh's Getaway - McVeigh flees the bomb site in his Mercury getaway car (see 9:02 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995), but is captured less than 90 minutes later (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995).
Entity Tags: Mary Heath, Phillip ("P.J.") Allen, Regency Tower Hotel (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), Oklahoma City Journal Record, Michael Norfleet, Murrah Federal Building, Richard Nichols, Social Security Administration, Sherri Sparks, Timothy James McVeigh, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Terry Lynn Nichols, Jon Hansen, Southwestern Bell, Jean Hurlbert, Ed Kirkpatrick, Frank Keating, US Secret Service, US Department of Veterans Affairs, Water Resources Board (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ), Young Men's Christian Association, William Pierce, Gabeon Bruce, America's Kids (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ), Chad Nichols, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Calvin Johnson, US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Charles Hurlbert, US Department of Agriculture, Douglas O. Linder
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Domestic Propaganda, US Domestic Terrorism
A bloodied survivor is helped from the Murrah bomb site. [Source: The Oklahoman]Survivors of the Murrah Federal Building bomb blast in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) begin evacuating. By 9:30, a triage center has been established at the corner of 6th and Robinson Streets. By 10 a.m., 59 survivors have either been rescued from the blasted building or have emerged on their own. The next day, the Washington Post will report: "Workers staggered out of stairwells, blood dripping into their eyes. A woman moaned on the ground, part of her leg apparently missing from the blast. Employees at buildings blocks away reported being thrown from their chairs, windows were shattered, and residents who live 30 miles from downtown reported feeling the powerful vibrations of the blast. Everywhere around the city, people stood in stunned silence, not believing what they had just seen and heard, not comprehending how anyone could have done such a thing." Physician Carl Spengler, who arrives at the scene a few minutes after the blast to render assistance, tells a reporter: "It's like Beirut. Everything burning and flattened." Hours after the explosion, Assistant Fire Chief John Hansen says rescue workers see "many more fatalities in the building that we are working around" while searching for survivors. The task of searching for survivors goes on throughout the day and into the night, interrupted by erroneous reports of a second bomb being spotted and the subsequent evacuation of the scene (see 10:28 a.m. April 19, 1995). An agent of the medical examiner's office, Richard Dugger, says: "Tomorrow will be the really awful day when everyone starts to get the official notification. That's going to be a horrible thing to watch." By 10:15, blood drives for the injured have begun at nearby Tinker Air Force Base and the Oklahoma Blood Institute. At 10:34, a new triage center is established at the corner of NW 3rd Street and Harvey Street. By 10:35, the Department of Defense delivers bomb-sniffing dogs, surgeons, equipment, medivac aircraft, and body bags to the site. [Washington Post, 4/20/1995; The Oklahoman, 4/2009] One mother, Helena Garrett, whose child Tevin is in the Murrah day care facility, runs from the nearby Journal Record building to the devastated Murrah Building to rescue her son, but is not allowed in by police officers. She finds another way in and begins climbing a pile of rubble to get to the day care on the second floor, but a man pulls her back down to the ground, telling her it is not safe for her to try to get to the facility. A few minutes later, people begin bringing dead, dying, and injured children out. Garrett, who knows the children in the facility, helps comfort one dying boy, two-year-old Colton Smith, until he loses consciousness for the last time. Garrett watches, numb and stricken, as the rescuers begin lining the children up on white sheets one by one on the ground. She screams: "Please don't lay our babies on the glass! We don't want our babies on the glass!" and a man with a broom sweeps away much of the broken glass on the ground where the rescuers are placing the bodies of the children, crying as he sweeps. Garrett never sees her son alive again; he is not found until April 22. The officials of the funeral home caring for Tevin's body will convince Garrett not to look at her son's head, as he is terribly disfigured by a crushing head injury. Instead, she recalls, they will open the lower lid of the casket. She later recalls, "I kissed his feet and his I kissed his legs, and I couldn't go up higher." [Serrano, 1998, pp. 166-168]
Entity Tags: Murrah Federal Building, Colton Smith, Carl Spengler, Jon Hansen, Washington Post, Tevin Garrett, Oklahoma Blood Institute, US Department of Defense, Helena Garrett, Richard Dugger, Tinker Air Force Base
The FBI says that evidence compiled on the Oklahoma City bombing shows that it was planned for months by accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995) and a small number of co-conspirators. The statement by the FBI echoes statements made earlier by Attorney General Janet Reno (see April 22, 1995). Evidence shows that McVeigh was driven in part by his rage at the government's handling of the Branch Davidian standoff two years earlier (see April 19, 1993). McVeigh has refused to cooperate with investigators, and reportedly has shown no remorse or emotion of any kind, even when confronted with photographs of dead and maimed children being taken from the devasted Murrah Federal Building. The attack was timed to coincide with the Branch Davidian conflagration of April 19, 1993, investigators say, and was executed after months of planning, preparation, and testing. Some investigators believe that McVeigh may lack the leadership skills to plan and execute such a plot, and theorize that the ringleader of the conspiracy may turn out to be someone else (see April 21, 1995 and After). Evidence collected from the Ryder truck, particularly shards of blue plastic from barrels containing the fertilizer and fuel oil that comprised most of the bomb's elements, point to the involvement of Terry Nichols, a friend of McVeigh's who is coming under increasing scrutiny as a possible co-conspirator (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). Similar barrels were found in Nichols's garage in his Herington, Kansas, home (see (February 20, 1995)), along with other evidence tying him to the bomb's construction. Investigating Possible Involvement of Sister - Investigators are in the process of searching the home of McVeigh's younger sister Jennifer, who has returned from a vacation in Pensacola, Florida (see April 7, 1995 and April 21-23, 1995). They are also poring over Jennifer McVeigh's 1995 Chevrolet pickup truck, registered in New York. Investigators say the two siblings are very close, share similar anti-government views (see March 9, 1995), and have had numerous conversations in recent months (see Mid-December 1994). Jennifer McVeigh is taken into federal custody as well, as a witness, not as a suspect, and is released on April 25, after an intensive interrogation session that leaves her frightened and angry. "They told me Tim was guilty," she will later recall, "and that he was going to fry." According to her recollections, the agents threaten to charge her as a co-conspirator unless she gives them evidence against her brother, but she refuses to cooperate. She does reveal some information about her brother's involvement in gun dealing, his strong belief in the US Constitution as he and right-wing white separatist groups interpret it, and his obsession with the violently racist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978). "He had people he knew around the country," she tells agents, mentioning three: "Mike and Lori and Terry." Terry is Terry Nichols. "Mike and Lori" are McVeigh's close friends Michael and Lori Fortier (see May-September 1993, February - July 1994, August 1994, September 13, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, April 19, 1995 and After, and December 16, 1994 and After). She tells them about watching anti-government videotapes with her brother, in particular one called "Day 51" about the Waco siege. "It depicted the government raiding the compound, and it implied that the government gassed and burned the people inside intentionally and attacked the people," she tells the agents. "He was very angry. I think he thought the government murdered the people there, basically gassed and burned them down." The agents ask if by the government, he meant the FBI and the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, also abbreviated BATF). "He felt that someone should be held accountable," she answers, and says her brother believed no one ever had been held responsible. She shows them the "ATF Read" letter he had written on her word processor (see November 1994) that concludes with the exhortation, "Die, you spineless cowardice [sic] b_stards!" She says that McVeigh had told her he had moved out of a "planning" stage into an "action" stage, though he never explained to her exactly what "action" he intended to take. Later, she will sign a statement detailing what her brother had told her. She will always insist that he never spoke to her about ammonium nitrate, anhydrous hydrazine, or any of the chemical components of the bomb, and had never spoken to her about the scene in The Turner Diaries that depicts the FBI building in Washington being obliterated by a truck bomb similar to the one used in Oklahoma City. The FBI seizes a number of her belongings, including samples of her antigovernment "patriot" literature. But, they determine, Jennifer McVeigh was never a part of her brother's conspiracy. Interviewing Alleged Co-Conspirator's Ex-Wife - Investigators are also interviewing Nichols's ex-wife, Lana Padilla, who currently lives in Las Vegas. The press speculates that she is cooperating with the investigation and may have been taken to a undisclosed location for security reasons. Investigators are combing through a large body of writings McVeigh left behind, many of which detail his far-right, anti-government ideological beliefs. From what they have read so far, McVeigh believes that his Second Amendment rights are absolute, and he has the right to live without any restraints from the government. They have not found any documents detailing any operational plan for the bombing, nor have they found evidence that McVeigh directly threatened any government buildings or personnel. The FBI is offering a $2 million reward for information about McVeigh and the bombing. [New York Times, 4/24/1995; New York Times, 4/24/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 237-238]
Entity Tags: Michael Joseph Fortier, Janet Reno, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Branch Davidians, Jennifer McVeigh, Lori Fortier, Timothy James McVeigh, US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Terry Lynn Nichols, Lana Padilla
FBI crime laboratory technicians comb through over 15,000 "entries" (items of evidence) from the Oklahoma City bombing scene (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and from material gathered from suspects Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995) and Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and May 1, 1995), eventually producing over 10,000 pages of lab notes. The prime focus at the outset is on McVeigh's personal effects. No high-explosive materials are found on McVeigh's jacket or boots, nor are any traces found on the blanket or cloth bag recovered from his car. However, traces of explosive compounds similar to those used in the bombing are found in the inside pockets of his jeans and on his earplugs, which he presumably used to protect his hearing from the roar of the explosion. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 222-223]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Timothy James McVeigh, Terry Lynn Nichols
Michael Fortier, a suspected participant in the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy (see May-September 1993, February - July 1994, August 1994, September 13, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, and December 16, 1994 and After) whom the FBI believes has lied to investigators (see April 23 - May 6, 1995), unsuccessfully attempts to foil investigators by removing a cache of guns and drugs from his home. FBI personnel monitor the activities at the Fortier home, and place Fortier under court-authorized electronic surveillance of his telephone and inside his home. Soon after the wiretaps are placed, Fortier makes a number of belligerent statements to a friend, Lonnie Hubbard, in a phone call, saying if he is called to testify in any trial, he will pick his nose on camera and "flick it" at the lens. "Flick it and then kind of wipe it on the judge's desk," he says. He will also invite the lawyers to play a game of "pull my finger" during any such testimony, he says, between bouts of laughter. "I'm the key, I'm the key," he tells Hubbard. "Cause you're the key," Hubbard replies. "The key man," Fortier says. "That can unlock the whole mystery," Hubbard says. "The head honcho.… I hold the key to it all." To his brother John Fortier, he brags about the instant celebrity he will achieve, saying that he will concoct "some asinine story and get my friends to go in on it.… I found my career, 'cause I can tell a fable.… I could tell stories all day." To his friend Glynn Bringle, he says: "I want to wait till after the trial and do book and movie rights. I can just make up something juicy. Something that's worth the Enquirer [a tabloid news publication], you know." He speculates that he can sell photographs of McVeigh for $50,000, and make up to a million dollars by marketing his life story with McVeigh. "Make one cool mil," he boasts. He tells some of his lies to a CNN reporter, in a segment that is broadcast nationwide (see May 8, 1995). Fortier's parents, Paul and Irene Fortier, beg him to tell the truth to the federal investigators; Fortier later says the entire situation drove his father into "a nervous breakdown," and admits lying to his father about his involvement. The FBI microphones record Fortier screaming at his mother, "Shut the f_ck up!" when she brings up the problems the family is suffering. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 240-243]
Entity Tags: Irene Fortier, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lonnie Hubbard, Lori Fortier, Michael Joseph Fortier, Paul Fortier, Timothy James McVeigh
An Army friend of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, After May 6, 1995, and May 16, 1995), Michael Fortier, tells federal authorities that he and McVeigh inspected the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City as a potential bombing target in the days before the blast (see December 16, 1994 and After). Fortier knew McVeigh from their time together at Fort Riley, Kansas (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990), and says he knew of McVeigh's plans for the bombing while the two lived in Kingman, Arizona (see May-September 1993, February - July 1994, August 1994, September 13, 1994 and After, September 13, 1994, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, and February 17, 1995 and After). Fortier and his wife Lori decided to stop lying about their involvement with McVeigh and the bomb plot (see April 19, 1995 and After, April 23 - May 6, 1995, and May 8, 1995) and tell the truth after receiving subpoenas for their testimony before a grand jury investigating the bombing; instead of testifying under oath, Fortier opens a discussion with prosecutors about a settlement, and gives his statements about McVeigh in an initial offer of the evidence he says he can provide. They also ask the authorities about retaining a lawyer. Michael Fortier admits that a statement he signed in Kingman, Arizona, is mostly false. Fortier and his wife testify for hours about their involvement with McVeigh and their complicity in the bomb plot. Fortier is negotiating with federal prosecutors for a plea deal, and for immunity for his wife, in return for his cooperation in their prosecution of McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995, April 24, 1995, and May 11, 1995). Fortier says he and McVeigh drove from Arizona to the Murrah Federal Building about a week before the bombing in an apparent effort to "case" the building. Fortier denies he had any direct role in the blast, but authorities have been very interested in him since the day of the bombing. Authorities have searched his trailer in Kingman and questioned him thoroughly, though officials say they have no basis to charge him with any direct involvement in the bombing. Fortier may still be charged as an accessory to the bombing, or on other related charges. It is doubtful, people involved in the case say, that the government would give Fortier full immunity from prosecution. Fortier is the first person to directly implicate McVeigh in the bombing; until now, investigators have only a large amount of circumstantial evidence tying McVeigh to the blast. Nichols has denied any direct knowledge of the bombing, and currently is not cooperating with investigators. Some investigators believe that Fortier may be the elusive "John Doe No. 2" (see April 20, 1995), who is considered either a co-conspirator or a material witness with knowledge of the plot, though Fortier does not clearly match the description of the suspect. [New York Times, 5/19/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 244-245]
Entity Tags: Timothy James McVeigh, Lori Fortier, Murrah Federal Building, Michael Joseph Fortier, Terry Lynn Nichols
Law enforcement authorities call off the search for the so-called "John Doe No. 2," believed to be another person involved in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 20, 1995). Officials say the sketch identifying the man is of an innocent person. The sketch has been "enhanced" twice to further aid in identification. [Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Indianapolis Star, 2003] Government prosecutors say that the person believed to be depicted in the sketches is Todd David Bunting, an Army private from Fort Riley, Kansas; they say that Bunting has no connections to McVeigh or the bombing. A witness has told the FBI that he saw Bunting at Elliott's Body Shop, a truck rental agency in Junction City, Kansas, on April 17, two days before the blast, either in the company of accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995 and April 24, 1995) or standing close to him while McVeigh rented the Ryder truck used in the bombing (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Authorities now believe that Bunting was at the rental shop on April 16, the day before McVeigh's visit, or perhaps April 18, the day after. The FBI releases a statement that says in part: "That individual… resembles the sketch previously circulated as the second of two men who rented the truck on April 17 and who has been called John Doe No. 2.… [The FBI] has determined that individual who has been interviewed was not connected to the bombing." Some investigators believe that the witness, the rental agent at the shop, became confused under pressure from investigators to recall the details of the second man he says he saw with McVeigh. [New York Times, 6/14/1995; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 811; The Oklahoman, 4/2009] Bunting will later say that it is his face depicted in the composite sketches of "John Doe No. 2." [New York Times, 12/3/1995] He closely resembles the sketch, and has a Carolina Panthers baseball cap with lightning strikes down the sides, much like the cap Doe No. 2 was said to wear. He even has a tattoo on his right arm where one witness said Doe No. 2 has a tattoo. The press learns of the Bunting identification before the FBI can hold an official press conference announcing its findings, and reporters trek to Timmonsville, South Carolina, where Bunting is attending the funeral of his mother-in-law, to interivew him; some reporters even barge into the funeral home. Bunting will later stand before cameras and reporters in a press conference held in Fort Riley, where he says he was at Elliott's Body Shop in the company of another man, Sergeant Michael Hertig, to rent a truck and pack up his belongings to transfer to Fort Benning. He talks of the FBI's questioning of him, and of the chill he felt when he learned he was being connected to the bombing, however tenuously. Author Richard A. Serrano will later write that after repeated humiliating press reports of false identifications of Doe No. 2 (see April 20, 1995 and May 1-2, 1995), the FBI wants the problems of Doe No. 2 to "go away… dissolve from the nation's consciousness." Serrano will suggest that agents deliberately found an innocent man, Bunting, who bears a strong resemblance to the sketch, and decided to use him to end the speculation. If true, the FBI's efforts will be fruitless: the speculation will continue for years, with a Web site, "John Doe Times," posted by an Alabama militiaman, hosting anti-government postings and criticism of the ongoing investigation. The far-right "Spotlight" newsletter will say in 1996 that federal agents had employed "dupes" to bomb the Murrah Building, and that McVeigh and Doe No. 2 were mere patsies. The newsletter will claim that Doe No. 2, a government provocateur, lives in hiding on an Indian reservation in upstate New York. Others will speculate that Doe No. 2 is white supremacist Michael Brescia (see August 1994 - March 1995, (April 1) - April 18, 1995, April 8, 1995, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), who bears a close resemblance to the sketch. Brescia later pleads guilty to crimes unrelated to the bombing and will deny any involvement. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 265-266] Author Nicole Nichols, an expert in right-wing domestic terrorism unrelated to accused co-conspirator Terry Nichols, will later speculate that Doe No. 2 is actually Andreas Strassmeir, a gun aficianado and member of the militaristic Elohim City compound along with Brescia (see 1973 and After). Press reports later state that McVeigh denies any involvement by Strassmeir (see February 28 - March 4, 1997). Prosecutors will later reiterate that Bunting is "John Doe No. 2" and reiterate that he has no connection to the bombing (see January 29, 1997).
Entity Tags: Andreas Strassmeir, Elliott's Body Shop (Junction City, Kansas), Federal Bureau of Investigation, Nicole Nichols, Michael Hertig, Todd David Bunting, Michael William Brescia, Richard A. Serrano, Timothy James McVeigh
Michael Fortier, a friend of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh who participated to an extent in the planning of the bombing (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, March 1993, May-September 1993, February - July 1994, August 1994, September 13, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, December 16, 1994 and After, 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 19, 1995 and After, After May 6, 1995, and May 19, 1995), testifies to a grand jury about his involvement in the bombing plot. Fortier's wife Lori also testifies; her attorney, Mack Martin, says: "Her testimony had nothing to do with Mr. Fortier. Her testimony had to do with other people involved in the bombing." She has been given given a grant of immunity in return for her testimony. Michael Fortier tells the jury of his visit to the Murrah Federal Building with McVeigh to reconnoiter the building, and admits that McVeigh told him he intended to bomb the building (see December 16, 1994 and After). He has pled guilty to illegal firearms trafficking, knowledge of the bombing, and lying to federal agents (see April 19, 1995 and After and April 23 - May 6, 1995). [New York Times, 8/7/1995; Washington Post, 8/9/1995; Washington Post, 8/11/1995; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 811; Serrano, 1998, pp. 245; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Fox News, 4/13/2005] McVeigh's lawyer Stephen Jones says Michael Fortier is anything but a credible witness, and notes that Fortier has previously said in a television interview that he did not think McVeigh had any involvement in the bombing (see May 8, 1995). [Washington Post, 8/9/1995] Instead, Jones says in a court filing that the grand jury should begin looking for evidence of a "broad domestic or foreign conspiracy to bomb the Oklahoma City Federal building" by demanding intelligence reports on Iran and other avenues of investigation (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After). [New York Times, 8/9/1995] Fortier's lawyer, Michael McGuire, will say his client came forward out of guilt and remorse. "There is no expression of grief or words sufficient to describe his anguish over the responsibility he feels for knowing about the plans to bomb the Murrah building," McGuire will say. "The defining thing that made him want to cooperate was his conscience." Jones says, "I think any time the government has to give two [potential] co-defendants a pretty good deal, there are weaknesses in the case." Fortier faces a maximum of 23 years in prison and fines totaling $1 million. [Washington Post, 8/11/1995] Through his lawyers, Fortier cut a deal to testify if he was assured he would not be charged as a co-conspirator in the plot, though prosecutors refused to grant him full immunity. Some observers have speculated that Fortier may have agreed to cooperate if prosecutors granted his wife immunity [New York Times, 6/21/1995; New York Times, 8/7/1995] , a deal later confirmed by reporters. [New York Times, 8/8/1995] Lori Fortier tells grand jurors about witnessing McVeigh conduct a demonstration using soup cans on her kitchen floor that illustrated the effects of a massive bombing (see (February 1994)). McVeigh, she says, arranged soup cans to simulate the pattern he could make with barrels of explosives. McVeigh placed the soup cans in a triangle, she says, to direct the force of an explosion at a desired target, with two of the three points of the triangle flush against the side of the truck to maximize the damage. Michael Fortier did not witness the demonstration, she testifies. She also says that McVeigh once drew a diagram that showed how to blow up a building. [New York Times, 9/4/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 91] Both the Fortiers will repeat their testimony in McVeigh's trial (see May 12-13, 1997).
Entity Tags: Michael McGuire, Mack Martin, Murrah Federal Building, Lori Fortier, Timothy James McVeigh, Stephen Jones, Michael Joseph Fortier
A federal grand jury indicts Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) on 11 counts of murder and conspiracy. Neither McVeigh nor Nichols are present during the hearing. The grand jury is only empowered to bring federal charges; the eight murder charges are in regards to the eight federal agents slain in the bombing: Secret Service agents Mickey Maroney, Donald Leonard, Alan Whicher, and Cynthia Campbell-Brown; DEA agent Kenneth McCullough; Customs Service agents Paul Ice and Claude Madearis; and Paul Broxterman, an agent in the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Both Nichols and McVeigh are expected to face 160 counts of murder brought by the state of Oklahoma; both will plead not guilty to all counts of the indictment (see August 15, 1995). The indictment levels the following charges: on September 30, 1994, McVeigh and Nichols purchased 40 50-pound bags of ammonium nitrate (2,000 pounds in total, or one ton) in McPherson, Kansas, under the alias "Mike Havens" (see September 30, 1994); on October 1, 1994, McVeigh and Nichols stole explosives from a storage locker in Marion, Kansas (the actual date of the theft is October 3—see October 3, 1994); on October 3-4, 1994, McVeigh and Nichols transported the stolen explosives to Kingman, Arizona, and stored them in a rented storage unit (see October 4 - Late October, 1994); on October 18, 1994, McVeigh and Nichols bought another ton of ammonium nitrate in McPherson, Kansas, again using the "Mike Havens" alias (see October 18, 1994); in October 1994, McVeigh and Nichols planned the robbery of a firearms dealer in Arkansas as a means to finance the bombing, and on November 5 they "caused" firearms, ammunition, coins, cash, precious metals, and other items to be stolen from gun dealer Roger Moore (see November 5, 1994); on December 16, 1994, McVeigh drove with Michael Fortier to Oklahoma City and identified the Murrah Federal Building as the target of the upcoming bombing (see December 16, 1994 and After); in March 1995 McVeigh obtained a driver's license in the name of "Robert Kling," bearing a date of birth of April 19, 1972 (see Mid-March, 1995); on April 14, 1995, McVeigh bought a 1977 Mercury Marquis in Junction City, Kansas, called Nichols in Herington, Kansas, used the "Kling" alias to set up the rental of a Ryder truck capable of transporting 5,000 pounds of cargo, and rented a room in Junction City (see April 13, 1995); on April 15, 1995, McVeigh put down a deposit on a rental truck under the name of "Robert Kling" (see April 15, 1995); on April 17, 1995, McVeigh took possession of the rental truck in Junction City (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995); on April 18, 1995, at Geary Lake State Park in Kansas, McVeigh and Nichols constructed the truck bomb using barrels filled with ammonium nitrate, fuel, and other explosives, and placed the cargo in the compartment of the Ryder truck (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995); on April 19, 1995, McVeigh parked the truck bomb directly outside the Murrah Building during regular business hours; and on April 19, 1995, McVeigh "caused the truck bomb to explode" (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The indictment accuses McVeigh and Nichols of plotting the bombing "with others unknown to the Grand Jury." It does not mention the person identified earlier as "John Doe No. 2" (see June 14, 1995). The grand jury says it is confident others, as yet unidentified, also participated in the plot. Lead prosecutor Joseph Hartzler says: "The indictment mentions unknown co-conspirators. We will try to determine if there are others who aided and abetted this crime." After the indictments are handed down, Attorney General Janet Reno says: "We will pursue every lead based on the evidence.… [M]ost of these leads have been pursued and exhausted.… [W]e have charged everyone involved that we have evidence of at this point." Prosecutors say that while others may well have been involved, the plot was closely held between McVeigh and Nichols. US Attorney Patrick Ryan has already announced he will seek the death penalty against both McVeigh and Nichols (see July 11-13, 1995), a decision supported by Reno (see 4:00 p.m., April 19, 1995). A third conspirator, Michael Fortier, has pled guilty to lesser crimes regarding his involvement; Fortier has testified against McVeigh and Nichols in return for the lesser charges (see May 19, 1995 and August 8, 1995), and defense lawyers are expected to assail Fortier's credibility during the trials (see April 19, 1995 and After, April 23 - May 6, 1995, and May 8, 1995). Nichols's lawyer Michael Tigar says, "Terry Nichols is not guilty of the allegations of which he is charged," calls the case against his client "flimsy" and "irresponsible," and accuses prosecutors of attempting to try his client "in the national media." Periodically, Tigar holds up hand-lettered signs reading, among other messages, "Terry Nichols Wasn't There" and "A Fair Trial in a Fair Forum." Prosecutors have dropped all charges against Nichols's brother James Nichols, who was indicted on three related explosive charges (see December 22 or 23, 1988, April 25, 1995, and May 11, 1995). US Attorney Saul A. Green says that "additional investigation failed to corroborate some of the important evidence on which the government initially relied." [Washington Post, 8/11/1995; New York Times, 8/11/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 189-191; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 811; Washington Post, 12/24/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 245; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] McVeigh's lawyer, Stephen Jones, tells reporters after the hearing that he has been in contact with a man who, he says, told the government early in the fall of 1994 of plans to blow up federal buildings. This man, Jones says, was given a "letter of immunity" by the authorities in exchange for information involving a trip he had taken to Kingman, Arizona, Fortier's hometown, and for information about his discussions with potential bombers whom, Jones says, the man had described as either "Latin American or Arab." Jones refuses to identify the person to whom he is referring. [New York Times, 8/11/1995]
Entity Tags: Terry Lynn Nichols, Timothy James McVeigh, Geary State Fishing Lake And Wildlife Area, Cynthia Campbell-Brown, Alan Whicher, Stephen Jones, Donald Leonard, Claude Madearis, Roger E. ("Bob") Moore, Saul A. Green, Paul Broxterman, Paul Douglas Ice, Janet Reno, James Nichols, Kenneth McCullough, Joseph H. Hartzler, Michael Joseph Fortier, Patrick M. Ryan, Mickey Maroney, Michael E. Tigar
Four FBI workers who evaluated evidence surrounding the Oklahoma City bombings (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and August 10, 1995) are transferred after a Justice Department report criticizes the FBI's crime lab procedures. One of those suspended is forensic scientist Frederic Whitehurst, whose long-standing complaints triggered the Justice Department investigation. That investigation found that evidence in about two dozen cases had been mishandled. Whitehurst is placed on administrative leave with pay just days after the report is received by FBI HQ. The Justice Department report does not allege that evidence had been manipulated to benefit prosecutors. Some evidence was possibly contaminated, and in some instances, the FBI laboratory exercised lax control over evidence. Three of the 23 units in the laboratory were found to have substandard procedures. [Washington Post, 1/28/1997; Indianapolis Star, 2003] According to a technician (not Whitehurst), the black denim jeans that accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and August 10, 1995) wore on the day of the bombing were shipped to the forensics lab in a brown paper bag, and not a sealed plastic evidence bag as procedure dictates. A gun and a knife purportedly taken from McVeigh during his arrest (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995) were sent to the lab in a manila envelope. According to an FBI summary of interviews conducted with lab technicians, an employee in the explosives unit, LaToya Gadson, told investigators that "the evidence was a 'mess' when it came in because it had not been collected in an 'orderly fashion.' Additionally, most of the debris was not properly bagged, some was not bagged at all, and many of the bags were not closed tightly, allowing debris to fall out." Travel cases potentially contaminated with explosive residue from the bomb were placed in an area where bomb debris had been stored awaiting testing, rendering the cases impossible to accurately test. And a technician obtained a false reading of cocaine in McVeigh's car, possibly from using improperly cleaned equipment. The sample was discarded, a worker says. Three technicians who examined evidence from the bombing case were reassigned: David Williams, who supervised evidence collection; Roger Martz, head of the laboratory's chemistry unit; and James T. Thurman, chief of the laboratory's explosives unit. Lab workers say Williams changed his dictated reports in violation of laboratory policy. Martz examined explosive evidence even though he lacked the proper training to do so. [New York Times, 1/31/1997]
Entity Tags: James T. Thurman, David R. Williams (FBI), Frederic Whitehurst, Timothy James McVeigh, Roger Martz, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice, LaToya Gadson
Jury selection begins in the trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and August 10, 1995). Judge Richard Matsch has denied defense attempts to delay the trial after a brief controversy erupted over media reports using defense documents (see February 28 - March 4, 1997). "I have full confidence that a fair-minded jury can and will be impaneled and that those selected will return a just verdict based on the law and evidence presented to them," Matsch wrote on March 17. Jurors' identities are kept hidden from the press. One potential juror, asked by US Attorney Patrick Ryan, "Did you watch a lot of the coverage?" answers: "It was unavoidable. In Oklahoma, it was wall to wall and floor to ceiling." Another potential juror says he worries about his safety in regards to what he will learn in the course of the trial: "It would seem this case goes further, wider, and deeper in many ways. A juror is going to be an insider on information he might just as soon not know." [Washington Post, 3/18/1997; New York Times, 4/1/1997; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] The pressure of this being a death-penalty trial, and the prospect of potentially confusing forensic evidence countered by the raw emotions of the bombing itself and of the conspiracy theories surrounding the proceedings, raises oft-asked questions about the competence of 12 jurors to find the truth in such a complex situation. The difference between an open-minded juror and one who is ignorant or intellectually challenged is difficult for lawyers and observers to assess. New York Times reporter Laura Mansnerus reflects on the trial of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, charged with crimes relating to the Iran-Contra scandal (see July 7-10, 1987 and May-June, 1989), in which, she writes: "When the jury was selected for the 1989 trial of Oliver North, a search went out for 12 people who knew nothing about Oliver North, which produced, well, 12 people who knew nothing about Oliver North. One person who qualified for service said she had seen him on television, but added, 'It was just like I was focusing on the Three Stooges or something.'" That ill-informed jury proved remarkably pliable to North's theatrics, Mansnerus writes, and many believe McVeigh's defense team hopes for a similar jury pool that may be willing to set aside scientific evidence in favor of conspiracy theories and emotional pleas. Jury expert Jeffrey Abramson of Brandeis University tells Mansnerus: "In a case that's heavy on scientific, forensic evidence, the defense is going to favor people who are less sophisticated about scientific matters and who are prone to conspiracy theories. That's the classic defense approach." Philadelphia prosecutor Jack McMahon warned in a well-known 1986 instructional video of the pitfalls that can result in letting "smart people" on the jury, saying: "Smart people will analyze the hell out of your case. They have a higher standard. They take those words 'reasonable doubt' and they actually try to think about them. You don't want those people." Moreover, people with jobs requiring any real level of responsibility are routinely excused from jury service; this case is no exception, leaving a pool of jurors with little or no steady employment, spotty educational status, and somtimes limited intellectual capabilities to judge McVeigh's innocence or guilt. [New York Times, 4/6/1997]
Entity Tags: Jeffrey Abramson, Timothy James McVeigh, Jack McMahon, Patrick M. Ryan, Laura Mansnerus, Richard P. Matsch
The Justice Department inspector general releases a report criticizing the FBI's practices at its crime laboratory that may cast doubts on evidence to be presented in the trial of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and August 10, 1995). The report, issued after an 18-month investigation of the laboratory, includes questions about the handling of evidence relating to the Oklahoma City bombing, including the size and composition of the bomb, and of chemical residues found on McVeigh's clothing and on a knife he was carrying when apprehended. McVeigh's lead lawyer, Stephen Jones, says he has always intended to challenge the integrity of the physical evidence against McVeigh. The report, prepared by the Justice Department's inspector general, Michael R. Bromwich, finds that FBI examiner David R. Williams prepared his September 5, 1995, report on the explosives used in the Oklahoma City bombing "in a way most incriminating to the defendants" (McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols). Williams, his supervisor, and two other agents were transferred in January in response to Bromwich's preliminary findings (see January 27, 1997). Williams has been dropped from the government's witness list. [New York Times, 4/17/1997]
Entity Tags: Timothy James McVeigh, David R. Williams (FBI), Michael Bromwich, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice, Terry Lynn Nichols
Opening statements are presented in the trial of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and August 10, 1995). Heavy Security - Security in and around the Byron Rogers Federal Building and Courthouse in Denver, where the trial is being held, is tight. Roads and sidewalks approaching the building are blocked off. Special credentials are needed to walk around certain areas inside the courthouse. Pedestrian traffic in and out of the federal office next door is constrained with a heavy police presence. Federal officers look under the hoods of cars and check beneath vehicles with mirrors on the streets surrounding the building. Concrete barriers prevent vehicles from getting too close to the building. Even the nearby manhole covers are sealed shut. [CNN, 4/17/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 274] Jury Makeup - The jury (see March 31, 1997 and After) is composed of seven men and five women; their identities and personal information have been shielded so they can avoid being sequestered. Six alternate jurors—three men and three women—are also available. The jurors include a retired teacher, a registered nurse, an auto mechanic, a real estate manager, and a store manager who served in the Air Force. Several are military veterans. One said during jury selection that he hopes the trial will not turn McVeigh into another victim: "I believe there have been enough victims. We don't need another one." James Osgood, the jury foreman and store manager, believes in mandatory gun ownership. (Like the other members of the jury, Osgood's identity will not be revealed until after the trial is concluded.) Several expressed their doubts and worry about being able to impose the death penalty if McVeigh is convicted. Some 100 potential jurors were screened to create this jury of 12 members and six alternates. As the trial commences, McVeigh greets the jury by saying, "Good morning." He will not speak to them again during the trial. Judge Richard P. Matsch begins by saying: "We start the trial, as we are today, with no evidence against Timothy McVeigh. The presumption of innocence applies." [Washington Post, 4/23/1997; New York Times, 4/23/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 275; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] Prosecution: McVeigh a Cold, Calculating Terrorist - Lead prosecutor Joseph Hartzler begins with an emotional evocation of the bombing and the story of one of the victims, Tevin Garrett, a 16-month-old child who cried when his mother Helena Garrett left him at the Murrah Building's day care center. The mothers could wave at their children through the day care's glass windows, Hartzler says. "It was almost as if you could reach up and touch the children. None of those parents ever touched their children again while they were alive." He says of Tevin Garrett's mother, "She remembers this morning [the morning of the bombing] because it was the last morning of [Tevin's] life" (see 9:02 a.m. - 10:35 a.m. April 19, 1995). Hartzler wastes little time in slamming McVeigh as a "twisted," calculating terrorist who murdered 168 people in the hope of starting a mass uprising against the US government. McVeigh, Hartzler says, "chose to take their innocent lives to serve his own twisted purposes.… In plain and simple terms, it was an act of terror and violence, intended to serve a selfish political purpose. The man who committed this act is sitting in this courtroom behind me. He is the one who committed those murders." Hartzler says that McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City to avenge the federal assault on the Branch Davidian religious compound outside Waco, Texas (see April 19, 1993, April 19, 1993 and After, and April 24, 1995). "Across the street, the Ryder truck was there to resolve a grievance," Hartzler says. "The truck was there to impose the will of Timothy McVeigh on the rest of America and to do so by premeditated violence and terror, by murdering innocent men, women, and children, in hopes of seeing blood flow in the streets of America." He notes that McVeigh carried an excerpt from the violently racist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978) that depicts the bombing of FBI headquarters in Washington. Hartzler reads the following line from the excerpt: "The real value of our attack lies in the psychological impact, not in the immediate casualties." Hartzler also notes the T-shirt McVeigh wore when he was arrested, a shirt that Hartzler says "broadcast his intentions." On the front was a likeness of Abraham Lincoln and on the back a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Drops of scarlet blood dripped from a picture of a tree. Investigators found traces of residue on McVeigh's shirt, in his pants pockets, and on a set of earplugs found in his pocket (see Early May 1995 and After). Hartzler reads from a document McVeigh had written on a computer belonging to his sister, Jennifer (see November 1994). In a letter addressed to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, McVeigh wrote: "All you tyrannical [expletive], you'll swing in the wind one day for your treasonous attacks against the Constitution of the United States.… Die, you spineless, cowardice [sic] b_stards" (see May 5-6, 1997). Hartzler says the trial has nothing to do with McVeigh's beliefs or his freedoms of expression: "We aren't prosecuting him because we don't like his thoughts. We're prosecuting him because his hatred boiled into violence." Of the innocent victims, Hartzler tells the jury that McVeigh "compared them to the storm troopers in [the popular science fiction movie] Star Wars (see October 21 or 22, 1994). Even if they are innocent, they work for an evil system and have to be killed." Hartzler moves to preempt expected defense attacks on the prosecution's star witness, Michael Fortier (see After May 6, 1995, May 19, 1995 and August 8, 1995), on reports that evidence was mishandled by an FBI crime lab (see January 27, 1997), and the failure to identify or apprehend the now-infamous "John Doe No. 2" (see June 14, 1995). Hartzler concludes: "Timothy McVeigh liked to consider himself a patriot, as someone who could start a second American revolution. Ladies and gentlemen, statements from our forefathers can never be twisted to justify warfare against women and children. Our forefathers didn't fight British women and children. They fought other soldiers, they fought them face to face, hand to hand. They didn't plant bombs and then run away wearing earplugs" (see Early May 1995 and After) Hartzler returns to the prosecutors' table; Matsch calls a brief recess. Defense: McVeigh Innocent, Framed by Lies - McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, tells the jury that McVeigh is innocent, and says that McVeigh's views fall within the "political and social mainstream." Like Hartzler, he begins with the story of a mother who lost one of her two children in the bombing, saying that the mother saw someone other than McVeigh outside the Murrah Building before the bomb went off. "I have waited two years for this moment," Jones says, and says he will prove that other people, not McVeigh, committed the bombing. Jones sketches McVeigh's biography, focusing on his exemplary military service and the bitter disappointment he suffered in not being accepted in the Army's Special Forces (see January - March 1991 and After). It was after he left the Army, Jones says, that McVeigh began to steep himself in political ideology. But far from being an extremist, Jones says, McVeigh began to study the Constitution. The shirt he wore when he was arrested bore the motto "Sic Semper Tyrannis," but that is not merely a revolutionary slogan, Jones notes: it is the motto of the State of Virginia. McVeigh was "extremely upset" over what he viewed as government abuses of individual liberty, Jones admits, but says it was no different from how "millions of people fear and distrust the government." McVeigh's statement that "something big was going to happen" (see Mid-December 1994, March 25, 1995 and After, and April 15, 1995) had nothing to do with the bombing, Jones says, but was merely a reflection of the increasing anxiety and concern he was seeing among his friends and fellow political activists, all of whom believed "that the federal government was about to initiate another Waco raid, except this time on a different scale" (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). "[B]eing outraged is no more an excuse for blowing up a federal building than being against the government means that you did it." Jones spends much of his time attacking Fortier's credibility as well as the consistency of other prosecution witnesses, saying that they will give "tailored testimony" crafted by the government to bolster its case, and focuses on the reports of crime lab mishandling of key evidence (see April 16, 1997): "The individuals responsible for the evidence… contaminated it… manipulated it, and then they engaged in forensic prostitution," he says. After the case is done, Jones says, the jury will see that the evidence shows, "not just reasonable doubt, but that my client is innocent." He closes by reminding the jury, "Every pancake has two sides." [Washington Post, 4/25/1997; New York Times, 4/25/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 275-280; Douglas O. Linder, 2006]
Entity Tags: Byron Rodgers Federal Building and Courthouse, Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Osgood, Joseph H. Hartzler, Helena Garrett, Richard P. Matsch, Stephen Jones, Timothy James McVeigh, Michael Joseph Fortier, Tevin Garrett
For the first day of testimony in the Timothy McVeigh trial (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997), prosecutor Joseph Hartzler puts on an array of victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. Cynthia Klaver, a Water Resources Board attorney who accidentally caught the sound of the explosion on tape (see 9:02 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995), is the first to testify. The first piece of evidence introduced is the copy of the violently racist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978) that McVeigh gave to his cousin Kyle Kraus (see November 1991 - Summer 1992). During the trial, the prosecution presents an array of evidence, including computer graphics, video presentations, actual pieces of the Ryder truck used to deliver the bomb, hundreds of pages of documents, phone records and motel registration cards (see Early May 1995 and After), receipts showing the purchase of ammonium nitrate (see May 1, 1995), storage locker receipts (see May 1, 1995 and After), and a large scale model of downtown Oklahoma City, featuring a plastic replica of the Murrah Building that snaps apart. Marine Captain Michael Norfleet, whose wounds suffered in the blast forced him to retire from service, tells of his battle to escape the devastated building. Helena Garrett tells of losing her infant son Tevin in the blast; another victim testifies to seeing Garrett hysterically attempting to find her child in the fire and rubble. She recalls watching rescue workers bringing out the bodies of dead children and wrapping them in sheets. She did not find her son; rescue workers found her son's body three days later. Hartzler also shows the jury a videotape made by a television cameraman minutes after the attack; the tape shows dazed, bloodied survivors stumbling through smoke and debris. A child's voice can be heard crying: "Daddy! Daddy!" Many in the courtroom weep during the videotape and the victims' testimonies, including members of the jury, prosecution lawyers, and even one of McVeigh's lawyers. The first day of testimony establishes a pattern that will hold throughout the prosecution's case: begin the day with technical and forensic evidence, and end with emotional testimony from witnesses, survivors, and family members of those slain in the blast. The prosecution presents more victims during the days of testimony later in the week. On the first day, and throughout the trial, McVeigh's co-defendant, Terry Nichols, sits in the front row of the courtroom, watching the proceedings. [New York Times, 4/26/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 280-281]
Entity Tags: Michael Norfleet, Cynthia Lou Klaver, Helena Garrett, Kyle Kraus, Terry Lynn Nichols, Water Resources Board (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ), Joseph H. Hartzler, Tevin Garrett, Timothy James McVeigh
The jury in the trial of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) hears testimony from Oklahoma State Trooper Charles J. Hanger, who arrested McVeigh less than two hours after the bombing (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995). Hanger's testimony is matter-of-fact, relating the circumstances of his arrest of McVeigh. Among the items found in McVeigh's car were printed excerpts from the racially inflammatory novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978) and a quote from Revolutionary War figure Samuel Adams, both of which are read aloud in court by FBI agent William Eppright as part of his testimony. From the novel excerpt, Eppright reads: "The real value of all our attacks today lies in the psychological impact, not in the immediate casualties. More important, though, is what we taught the politicians and the bureaucrats. They learned this afternoon that not one of them is beyond our reach. They can huddle behind barbed wire and tanks in the city, or they can hide behind the concrete walls and alarm systems of their country estates, but we can still find them and kill them." This passage was highlighted, presumably by McVeigh. The Adams quote reads: "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." A note in McVeigh's handwriting on the quote reads, "Maybe now, there will be liberty." A third person to testify, firefighter Daniel Atchley, talks about his attempts to find survivors in the rubble of the destroyed building. He recalls digging several children, living and dead, from the debris. [New York Times, 4/29/1997]
Entity Tags: Charles Hanger, William Eppright, Timothy James McVeigh, Daniel Atchley
One of the prosecution's star witnesses in the Timothy McVeigh bombing trial (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) testifies. Lori Fortier, the wife of McVeigh's friend and fellow conspirator Michael Fortier, tells the jury that one night in October 1994, McVeigh sat in her Kingman, Arizona, living room and told her and her husband he was going to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. "He drew a diagram, just a box," she says, "and he filled the box with [soup cans] representing barrels" (see (February 1994)). The box represented the truck he would park in front of the building, and the barrels would be filled with ammonium hydrate and anhydrous hydrazine, a chemical used in rocket fuel. She says she remembers the names of the chemicals because McVeigh borrowed her dictionary the next day to look them up. McVeigh, she says, chose the Murrah Building because it was, in his estimation, "an easy target." Lori Fortier testifies after being given a grant of immunity (see August 8, 1995); her husband Michael, also cooperating with the investigation and slated to testify, received a plea agreement in return for his cooperation (see May 19, 1995). She also says McVeigh was furious with the federal government over the Branch Davidian tragedy (see April 19, 1993, April 19, 1993 and After, and April 24, 1995), and thought the Murrah Building was the workplace of some of the law enforcement agents involved in the Davidian standoff. She says that McVeigh's fellow conspirator, Terry Nichols, helped McVeigh in several robberies that the two used to buy the bomb materials (see November 5, 1994), but at the last minute, McVeigh told her and her husband that "Terry wanted out and Terry did not want to mix the bomb" (see March 1995). Her husband also refused to help McVeigh in his getaway after the bombing. She recalls her husband joining McVeigh in building and exploding pipe bombs in the mountains, and remembers a September 1994 letter to her husband from McVeigh in which McVeigh "said he wanted to take action against the government" (see September 13, 1994). Weeks later, McVeigh told the Fortiers that he wanted to blow up a government building. "I think Michael told him he was crazy," she testifies. She also remembers laminating a fake driver's license for McVeigh with the name "Robert D. Kling," an alias McVeigh used to rent the Ryder truck used to deliver the bomb (see Mid-March, 1995, April 15, 1995, 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995, and February 19, 1997). Asked if she feels any responsibility for the bombing, she admits, "I could have stopped it." She says she didn't believe McVeigh was capable of actually executing such an action. "I wish I could have stopped it now. If I could do it all over again, I would have." Fortier holds up under four hours of harsh cross-examination by McVeigh's lawyer Stephen Jones, who paints her as an unreliable drug addict who had hoped to profit from her and her husband's knowledge of the bombing and continues to hammer at her over her admission that she could have called authorities and stopped the bombing. Fortier admits to using drugs, and to lying about McVeigh shortly after the attack, explaining that she did so for fear that she and her husband would be implicated. "I never had any interest in selling my story," she says. [University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 4/29/1997; New York Times, 4/30/1997; New York Times, 5/1/1997; New York Times, 5/8/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 284-286]
Entity Tags: Michael Joseph Fortier, Timothy James McVeigh, Lori Fortier, Stephen Jones, Terry Lynn Nichols
Denver police, working in concert with FBI agents, raid a home and arrest three men on charges of possession and manufacture of illegal weapons. FBI supervisory agent John Kundts says the men were arrested after the raid uncovered explosives. A federal source says the focus of the arrests was the unlawful possession of automatic weapons. Two of the men, Ronald David Cole and Wallace Stanley Kennett, have ties to the Branch Davidian sect that was decimated in Waco two years ago (see April 19, 1993). Kennett left the Waco compound shortly before the FBI siege began (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993) and joined up with Cole shortly thereafter. Cole wrote a book called Sinister Twilight that accused the FBI of murdering the Davidians. The third man is identified as Kevin Terry. FBI officials say the arrests have no connection to the ongoing trial of Timothy McVeigh, who two years to the day after the Waco tragedy bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), even though Cole has distributed material in support of McVeigh outside the Denver courthouse where McVeigh is being tried (see August 10, 1995 and April 24, 1997). Cole, Kennett, and Terry were found in possession of six AK-47s, three land mines, 75 pounds of rocket fuel, and a pipe bomb. A neighbor of the arrested men, Leo Fritz, says: "One of the cops that evacuated me said there were some semi-automatic weapons, chemicals, and stuff to make bombs with. We were concerned but not nervous. The mention of explosives got us a little." Neighbors say the three men only moved in last month and kept to themselves. Before the raid, agents' fear of explosives was strong enough to order the evacuation of six adjacent houses. Kirk Lyons, who represents some of the surviving Davidians in a lawsuit against the federal government, says Cole and Kennett have nothing to do with his clients. Cole and Kennett "are not considered members of the Mount Carmel Survivors Association," Lyons says. "They are kind of considered outsiders—'we're glad you like us, we are glad you support us,' but the Davidians have always kept an arms' length, although I think they like Wally and like Ron." Lyons says Cole and Kennett "are a lot more militant in their pronouncements" than the normal Branch Davidians, whom he says are peaceful and non-violent. According to Lyons, both Cole and Kennett claim to be followers of the message of Branch Davidian founder David Koresh. Cole and Kennett describe themselves as the leaders of a militia called the Colorado First Light Infantry. Cole hosts a newsgroup on the Internet, "misc.activism.militia," where the prime topic of discussion is the Branch Davidian debacle. [Denver Post, 5/2/1997; New York Times, 5/2/1997; Associated Press, 5/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 294] According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (NCSTRT), the "Colorado First Light Infantry" is made up of only three people: Cole, Kennett, and Terry. The NCSTRT calls the group "an amateurish Patriot militia outfit" formed "in an apparent response to the" Branch Davidian siege. Cole had spent some time with the Davidian survivors of the FBI raid, and had at one time considered himself the successor to Koresh. Kennett is a former Branch Davidian. Though their group has carried out no actions to speak of, the three members are apparently convinced that they are under government surveillance, and maintain what the NCSTRT calls "a heavily armed and fortified compound in rural Colorado." Cole had moved to Denver to be closer to the McVeigh trial, and, the organization later reports, "was a constant fixture outside the courthouse, protesting in support of McVeigh." His protests sparked an investigation by the FBI. The three will be sentenced to short prison terms, and the Colorado First Light Infantry effectively disbands after the arrests. The NCSTRT will later report, "While these men have subsequently been released from jail, the group has not resurfaced and its former members have stayed out of trouble." [National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, 2011]
Entity Tags: Timothy James McVeigh, Mount Carmel Survivors Association, Wallace Stanley Kennett, Ronald David Cole, Leo Fritz, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Kevin I. Terry, John Kundts, Colorado First Light Infantry, Branch Davidians, Federal Bureau of Investigation, David Koresh, Kirk Lyons
Timeline Tags: US Domestic Terrorism, 1993 Branch Davidian Crisis
The sister of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997), Jennifer McVeigh, reluctantly testifies for the prosecution under a grant of immunity. Her brother nods at her when she enters the courtroom. She tells jurors that her brother ranted against federal agents as "fascist tyrants," and told her he intended to move from "the propaganda stage" to "the action stage" in the months before the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building (see Mid-December 1994). She describes a November 1994 visit from her brother (see November 1994), in which he showed her a videotape about the Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). "He was very angry," she testifies. "He thought the government murdered the people there, basically, gassed and burned them." Her brother held the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and the FBI responsible: "I think he felt someone should be held accountable," she says. During his visit, she says McVeigh told her he felt it necessary to do more than hand out pamphlets attacking the government. "He was not in the propaganda stage," she says he told her. "He was now in the action stage." He never explained what he meant by this, she says. She also reads aloud a letter he wrote to the American Legion on her word processor, in which he accused the government of drawing "first blood" in its "war" against its citizens, and said only militia groups could protect the citizenry from the government. And, after being prompted by prosecutors, she recalls driving with her brother when "Tim brought up a time when he was traveling with explosives and nearly got into an accident" (see December 18, 1994). They had been "talking about traffic jokes, accident jokes." She recalls him talking about driving in another car with "up to 1,000 pounds" of explosives. "They were going down a hill. There was a traffic light. They couldn't stop in time." Her brother did not run into another car. Asked why she had not pressed her brother for more details, she replies, "I don't think I wanted to know." She did not see her brother again after that visit, but kept in touch with him by letters and telephone calls. He told her he had a network of friends around the country, whom she only knows by their first names: Terry (Nichols), Mike (Michael Fortier—see May 12-13, 1997), and Lori (Fortier—see April 29-30, 1997). Her brother wrote her a letter in early 1995 telling her to get in touch with the Fortiers "in case of alert.… Lori is trustworthy. Let them know who you are and why you called." He told her not to use their home phone, as it was likely the government would be surveilling it. She testifies that after her brother left, she found another document on her computer entitled "ATF—Read," which prosecutor Joseph Hartzler says reads as if it were meant for the BATF (see November 1994). Jennifer McVeigh testifies that she called her brother and asked him what to do with the file, and he advised her to "just leave it there." Prosecution lawyer Beth Wilkinson reads the letter aloud. It told the BATF that its agents "will swing in the wind one day for your treasonous acts against the Constitution and the United States," and ended: "Remember the Nuremberg trials, war trials.… Die, you spineless cowardice [sic] b_stards!" In March and April 1995, she says her brother sent her two letters, the first of which she later burned as he instructed her to in the letter. The first letter told her, "Something big is going to happen in the month of the bull," indicating April, and advised her to stay on her "vacation longer" (Jennifer planned to go to Pensacola, Florida, for a two-week vacation beginning April 8). The second letter, dated March 25, 1995, told her not to write him after April 1, "even if it's an emergency," and advised her to "watch what you say." He then sent her a third mailing with a short note and three short clippings from the racist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978 and April 15, 1995). On April 7, the day before she went on vacation, she says she divided her brother's belongings into two boxes, putting one into her closet and giving the other to a friend for safekeeping. After hearing of his arrest on August 21 (see April 21, 1995), she burned the Turner clippings. "I was scared," she explains. "I heard Tim's name announced, and I figured [the FBI would] come around sooner or later." The FBI searched her truck and the house in Florida where she vacationed, and were waiting for her when she flew into the Buffalo, New York, airport (see April 21-23, 1995). She says she was questioned eight to nine hours a day for "eight days straight." Agents showed her a timeline of events culminating in the Oklahoma City bombing, and threatened to charge her with an array of crimes related to her brother's actions and her own in concealing or destroying evidence. She identifies her brother's handwriting on an order for a book on how to make explosives, and on a business card for Paulsen's Military Supplies where he apparently had made notations about buying TNT (see April 21, 1995). She also identifies his handwriting on the back of a copy of the Declaration of Independence found in his car after the bombing (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995). It read, "Obey the Constitution of the United States, and we won't shoot you." Under cross-examination by her brother's lawyers, she breaks down in tears, explaining that she agreed to testify because FBI agents "told me he was guilty [and] was going to fry." She admits to destroying papers she thought might incriminate him, lying to FBI investigators in her first sworn statement, and resisting her parents' claims to cooperate with the government. She says she began cooperating truthfully after FBI agents threatened to charge her with treason and other crimes that carry the death penalty. [University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 5/5/1997; New York Times, 5/6/1997; New York Times, 5/7/1997; New York Times, 6/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 284-]
Entity Tags: Lori Fortier, Beth Wilkinson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joseph H. Hartzler, Terry Lynn Nichols, Michael Joseph Fortier, Jennifer McVeigh, Timothy James McVeigh, US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Prosecutors in the Timothy McVeigh bombing trial (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) bring on a number of witnesses that show McVeigh was the telephone caller who reserved the Ryder rental truck that carried the Oklahoma City bomb (see April 15, 1995). Both McVeigh and accused co-conspirator Terry Nichols used a telephone debit cart issued under the alias "Daryl Bridges" by The Spotlight, a racist newsletter published by the far-right Liberty Lobby (see August 1994). A telephone debit card is pre-paid and makes it difficult to put together a record of billed calls. Twenty-nine representatives from telephone companies explain how they gathered records related to the case. Frederic Dexter, a computer expert from the FBI who worked on telephone reconstructions on the Unabomber (see April 3, 1996) and World Trade Center bombing (see February 26, 1993 and February 7, 1995) cases, explains how his team had reassembled the records for 647 calls billed to the Daryl Bridges card, sifting through tens of thousands of computerized bits of data. A representative from the long-distance company Sprint tells of a call to the debit card's toll-free number on the morning of April 14, 1995 from a pay phone in Junction City, Kansas, the same morning that someone called a Junction City truck rental office to reserve the Ryder truck that carried the bomb (see April 13, 1995). At the time, prosecutors say, McVeigh was a block away, buying a car, and had stepped out for a few minutes. The call was made at 9:54 a.m.; phone records show that only two calls came into the rental office that day, one at 9:54 a.m. and the other in the afternoon. The technical testimony is broken by the emotional testimony of a survivor of the blast, former Army Captain Lawrence Martin, who was severely injured when the bomb went off. Martin breaks down in tears while recalling the last moments of life of his friends and colleagues in the Murrah Building. [New York Times, 5/8/1997]
Entity Tags: Frederic Dexter, Terry Lynn Nichols, Timothy James McVeigh, Lawrence Martin
Eyewitness Eric McGown tells the jury in the Timothy McVeigh Oklahoma City bombing trial (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) that he saw McVeigh in the parking lot of the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas, three times during the weekend before the bombing (see April 13, 1995). McGown's mother Lea owns and manages the motel. McGown says he first saw McVeigh in a 1977 Mercury Marquis (see April 13, 1995), then backing up a Ryder rental truck, and finally closing the tailgate of the truck. McGown becomes flustered under cross-examination by McVeigh's lawyer Stephen Jones, and admits that he is not sure whether he saw the truck on April 16 or April 17, the day prosecutors say McVeigh rented the Ryder truck that carried the bomb. [New York Times, 5/9/1997]
Entity Tags: Stephen Jones, Dreamland Motel (Junction City, Kansas), Lea McGown, Timothy James McVeigh, Eric McGown
Prosecutors in the trial of Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) use a number of witnesses to establish a timeline leading up to McVeigh's rental of a Ryder truck (under the alias "Robert D. Kling"—see Mid-March, 1995) that, they say, he used to bomb an Oklahoma City federal building (see April 15, 1995). Eldon Elliott, the owner of the Junction City, Kansas, truck rental agency that rented McVeigh the truck (see February 19, 1997), identifies McVeigh as the truck renter "Kling." McVeigh's lawyer, Stephen Jones, presses Elliott to admit that he does not remember what McVeigh was wearing the day he rented the truck, though Elliott maintains he remembers McVeigh quite clearly. Jones notes that in his initial statement to the FBI, Elliott told investigators that "Kling" was either 5'10" or 5'11" "or a little taller," whereas McVeigh is 6'1". Other witnesses show that a Junction City taxi took a passenger identified as McVeigh from a shopping center near the Dreamland Motel to a McDonald's restaurant on April 17; McVeigh was staying at the Dreamland on that day (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995) under the alias "Robert Kling." Security photographs from the Junction City McDonald's show a man closely resembling McVeigh buying a meal, and, in court, the McDonald's manager identifies McVeigh as the customer. Prosecutors say McVeigh was in Junction City that afternoon without a car because he had parked his car the night before in Oklahoma City to use for his getaway after the blast. Another witness says he delivered an order of Chinese food ordered by "Kling" to Room 25 of the Dreamland Motel during the time McVeigh stayed in that room, though under cross-examination he says the man who accepted the food was not McVeigh. Perhaps the most memorable witness is Marife Nichols, the Filipina bride of McVeigh's accused co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see July - December 1990). She testifies that McVeigh had stayed with her and her husband in their Marion, Kansas, home for a few days in September 1994 (see (September 30, 1994)). She testifies that on April 16, 1995, her family's dinner was interrupted by a telephone call; her husband then left the house and did not return until the following morning. Prosecutors say that Terry Nichols drove 220 miles from their house in Herington, Kansas, to Oklahoma City, where he picked up McVeigh after McVeigh had stashed his car for his planned getaway (see April 16-17, 1995). Press reports have alleged (see February 28 - March 4, 1997) that McVeigh and Marife Nichols had an affair during the summer of 1994; lawyers do not broach the subject during the trial. [CNN, 5/9/1997; New York Times, 5/10/1997; New York Times, 5/16/1997] Marife Nichols will confirm the affair in 2004. [New York Times, 4/9/2004]
Entity Tags: Stephen Jones, Dreamland Motel (Junction City, Kansas), Marife Torres Nichols, Timothy James McVeigh, Terry Lynn Nichols, Eldon Elliott
One of the star witnesses for the prosecution in the trial of Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997), McVeigh's close friend Michael Fortier (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990), testifies. Fortier's wife Lori has testified previously (see April 29-30, 1997). She received a grant of immunity, and Fortier himself pled guilty to reduced charges in return for his cooperation (see May 19, 1995). Far from being boisterous and disrespectful during the trial as he once claimed he would be (see April 23 - May 6, 1995), Fortier is somber and repentant. Fortier testifies that he and McVeigh "cased" the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City several months before McVeigh bombed it (see December 16, 1994 and After), and says that McVeigh bombed the building "to cause a general uprising in America." McVeigh originally planned to bomb the building around 11 a.m. because, Fortier testifies, "everybody would be getting ready for lunch." Fortier says he expressed his concern that the bombing would kill many people, and McVeigh replied that he "considered all those people to be as if they were storm troopers in the movie Star Wars. They may be individually innocent, but because they are part of the evil empire they were guilty by association." Fortier says that he sent off for a mail-order identification kit that McVeigh used to make a false driver's license for himself. Fortier admits that he knew for months of McVeigh's plans (see September 13, 1994 and After and September 13, 1994), and that he could have prevented the bombing with a single telephone call to law enforcement authorities: "I live with that knowledge every day," he says. Lead prosecutor Joseph Hartzler asks Fortier why he did not make the call. Fortier replies that he has no excuse except his friendship with McVeigh, saying: "I'd known Tim for quite a while. If you don't consider what happened in Oklahoma, Tim is a good person." Fortier recalls going with McVeigh to Oklahoma City, where they examined the Murrah Building, and McVeigh considered a number of alternatives for delivering the bomb (see December 16, 1994 and After). Fortier testifies as to the location of the alley that McVeigh said he would use to stash his getaway car; investigators found the key to McVeigh's rented Ryder truck (see April 15, 1995) in that alley. The trip also involved going to Junction City, Kansas, where McVeigh sold a number of stolen weapons (see November 5, 1994) in what prosecutors say was an effort to finance the bombing. Fortier testifies, "He told me they picked that building because that was where the orders for the attack on Waco came from," referring to the Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). "He told me—he also told me that he was wanting to blow up a building to cause a general uprising in America hopefully that would knock some people off the fence into—and urge them into taking action against the federal government." At one point, testifying about his involvement in the case driving his father into having a nervous breakdown, Fortier weeps on the stand. McVeigh lived with the Fortiers several times in the years leading up to the bombing (see May-September 1993 and February - July 1994), he testifies. He recalls receiving a letter from McVeigh (see September 13, 1994) in which, he says: "Tim told me that him and Terry Nichols had decided to take some type of positive offensive action. He wanted to know if I wanted to partake of it." A week later, McVeigh came back to Kingman and, Fortier recalls, "we had a conversation near my fence in my front yard. Tim was telling me what he meant by taking action. He told me that he—him and Terry were thinking of blowing up a building. He asked me to help them. I turned him down." Later in 1994, Fortier testifies, McVeigh asked him to rent a storage locker for him somewhere outside Kingman, but Fortier told McVeigh he could not find one. A few days after that, Fortier testifies, McVeigh and Nichols came to Kingman and rented a storage locker themselves (see October 4 - Late October, 1994). Soon after, McVeigh and Nichols showed Fortier the contents of the locker—about a dozen boxes of explosives that McVeigh said they had stolen from a quarry in Kansas (see October 3, 1994). Just before October 31, 1994, Fortier testifies, "Tim said that him and Terry had chosen a federal building in Oklahoma City" and showed him how he could "make a truck into a bomb." Under cross-examination, McVeigh's lead lawyer, Stephen Jones, lambasts Fortier as a liar, a thief, a drug addict, and an opportunist who had initially tried to profit from his knowledge of the bombing, playing the audiotapes of Fortier's bluster and bragging as captured on government wiretaps (see After May 6, 1995). Fortier admits to lying to the FBI in his initial interviews. Jones does not shake Fortier from his statements about McVeigh, though he does elicit a statement from Fortier that Nichols had withdrawn from the bomb plot in the final days of preparation (see March 1995). [New York Times, 5/13/1997; New York Times, 5/14/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 286-287]
Entity Tags: Lori Fortier, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joseph H. Hartzler, Michael Joseph Fortier, Terry Lynn Nichols, Timothy James McVeigh
Fingerprint expert Louis G. Hupp, a forensic scientist for the FBI, testifies at the trial of Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) that no fingerprints belonging to McVeigh were found in many of the places where prosecutors say McVeigh prepared for the Oklahoma City bombing. Hupp has appeared twice before in the trial, testifying for the prosecution. Today he makes his admission under cross-examination from McVeigh's defense lawyers. No prints belonging to McVeigh were found on the rental contract for the Ryder truck used to deliver the bomb (see April 15, 1995), in the truck rental office, or in the Kansas motel room where McVeigh was staying at the time the truck was rented (see April 13, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Neither were McVeigh's prints found on any of the storage lockers he used to store explosives before the blast (see September 22, 1994, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 17, 1994, and November 7, 1994), or in the pickup truck prosecutors say co-conspirator Terry Nichols used to drive to Oklahoma City to meet McVeigh three days before the bombing (see April 16-17, 1995). Hupp says it is not unusual to have found none of McVeigh's fingerprints at the various locations, as many chemicals used to find fingerprints depend on the presence of perspiration in the fingers. If there is no perspiration, he testifies, it is often likely that no prints will be found. Hupp says he found prints belonging to Nichols on a motel registration card signed by "Joe Kyle," one of Nichols's aliases (see October 16, 1994 and October 17, 1994), and on two money orders used to pay for a telephone debit card that prosecutors say Nichols and McVeigh used in their preparations for the bombing (see May 6-7, 1997). Hupp also testifies that after McVeigh was taken into custody (see April 21, 1995), he inventoried and sealed a box of McVeigh's belongings taken from him by authorities at the Perry, Oklahoma, jail. He took the box to Washington, DC. [New York Times, 5/16/1997]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Timothy James McVeigh, Terry Lynn Nichols, Louis G. Hupp
FBI forensic expert Steven G. Burmeister and chemist Ronald L. Kelly testify in the trial of Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) that the FBI crime lab found residues of explosives on McVeigh's shirt and jeans, clothing that McVeigh was wearing when he was arrested less than 90 minutes after allegedly detonating a bomb in front of an Oklahoma City federal building (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995). However, Burmeister says his experts found no such residues in the car McVeigh was driving when he was arrested. Nor did they find any such residues in a Kansas storage locker that prosecutors say McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols used to store bomb supplies (see September 22, 1994, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 17, 1994, and November 7, 1994). Prosecutors use Burmeister's testimony to establish the exact composition of the bomb. Lab experts found residue of three substances on earplugs McVeigh was carrying when he was arrested (see Early May 1995 and After): nitroglycerine; PETN, a crystalline substance found in detonation cord; and EGDN, which is added to dynamite. PETN was also found on the white T-shirt and long-sleeved undershirt McVeigh was wearing when he was stopped by a state trooper, and PETN and nitroglycerine were found in the right pocket of McVeigh's jeans. McVeigh's lawyers cross-examine the two about a search they performed in the aftermath of the bombing; the two experts found and bagged items, including two fragments of the Ryder rental truck that prosecutors say carried the bomb (see April 15, 1995). One was a red-and-yellow piece of the truck body, which Burmeister later determined contained crystals of the explosive ammonium nitrate. Prosecutors say the bomb was composed of ammonium nitrate, a substance often used as fertilizer but which can become a powerful explosive when mixed with fuel oil or racing fuel. Burmeister testifies that such a bomb would require a detonator and an explosive such as dynamite to boost the explosion. Kelly admits to picking up and bagging several items, including a truck part, before an FBI photographer could take pictures of them; Kelly says he replaced the items, let the photographer take pictures, and rebagged them. Defense lawyer Christopher L. Tritico indirectly accuses Kelly of planting evidence. "You didn't find it in the parking lot, yourself, isn't that right?" Tritico asks, to which Kelly replies, "That is absolutely incorrect." Defense lawyers hammer away at the two over reports that the FBI crime lab had been criticized by a Justice Department report on its use of substandard procedures (see April 16, 1997), but Burmeister emphasizes that he, Kelly, and the other technicians were extremely careful about their evidence retrieval and testing. McVeigh's lawyers elicit an admission from Burmeister that no PETN or EGDN was found at the scene of the bombing. Burmeister also admits that the crime lab's handling of the bombing evidence could have been better, citing the practice of using paper bags to transport McVeigh's clothing from the Perry jail to the FBI lab. Judge Richard P. Matsch limits the scope of the defense's attack on the lab's evidence handling, and repeatedly refuses to allow the jury to hear criticisms of the crime lab's procedures issued by former lab employee Frederic Whitehurst (see January 27, 1997); nor does he allow the defense to introduce the Justice Department report. The last witness of the day, Linda Jones of the British Ministry of Defense's Forensic Explosives Laboratory, testifies that "it would be fairly simple" for one person to build such a bomb as was used in Oklahoma City, challenging the defense's theory that only a large number of conspirators and bomb experts could have built the bomb. [New York Times, 5/20/1997; New York Times, 5/21/1997]
Entity Tags: Richard P. Matsch, Christopher L. Tritico, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Linda Jones, Ronald L. Kelly, Timothy James McVeigh, Frederic Whitehurst, Steven G. Burmeister, Terry Lynn Nichols
The prosecution in the trial of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) rests its case on an emotional note after having presented 137 witnesses. [Douglas O. Linder, 2001] The government presented what many legal analysts call a masterful case, moving far more quickly than anticipated and using witnesses to establish a string of facts that paint a strong picture of McVeigh's guilt. The prosecution ends on a powerfully emotional note, presenting a number of first responders and survivors. Florence Rogers, a credit union employee who worked in the Murrah Federal Building, tells the jury of the moment when she lost seven of her co-workers in the bomb blast. She recalls the bomb going off with a "torrnado-like rush." She was thrown to the floor, she recalls, and, she says, "everything else was gone." Mike Shannon, chief of special operations for the Oklahoma City Fire Department, uses a diagram to show the jury how the bomb took an enormous "bite" from the north face of the building, and to show where rescuers finally freed the last survivor, 15-year-old Brandy Ligons, over 12 hours after the bombing. "To climb into" the area where Ligons was trapped, Shannon testifies, "it took people lying on their stomach, taking debris, pushing it down under their belly down between their legs. The second person would lay his head on the first person's bottom and take that debris and pass it between his legs, and they would work their way into the pile. It was just big enough for just one person to wiggle through." Dangling over Ligons and the rescuers was a 40,000-pound slab of concrete, ready to fall and crush everyone involved. Shannon testifies as to the difficulties of rescuing victims and removing the dead from a building whose front had pancaked into a heap of rubble. The effect was "like squeezing grapes," he says. "Body fluids were dripping through, and it would just drip onto your gear as you were crawling through, onto your helmet." Responder Alan Prokop tells jurors of the hand that rose from the rubble of the devastated building and grasped his, a hand belonging to a woman trapped under a huge slab of concrete. Prokop held her hand and felt her slowly die while rescuers tried vainly to free her. He recalls hearing the sound of what he thought was running water, and tells of a fellow rescuer saying, "It isn't water, Alan, it's blood." Dr. Frederick B. Jordan, the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner, presents the jury with 163 death certificates for those who died in the bombing. He tells the jury how some of the victims were identified using the mangled remains of their bodies: a fingerprint from a resident alien card, a print taken from a box of Clairol hair coloring agent from a victim's home, a scar on a little girl's arm. The prosecution never mentions a contention by a federal grand jury that McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry Nichols built the truck bomb at Geary Lake State Park in Kansas (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995); indeed, the prosecution does not attempt to prove how or where the bomb was built. The prosecution does not introduce a letter written by Nichols on November 21, 1994 that advised McVeigh to clean out two storage lockers (see November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995). After the prosecution rests, defense lawyer Stephen Jones moves for a summary acquittal, a motion rejected by Judge Richard P. Matsch. However, the judge says he may delete some portions of the indictment before giving the jury its final instructions. Those portions include references to the purchase of bomb components, the rental of some storage units, the construction of the truck bomb at the Kansas lake, and the robbery of an Arkansas gun dealer used to finance the bombing, another instance not cited by the prosecution (see November 5, 1994). "I had in mind some redaction of the indictment, or perhaps even more substantial changes, before submitting it to the jury," Matsch says after the jury is excused for the day. "I think we'll deal with it at the instructions conference as the most appropriate time." [New York Times, 5/22/1997; Washington Post, 5/22/1997; Denver Post, 6/3/1997; Denver Post, 6/14/1997; Associated Press, 1/11/1998] Legal analyst Andrew Cohen will say that the prosecutors did not "bore" the jury with a morass of technical details, instead moving swiftly through technical testimony and pacing their witnesses so that each day ended with the emotional testimony of a victim or family member. Law professor Christopher Mueller says after the prosecution rests: "[T]his is a trial the way a trial ought to look.… I think the prosecution has presented a very strong, almost compelling case. The biggest payoff is in the abandonment of much of the scientific proof that would have been enormously distracting" to the jury. [Washington Post, 5/22/1997; Denver Post, 6/14/1997]
Entity Tags: Florence Rogers, Andrew Cohen, Alan Prokop, Christopher Mueller, Brandy Ligons, Timothy James McVeigh, Stephen Jones, Richard P. Matsch, Mike Shannon, Frederick B. Jordan, Terry Lynn Nichols, Geary State Fishing Lake And Wildlife Area
The defense for accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) opens with the suggestion that the "real" bomber was killed in the explosion. The assertion hinges on a severed leg found in the debris of the Murrah Federal Building (see August 7, 1995 and February 21, 1996). The leg has been identified as belonging to Airman Lakesha Levy, who died in the explosion, but medical examiners had put a leg not belonging to Levy with the rest of her body; that leg remains unidentified. McVeigh's lead lawyer, Stephen Jones, opens with testimony from Dr. Frederick Jordan, Oklahoma's chief medical examiner, who tells the jury that the left leg originally assigned to Levy remains unidentified. It had already been embalmed, he testifies, rendering DNA identification impossible. "We have one left leg that we do not know where it belongs," he says. Jones then places Dr. T.K. Marshall on the stand. Marshall, the former chief medical examiner in Northern Ireland who has extensive experience with autopsies of bombing victims, says he believes that the leg belongs to a victim not yet identified; that victim's body had probably disintegrated except for the leg, he says. "This is an extra left leg," he says "Until shown otherwise, this must be a 169th victim." For such a victim to have been almost completely disintegrated, he says, "you have to be near the bomb." He cites a case from Northern Ireland where a terrorist carrying a bomb into a shed was nearly vaporized when the bomb accidentally detonated. Marshall says his experience with unidentified victims "is that somebody misses them. When nobody misses them, it reinforces the suggestion that the deceased was involved in the bombing." [New York Times, 5/23/1997]
Entity Tags: Timothy James McVeigh, Frederick B. Jordan, Lakesha Levy, T.K. Marshall, Stephen Jones
Judge Richard P. Matsch rules that the defense in the trial of Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) cannot call former BATF informant Carole Howe to testify (see August 1994 - March 1995). Matsch rules that Howe's testimony is irrelevant to McVeigh's case and could confuse or mislead the jury, according to Howe's lawyer Clark Brewster. Brewster says that Howe was scheduled to appear this afternoon, and would discuss audio recordings and handwritten notes she had made about alleged bomb threats from the white supremacists at Elohim City, Oklahoma (see 1983, January 23, 1993 - Early 1994, April 1993, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, August 1994 - March 1995, August - September 1994, September 12, 1994 and After, September 13, 1994 and After, November 1994, December 1994, February 1995, March 1995, (April 1) - April 18, 1995, April 5, 1995, April 8, 1995, and Before 9:00 A.M. April 19, 1995). Howe was a paid informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for over two years, and has claimed that she warned federal authorities more than four months prior to the Oklahoma City bombing that up to 15 US cities would be bombed. However, government sources have questioned her credibility, and she is under indictment in a separate case in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for alleged bomb threats and possession of a destructive device. [CNN, 5/27/1997]
Entity Tags: US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Carole Howe, Clark Brewster, Richard P. Matsch, Timothy James McVeigh
The defense in the trial of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, August 10, 1995, and April 24, 1997) calls Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, an FBI forensic lab specialist who has become a "whistleblower" for what he has called shoddy practices at the central FBI crime lab (see January 27, 1997). Lead defense lawyer Stephen Jones uses Whitehurst's testimony to attack the credibility of the forensics tying McVeigh to the bombing (see April 16, 1997). Whitehurst casts aspersions on one lab technician's handling of evidence obtained from a piece of the Ryder truck destroyed in the blast; the lab technician, David Williams, never told Whitehurst that the piece from the truck was found by a civilian and therefore of questionable evidentiary value. However, Whitehurst is unable to say that any evidence from the bombing itself was contaminated or handled poorly. Judge Richard P. Matsch refuses to allow the defense to introduce the Justice Department report criticizing the FBI lab's "poor" handling of evidence in several cases (see April 16, 1997). [University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 5/27/1997; CNN, 5/27/1997; Douglas O. Linder, 2006] Former US attorney Mimi Wesson later says that "the prosecution was able to dilute quite a bit of the impact of Whitehurst's testimony during cross-examination." [Salon, 5/29/1997]
Entity Tags: Stephen Jones, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Frederic Whitehurst, Richard P. Matsch, US Department of Justice, Timothy James McVeigh, Mimi Wesson
According to an analysis by the New York Times, many questions remain unanswered in the aftermath of the conviction and death sentence of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). Who, if anyone, helped McVeigh assemble the bomb? Did McVeigh receive help from co-conspirator Terry Nichols alone (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995), or did he receive help from his friends in the militia and white supremacist movements (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995)? Was there a larger conspiracy that the McVeigh trial failed to uncover? In sentencing hearings, McVeigh's lawyer Stephen Jones hinted at just such a conspiracy (see June 11-13, 1997), echoing assertions he and his fellow lawyers made during the trial—that McVeigh was part of a larger, shadowy conspiracy (see April 24, 1997). Jones asked jurors to spare McVeigh's life in the hope that McVeigh may at some future date reveal the details of that alleged conspiracy, saying: "The chapter—the book of the Oklahoma City bombing—is not closed. Do not close it. Do not permit others to close it. Let there be a full accounting, not a partial accounting." Prosecutor Joseph H. Hartzler chose from the outset to focus strictly on McVeigh and eschew attempting to prove the existence of a possible conspiracy. While Jones and his fellow lawyers were not allowed to present what they called evidence of a "global" conspiracy involving McVeigh, Jones's media comments, including one assertion that both McVeigh's co-conspirators and the federal government want McVeigh executed to keep him quiet, are fueling conspiracy theories among right-wing militia groups. Within the Justice Department, many argued that McVeigh may well have been part of just such a conspiracy, though evidence of that conspiracy was thin at best and the department is not conducting an investigation into any such possibility. It is possible that the upcoming trial of Nichols may shed more light on the issue. [New York Times, 6/15/1997] Oklahoma Representative Charles R. Key (R-Oklahoma City) wants McVeigh to face a state trial before his execution in order to explore his theory that the government covered up evidence of a conspiracy, and even that government officials knew the bombing was coming and did nothing to stop it. Key has succeeded in having a district judge order the empaneling of a grand jury to look into his allegations. Key's lawyer, Mark Sanford, tells a local reporter that he hopes the grand jury will identify the notorious "John Doe No. 2" (see April 15, 1995, April 18, 1995, April 20, 1995, April 21, 1995, April 29, 1995, and June 14, 1995), saying: "I am glad someone is going to start looking into the investigation the federal jury never got into. Maybe we will get some answers. We know there is a John Doe No. 2. We have to get everybody who participated. They all have to be punished for what they did." [New York Times, 6/15/1997] Key is involved with right-wing militia groups (see July 17, 1998).
Entity Tags: Stephen Jones, Charles R. Key, Joseph H. Hartzler, New York Times, Terry Lynn Nichols, Timothy James McVeigh, Mark Sanford
PBS Frontline releases a chronology of events in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The original source of the chronology is a document given to freelance reporter Ben Fenwick by a disgruntled staff member on the defense team of convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) who was unhappy with the way lead attorney Stephen Jones was handling the case (see August 14-27, 1997). In late March or early April of 1997, shortly before McVeigh's trial began (see April 24, 1997), Fenwick brings the document to ABC News. The document is titled "Factual Chronology," and details McVeigh's movements and activities in the years, days, and months leading up to the bombing. Fenwick reportedly had the document in his possession for several months before approaching ABC with it. PBS Frontline producer Martin Smith, at the time an ABC News employee, saw the document. ABC produces two reports on McVeigh; those reports, along with an article Fenwick wrote for Playboy magazine, were the first to use the chronology as source material. Smith and co-producer Mark Atkinson will later produce a dual biography of McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998) using the chronology. Of the document, Smith writes, "This 66-page chronology is extraordinary in that it correlates in great detail with everything I had learned about McVeigh and Nichols and provided a great deal of new detail on McVeigh's movements and actions in the crucial days and hours leading up to the bombing." Much of the material in the chronology came directly from McVeigh. Smith writes that the material comprises "a startling confession, outlining in considerable detail how McVeigh prepared and carried out the attack." He notes that the chronology is "consistent with statements made by McVeigh during dozens of hours of interviews done with him by reporters Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck for their recent book, American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing." The document is labeled as being from Jones's law firm Jones, Wyatt, & Roberts, and is stamped, "CONFIDENTIAL AND PRIVILEGED MEMORANDUM; ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT and ATTORNEY/CLIENT COMMUNICATION." It is labeled as being routed to Jones from Amber McLaughlin and Bob Wyatt, and dated January 22, 1996. [PBS Frontline, 3/2005]
Entity Tags: Lou Michel, Amber McLaughlin, ABC News, Ben Fenwick, Dan Herbeck, Martin Smith, Terry Lynn Nichols, Mark Atkinson, Bob Wyatt, PBS Frontline, Stephen Jones, Timothy James McVeigh
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