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Details :
Category: Mass Murder
Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, US
Date: April 19, 1995
Crime: In response to his general objection to U.S. Foreign Policy and the governments response to the Waco Texas Siege and Ruby Ridge incident, McVeigh drove a delivery truck filled with explosives and parked in front of a federal building in Oklahoma City. After the explosion 168 people were killed and countless more injured in the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in history, prior to the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Biography: Timothy McVeigh was born on April 23, 1968 in Lockport, New York and raised in a small nearby town called Pendelton. His parents were divorced when he was ten years old and McVeigh claims to have been bullied a lot during his younger years in school. In high school, he became interested in guns and computers, and once hacked into the governments computer system and was named his high school's 'Most Promising Computer Programmer'. In May 1988, he joined the U.S. Army and earned a Bronze Star in the Gulf War. He was known as a loner who was never known to be with women or hang around the bar scene with fellow soldiers. Instead, he spent his time studying about guns and explosives. After failing to be accepted into the Army Special Forces in 1991, McVeigh decided to leave the military and was honorably discharged. His post-military life was increasingly troubled, spending much of his time roaming around the country. He worked a series of dead-end jobs and tried to have relationships with women but was continually rejected. His frustrations increased and he began obsessive gambling and ran up credit card debt. Throughout these years, he was a frequent writer of letters to politicians and newspapers complaining about various legislation and current events. In 1993, during the government standoff with a religious sect in Waco, Texas, known today as the Waco Siege, McVeigh drove to Texas to protest and show his support for the sect. Following the disastrous ending to the siege, where 74 civilians lost there lives, McVeigh spent the next five months working at gun shows and writing hate mail to members of the Sniper Team that were at Waco. In April 1993, McVeigh began learning to make explosives at the farm of his co-conspirator Terry Nichols. By this time, he was convinced that it was time for him to take action in response to the government's actions. McVeigh and Nichols constructed a 5,000 pound bomb consisting of ammonium nitrate and racing fuel in the back of a Ryder Rental truck. On April 19, 1995, McVeigh drove the truck to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building just as it was opening for the day. He proceeded to ignite two time fuses and ran away from the truck as a massive explosion ripped through the entire north half of the building. The result was 168 dead and 450 injured, with nineteen children who were attending a day care on the ground floor of the building killed in the blast. Afterwards, McVeigh claimed that he did not know there was a day care facility open in the building at the time. He was pulled over a short time later by a trooper who noticed that he was driving a vehicle without license plates and was found carrying a concealed weapon without a license to carry in Oklahoma. Three days later, while he was still in custody, the police put together their case and identified him as the Oklahoma City bomber. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to die by lethal injection, the sentence being carried out on June 11, 2001.
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