[explosion]
That sound you just heard was the bombing of the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
by that man, Timothy McVeigh.
He just detonated a two ton fertilizer
bomb five blocks away.
90 minutes from now, that yellow car
will become key to bring him to justice.
168 people won't survive, including 19 small children
on the second floor, but why?
How did we get here, to the deadliest
domestic terrorist attack in American history?
In a way, it all begins with a coincidence.
I'm in the US Army barracks near Junction City, Kansas.
It's seven years before the bombing,
and this is Private Timothy McVeigh's room at Fort Riley.
McVeigh is stationed here with this platoon
leader, Terry Nichols, and his roommate, Michael Fortier.
The bond they formed here will lead them all the way
to Oklahoma City, and it's based on a mutual distrust
of the government and a fascination
with guns, explosives, and this, the Turner Diaries, a.k.a.
the white supremacist Bible.
BYRON PITTS: Many of the steps that Timothy McVeigh took
in bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City
was directly from the Turner Diaries.
BARRY BLACK: It's about a group of people who overthrow
the government by detonating a large vehicle
bomb outside the federal building in Washington DC.
THEO WILSON: The truck bomb in the book
contains a mixture of heating oil and ammonium nitrate
fertilizer, the same combination McVeigh
would use in Oklahoma City.
As bunkmates, McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier have plenty of time
to philosophize over their fringe theories.
It begs the question, what may have been different had
they not been roomed together?
BYRON PITTS: This chance meeting of, forgive me,
losers in the army took him down a dark path for which
he never turned around.
NEWS REPORTER: Heavily armed law enforcement
officers have now totally surrounded
a ranch outside Waco, Texas.
The compound is the home to some 75 members of a religious sect
called the Branch Davidians.
They're led by a 33-year-old man by the name of David Koresh.
This is as close as civilians can
get to the Mount Carmel site.
He's here, selling bumper stickers with slogans,
like ban guns, make the streets safe for a government takeover.
Just arrived today.
Yeah, so somebody told me, a lot of people
would be scared to put something on like this.
BARRY BLACK: After 51 days of negotiations,
they were told tear gas would be introduced
and that they weren't going to be hurt,
just to come out, leave the building.
And during that process, occupants inside
set three individual fires.
It was windy that day on the plains of Texas,
and the fire took off, and it burned very, very quickly.
THEO WILSON: As the buildings burned,
nine people escaped, but 76 others died that day, including
Koresh and his family.
There were allegations that the fire
was started not by the people inside, but by the FBI.
Both the ATF and FBI are later cleared of wrongdoing
in a Justice Department probe, but that does
little to dissuade McVeigh.
So in the minds of people, like Timothy McVeigh,
it was the final piece of evidence
they needed that the federal government was out of control.
After Waco, Texas, he chose his side.
THEO WILSON: It's 18 months after Waco.
Timothy McVeigh is staying at Michael Fortier's home.
In October 1994, Michael's wife, Laurie,
is learning how serious the plan to bomb a federal building
has become.
McVeigh has reunited with Fortier and Nichols,
and they've gone from friends to co-conspirators.
His twisted plan for vengeance is about to take shape.
In a moment Laurie Fortier will recall years later
in her courtroom testimony, McVeigh is using soup cans
to illustrate how he'll arrange barrels full of explosives
in the back of a truck.
To think something as horrific as the Oklahoma City bombing
was plotted out with something as mundane as soup
cans is deeply disturbing.
BARRY BLACK: The Murrah Building was selected, in part, we
believe, because McVeigh thought that was
where the ATF agents that participated in the Waco raid
were.
THEO WILSON: On April 16, three days before the bombing,
McVeigh makes a trip to Oklahoma City to place his getaway car.
Most people think that the most important vehicle
in the Oklahoma City bombing tragedy was the Ryder truck,
but it might actually be this car,
McVeigh's yellow Grand Marquis.
Did you notice that he's taken the plate
off so it can't easily be ID'd?
This car will be the deciding factor on whether or not
McVeigh gets away with the murder of innocent people
just five blocks away.
On the morning of the 19th, McVeigh
drives the loaded Ryder rental truck into the downtown area
of Oklahoma City.
McVeigh, obviously, put the containers within the truck,
set it up so that it would be set off by lighting
a piece of time fuse.
He had about a two minute delay.
He was at a stoplight right before the building,
where he lit the fuse.
So he had that burning while he was waiting for the light
to allow him to move the truck forward to his final position.
THEO WILSON: At 9:00 AM, McVeigh parks directly
in front of the north side of the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building just under the second floor daycare
center.
The fuse is set.
He abandons the truck and walks toward the getaway car.
BARRY BLACK: When the bomb detonated,
there was a little over 5,000 pounds of explosives.
It registered 3.2 on the Richter scale, like an earthquake.
I don't remember how many buildings were damaged,
but it was in hundreds.
BYRON PITTS: I think for most people
in downtown Oklahoma City that day,
there were no words to describe what had happened.
THEO WILSON: Amidst the chaos, one key clue to what happened
emerges, the axle of the Ryder truck.
BARRY BLACK: It was about 600 feet
from the seat of the blast.
Under some grease was a confidential vehicle
identification number, and then that number
was sent to the command post.
THEO WILSON: The VIN number traces
to a location where McVeigh used a fake ID to rent the truck.
The clerk produces the sketch, which an observant local motel
employee recognizes as the man who rented a room nearby,
Timothy McVeigh.
BARRY BLACK: Tim McVeigh had been stopped
by an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper
about 75 miles from the bombing.
He was driving a yellow Mercury that
didn't have a license plate.
When McVeigh got out, the trooper noticed McVeigh
had a pistol under his jacket.
So he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon,
which then was illegal, and failure
to display that license plate.
THEO WILSON: It doesn't take long for the FBI
to realize McVeigh is already sitting in a jail cell.
Agents arrived to take him into federal custody
and charge him with murder.
BARRY BLACK: The charges against McVeigh
included the death of eight federal agents
in the line of duty, which is a federal felony,
not that the deaths of the others were any less important.
It's just a federal crime to kill federal agents
in the line of duty.
The primary count was the use of a weapon of mass destruction
and conspiracy.
The jury found McVeigh guilty on all counts,
and he was sentenced to be executed at a federal facility
in Terre Haute, Indiana.
BYRON PITTS: Good morning.
I'm Byron Pitts.
I remember my opening remark in the post-execution press
conference was, Timothy James McVeigh died with his eyes
open.
When Timothy McVeigh took his last breath,
168 people were still dead.
White nationalism still had a grip
in some corners of our nation.
Not closure, just another page in what proved to be a long,
and complicated, and sad story.