Okla City Bombing Trial(英)

Nichols or Elohim City residents, an armed robbery of an Arkansas gun dealer that he had befriended at various gun shows. Joined by Michael Fortier, he stole various items from an Arizona National Guard armory.

　　Some of McVeigh's activities bordered on the bizarre. He turned his modest Arizona home into a bunker, renounced his U. S. citizenship, and began making and exploding homemade bombs. (According to a book by two inmates who later shared death row with McVeigh, his recipe for the bomb he would use in Oklahoma City came from a patriot friend, who used his chemistry degree from the University of California as a Meth manufacturer.) About this same time, McVeigh's own use of methamphetamines increased. He became increasingly vocal in promoting his apocalyptic world view. In July 1994, he and Michael Fortier trespassed on to "Area 51," a top secret government reservation for weapons testing located near Roswell, New Mexico. Two months later, he journeyed to Gulfport, Mississippi to investigate a rumor that the town had become a staging area for United Nations troops and equipment.

　　A farewell letter written by McVeigh in July to his boyhood friend, Steve Hodge, revealed the evolution of his thinking: "I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I will……I have come to peace with myself, my God, and my cause. Blood will flow in the streets, Steve, Good vs Evil. Free men vs. Socialist Wannabe Slaves. Pray it is not your blood, my friend."

　　In September 1995, according to both McVeigh and the findings of a federal grand jury, that the ex-Army sergeant began plotting to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The date identified by the grand jury for the start of the conspiracy was September 13. On that day, McVeigh was——according to FBI records showing a receipt for a motel room in Vian, Oklahoma——visiting Elohim City, and probably participating with other anti-government activists in a series of military maneuvers. September 13 also marked the day, coincidentally o

r not, that a new federal law banning assault weapons became law.

　　By the end of September 1994, McVeigh's plot (we will, in this trial commentary, call it "McVeigh's plot," although there is a body of evidence to suggest that others played significant planning roles as well) started to unfold. On September 22, he rented a storage unit in Herington, Kansas, that would later be used to house explosive materials. A week later, Terry Nichols bought a ton of ammonium nitrate, a key ingredient in the bomb that would be used in Oklahoma City. Ammonium nitrate is a commonly used agricultural fertilizer and the purchase was made at a farm cooperative in McPherson, Kansas.

　　October 1994 was a busy month for McVeigh and his co-conspirators. He and Terry Nichols bought a second ton of ammonium nitrate from the same farm cooperative. A burglary at a quarry near Marion, Kansas on October 3 netted McVeigh and Nichols a supply of dynamite and blasting caps. Wearing a biker disguise, McVeigh purchased nearly $3000 work of nitromethane, a racing fuel used in bomb construction, from a Dallas track. In between these supply-gathering missions, McVeigh found time to visit Oklahoma City to inspect the building he had targeted, and to calculate his own position at the time the bomb would be likely to explode.

　　McVeigh also managed to fit in a two separate visits in October to Kingman, Arizona. He rented another storage locker and, with Michael Fortier watching, tested the explosive mixture that he had chosen for the Murrah Building bombing. McVeigh tried to recruit Fortier to assist in the actual bombing, but Fortier balked, and asked, "What about all the people?" McVeigh told 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." Despite the persuasive efforts of McVeigh, Fortier made clear that he had no desire to be in Oklahoma City on the day of the bombing.

　　McVeigh's close association with white supremacists and other government-haters at Elohim City continued throughout 1994. In addition to joining in bank robberies, there is evidence to suggest that people at the compound were involved in the bombing plot itself. According to BATF informant Carol Howe, who worked undercover in Elohim City, Andreas Strassmeir and Dennis Mahon made the first of three trips to Oklahoma City in November to inspect possible bombing targets. Howe informed her supervisor of these developments. The BATF was sufficiently alarmed by Howe's reports to plan a raid on Elohim City, but following a February 1995 meeting with officials from the FBI and U. S. Attorney's Office, the planned operation is called off. There is no way of knowing whether the raid, if conducted, might have prevented the tragedy in Oklahoma City——but that remains a real possibility.

　　In March 1995, when Terry Nichols told McVeigh that he wanted to back out of the bombing plan, McVeigh had to turn elsewhere for the assistance he would need in the final stages of the plot. There is speculation that his help came from Elohim City. (McVeigh wanted to be seen at the mastermind of the plot, and in his statements discounted the role of others in the conspiracy, leaving uncertainty as to exactly what roles others played. A polygraph test taken by McVeigh showed him to be truthful in regards to his own role in the bombing, but "evasive" concerning the roles played by other persons not charged in the bombing.) Fellow death row inmates David Hammer and Jeffrey Paul, in their 2004 book Secrets Worth Dying For, contend that McVeigh revealed to them that he and four members of the Aryan Republican Army, with Elohim City connections, met several times in March and April 1995 in the Arizona desert, where "they conducted 'dry runs' of the 'planting the bomb and getting away.'" The two authors also contend that McVeigh told them he met in Las Vegas a man he called "Poindexter

," who provided detailed knowledge on bomb assembly, and would visit with him again at McVeigh's room at the Imperial Hotel in Kingman.

　　On April 5, two minutes after a phone call to the Ryder Rental Company made from his motel room in Kingman, McVeigh placed a call to Elohim City. The contents of that phone conversation are unknown, of course, but there has been considerable speculation in books and on Internet sites, that McVeigh sought to coordinate bombing plans with some compound residents. Three days after his phone call, McVeigh arrived in Oklahoma, where he was seen at Lady Godiva's, a Tulsa strip club, in the presence of Elohim City militants Andreas Strassmeir and Michael Brescia. A security camera in a dressing room at the strip club apparently recorded McVeigh telling a stripper, "On April 19, you'll remember me for the rest of your life."

　　In the final days leading up to the bombing, Aryan Republican Army members (and perhaps bomb expert "Poindexter") converged in east central Kansas where final preparations were being made. (This is a matter of dispute, as the trial record only hints at this possibility and McVeigh told authorities otherwise, but a growing body of evidence suggests several Elohim City activists played critical roles in April 1995. This history is supported by the chronology of events reported in Secrets Worth Dying For, based on McVeigh's alleged death row revelations. Any book written by convicted death row inmates raises credibility concerns, but the inmates' account corresponds fairly well with the timing of various sitings of "John Doe No. 2" and other unidentified persons, as reported by witnesses interviewed by the FBI.) The men most likely camped at Geary Lake, the same place where McVeigh said he received some cash from Terry Nichols on April 14, before he checked into room 25 at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City. A Junction pizza delivery man later told an FBI interviewer that he delivered a pizza to "Bob Kling" in room 25 that night——and that the man taking the pizza was not Timothy McVeigh. "Bob Kling" was, most likely, ARA member Scott Stedeford.

　　On Easter Sunday, April 16, McVeigh , Nichols, and (probably) ARA member Michael Brescia (many who have closely studied the case conclude Brescia is the "John Doe #2" of FBI drawings) drove to Oklahoma City. McVeigh and Brescia drove in McVeigh's newly purchased Mercury Marquis, while Nichols followed behind in his pickup. McVeigh parked the old Marquis, which was to be his getaway car, in a lot near the Murrah Building, and then rode back to the Dreamland Motel with Nichols and Brescia.

　　On the afternoon of April 17, McVeigh pulled out of Elliot's Body Shop in Junction City with a Ryder rental truck. In a form he filled out at Elliot's, McVeigh said he planned to use the truck for a four-day trip to Omaha. McVeigh left the Dreamland Motel in the Ryder truck about 4:30 the next morning.

　　Stories of what happened next diverge considerably. Either alone (one story) or after picking up Brescia (another story), McVeigh drove to his Herington storage locker where he (or they) met (depending on which account you believe) either bomb expert Poindexter or Terry Nichols. (According to Secrets Worth Dying For, McVeigh said Nichols was "a no-show" at the locker. McVeigh is said to have complained, "He and Mike [Fortier] were men who liked to talk tough, but in the end their bitches and kids ruled.") The men——whoever they were——loaded bags of fuses and drums of nitromethane into the truck. In his authorized biography, McVeigh claimed that he and Nichols also loaded bags of fertilizer into the truck and then completed the assembly of the bomb later that morning at Geary Park. In this version of events, McVeigh set off alone later t

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