The Oklahoma City Bombing, Part 3

Summary

Small Town Dicks – The Oklahoma City Bombing, Part 3

Release Date: July 3, 2026
Podcast Hosts: Yeardley Smith, Dan, Dave, Paul Holes
Guest: Retired FBI Agent Scott Crabtree

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Episode Overview

The concluding episode of Small Town Dicks’ three-part deep dive into the Oklahoma City bombing covers the final hours and aftermath of the investigation, focusing on the pivotal interviews and legal processes that brought Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to justice. Retired FBI agent Scott Crabtree walks listeners through the gripping, exhausting process that led up to the arrests, subsequent trials, and reflections on justice, punishment, and the legacy of domestic terrorism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nichols’ Interview: Tactics & Turning Points [03:50 – 11:44]

• Coordination with McVeigh’s Interrogation:

  • Crabtree received updates after every break but noted McVeigh "wasn't talking at all" ([04:05]).
  • In a strategic move, Crabtree showed Nichols a note found via his ex-wife, written to McVeigh: “as far as heat, there’s none that I’m aware of and go for it.” ([04:44])
  • Crabtree pressed Nichols on the meaning of "go for it," but Nichols refused to answer ([05:08]).

• Material Witness Warrant:

  • As a result of shifting stories and clear evidence of Nichols' involvement, authorities secured a material witness warrant ([05:42]).
  • "If you put him in front of a jury… there's no doubt that this guy is going to be found guilty." (Scott Crabtree, [07:00])

2. Search Warrants & Clear Conscience [07:00 – 11:44]

• Agents sought formal search warrants to avoid future challenges on consent grounds ([07:53]).
• Crabtree insisted on personally transporting Nichols to his initial appearance to prevent inconsistencies in Nichols’ story, demonstrating “thinking with a suppression hearing in mind” ([10:59]).

3. Spontaneous Statements and Evidence [12:22 – 15:21]

• During transport, Nichols spontaneously admitted to loaded guns in the house and volunteered more specifics about his activities during the bombing’s preparation ([12:22]).
• Nichols confessed to using aliases, confirming details investigators had just discovered ([13:35]).
• The agents “had nothing to write with,” ensuring statements remained voluntary and not influenced by further interrogation ([13:35]).
• "A couple of the names he threw up were interesting... Sean Rivers, that was one of McVeigh’s aliases." (Crabtree, [13:35])

4. Trials and Legal Maneuvering [16:04 – 19:48]

• Suppression hearings challenged the voluntariness of Nichols’ statements and the legitimacy of warrant affidavits—survived both challenges ([16:04]).
• Details on trials:
  • McVeigh: Found guilty and sentenced to death; executed in 2001 ([16:04]).
  • Nichols: Life without parole federally; state of Oklahoma also prosecuted him to ensure he never saw freedom ([16:04]).
• “If anything happens and he does get out of the federal system, the state of Oklahoma will immediately collect him.” (Crabtree, [16:04])

5. The Third Conspirator: Michael Fortier [20:16 – 22:00]

• Nichols named various associates including Fortier, who “provided a link” between McVeigh and Nichols ([21:23]).
• Fortier, less involved, received a lighter sentence by turning state's witness ([21:18]).
• Discussion on the defense portraying Nichols “as a downtrodden, beaten man… not really that way… but he’s there making the bomb” ([22:00]).

6. Bomb Construction: Scale and Planning [23:20 – 25:43]

• The bomb comprised “multiple thousand pounds” of ammonium nitrate and racing fuel, not diesel ([23:34]).
• Total weight: Approximately 4,800 – 5,000 pounds, causing a 28-foot-wide crater ([25:09]).
• Emphasis on the extensive planning and logistics involved—months of preparation ([24:30]).
• "You've already put enough sweat equity into it that you're involved.” (Crabtree, [24:57])

7. Remorse, Motive, and Vulnerabilities [28:32 – 30:27]

• Neither McVeigh nor Nichols expressed remorse at the time, though Nichols reportedly “found Jesus” later ([28:41]).
• Nichols especially described as a “vicious coward”—willing to inflict harm but shrink back when caught ([29:32]).
• On the building’s vulnerability: minimal setbacks, all-glass front; ATF presence possibly a factor, along with ease of access ([26:50]).

8. Reflections: Career, Legacy, and Chaos [32:17 – 39:44]

• Crabtree reflects on his career path—landmark cases, supervisory roles, and the sudden, lasting psychological impacts of the Oklahoma City case ([32:17], [34:58]).
• He discusses the concept of “availability pay”—agents’ real-time compensation doesn’t reflect hours worked ([35:40]).
• On retirement: Finds new purpose through writing—a book titled Under 80 Hours, chronicling the case from the axle discovery to the arrests ([38:53]).
• “Being who I am made me a good agent, not the other way around.” (Scott Crabtree, [38:47])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you put him in front of a jury… there’s no doubt that this guy is going to be found guilty.”
  — Scott Crabtree, [07:00]

• On legal caution:
  “Leaving the paper and the pens in the trunk… shows a lack of intent to do an interrogation on the way.”
  — Dave, [10:59]

• On preparation and internal resolve:
  “There was thought that I could have to answer for this someday, and I wanted to have a clear conscience and a good position to do that from.”
  — Scott Crabtree, [11:15]

• On government response:
  “They definitely wanted to send a message… It’ll keep that guy from repeating for sure. But I don’t know if it’s as much a deterrent as people think it is. What if we make McVeigh a martyr?”
  — Scott Crabtree, [25:59]

• On Nichols' post-arrest persona:
  “He was vicious. He was willing to put harm on people… until, oh shit, you’re looking at me.”
  — Scott Crabtree, [29:32]

• On occupational identity:
  “Being an agent defines who they are. I hope I’m not that way. I hope being who I am made me a good agent, not the other way around.”
  — Scott Crabtree, [38:47]

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Important Timestamps

• Nichols' interview breaking point & material witness process: [04:44] – [07:00]
• Search warrant logistics and legal prudence: [07:53] – [10:59]
• Nichols' spontaneous car statements: [12:22] – [13:35]
• Trial timeline and suppression challenges: [16:04] – [19:48]
• The role of Michael Fortier, state's witness: [20:16] – [21:18]
• Magnitude of bomb and planning: [23:20] – [25:43]
• Discussion of building choice and its impact on future security: [26:50] – [28:32]
• No remorse, the “vicious coward” archetype: [28:41] – [29:32]
• Crabtree’s career evaluation, writing the book, and life after the FBI: [32:17] – [38:53]
• Title and purpose of Crabtree's book: [38:53]
• Hosts’ final commendations and closing remarks: [39:44] – [40:05]

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Final Thoughts

Scott Crabtree’s account in this episode captures the relentless pace, careful strategy, and emotional aftermath involved in solving a historic act of domestic terrorism. The team’s discussion underscores the importance of detail-oriented investigation, legal foresight, and humanity—even as the episode closes with reflections on the toll such work exacts and the effort to preserve these accounts for future generations.

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Additional Content:
Scott Crabtree’s book on the case, Under 80 Hours, is discussed as a candid, detail-rich account of one of the FBI’s most significant domestic terrorism cases, intended more as a historical document than a publicity tour ([38:53]).

Transcript

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[Scott Crabtree]

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[Yardley Smith]

Hey small town fam, it's Yardley. I want to remind you that if you want access to bonus episodes and regular episodes a day early and ad free and our community forum and other behind the scenes goodies, you gotta go to smalltowndicks.com superfam and then in the top right hand corner hit that little tab that says join and then listen to the end of today's episode for a sneak peek at today's new bonus episode. Hey Smalltail fam, it's Yardley. How are you guys? I'm so happy that you're here. This is part three of our three part series on the Oklahoma City bombing. If you've missed parts one and two, oh my friends, you definitely want to go back and listen to those before you end up here. To catch you up briefly, on April 19, 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The all hands on deck investigation has led our guest, retired FBI agent Scott Crabtree, to two suspects, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. When we left off at part two, agent Scott had learned from his colleagues that McVeigh was in custody, but he wasn't talking.

[Ellen]

Meanwhile, Agent Scott was in the middle

[Yardley Smith]

of a many hours long interview with Terry Nichols. Nichols had a great deal to say about his relationship with McVeigh, his anti government sentiments, and his knowledge of explosives. Here is part three and the conclusion of the Oklahoma City bombing. Hi there, I'm Yardley.

[Dan]

I'm Dan.

[Dave]

I'M Dave.

[Paul]

And I'm Paul.

[Yardley Smith]

And this is Small Town Gigs.

[Dan]

Dave and I are identical twins and

[Dave]

retired detectives from small Town, usa.

[Paul]

And I'm a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

[Dan]

Between the three of us, we've investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

[Dave]

Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare personal account of how they saw the crime.

[Paul]

Names, places and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

[Dan]

And although we're aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved out of respect

[Dave]

for what they've been through.

[Zocdoc Announcer]

Thank you.

[Scott Crabtree]

Scott.

[Dan]

During your interview with Nichols, are you getting updates from Oklahoma City's field office where, I mean, they're having conversations with Timothy McVeigh at the same time? Are they giving you updates of what information they're getting?

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, every break we took, we'd have people come up and give us updates. McVeigh had kind of been very much a name, rank and serial number type guy, so he wasn't talking at all. But I didn't think there was any harm in at least floating the idea and see if it might create a little bit of doubt in Nichols mind.

[Dan]

Oh, you have to.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah. So in our last session of the night, it's ordering up on midnight, and one of the things we picked up was Nicol's ex wife had provided some information to the Las Vegas office. And this paperwork was some stuff that Nichols had left behind when he was flying to the Philippines in 94. And it was basically the way he left in case something happened to him.

[Ellen]

Oh, kind of like a last will and testament.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah. Inside the letter that Nichols ex wife wasn't supposed to open, she found a note that was supposed to go to Tim McVeigh. So I hand the letters to Nichols and say, read these and we're going to talk about them. The note for McVeigh said, as far as heat, there's none that I'm aware of and go for it. I said, well, tell me what go for it means. What's no heat as far as, you know, mean? And Terry Nichols never answered my question. That was the way that interview with Nichols ended.

[Dave]

He knew.

[Ellen]

Yeah, for sure. Well, you've gotten a lot of sort of shifting information out of Terry Nichols, but you've certainly cemented his connection to Timothy McVeigh and his bomb making Skills, are you able to arrest him on any kind of charge? Any. Like, can you hold him, or do you have to let him go? Nichols.

[Scott Crabtree]

Somewhere during the course of that interview, Oklahoma City had obtained a material witness warrant. Which is what it means that basically we're not saying you necessarily did it, but we think you have information that has bearing on who did it. And the bureau doesn't do PC arrests.

[Ellen]

Why not?

[Scott Crabtree]

It's just the way the federal process works. They want people to be indicted, and they want them to be charged. I've never made one. I've never heard of anybody making one. But by the end of that interview and what I had picked up from Nichols and what I knew before and how I knew he was lying to me, I saw what his information was regarding, his knowledge of how to make bonds and what his relationship was with McVeigh. When we come up out of that interview, I would have been more than willing to say, I think we have probable causes to arrest this guy. We were told that, hey, we've got a material witness warrant. We're going to send a couple of different agents down. We're going to send Jack and Dan down, and they're going to execute the warrant, but they're going to kind of get a little more his face just to see if maybe a little more talking gruff to him might convince him to be more forthcoming. I heard him go down there, and I heard him start raising their voice. And so I go over Special agent in charge of Kansas City office and or other management types. At that point, I thought I was done again. But they said, well, before you go, we want you to go call the director personally and tell him what you

[Dave]

know, the director of the FBI.

[Scott Crabtree]

I've never seen a street agent talking to the director of the FBI about a case. It's always got to go through the chain of command. It's got to go through the supervisors and the ASACs and the SACs. So I was a little shocked, but, okay. So I go in and call him and tell him that here's where we are. And we talked for about 10 minutes or so. I said, I don't have any doubt in my mind that Terry Nichols is involved. He's complicit. He should be right in there with McVeigh. I would say, well, what we've got today, we've got enough already. But I can tell you, once the Bureau turns the tap on and starts really putting resources, especially to the information that we got out of the interview and to what we would find in the search of his house. There's no doubt that this guy is going to be found guilty if you put him in front of a jury. And that's kind of the way I left it with the director. So they seemed happy. It's like 1:30 in the morning for him, so I'm sure he's happy. So I go back out to all my bosses again. The director knows everything. He knows what I've told you. Here's where we are. They go, all right, Scott, I need you to go down to Wichita and meet with the United States Attorney and swear out affidavits for search warrants for Nichols truck and his house. We have the consent to search, but I can see why they were worried about that. If they could argue that he was coerced. So they wanted search warrants. At that point. It was like, okay, I'm not driving. Obviously my car's not here. And Steve, the guy I'd done the interview with, he was there. He says, I'll take you. So we take off from HARRINGTON maybe about 1 in the morning, right? Unfortunately, Steve didn't know how to get to Wichita from there. So I thought I might get a little bit of sleep. But I had to stay awake so I could tell him, turn here, turn here, do that kind of stuff.

[Ellen]

Oh, God.

[Scott Crabtree]

But anyway, we got there. God only knows what I look like at that point. So we went inside, we worked with the United States Attorney and the first criminal assistant for five or six hours. You know, went through everything that I'd done prior to the interview. We went over the interview notes. We had all the input that had come in that we didn't use in the actual interview, but it was material to the case about, like, what charges could be used based on what they had done. And we put the warrant together, took the warrant to the judge, probably 10ish o'clock Saturday morning. He goes ahead and signs it. And I thought it was kind of funny because he's the only one that told me the truth. But he says, hey, man, you look like shit. Go home and get some sleep. I said, sir, it's my intention. I firmly believe that when I'm back to Harrington this time, I get my car, I'm going home. He says, all right, that's just my suggestion. I said, I understand and I appreciate it. So we leave, we drive back up to Harrington. We take the warrant to the search team at Terry Nichols house. So they start doing their thing, and I think they've got a robot there to start kind of going in Looking for booby traps. And while we're there, I hear that they're getting ready to transport Nichols to Witchita for his initial appearance. Mike was the supervisor's name. Said, mike, there's nothing more than I want to do and go get in bed right now. But I don't trust Terry. I think he's a conniver, and I think he's a storyteller. I feel very uncomfortable with two new people taking him to his initial appearance and having him have an opportunity to tell a different story. So I said, let Steve and I go get him, and we'll take him to his initial appearance. And then when we're done with that, I'm done. He kind of looked at me like I was crazy, but I said, I think this is for the best. And he says, okay, well, go ahead and do it. So they called off the other agents that were going to go. So we drive over to Abilene and get ready to pick him up at the sheriff's office, and while we're waiting in their garage, to have him bring Nichols out to us. So we weren't part of the conversation after we came up from the interview. And I don't know if he said, I want an attorney or I don't want to talk.

[Ellen]

This is Nichols saying, I'm done here.

[Scott Crabtree]

Right? He basically told the agents that came down after us, I'm done. So since I thought he'd invoked, I told Steve, we're not going to give them an opportunity to say that this was all just a game for us to get more information out of him. So we're going to put our notebooks and anything we have to write with, we're going to put it in the trunk.

[Ellen]

Smart.

[Scott Crabtree]

I didn't want to have us be in a position when they could say, well, you had your notebook with you on your lap, so you must have been expecting to say something. I was probably being paranoid, but I just didn't want to give the defense anything to say about the voluntariness of the statement.

[Dave]

I think leaving the paper and the pens in the trunk, it shows your intent, and it shows a lack of intent to do an interrogation on the way. I think it's brilliant and it's thinking with a suppression hearing in mind.

[Scott Crabtree]

There was thought that I could have to answer for this someday, and I wanted to have a clear conscience and a good position to do that from. So they brought Terry Nichols, put him in the car, and we took off. I told him, we're taking you to Wichita. You're going to be given an initial appearance. You're going to learn what the charges are and you'll be given your opportunity to get an attorney if you need one. My intention was not to say another word to him after that.

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[Scott Crabtree]

So we got about 15 miles south of Abilene, Terry Nichols started talking on his own. He said, are you guys doing the search yet? I says, well, we just gave them the search warrant. I'm sure they're getting ready. They're going to take it slow because we don't know if it's booby trapped. We don't know what's inside the house. He says, well, there's nothing in there they have to worry about. He says, I have a alarm thing on my back door. If you open the door, it beeps. But he says, that's all I have that's going to do anything like that. I said, well, I still think you're going to take your time and they're not going to take any chances. He says, well, the only thing they can really get hurt with is I have guns loaded guns around the house. I said, well, I don't think they'll be too intimidated by that because they'll carry a loaded gun. Then we get about another five minutes down the road and then he starts talking about basically a lot of the stuff we'd already talked about last night, the night before. But he starts adding more detail, particularly as it relates to Tuesday because that is the day the bombs mixed. And he knew he didn't give us much of a story about where he was on Tuesday. So he goes through and starts telling us everything that went on and how he wasn't around McVeigh and he ran errands down in Harrington and he didn't get home till 5. But can't believe that McVeigh would have been in Oklahoma City because he was going back east and all these things just on and on and on. So he told Us, kind of that whole diatribe about Tuesday and Scott.

[Paul]

These are spontaneous statements, right?

[Scott Crabtree]

Absolutely. About five minutes later, he started talking about their relationship. And he said that we used aliases. He rattled off four names, and again, nothing to write with. I kind of regret that a little bit, but whatever. But a couple of the names he threw up were interesting because during the preparation of the affidavit and the search warrant early Saturday morning, we had located that storage shed in Harrington and found out that it had been written under the name Sean Rivers. That was one of the names that Nichols told us was one of McVeigh's aliases. And then he just kept talking. Now we're getting close to the courthouse. As we're pulling up, there's people all over the place. And we're out in the back parking lot trying to get him out, and the marshals run out and they got him inside. Fifteen minutes later, a marshal comes out of the back end, says, hey, I'm finished with Nichols. But he says he wants to talk to you some more. I said, okay, I guess we'd be happy to, as long as we have time. I know at some point he's going to go see the judge. And he says, well, you can have him until we have to take him. So he takes us back to the holding cell and we sit down with Terry and we basically go back over the story he told us on the way down. I felt a lot more comfortable asking him to repeat the things that he told us on the way down, especially since he'd asked for the opportunity to speak to us again. So as we're wrapping up, I decided to say, okay, Terry, I'm going to give you one of my business cards. And if you or your wife or any of your family needs something and they're finding it hard to get information or contact information or anything like that on you, have them call me. Now. My thought of giving the card is that maybe at some point in time he gets an attorney that basically says, why don't you just come clean and we'll keep you from dying. And my thought was, well, if they do that, maybe he'll even ask for me.

[Dave]

But it also demonstrates you're treating them fair. It shows to the court that this isn't the government being heavy handed. It is what it is, and I'm helping where I can.

[Ellen]

Amazing.

[Dave]

How long did you sleep when you finally got to fall asleep?

[Scott Crabtree]

I think we got back to Fort Riley about 7 o' clock Saturday night. And unfortunately, my drive home was into the sun. So I'm already tired. I'm already fighting to keep my eyes open. And now I'm staring directly into the sun that's trying to set. But I was probably home by 8. My wife made me a meal, and I was very thankful for that because I was hungry. Messed around with my kids for a little while, Laid down probably about nine, 30 or 10. I don't remember anything. I just passed out. It was probably 8 the next morning. I slept pretty hard for those few hours, and I finally got to lay down.

[Dave]

Well earned.

[Ellen]

Well earned. How long are McVeigh and Nichols in custody before you go to trial?

[Scott Crabtree]

They're both being held at El Reno, southwest of Oklahoma City. There is a motion from the defense that they don't think they could get a fair trial in Oklahoma City. I might be worried about the same thing if I was their attorney. So there was a motion made and they ended up moving the trials out to Denver. But it probably happened sometime during 95. This is all happening. Basically, the investigation stuff is happening in the late spring of 95. The suppression hearing is the first thing that happens. So that is in, I believe, June of 96. The defense has brought motions to basically attack our interview as not being voluntary, that we basically coerced him or pressured him or whatever. And then they also went after my affidavit for the search warrant, trying to find things in there that they could attack. Thankfully, the decision was that the stuff was all fine and we were going to move forward with the other actions. And then In February of 97, we had an identity hearing, which is basically about the eyewitness identification. And if we didn't confuse McVeigh with somebody else, and I think they tried to bring up John Doe too, Again, the government won that also. So with those things behind us, McVeigh's trial started in May and ended in June. I testified sometime in late May, and McVeigh was found guilty of conspiracy to destroy a federal building and a bunch of first degree murder charges for the people that he killed. His sentencing goes to the jury, and the jury elects to give him the death penalty. He's eventually put to death in 2001. But then later in the fall of 97, we have Nichols trial went for about the same time frame, a month and a half, two months. I testified right before Thanksgiving in that trial, they found him guilty. But for whatever reason, there was a lack of desire on the jury's part or one person on the jury to find him guilty of the more serious charges. So Nichols ended up not getting the death penalty. So instead he got life without parole somewhere around 2000. I think there was concern because Nichols got a life sentence and not the death penalty. Oklahoma was very worried that if the federal government got soft on Nichols 20 years from now, that he might be able to get back on the streets again during his lifetime. So Oklahoma went ahead and tried him there, also went for the death penalty, but were unable to get it. So Nichols got another life sentence down there. So if anything happens and he does get out of the federal system, the state of Oklahoma will immediately collect him and take him down there and he'll serve there if that becomes necessary. But they just wanted to be sure that there's no way that, you know, Terry Nichols ever saw the line of day again.

[Ellen]

You mentioned that the defense team said Nichols and McVeigh will never get a fair trial in Kansas, so they moved the trial to Denver. In such a high profile case like this, is it even reasonable to think you could get a fair trial in Denver, or is that just sort of. Well, we made the effort because that's all we could do.

[Scott Crabtree]

You're right. It's a national case. Everybody knows about it.

[Ellen]

Everybody knows.

[Scott Crabtree]

I'd be willing to bet, though, that your chances of finding people in Oklahoma that would be willing to do what they could to get on a jury to see justice in their eyes would be higher than someplace else just because they suffered the loss. Their neighbors, their relation, their community. They're all those things.

[Ellen]

So it's personal.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah. And I think, I mean, Denver's a good middle way, but I'm not surprised they requested it. I'm not surprised they got it. I'm sure they probably weren't happy, but I don't know where you could have had that trial and felt like you were going to get a jury to go your way. But all you need on the defense is to find one person that doesn't want to convict. That's. It takes one person, and the government has to have 12 that say yes. It's not an even balance between the two. And they were able to find one person, I think it was, that didn't want to go for the conviction as long as they were going to give him the death penalty.

[Paul]

My understanding, Yardly, is that knowledge of the case is not grounds for dismissal from being appointed to the jury. It's more of what bias do you have? Like Scott was talking about in Oklahoma City, of course, you have people who possibly knew people who were killed in the bombing, and they're like, they're out for blood versus in Denver. You know, through the jury selection process, you could probably find people said, yeah, I've seen the headlines, but you know, I have no skin in the game.

[Ellen]

Right, Scott?

[Dan]

So we've got McVeigh, we've got Terry Nichols, but there was also a third conspirator involved in this case, Right? It's Michael Fortier.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yep, it is. As we're interviewing Nichols about McVeigh, who does he stay in touch with, or who else might be somebody that you would have communications with? Nichols threw out a bunch of names, and most of them we looked into, and they were just name people that had been in his platoon. But he did throw out Fortier's name. He didn't give us his first name. So we went back to that same company photo from 1988 that had McVeigh and Nichols in it, also had 40A in it. So that kind of tied him pretty close together, basically. I think Poitier had been to Oklahoma City with McVeigh and scouted the Murray building. And I don't know that he had a lot more to do with it than that, but I know that they were going to let him turn state's witness when he had to plead guilty. And I think he got 10 or 15 year sentence, which by now is probably served. But his part was that he'd heard McVeigh going off and talking about disliking the government, hearing about his plan a little bit, not saying anything, and that's kind of what they got him for.

[Dan]

Did Fortier testify or give any evidence against Nichols?

[Scott Crabtree]

I think he might have only testified in the McVeigh trial, but he might have had a short testimony with Nichols.

[Dan]

But it sounds like Fortier kind of provided a link, like, hey, Nichols knew about what was going on too.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah.

[Ellen]

So Fortier got less time because the

[Yardley Smith]

government turned him into a witness.

[Ellen]

And while Fortier was somewhat involved, he

[Yardley Smith]

wasn't actually involved in carrying out the attack. I'm wondering if Nichols defense tried to

[Ellen]

paint him in a similar light, like, oh, Terry Nichols is just a guy

[Yardley Smith]

who was going along with McVeigh.

[Ellen]

He's blameless.

[Scott Crabtree]

During the Nichols trial, his defense team tried very hard to turn Nichols into a very sympathetic witness. And I think they were to some degree successful in doing that. They said he was just kind of a downtrodden, beaten man. Whatever McVeigh said he did, he's not really that way. He doesn't feel that way, but he's there making the bomb with McVeigh. Nevada. If he'd had change of plans after that point on Tuesday. What's really funny is he could have easily opened up his Harrington phone book and looked under FBI, and he would have found my number. And he could have called me on Tuesday and said, you know what? I think timoth's going to do this, and here's what he's doing it in, and here's where he's headed. But it wasn't until he saw the wrath of the government that he decided to kind of change his tune a little bit.

[Dan]

And I think both mcveigh and Nichols were probably gobsmacked by the pace of the investigation and how fast they caught up to him.

[Dave]

How did Scott find my address so quickly?

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, I hope so.

[Dave]

They're never going to find any evidence of a vehicle axle that will tie me to Junction city, Kansas.

[Ellen]

Right.

[Dan]

I think a lot of people probably don't understand how much ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel we're talking about to construct this bomb. Can you give us an idea?

[Ellen]

Is it like a cup, like a measuring cup? A pound?

[Scott Crabtree]

I know they did studies, they went back and they had to try to figure out how much would it have taken. The FBI took a rider truck out in the middle of the desert, blew it up for evidence purposes. But my guess is they had to have multiple thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate. And in their case, they didn't use diesel fuel. They used basically racing fuel for, like, dragsters. They used that so it'd be more explosive. I don't know how many bags would fit in a 55 gallon drum, but, you know, they had more than a couple thousand pounds of them. I mean, mcvay was worried about the weight. That was his driving force from running that size vehicle is it had to be big enough to withstand whatever he estimated the weight to be, and it had to be thousands of pounds.

[Dan]

Well, and it takes so much planning to accumulate that much ammonium nitrate in the fuel. There's so much planning that goes into it, and I think that's what I just wanted to touch on. It's not like they went down to their local ace hardware and grabbed a few bags of ammonium nitrate and then went over to the gas station.

[Scott Crabtree]

No, nothing like that at all. The whole fall of 94 and maybe even some of 95, they're hatching this plot, putting it together. They had storage sheds everywhere, so they were putting this stuff in different places. This was a plan that took place for a while. And that's why it's so funny to have somebody think that, you know, you could do all this stuff and then get to the very end and have a change of heart and say, no, I don't want this to happen. You've already put enough sweat equity into it that you're involved, you know, and if you had a change of heart, you should have done something about it, which you had the opportunity to do, and you didn't.

[Ellen]

Yeah.

[Paul]

Online resources, Dan, are indicating that between the ammonium nitrate with fuel oil and nitromethane. I think that's what you were talking about, Scott.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah.

[Paul]

That it weighed roughly 4,800 pounds.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, I was thinking 5,000, but I wasn't sure.

[Paul]

And the detonation was the equivalent of about 4,000 pounds of TNT, and it caused a 28 foot wide and 6.8 foot deep crater, plus it destroyed the building. You know, so that's a hell of a lot of stuff. I mean, think almost £5,000, and you have to haul that into the truck and then get it all set up so you can detonate it. You know, there's a lot of work that's going into setting up this truck bomb.

[Scott Crabtree]

Exactly. I think there was a point in time when I was talking to Vicki that she said that he needed to make sure the truck could hold £5,000. So that's probably right in the ballpark.

[Paul]

Yeah.

[Ellen]

Scott, tell us about the government deciding

[Yardley Smith]

to make this a death penalty case against McVeigh.

[Scott Crabtree]

They definitely wanted to send a message. You know, I'd actually had conversations with some of the attorneys out there in Denver. I said, why are we going for the death penalty? It'll keep that guy from repeating for sure. But I don't know if it's as much a deterrent as people think it is. What if we make McVeigh a martyr? You know, we didn't know what was going on at the time. Like I said, we were afraid that there could be extra bombings after Oklahoma City. A lot of people out there say, look at what the government's done to McVeigh. Some of his stuff that he had about the government's overreach and the Waco incident was basically the motivating factor that led him to what he eventually did. What if that resonates with people and then we put him to death and now we've basically triggered other people.

[Zocdoc Announcer]

Right.

[Ellen]

Did you ever find out, Scott, why McVeigh chose this particular building, the Alfred p. Murrow building?

[Scott Crabtree]

No. I think they looked at a couple of different ones. They might have looked at one down in Texas, and I don't know of exactly. Every other one they considered. But if you're looking at it, I mean, unfortunately, you look at it in hindsight, it's a very vulnerable building. It's basically an all glass front. It's on a 15 foot setback from the street if you want impact and devastation. ATF had an office in that building, I believe. And if you have problems with Waco, you can have problems with the Bureau for sure. But most of that comes back to the atf. So that may have had some piece of it. There may have been a federal building that had like an ATF office or something like that. It might have been more attractive, but maybe they had a 100 foot setback. You know, that truck blowing up 100ft away isn't going to do anything like it did to be, you know, within two steps or three steps of the building that they did attack.

[Dave]

So I worked out in D.C. in the early 2000s around a lot of federal buildings and what you noticed, you know, I couldn't compare it to anything in the 90s, but in the 2000s, we had bullards, we had all kinds of, you know, you have the planters that are huge, concrete that are decorative, but it was clearly, you can't drive a truck through this. And so you saw, especially in D.C. and I'm sure it's in response to the Oklahoma City bombing and other things, but they start to get a lot more proactive about protecting these buildings.

[Scott Crabtree]

I don't know if it was legislation or not, but at least I think gsa, who would like work with agencies in building new structures, locations and stuff, they had certain requirements that had to be met going forward. So being in 26 Federal Plaza in New York a couple times as early as the late 80s, like you said, there's huge concrete planters in all kinds of places. You would not get a truck right up against that building.

[Ellen]

Scott, did McVay or Nichols ever convey any modicum of remorse? I know McVeigh was pretty tight lipped, but Nichols, Nichols was kind of a talker.

[Scott Crabtree]

If either of them ever felt badly at all about what happened, it would have probably been Nichols. I don't know how his trial went in Oklahoma, but I was told that he kind of found Jesus between Denver and Oklahoma. And that might have helped him down there, but I would not bet a lot of money on that, to be honest with you. At the time I interviewed him, he didn't seem to have any concern or care of anything.

[Dave]

I mean, they set up a bomb outside of a daycare center.

[Ellen]

I know. Well, my next question was, was McVeigh married?

[Scott Crabtree]

No.

[Ellen]

No. But Nichols had a wife and a child. And yet, as you just said, Dave, they set up this bomb outside of a daycare center on the ground floor. I mean, I'm just always curious about these people who are able to so completely commit to a double life in such a huge way. Do you have any insight into that?

[Scott Crabtree]

When we were talking about Nichols, about going down there to get McVeigh and his car being broken down, et cetera, and he told us that he drove by the front of the Murrah building multiple times when he was looking for McVeigh, so he knew where he was going, what he was doing. We had a term in the bureau, at least way back in the day in the Bureau, we'd find people that would be very mean and nasty, but when you confronted them, they become very timid. And we had a term we use for people like that. We called them vicious cowards. And I think that's exactly what I would call Nichols. He was vicious. He was willing to put harm on people. He was willing to make a statement. He was willing to do all of that until. Oh, shit, you're looking at me. You don't look at McVeigh and say, well, my gosh, you know, at least the guy had principles. But he believed what he was doing, and he was saying, I'm going to die for it. Nichols had some of that in him, but when it came down to it, to save his own skin, he would do whatever he needed to do. He's found God now, and he's sorry. That whole vicious coward thing for him, I think, fits.

[Paul]

Scott. My understanding is that Terry Nichols is one of my near neighbors out here in Colorado, down at Florence.

[Scott Crabtree]

Oh, really? Yeah.

[Paul]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Wow. Florence.

[Zocdoc Announcer]

Yes.

[Scott Crabtree]

Well, if you go down there during the day for one hour, once in a while, you might see him outside his cell.

[Paul]

I have a friend who's a corrections officer at the supermax, and he's offered me a tour, so maybe I'll take him up on that.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, that'd be interesting.

[Paul]

If I see Terry, I'll wave and say, hey, Scott says hi.

[Scott Crabtree]

I'd be curious to see what his reaction is.

[Zocdoc Announcer]

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[Ellen]

Scott, where about in the timeline of your career did this case take place?

[Scott Crabtree]

I was about exactly halfway through about 12 and a half years.

[Ellen]

I'm always curious because Paul had one of the biggest cases in recent history with the Golden State Killer, among many others. When you have a case that's this significant, really globally, because we don't have a lot of instances of domestic terrorism in 95, are you always sort of chasing another big one like that?

[Scott Crabtree]

I was very fortunate in my career that I got to be around and involved in some pretty big cases. I started off with a year out of Quantico leading a major case bank failure investigation, which was unheard of. I mean, if I'd have been in a big city, they would have went to a senior agent with 15 or 20 years in because I was the only accountant in the office. It came to me. So I got all that experience. I mean, it was just very right place, right time. Go to New York and I work some pretty good sized cases up there. And it's funny to think that a small case in New York would be a huge case in Witchita. When I left Salina In 99, I went back to New York to become a supervisor back there. And I eventually had the cybercrime squad and we had a number of very high profile cases like the I love you virus. So being there when all that happened, that was kind of a big deal. After a few years, I went to Seattle to become the assistant special Agent in charge. And right after I got there, we got a lead on somebody that was involved in the D.C. sniper case. I had people say, I bet you people in the FBI don't want to see you being assigned to their office. Because when I was in New York, that's when 911 happened. So I was, what?

[Ellen]

No, we don't want you here, You're a shit magnet.

[Scott Crabtree]

Yeah, something like that. So when I went back to New York and then out to Seattle, I think I enjoyed being a supervisor of people, especially in New York. There's no old agents working cybercrime in New York, there's nobody that's even up. They have no idea how do you turn a computer on. So I have all these very young agents that they're sending right out of Quantico. It was fun. I mean, I enjoyed explaining how the process works to them and how do I get them so that they'll become experienced, well rounded agents. And then I went to Seattle. I moved up a step. So I had all these fairly junior supervisors. Here's my thoughts on how maybe you might want to think about, you know, helping your people, supporting your people, you know, empowering them. Don't demand from them, but just help them become successful. The arc of my career was very satisfying and I'm very lucky to have been where I've been.

[Ellen]

I'm actually really glad to hear that this Oklahoma City bombing case didn't turn into a game of comparison. That there were many more rewarding cases and investigations that filled out the rest of your career. That's actually really fantastic.

[Scott Crabtree]

This case does. Still to this day it affects me somewhat when I start talking about it. I can feel my blood pressure rise. I get a little tension maybe because the way it happened, because it all happened so quick and then I didn't do anything on it for a year. And then I had to get up to speed and like two days to get ready for the suppression hearing. And then I didn't do anything for another eight months. So I was either in it or out of it. Back and forth, back and forth, multiple times. It took, I think, a couple years for me not sleeping for basically three and a half days to work itself out of my system. My sleep patterns were horrible. I couldn't fall asleep or I couldn't stay awake. Now that I'm old, I see that's just the natural state of being old. Maybe I suffered a little bit of that before. I should have.

[Dave]

Do FBI agents get overtime?

[Scott Crabtree]

It's a technical question. I think I might have got a few hours of overtime from Oklahoma City because we were just working around the clock. So I might have gotten 10 or 20 hours of overtime for that. But generally the way the FBI works is you're hired in at a particular GS level, whatever level they bring you in at. They automatically pay you 25% more, but it demands that you average two hours of overtime every day, and you have to make that two hours of overtime. So what happens is you don't want to fall short, so you always end up working a little more than you should. So they probably get half an hour a day, an hour a day out of you over the course of your career. So if you look back and say, if they'd paid me for that, I'd be a rich man right now. They call it availability pay or administratively uncontrollable overtime.

[Ellen]

And my last question for you, Scott, is you mentioned at the very beginning of this story, you talked about the chaos. I mean, just the nature of all yalls work could be quite chaotic. Now that you're retired, do you miss the chaos? What do you do with your day?

[Scott Crabtree]

That's a good question. I was always worried that I wouldn't be able to find things, but I have actually found things. This story is finally something that I wrote a book about. I'd been asked to be in a NETFLIX special that ran last April. And from that I learned. And if I'd learned this 10 years ago or 15 years ago, I might have done this a long time ago, so it wouldn't have been racking my brain so much for trying to remember it. But Stephen Jones, who was the attorney for McVeigh when the trials were over and everything else, he actually took all the records, everything that was processed and entered in court. He took all the information that he had in his possession, and he turned it over to the University of Texas. So they have a library down there that basically houses all these records. So when Netflix calls and says, can you tell me about it? I said, well, can you get me a copy of my interview of Nichols? I said, I'd at least need that. And they had it for me in no time. I said, how the heck did you get this? And I says, oh, yeah, we just went down to UT Austin and went to the library, and one of their sub libraries had these records. So I decided at that point, well, you know what? I'm just going to take a trip down to Austin. And I made a list of all the things that I thought if I wanted to tell the story completely, like the different people, the different interviews, the different affidavit of different things that had happened to me, my testimony, all that stuff. So I just went down there and I spent. Spent two days making photocopies, came back, and so having all that information available made it a lot easier to Go back and remember, you know, what had happened. Or I can kind of talk about this case a little more intelligently than I would have been two years ago or something like that. So. And I'm probably like any ex agent or maybe even same with all law enforcement. I look at the Bureau and shake my head sometimes, like, what the hell are they doing? But it's not my organization anymore. I mean, I left in 07. There's been a lot of people moved through there. There's been people that have almost had a whole career in the time that I've been gone. So you just kind of just sit back and watch. That's one thing about agents. Sometimes they can't separate themselves from being an agent. Being an agent defines who they are. I hope I'm not that way. I hope being who I am made me a good agent, not the other way around.

[Yardley Smith]

That's a great way to put it. Scott, tell us about your book.

[Scott Crabtree]

There's not a lot of fluff. There's not a lot of dark and stormy night. It's how did we go from finding an axle 11 o' clock on Wednesday morning after the bombing to having two people in custody and knowing who the third was by Saturday night at 7 o'? Clock? Here's the book.

[Ellen]

Cool.

[Scott Crabtree]

I basically wrote this out struggling for a name. And the way it boiled down to basically from starting on Wednesday until I went home on Saturday night was roughly 80 hours, a little bit under. So we decided maybe a good name would be under 80 hours. So it's out there. I wanted to document it. I wanted to put it in paper. I've got no effort or desire to go on a traveling campaign trying to do book signings and bookstores and do that kind of stuff.

[Ellen]

Paul, Paul could tell you about that.

[Paul]

That's a lot of work.

[Scott Crabtree]

He sounds like he's good at it.

[Ellen]

Thank you so much for sitting down with us today. Really remarkable work.

[Paul]

Great job, Scott. Great job on the case.

[Scott Crabtree]

Thanks, Paul.

[Dave]

Yeah, agree. I just enjoy the gumshoe type stuff.

[Ellen]

Yeah, it's the best.

[Dave]

Great job.

[Dan]

Right guy in the right place at the right time. And you did a great job retelling the story and great work on this case.

[Scott Crabtree]

Thanks, Dan. Appreciate that.

[Yardley Smith]

Well, small town fam. That concludes season 18, but sit tight, my friends, because while we would usually go on a hiatus for the summer and start season 19 in September, next week we're starting an extraordinary 10 episode limited series called Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes. That's right. Paul sits down with Me, Dan and Dave and gives us the deepest of dives into his 24 year pursuit of Joseph D'. Angelo. Paul has never done anything like this on a podcast before and it's incredible. The series starts next week, July 10, right here on the Small Town Dick's feed. Or you can binge the entire series ad free all at once by becoming a member of our super duper [e-mail] superfam small town fam. We'll see you next week. Now for a sneak peek at today's new bonus episode.

[Dan]

So this guy Kevin, he would do traffic stops and then people would call us afterward and they'd be like, dude, I'm pretty sure that I just got stopped by a patrol unit, but I think it was a county unit because it was a green car. And then we'd look up, like you can look up the location or whatever activity was going on. As long as somebody checked in on the radio and said, hey, I'm going to be traffic, we're able to figure those things out. And there would never be any record. And somebody in our department was like, I wonder if it's that Kevin guy that works for the lumber company because he drives a car like that and he has orange lights.

[Yardley Smith]

To listen to today's bonus action and access hundreds more, go to smalltowndicks.com superfam and hit that little join button. Small Town Dicks was created by detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halsted and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Sorenvasion and our editor is is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are Cooked and Cats Wrangled by Ben Cornwell and our social media maven is Monica Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTubeMallToWndick. We love hearing from you. Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you'd like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com superfam and hit that little join button there. For a small subscription fee, you'll find exclusive content you can't get anywhere. The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to Speech Docs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com thank you, SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town dicks is an audio 99 production. Small town fam thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.