Transcript
Vanessa Richardson (0:06)
This is Crime House. During the week of June 2, 1997, Timothy McVeigh was convicted of one of the deadliest acts of mass murder in American history, the Oklahoma City bombing. 78 years earlier in 1919, U.S. attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was nearly kill when a massive explosion rocked his Washington D.C. home, making this week's theme Bombings welcome to Crime House the Show. I'm Vanessa Richardson. Every Monday we'll be revisiting notorious crimes from this week in history. From serial killers to mysterious disappearances or murders. Every episode will explore stories that share a common theme. Each week we'll cover two stories, one further in the past and one more rooted in the present. Here at Crime House. We know none of this would be possible without you, our community. Please support us by rating, reviewing and following Crime House the Show wherever you get your podcasts and for ad free and early access to Crime House the Show plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. This week's theme is Bombings. First we'll go to June 2, 1997 when domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murdering 168 people in Oklahoma City. Then we'll jump back to the same week in 1919 when a group of anarchists tried to spark a radical uprising. Using the subjects of today's cases had wildly different worldviews, but they did agree on one thing. A bomb is a powerful way to get the attention of the entire country. All that and more coming up.
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Vanessa Richardson (3:25)
On June 2, 1997, the mood was somb. A packed Denver, Colorado courtroom. For the last five weeks, prosecutors had presented mountains of evidence against 29 year old Timothy McVeigh. Now it was up to a jury to decide if he was guilty of bombing the alfred p. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. Timothy sat silently, his hands clasped on the table in front of him, as the judge read the verdict. And guilty on all counts. Survivors and families of the victims cried tears of joy as u. S. Marshals escorted an emotionless timothy back to his cell to await sentencing. Justice had been served, but it couldn't reverse the damage he'd already inflicted because Timothy had chosen to orchestrate the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in a major American history. Born in April 1968 in the small town of Pendleton, New York, Timothy felt a deep sense of isolation from an early age. Growing up in a rural community close to the canadian border, his parents taught him that the world was a scary place and the only way to survive was to be prepared. As Timothy watched his family stockpile food and supplies ahead of major blizzards, the young boy learned how important it was to be self reliant. And the older he got, the more essential that lesson became. When Timothy was a teenager, his parents divorced. During this turbulent period, he spent a lot of time with his grandfather. Most days, Timothy's granddad would take him into the woods to go hunting. And When Timothy turned 13, his grandfather gave him one of his most treasured gifts. A.22 caliber rifle. It it sparked a lifelong fascination with firearms. But the gesture didn't help Timothy feel any less alone. After hitting puberty, Timothy had a huge growth spurt. He was so tall and skinny, classmates would bully him by calling Timothy noodle mcveigh. On one occasion, a couple of older kids even grabbed Timothy by the legs and dangled him over a torch toilet, trying to dunk his head inside. The abuse only led Timothy to become even more shy and withdrawn. In high school, he turned away from the new friends he did have and focused on the one thing that made him feel powerful. Guns. Using money from his part time job at burger king, Timothy added to his firearm collection, including an AR15 and an enormous desert eagle handgun. But he didn't want to just collect guns. He wanted to use them. After graduating from high school in 1986, Timothy got a gig driving an armored truck. The work was boring but his co workers said he loved having a job where he got to wear a uniform and carry a weapon. After a couple of years, though, Timothy was ready to move. Move on to a new position, One with fancier uniforms and more powerful weapons. In 1988, at the age of 20, Timothy McVeigh joined the u. S. Army. For the first time in his life, Timothy felt like he really belonged. After finishing basic training, he was stationed at fort riley, kansas. There, he aced his military aptitude exams and was one of the first, first men in his group to be promoted to sergeant. He also finally made a friend, a fellow soldier 13 years his senior named Terry nichols. Terry shared Timothy's love of weaponry, and the two would often unwind by watching red dawn, an action movie about armed teens waging guerrilla warfare. And soon he got a taste of combat himself. When the gulf war broke out in 1990, Timothy and his company were sent to iraq. Timothy served with distinction, receiving a bronze star and a combat infantry badge. After the war ended in 1991, Timothy tried to take his military career to the next level by applying for the army's elite special forces unit, the green berets. Becoming a green beret is extremely demanding. Applicants have to go through weeks of grueling physical challenges. Despite Timothy's time in Iraq, he failed the program after only two days Due to being psychologically unfit. According to the rules, he wasn't allowed to reapply. Being rejected by the green berets was a devastating blow to Timothy's sense of purpose. He quickly lost all interest in the military and took an honorable discharge from the army in December 1991. At 23 years old, Timothy had no career, no direction, and barely any friends. It was a recipe for disaster. After leaving the army, Timothy returned to upstate New york, where he lived with his father and worked a dead end job as a security guard. In his spare time, Timothy channeled his feelings of dissatisfaction into politics and conspiracy theories. He grew increasingly furious about gun control laws and wrote scathing letters to the local paper about taxes. Around this time, he became obsessed with a book called the turner diaries. In it, the main character blows up FBI headquarters after the government signs a gun control law. The more time that passed, the more Timothy began to identify with the characters in the story. And soon life began to imitate fiction. In the summer of 1992, federal agents killed the wife and son of a survivalist in ruby ridge, Idaho, while trying to arrest him on weapons charges. This event became a rallying cry for people like Timothy and inspired him to make A change. That year he quit his job in New York and went to Michigan to stay with a friend named Terry Nichols. Terry had left The army in 1989, a couple years before Timothy. Since then, Terry had also struggled to find meaning. He'd become increasingly withdrawn and got involved with the sovereign citizen movement, A fringe group that believed the government had no authority over them. By the time Timothy came back into his life, 37 year old Terry was deeply in debt, mostly unemployed and angry at the world around him. Over the next few months, the two men fueled each other's growing fury. And it only got worse from there. In February 1993, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided the compound of a cult called the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas in search of illegal weapons. The raid turned into a shootout, then a 51 day standoff, and then a bloodbath. It ended when a fire broke out and killed over 70 people living there. For most of America, the botched raid was a tragedy. For Timothy and Terry, it was a call to action. After Waco, they decided to take a page out of the Turner diaries and show the government exactly how they felt about disarming its citizens. They were going to bomb a federal building. For the next two years, Timothy and Terry studied bomb building manuals. Late into the night, they robbed a local gun dealer, stealing $60,000 worth of weapons, gold and silver. Then they sold their loot and bought the materials to put a massive bomb together. Everything was going according to plan for Timothy and Terry, but but they needed some help if they were going to succeed. So they reached out to another one of their old army buddies, Michael Fortier. They told him what they were cooking up and Michael was happy to get involved. He let Timothy and Terry stay on his property in Kingman, Arizona, where the trio designed their bomb and selected a target. In December 1994, Timothy and Michael took a road trip from Arizona to Oklahoma City to check out the Alfred P. Murray, a federal building in person. The nine story facility was home to 14 federal agencies, including the DEA, the ATF and the Secret Service. More than 500 federal employees went to work there every day. Timothy McVeigh had found the perfect target. Now he just had to build a bomb powerful enough to take it to down.