BORN: 4/23/1968 On June 13, 1997, jury sentenced to death.
Executed on June 11, 2001.
Biography
McVeigh was the second of three children born to William and Mildred McVeigh in Lockport, New York. His parents' troubled marriage ended when McVeigh was 10, and from that point on he lived mostly with his father. By the time his mother left the family, McVeigh had already developed a facination with guns. Four years later, McVeigh began stockpiling food and camping equipment in preparation for a nuclear attack or communist overthrow of the government.McVeigh performed well on standardized tests in high school and did not miss a single day of school. Still, he struck classmates as somewhat introverted and disengaged, and his only extracurricular activity was track. Under the entry "future plans" in his high school yearbook, McVeigh wrote: "Take it as it comes, buy a Lamborghini, California girls." Despite his reference to "California girls," McVeigh seemed uncomfortable around women, never had a girlfriend, and might have remained a virgin throughout his entire life.In the two years following high school graduation, McVeigh briefly attended a computer school in Buffalo, then took on a series of short-term jobs ranging from gun salesman in a sporting goods store to security guard. In May 1988, he enlisted in the U. S. Army.In basic training, the loner McVeigh found a friend in his platoon leader, Terry Nichols, who shared his conservative and somewhat paranoid political views. McVeigh seemed to fit well into the structured life of the military, performing well enough to be promoted to sergeant. He served in Fort Riley, Kansas, and later for four months in the Persian Gulf War, where he drove a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and earned a bronze star. After realizing that he lacked the "right stuff" during the first day of a Green Beret try-out, McVeigh requested and received an honorable discharge in December 1991.Following his discharge, McVeigh returned to upstate New York, where he worked security jobs, experienced serious depression, and began espousing increasingly angry views of U. S. foreign policy, gun control, and what he believed were conspiracies involving the United Nations. In a March 1992 letter to the Lockport Union-Sun, McVeigh wrote, "AMERICA IS IN DECLINE....Do we have to shed blood to reforem the current system?" He began thinking more seriously of violent action against the federal government in August 1992 following news of a federal government shoot-out with survivalist Randy Weaver in the Idaho woods.In early 1993, McVeigh moved out of his father's New York home and began a rootless road life that included selling weapons at gun shows (often using "Tim Tuttle" as his business name), spending time on the Nichols family farm in Michigan, and taking on temporary work in Kingman, Arizona, the home of military buddy Michael Fortier. McVeigh became further radicalized by the U. S. government's April 19, 1993 assault on the compound of Branch Davidian leader David Koresh near Waco, Texas in the spring of 1993. McVeigh had been so incensed by the government's actions that he traveled to Waco to promote his pro-gun, anti-government views. His reading included anti-Semitic and white supremacist newsletters. McVeigh spent most of 1994 in the West, especially in Kingman, where he found minimum wage work as a security guard and in a lumberyard. His behavior moved more and more out of the mainstream. He turned his Arizona home into a bunker and began developing and testing homemade bombs. He set off on quixotic missions such as trespassing into "Area 51" near Roswell, New Mexico, top secret government land that he suspected might be critical to a U. S. military plot against American citizens, and traveling to Gulfport, Mississippi, to investigate a rumor that the town had become a staging area for United Nations troops.In September 1994, McVeigh began plotting to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He bought ammonium nitrate, a key ingredient for his bomb, in Kansas, where he also rented a storage unit and stole blasting caps from a quarryMcVeigh picked April 19, 1995 as the date for the bombing to coincide with the second anniversary of the federal government's assault on the Branch Davidians near Waco. Around 9:00 A.M., McVeigh parked his rented Ryder truck in front of the Murrah Building. At 9:02, the truck exploded, bringing down much of the federal building and taking 168 lives.As detailed elsewhere on this website, McVeigh was arrested later that day, tried and convicted in 1997, executed on June 11, 2001, and cremated.
Executed on June 11, 2001.
Biography
McVeigh was the second of three children born to William and Mildred McVeigh in Lockport, New York. His parents' troubled marriage ended when McVeigh was 10, and from that point on he lived mostly with his father. By the time his mother left the family, McVeigh had already developed a facination with guns. Four years later, McVeigh began stockpiling food and camping equipment in preparation for a nuclear attack or communist overthrow of the government.McVeigh performed well on standardized tests in high school and did not miss a single day of school. Still, he struck classmates as somewhat introverted and disengaged, and his only extracurricular activity was track. Under the entry "future plans" in his high school yearbook, McVeigh wrote: "Take it as it comes, buy a Lamborghini, California girls." Despite his reference to "California girls," McVeigh seemed uncomfortable around women, never had a girlfriend, and might have remained a virgin throughout his entire life.In the two years following high school graduation, McVeigh briefly attended a computer school in Buffalo, then took on a series of short-term jobs ranging from gun salesman in a sporting goods store to security guard. In May 1988, he enlisted in the U. S. Army.In basic training, the loner McVeigh found a friend in his platoon leader, Terry Nichols, who shared his conservative and somewhat paranoid political views. McVeigh seemed to fit well into the structured life of the military, performing well enough to be promoted to sergeant. He served in Fort Riley, Kansas, and later for four months in the Persian Gulf War, where he drove a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and earned a bronze star. After realizing that he lacked the "right stuff" during the first day of a Green Beret try-out, McVeigh requested and received an honorable discharge in December 1991.Following his discharge, McVeigh returned to upstate New York, where he worked security jobs, experienced serious depression, and began espousing increasingly angry views of U. S. foreign policy, gun control, and what he believed were conspiracies involving the United Nations. In a March 1992 letter to the Lockport Union-Sun, McVeigh wrote, "AMERICA IS IN DECLINE....Do we have to shed blood to reforem the current system?" He began thinking more seriously of violent action against the federal government in August 1992 following news of a federal government shoot-out with survivalist Randy Weaver in the Idaho woods.In early 1993, McVeigh moved out of his father's New York home and began a rootless road life that included selling weapons at gun shows (often using "Tim Tuttle" as his business name), spending time on the Nichols family farm in Michigan, and taking on temporary work in Kingman, Arizona, the home of military buddy Michael Fortier. McVeigh became further radicalized by the U. S. government's April 19, 1993 assault on the compound of Branch Davidian leader David Koresh near Waco, Texas in the spring of 1993. McVeigh had been so incensed by the government's actions that he traveled to Waco to promote his pro-gun, anti-government views. His reading included anti-Semitic and white supremacist newsletters. McVeigh spent most of 1994 in the West, especially in Kingman, where he found minimum wage work as a security guard and in a lumberyard. His behavior moved more and more out of the mainstream. He turned his Arizona home into a bunker and began developing and testing homemade bombs. He set off on quixotic missions such as trespassing into "Area 51" near Roswell, New Mexico, top secret government land that he suspected might be critical to a U. S. military plot against American citizens, and traveling to Gulfport, Mississippi, to investigate a rumor that the town had become a staging area for United Nations troops.In September 1994, McVeigh began plotting to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He bought ammonium nitrate, a key ingredient for his bomb, in Kansas, where he also rented a storage unit and stole blasting caps from a quarryMcVeigh picked April 19, 1995 as the date for the bombing to coincide with the second anniversary of the federal government's assault on the Branch Davidians near Waco. Around 9:00 A.M., McVeigh parked his rented Ryder truck in front of the Murrah Building. At 9:02, the truck exploded, bringing down much of the federal building and taking 168 lives.As detailed elsewhere on this website, McVeigh was arrested later that day, tried and convicted in 1997, executed on June 11, 2001, and cremated.
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