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Hate American Made ////// Oklahoma City Bombing
01:01:38
Hate American Made ////// Oklahoma City Bombing Part 6 of 6 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com On the morning of Wednesday, April 19th, 1995 an ex-army soldier turned homegrown terrorist Timothy James McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building in downtown Oklahoma City. He had conspired with others to carryout this horrific act against his fellow Americans. April 19th, is also Patriot’s Day. In 1995 it was the sad two year anniversary of the conclusion of the Waco Siege resulting in the deaths of many American citizens. This too, would be that day that the state of Arkansas executed Richard Snell. Snell was convicted of hate crimes, murder, and a man who once conspired to blow up the Alfred P. Murray building.
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- [00:07]
Captain
By an unspeakable act. 8. The apocalypse would occur soon.
- [00:13]
Colonel
More white supremacist groups, more anti government groups.
- [00:16]
Captain
David Koresh Ruby ridge Siege Timothy McVeigh More than 80 people dead. Bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City. Hate by an unspeakable act is so little hope left.
- [00:36]
Colonel
The following is from McVeigh, the Inside Story of the Oklahoma bombing. But I don't believe that it is proprietary to that publication. I believe here, Captain, that this was in several publications in the first in the late 90s and then made its way to book form later. But this portion reads right here. April 19, 1995. Five minutes before the bomb ripped through the Alfred P. Mora Federal building and killed 168 people, Timothy McVeigh lit the backup fuse. McVeigh had pulled over in front of an abandoned firestone garage in downtown Oklahoma City, parking for a few minutes on the unused driveway by a chain link fence. Across the street stood the high rise Regency Towers apartment complex. Inside a convenience store on the apartment's ground floor, a security camera caught a hazy image of McVeigh's Rider truck. The camera time stamped the photo. At 8:57am Inside the truck, McVeigh picked up a long green cannon fuse from the floor. It ran through the wall and the back of the cab. He took it between his fingers and snapped a lighter to it. The fuse lit with a hiss of sparks and smoke. He dropped the crackling fuse behind the seat, knowing cannon fuse burns at a steady rate of about 30 seconds a foot. He put the truck into gear, eased back out and drove up Fifth Street. A red light stopped him at Fifth and Harvey. While waiting at the light, he lit another fuse, the primary, which he had about a three minute burn. As a US army doctorate dictated, the bomb now had two ways to explode. Waiting at the red light, smoke billowing into the cab, McVeigh anxiously eyed the dark glassed Alfred P. Murrah building looming one block ahead. Then, as we all know, Captain, at 9:02am on that morning, that spring morning in Oklahoma City, the bomb explodes in the Ryder truck parked outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. So what we learn here is that he took great efforts to make sure that the bomb that he and Nichols had constructed would in fact, it would in fact do what it was planned to do. That he lit two fuses, a backup fuse, to make sure that this bomb would ignite and go off and destroy the building and whoever was inside. It's been stated that the original plan was to blow up the truck in the parking garage portion of this building, which was located under the building. Now, that would mirror some previous terrorist attacks like the. I think it was 1993 with the attempt on the World Trade center when a bomb, similar plan was hatched to drive a truck loaded with explosives into the parking garage located underneath the World Trade Center. The story, as it goes here with Oklahoma city, is that McVeigh failed to understand that the truck he was in was too tall to get into the parking garage and that he actually had planned to blow up the truck at 11am rather than 9am but this five minutes that he has is not only to put the truck into place, but also to give him time to get out of there. Prior to lighting these, the fuses, he had already planted a getaway vehicle. And so he basically pulls up and locks the truck, gets out and starts moving quickly away from the vehicle, dropping the keys to the rider truck a block or two away. And then he gets in his getaway vehicle and he drives off. Now, one thing that we talked yesterday about here, Captain, was the debate of how many people were involved in this, this plot, this terrorist plot. How many people knew about it, how many people may have provided funding or encouragement to McVeigh. Well, we do know that, that Nichols was involved in this. We, we know that with 100% certainty. But one thing that is interesting is the only person to ever testify as to seeing anybody leaving that rider truck does not describe anybody that looks like Timothy McVeigh leading, leaving the rider truck, and in fact describes two people saying, claiming that they saw two people walking away from the truck. The interesting thing to me here, Captain, is that doesn't necessarily mean that they saw two people in the truck, two people get out of this truck. And can you imagine the amount of chaos that ensued at 9:02am that morning? I don't know that anybody would be thinking clearly just minutes after seeing something as normal as a truck driving down the street and then parking somewhere, parking near the front of this building.
- [06:09]
Narrator
But you said we do have some of this stuff on surveillance footage. So does the surveillance footage show more than one individual, or does it always.
- [06:18]
Colonel
Can't see anybody. You can only see the truck. You can see the rider truck. And, and truly, as horrific of an act as this is, I mean, this is the. As far as casualties go, this is the worst act of homegrown terrorism that this country has ever experienced and hopefully will ever experience. No, it. The trial with Timothy McVey was built on circumstantial evidence. There's. There's no, there's not anything other than a bunch of circumstances that we know to be true, that once you pile them up, that you can say with a great deal of confidence that, yes, Timothy McVeigh was in Oklahoma City that morning, was in the Ryder truck, built the bomb, and was responsible for delivering the truck to and parking in front of the Alfred P. Murrah building. There's nobody that says they saw Timothy McVeigh in the Ryder truck. There's nobody that says they saw Timothy McVeigh even in Oklahoma City that morning. But let's get into some of the details of it here. As said, the bomb explodes at 9:02am By 9:03am there's over a thousand 911 calls that are placed in Oklahoma City. And this is due to not just the building in this act of terrorism, but the. The explosion itself, Captain, was felt up to four miles away. And I've seen people interviewed where they say, yeah, that morning I was working at X location in downtown Oklahoma City. And everyone's head. At 9:02am everyone's head turned in the direction of the Alfred P. Murrah building. That's no matter where you were working in that city that morning. It was felt and heard over four miles away. And it actually registered on the Richter scale at, at a. At a 3.0.
- [08:27]
Narrator
So some people might have thought it was an earthquake.
- [08:30]
Colonel
Might have thought it was an earthquake, definitely an explosion. The other, the. A very chaotic portion of this is hearing this, maybe even being able to mentally identify this as a very large explosion, but not knowing where it came from. Sometimes to try to wrap your head around something and try to get a full grasp of the situation. It's very easy for us to look at these horrific events and these crimes as we do here, and, and try to gather a full understanding of it or believe that we do. But you're doing that all in retrospect. So with an event like this and anytime we have a true crime case where there's a manhunt or there's an investigation that follows, especially the ones that kind of drag out, what you really want to do to get a full understanding of these scenarios is to review what people were saying in the moments when they had no idea what the hell was going on, or to the great. To the grander scheme of things or the larger picture of what is going on. I thought that I had a good deal of sympathy, sadness and anger about this event. But then when I started reading through some of the details of things that I had Never even been able to consider.
- [09:54]
Narrator
Right.
- [09:55]
Colonel
And. And we're talking the seconds after this happened. And. And the minutes after this happened. It's. It's not just horrific, it's chaotic. And now we already talked about the number of casualties, and of course, that number's growing as the day goes along. But the people that survived the explosion, there were plenty of people in that building, thankfully, so that survived that explosion. Many of them tell us that first it was confusion, right? So one woman says that she was sitting in her office chair at her desk. 902 bomb explodes. And it throws her chair and all about 10ft from her desk into the wall behind her. And as she is pulling herself up and off of the floor, she looks around, and nobody that was in the room with her prior is there anymore. And she says that, first of all, she had no idea what the hell was going on. She almost thought, like, she's in a dream or maybe a nightmare. And her first reaction was, was like, loudly but casually saying, like, hey, where'd you. Where'd you guys go? Where'd everybody go? And not hearing anybody respond. For those of you that have not seen a picture of this and don't know what this. What this looks like, it's beyond devastating. Yeah, it blew the entire front off of this building. We talked about it being a glass front, that. That. I think the glass, yes, it aided in that, but I don't think it had much to do with it. This building bomb was so large. And we talked about the Richter scale, We talked about people feeling it, seeing it, hearing it four miles away. It blew a big portion of this building off. So this building, it did nine floors worth of damage, which is the entirety of the building, and it blew off and just completely destroyed the front portion of the building. And then I've read a few different descriptions of this, and they give varying sizes, so I don't know what. I'm hesitant to report what the actual size was. But the bomb also blew a giant crater in the earth underneath the building. Some say it was 20ft or even 30ft deep, possibly 30ft wide. It was so destructive that it. That it did damage to all of the surrounding buildings. It did damage to nearly every building, some form of damage to nearly every building in Oklahoma City, Downtown. Oklahoma. Oklahoma City. It destroyed cars that were across the street, cars that were parked down the block. I mean, the amount of damage. And then some of the people that were inside that were able to recognize what happened, they thought, well, holy shit. Whoever tried to blow this up or Whatever reason why for the explosion there's going to be another one. I need to get out of here. Well, it's not so simple when half the building doesn't exist anymore.
- [13:06]
Narrator
Right. And we don't know what the devastation would have been. I'm assuming a lot more if Timothy was able to put it in the location he wanted to originally.
- [13:18]
Colonel
I think with the level of planning that I believe went into this, I think he was going for the greatest effect, for the most destruction, the largest body count. And I think you're exactly right, Captain. I think if that was his plan and if that, if those were his goals, well then that was part of his plan to achieve those goals. And so he had to have some thinking or thought that that's would be the way to do the most damage. I read one story of a man who was on the 9th floor with no way for him to get out of the building because, oh, the stairwell that he would leave from his office from if he were to take the stairwell that wasn't there anymore. So now you're on the ninth floor standing in a room where it doesn't have four walls anymore. It has one complete wall and two partial walls and basically a nine story drop plus the crater below between you and the ground. And he said he made the decision in that moment because he was convinced that there would be another explosion that would blow up the, the remaining portion of the building. He goes out on window ledges on the ninth floor and said that he did it out of pure desperation because he was convinced he only had minutes to escape. And he had, he did some shit like you would see out of the movies, man, where he, he gets to a part where there's no more window ledge for him to move along to and he has to jump over a portion of the building that is no longer there so he can get his feet back to, to the floor and make it to the other side for that stairwell so he can get out of there.
- [15:10]
Narrator
There's not just casualties, there's also hundreds of victims that were just injured.
- [15:16]
Colonel
Oh yes, yeah, there were people that were injured that weren't even inside the building. And then of course the most difficult part of this is, is the children that were killed there. It was a daycare center on the, the second floor of the Murrah building. Children of all ages inside of that, that daycare center. And it was, I don't know. That's, it's, that's one of those parts of the story that later, McVeigh and Nichols would Say that they didn't know that there was a daycare center in there. But it seems like, though these guys are complete. They're. They're. There's enough hate in their hearts that their response to it was, well, we didn't care. Even though we didn't know. We didn't care that anybody in that building was collateral damage for their greater cause that they were or their. Their war that they decided they were fighting. Well, guess what? You weren't fighting that war against the people like the ATF or the FBI or the U.S. marshals Service. No, you chose of. While. While those agencies may have had some offices within that building, there were also offices that were filled with public services and with other. With the daycare things that weren't part of the ATF and not part of the IRS or the Secret Service. Ultimately, man, you're. You chose to ignite a war or start a war against the government or these government agencies. But. But who did you ultimately attack? Civilians.
- [16:53]
Narrator
Right? And children.
- [16:56]
Colonel
Just like Bill Clinton said. Innocent children. You. You went after innocent children. And so you can. You can and complain and try to rally the troops as much as you want and point and say that the ATF did this to a bunch of kids inside of Waco. Well, then you're no more right than they are than the enemy that you came up with in your head.
- [17:21]
Narrator
Now, we know there's a racial component to Timothy McVeigh's ideology, but was there a religious component as well? Obviously, in Waco, there was a religious component to everything. And then I think you could make an argument that there was some kind of religious or spiritual component to Ruby Ridge.
- [17:43]
Colonel
Could be. I feel like with Ruby Ridge, that they. The Weaver family was just more terrified of this agency and that they. That the Randy was going to be wrongfully incarcerated. Of course, with Waco, there's absolutely a religious component. I mean, it's. That's at the center of the story. And then with. With this one with McVeigh, I don't feel like there is. There's nothing really to suggest that coming from his words, coming from his plans. As far as the race part goes, that gets a little more dicey to sort out, because the Turner Diaries, that was such a big part of Timothy McVeigh and such a big part of his life. We talked about what that story centered around. It was. It was blowing up a federal building, starting a war with the government, overthrowing the government, and then it leads to a race war. What all McVeigh was hoping to achieve by Blowing up this building is so incredibly difficult to try to deduce. I don't feel comfortable saying it, Number One, and number Two, I don't really. At the end of the day, Captain, I really don't believe that he knew 100%. I don't think that his. As much as he claimed that he had this great war that he was fighting or this great revolution that he was going to lead, I don't believe that he was smart enough to. To. To know any of that or to have any rationale to. To what he was doing.
- [19:14]
Narrator
Well, we know that Timothy McVeigh was connected to Waco as, As a civilian. Right. He's not involved as any of the government entities. He's not one of the Davidians. Right, but.
- [19:27]
Colonel
Correct. He's not a Davidian.
- [19:29]
Narrator
Davidian. Sorry, but if you go back to Snell, he's connected to him on, on some level through the. His racist ideologies. But Snell is the one that really came up with this idea to bomb this building in the first place.
- [19:49]
Colonel
Yes, yes. So at one point, Snell in some other cohorts had a plan to fire that rocket launcher from the back of a vehicle into the Alfred P. Murrah Building. And Snell targeted this building because the IRS was there and because. Because of some of the offices in. In much a similar way that Timothy McVeigh did, because. And McVeigh was right in. In this part, that some of those agencies that had offices in the Murrah building were not only a part of Waco, but. But there were people that worked inside the Murrah building that were at Waco, that were part of the siege. And so it gets difficult to say that what was the tie house? And if there were ties between McVeigh and Snell, how. How strong were those ties? Because one thing we do know is that McVeigh had some interaction with Elohim City, which we know that Snell had not just interaction and worked with some of the groups that lived there, but also would stay there and considered that Elom City, his air quotes, home base, regardless of any of that. And we. Let's circle back to that as we tear through some more of these facts here of the case. But interestingly enough, McVeigh in his little getaway vehicle, he doesn't make it very far. So the Bomb explodes at 9:02am at approximately 10:20am Timothy McVeigh is stopped by an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer for a very simple minor traffic infraction. He doesn't have a rear license Plate. So he's pulled over for having no plate. And the officer is discussing and telling McVeigh why he was pulled over and asked to see his registration, driver's license, what have you. And when McVeigh goes to reach for his driver's license, the officer then says that he could tell that McVeigh was packing, that he had a gun. And so sure enough, he, he. He says to the driver, Timothy McVeigh, he says, Are you carrying a weapon? And McVeigh says, yes, he is. And in fact, Timothy McVeigh was carrying a loaded Glock.45 caliber semi automatic handgun tucked under his shirt. And McVeigh is arrested by the trooper right there after being pulled over at foreign.
- [22:56]
Narrator
We are back. Thanks for joining us. Here in the garage. Make sure you check out our store page. We have a promo code, Easter 25 for 25 off. And that's good until Easter. So check that out. Cheers to everybody in the back. And cheers to you, Colonel.
- [23:13]
Colonel
Cheers to you, Captain. As said, shortly after 10:20am Timothy McVeigh is arrested. He's charged with failure to display a rear license plate, failure to provide proof of vehicle insurance, unlawful transportation of a firearm in a motor vehicle, and unlawful carrying a concealed weapon. McVeigh's weapon was registered. From my understanding, it just wasn't registered in the state of Oklahoma. Regardless of that, we know that of all these different infractions here, he is detained and he's transported to the Noble county Jail, located in Perry, Oklahoma. Now, of course, the trooper and the officers there at the noble county jail, they have no idea who they just arrested. They don't know that they've arrested the guy that just parked this truck and blew up the front of the Alfred P. Murrah building. But he's going to be kept there. He's going to be. He's going to be stored there, if you will, at the county jail. And meanwhile, we have an investigation that is going to try to get up and running amongst the rubble and the casualties. You know, one. One other horrific thing to try to. I mean, to try to sort out in the chaos of the explosion is even after they had emergency personnel and services there at the scene, digging through, looking for survivors, hoping for survivors, finding fatalities. Some of the victims were in such bad shape that when they would find. When they would find a victim, they would also collect some of the items that were around them, hoping that if they couldn't physically identify the victim, that maybe the. The items that were found around them would help to identify them ultimately.
- [25:18]
Narrator
Right.
- [25:18]
Colonel
You Know, and some of the, some of the people, yes, were killed in their offices and, and that would lead to an easier way to identify them. But, but even with the children, they collected some of the toys around the children because they were so in such bad condition that they wouldn't be able to identify them. And they hoped that maybe the parents or relatives or somebody would be able to identify the toys that were found near these victims as well. And they called man. They called in for and requested 300 body bag. This is after they already arrived on scene. And a lot of times emergency services are arriving on scene with body bags. Unfortunately, they called in and requested additional 300 body bags. Trying to sort through this chaos, the wreckage, the explosion. But we have to have an investigation. And of course, because of the attack on the World Trade center in 1993 and it being very similar in nature, the first thought media jumped to this conclusion. Law enforcement jumped to this conclusion. Probably American, the American public jumped to this conclusion as well. Everybody thought that we would be looking for a couple of Middle Eastern terrorists. I mean that's who was responsible for the, the attempt on the, the World Trade center building. What really started this investigation down the right path was investigators discovered a large axle, a large axle weighing about 250 pounds that was found about 500ft from the spot of the low of the explosion. Due to, due to its condition, due to what the, the experts were seeing, they're thinking this is probably the axle of the truck that was parked here that blew up and blew up the building. Think about that for a minute. I mean we talked about the magnitude of this explosion, but this explosion was strong enough to lift this axle, this particular axle that is 250 pounds approximately and send it 500ft away. And actually I've seen a picture of where they, where they found this axle. And it looks to me, I can't say this with any degree of certainty here, Captain, but it looks to me like it, this axle could have potentially been thrown further. I think it, I think it was stopped by another vehicle. Like it flew and smashed into a vehicle and then just stopped there and was found where it laid to rest there after smashing into this vehicle. But they get a partial vin, a partial VIN or vehicle identification number off of this axle so that the information they pull off of it is PVA 26077. Now I'll speed things along here, but after doing some work very quickly, they are able to figure out, so a VIN, I believe is 17 characters, at least 16. I'm going off of memory here, but 16 or 17 characters and here we only have eight. So we have some sorting out to do with this, but they're able to determine that this partial VIN belonged to a large truck, basically a large box truck. And eventually they whittle it down even more that it was a rider truck and then it was a rental truck.
- [28:55]
Narrator
A 20 footer, a VIN number, the vehicle identification number. It's 17 characters. So it could be a number or a letter.
- [29:06]
Colonel
Yes. Each one of those characters could be a letter or number, but within that sequence of 17 the character, the characters mean a lot of. They provide a lot of different information.
- [29:20]
Narrator
Yes.
- [29:21]
Colonel
Right. Like if you have a V in the, in spot number eight or if you have a letter in. In spot number seven, if you have a number in this other spot in. I'm going off of hypotheticals here, but, but it does, it breaks down a lot of information. One, when was the vehicle made? Two, what kind of vehicle is it? Three, what weight categories does the vehicle fall into? Four, where was the vehicle made? And it goes on and on and on. So each one of those characters provides a wealth of information about that particular vehicle. So once you have that vin, you can start sorting a lot of that out. So these we, they have everybody working on this. I mean this, this was the largest investigation in the United States, second only to when they flew the planes into the World Trade Centers. They very quickly determine that it's a rental truck, a box truck. The authorities learned that the truck had been rented out for just $200. They tracked down the, the city and the location of where the person where this rental truck was picked up. Right. Because you go in, many of us have, have moved before. Had to move. It's the biggest pain in the ass ever. You, and when you're doing it yourself, you have to go and rent one of these trucks. You go to a location to rent the truck. You spend your. What feels like an entire weekend moving all your crap from location A to.
- [30:56]
Narrator
Location B, if not longer.
- [30:59]
Colonel
Yeah. And just, just get a dumpster throw, throw like 2/3 of it away.
- [31:04]
Narrator
Become a minimalist. Yeah.
- [31:06]
Colonel
So they, here's what they sort out. The quick of it is this, they track down this truck to where it was rented. And it was rented from, I believe a body shop at a location in, in Kansas. So it was rented for just $200 to a one Robert Kling. So now they go to where this vehicle was rented from and they want to interview the people that own the shop, the people that work there to Try to figure out what information they can gather about the person who rented the vehicle. This is going to be the biggest breadcrumb in your breadcrumb trail. After talking to people that work there, they get a decent description and what they learn is that the vehicle was rented out to this Robert Kling, described as a tall white male, maybe 5 foot 11 ish, described as skinny and possibly wearing camouflage or wearing green. On April 15, the customer paid for the truck up front because that was part of the contract you had to pay for it up Front. And on April 15th at 9am is when they worked out the arrangements of the truck. The people at the body shop explained that there was another man that was there as well, but they don't know his name because he didn't have to fill out any of the paperwork. But they were able to provide a description of this man who is described as a white male, between 5 foot 7 and 5 foot 8 inches tall, wearing a baseball cap. Now these two persons, because law enforcement has no reason to believe that, that the one man used his real name. In fact, I think they did some, a very quick background check to determine that. The address provided and the name provided doesn't match up. That person doesn't seem to exist. So now we have a description of John Doe number one and John Doe number two. These two, they put together composite sketches of John Doe number one and John Doe number 2. And these go out nationwide very, very quickly. They also learned that it was on April 17 that the rental truck was actually picked up by the customer, Robert Kling, who had given a date of birth as 419 1970. And of course we know the Oklahoma City bombing took place on 419 1995. The report is that the man is now solo. He nobody arrived with him to pick up the truck when he retrieved it on the 17th, but there was somebody with him when he made arrangements for the truck on the 15th. This is going to lead authorities to a location of Junction City, Kansas. So we have the description of these two guys. Remember what we said everybody was thinking immediately after the attack? Well, now they know they're not looking for Middle Eastern terrorists.
- [34:05]
Narrator
Yeah, they're not looking for a foreign terrorist. They're looking for a domestic terrorist, which.
- [34:09]
Colonel
I don't have it in front of me, but they all, they sent FBI profilers out there right away. And the FBI profile that, that they came up with suggested that it would be a domestic terrorist. Caucasian male, in his mid to late twenties is, is the very basics of that profile profile probably working with somebody else. So they go to this junction city, kansas, because the part in part the profile and some activities going on in this area led them here. And also, it's very close to where the rider truck was, Was rented from. And now they're going to hit the streets. It's the old shoe leather band. The old shoe leather portion of the investigation. They are going around with the composite sketches with a picture of the rider truck, which it's nice that they have the rider truck. Right. Because it's going to stand out. It's something distinctive. It's something that people may remember. So now they're going around looking to talk to anybody who may have seen somebody that resembles either one of these dudes and. Or saw them with or without the rider truck, or maybe just saw the rider truck. We need information on the truck. We need information on these dudes. Well, they get information that a guy matching the description of robert kling, of the man using the robert kling alias, stayed at a place called the dreamland motel and had parked a yellow rider truck there in their parking lot and rented room number 25. Now, the registration card at the dreamland motel, filled out by the customer, was made out to a one timothy mcveigh or a tim mcveigh. He had also registered his car. If you stay at a hotel, a lot of times, they want to know what kind of vehicle you'll be leaving in their parking lot.
- [36:12]
Narrator
Yeah. Sometimes they even want the license plate.
- [36:14]
Colonel
Number he provided to them that his vehicle was a mercury with Arizona plates L2C034. Armed with this information, they get into their. Their. So anytime somebody's arrested, information is supposed to be put into national database. Ncic. They get on ncic, and guess what they find out. That a guy with a very similar name was arrested just less than an hour and a half after the explosion in oklahoma city. The guy that was arrested was timothy james mcveigh. Well, according to the registration card at dreamland motel, they're looking for a tim mcveigh.
- [37:02]
Narrator
Got him.
- [37:02]
Colonel
So now we got. Yes, now we are getting on the phone with noble county jail and hoping and praying they didn't let this. This guy out.
- [37:11]
Narrator
Yeah.
- [37:12]
Colonel
This homicidal maniac out. And. And they get lucky. So this investigation is really impressive when it. When you review it, how quickly everything moved and how quickly they were able to really start to figure out who was responsible when it comes to mcveigh. We talked. We talked about, briefly about how nobody really was able to, with their own eyeballs, put him in Oklahoma City. But now we have information that is telling us that he likely is the guy that was using the alias Robert Kling, who rented the Ryder truck. And part of that, too, here, Captain, that is really a very fascinating aspect to this, even though we can't put him there. If you were. If one were to drive from the Alfred P. Murrah building and go the speed limit to the location of where Timothy McVeigh was later arrested for traffic infractions an hour and 18 minutes later, it would put you right at that spot. It's not 100 confirmation of anything, but that's just another piece of the puzzle, Another. Another piece of evidence that is suggestive that you are. You've got the right guy. Now, I do want to back this up a little bit. Our story up a little bit here, Captain, because one thing that took place just days before the Oklahoma city bombing on April 19, 1995. Let's go. Four days prior, all the way out in Arkansas, which isn't terribly far from Oklahoma. But you have Richard Snell, who was being held at the Tucker maximum security unit until April 15, when he's transferred to the Green Mile, the execution site. His death sentence is getting closer and closer by the minute. He scheduled to be executed on April 19, 1995, at the Cummins unit in Lincoln County, Arkansas. This is the same day that Timothy McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City bombing at the building that Snell and some other guys had once plotted to blow up themselves 12 years prior. Right now on this day, Snell watched TV and watched TV reports of the Oklahoma City bombing. Now, we're going to have a portion of our audience that's too young to remember this, or maybe they weren't even alive when the bombing took place. I remember seeing it on tv. I. We were on spring break at the time. I was a kid. I was out riding bikes, riding bicycles with my friends, and we went inside to, like, grab a snack or something or steal something out of the fridge, and it's all over the TV. That morning. You couldn't turn on a TV and the 48 states and it not be on. And so we do know for a fact that Richard Snell watched the bombing, watched the. The aftermath of the bombing. And there are a lot of thoughts and theories and speculation about how much did Snell have involvement or did he have any prior knowledge of this attack that was so similar to something that he had plotted to do himself? And as the story goes, he had told some of the guards in advance that something that there was going to be some. Some. Some incredible event that would take place on the day of his execution. We know what kind of horrible asshole, smart aleck kind of dude Richard Snell is. He could have simply been being vague and talking about his own execution. Right. Something incredibly important is going to happen on the day that. That I'm executed.
- [41:34]
Narrator
Right.
- [41:34]
Colonel
But it doesn't seem that way. It seems.
- [41:37]
Narrator
No, it's too much of a coincidence.
- [41:40]
Colonel
Well, and there are varying reports about this. So there are some reports regarding his reaction to what he was seeing on tv. There are some reports that say that Richard Snell was in celebration mode, that he was smiling and chuckling and. And seemed to be getting some kind of enjoyment and satisfaction out of what he was seeing on tv. There was other reports that are the complete opposite, that. That he seemed to be upset or maybe even angered at what he was seeing. Now, what we do know is that he was executed on that day. And when asked to if he had any last words, he chose to address the governor of Arkansas, who at that time was Jim Guy Tucker. And his last words, his final words were, quote, well, I had a lot to say, but you have me at an inconvenience. My mind is blurred. But I'm going to say a couple of words. Governor Tucker, look over your shoulder. Justice is coming. I wouldn't trade places with you or any of your cronies. Hell has victories. I am at peace. All right, Captain, all of this is going to be moving incredibly at lightning speed. Right. Worf, take us to warp speed. But what we have here is the address that we now know that Tim McVeigh is a real name. Right. They took it off of the Dreamland Motel registration card.
- [43:15]
Narrator
Right.
- [43:15]
Colonel
Well, there's an address that's listed as. Well, that address that they. They tracked down doesn't belong to McVeigh per se. It belongs to Terry Nichols and Nichols brother when. When McVeigh had lived with them.
- [43:31]
Narrator
Right. So if you're in law enforcement, you're like, we have the real name of the person. This might be a real address that he lived at. And maybe these people are connected to this attack on some level. I mean, we do have eyewitnesses that say we saw more than one person.
- [43:49]
Colonel
Well, and on top of that, what we have here is, again, because the investigation is moving so fast, so quickly, and they're able to call. Right. Other branches of. Of the FBI, they're able to get local law enforcement involved near and far. And so the way that I recall this playing out is that they Actually served a search warrant at McVeigh's father's house, where he had grew up. They served that one first, but then they. It becomes known that they are looking for this Terry Nichols or looking for him and his brother. And once word of that gets out, much to everyone's surprise, Terry Nichols turns himself in. And now he's being interrogated by law enforcement. And they execute a search warrant at Terry Nichols's place right between it. It takes a while to break down Terry Nichols, but they eventually break him down, and he starts telling them part of the plot, part of his involvement, what McVeigh was up to. And then they find a whole bunch of physical evidence where Terry Nichols is living. They find. They find items that were the same as items used to construct the bomb. They find written plans. They find a map that has marked on it the Alfred P. Murrah building. Oh. Also marked on that map is where the getaway vehicle was parked or to be parked.
- [45:27]
Narrator
Right.
- [45:28]
Colonel
And so they find a lot of physical evidence. They even found some of McVeigh's blood, like two or three drops of blood that eventually they determined belong to McVeigh. So they have all these. They have all these ties, every. A bunch of things tying these two together. And now you have Nichols, who is telling them what happened. And. And basically what he says here, captain, is that he was there in Oklahoma. He. He was there in Kansas with McVeigh. He was there with McVeigh when they went to go rent the truck. He helped him construct the bomb in the back of the truck. He helped him outfit the. The truck. But he had left to return to his family instead of riding shotgun to deliver the mobile bomb on that fateful day. They're going to figure out the connection to Michael and Lori Fortier, who McVeigh had stayed with out in Arizona. In fact, Lori is one of the people that testifies against McVeigh at his trial. Michael testifies as well. But Michael works out a deal with the authorities to make sure that his wife gets immunity. And in the end, we can talk about how far and wide did this plot and plan go? Who all was involved? Well, we know that three people were involved, and four people had knowledge of it. Michael and his wife, their. Most of their involvement was having knowledge of it. Now, what we. We do learn, too. Remember the Robert Kling alias that Timothy McVeigh used to rent the truck? Well, that fake identification was provided to him by Lori. So she made that identification for him to use so that he could rent the truck. But as we now know she got immunity because her husband worked out that deal and was willing to testify against his friend Tim McVeigh at his federal trial. Timothy McVeigh was not charged with 168 deaths. He was not charged with a. With a number that equaled the death toll for Oklahoma City. He was charged with eight murders. And that was the. That was eight murders of federal employees, federal law enforcement officers that the US Government could take him to court for and charge him with their murders with capital murder because they, they're at work. They're essentially in the line of duty or performing their job duties and job tasks. When they were murdered by this guy who drove the bomb in there. I, I do think that to the best that they could. I do think that Timothy McVeigh had good representation and they put on a good case. They put on a good presence in the courtroom trying to provide an argument that they're. The accused was innocent. There was just too much evidence against this guy. And behind the scenes, McVeigh seemed to want to be known as the Oklahoma City bomb bomber. He wanted to be known and he. He laid everything out for his attorneys. And unfortunately for the attorneys and fortunately for the rest of us, that information was put on paper and it. It made its way somehow to the media prior to his trial to. To the extent of. The attorneys had to go on camera and say, no, this is a. These are. These documents are fake. They're a hoax. And in reality, it was a confession almost of. To. To his involvement was documentation that pretty much. Captain. Started with the birth of Tim McVeigh and ended with him being arrested at 10:20am on the morning of the bombing.
- [49:48]
Narrator
But it makes you wonder because the. The real smoking gun of all this is the truck rental. And you think if. Maybe, I don't know if it was just laziness or. Or maybe he wanted some link back to him, but you think that they could have come up with a better plan that we wouldn't have to leave any of our information behind to rent this vehicle?
- [50:17]
Colonel
Yeah, that's a big. That's a part of it that I had tried to. To make heads and tails of is that one. I have to believe that he didn't think that any portion of the truck would survive. But even if you were to think that far ahead, wouldn't you also be thinking that, well, rental trucks, they have to come back, right? They. They have to be returned, and this one is not going to be returned. And they might be able to connect this truck not being returned to the bombing. And we do know that they did capture a security camera and a nearby business at a convenience store did capture an image of that rider truck. And then based off of eyewitnesses that would have been near the federal building at the time of the explosion or shortly before, they may have all reported seeing this. Again, very distinctive truck. I think that. I think that all roads would have led to McVeigh no matter what. It's just depending on if it would have been a crosswalk or a freeway. Right. The amount of speed that they would be able to get and connect all of these items to the actual suspect. And I don't. I'm not convinced that McVeigh, his motive is unclear. Right. As. As much as it's been discussed that it. That it. His motive and even openly by him. And in fact, he. He didn't really push his appeals too far. He wanted to die. He wanted to be executed. Even though he didn't seem to show any remorse, at least publicly for killing 168 people. He was executed 2001. He wasn't. He wasn't sentenced until 1997. So this all moved very quickly. And one thing that I found to be very strange and almost haunting in a weird way. And I'm not trying to get all.
- [52:17]
Narrator
Mystical and Tin hat, put on your tin hat, please.
- [52:21]
Colonel
Well, no, I'm not even, not even conspiracy, because this wouldn't be conspiracy conspiratorial at all. But I'm not trying to get. I'm talking about like theology, man. Like I'm not trying to get like too crazy about this. But it is almost a fact. Jesus was approximately 33 years old when he was crucified and killed. David Koresh was 33 years old when he died at Waco, Texas. Timothy McVeigh was 33 years old when he was executed by the federal government for being the man that killed all of those people at the Oklahoma city building. It's just. It's all very weird, strange stuff. And to take it further now let. Alright, let's do get a little tin hat here. I keep mine with me in the garage. I got the beer in the right hand. Tin hat sits on the desk to my left.
- [53:20]
Narrator
So I always wear one on my penis just in case.
- [53:25]
Colonel
Well, it's good to be, to be safe.
- [53:28]
Narrator
It's better to be safe than that. But what I find fascinating and terrifying is to me, Timothy McVeigh had no direction. I don't think this is a plan that he came up with. And so this plan to Me goes all the way back to Schnell. How did his plan get from him and his people to Timothy McVeigh?
- [53:57]
Colonel
Well, and that's interesting because that would have been something that was something that was known within those communities. Hell, it was. It was public knowledge because Snell was charged. Him and those other guys were charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government, but they. They weren't able to get a conviction on it in court. So it was general public knowledge if. If one were to go looking for it, even though it was many years ahead of time. I guess McVeigh's biggest connection to the state of Arkansas, where Snell was executed, he was indicted, he was convicted, and we do know that he was charged with the conspiracy. We do know McVeigh does have a connection to Arkansas because that's where they robbed that Robert Moore of thousands of dollars worth of valuables that they were intended to use to fund the bombing. But let's circle back to the. The four tiers. When his time there, when he lived with them in Arizona, you know, they're having their fun with the drugs. And McVeigh's got more going on than just drugs.
- [55:08]
Narrator
Right.
- [55:09]
Colonel
He. He does go and live on his own, but stays. He's practically like a neighbor of theirs for a while. He. At. During this time, he doesn't have a home phone, and so he would regularly use their phone. He would go over to Mike and Lori's house and use their phone. And this. This is a big part of the tin hat stuff. So if you want to get real conspiracy, real conspiratorial here, you can't, I.
- [55:36]
Narrator
Think, give it to me.
- [55:37]
Colonel
I think that. I think there's enough meat on the bone to. To. To make you wonder. So she says she tells authorities this. This is a matter of public record. This is considered, I think, a fact in the courts. She says, well, I didn't mind him coming over all the time to use our phone, even though he was making long distance calls, because he was using a phone card, a calling card. Remember those. Those prepaid cards that you could get. I don't even know if they still exist. Yeah, but you get these prepaid cards, load them up with money, and then you could call whoever, and then they just take the funds off of that card, out of that account. It's essentially setting up account, and they would take the funds out of there to pay for the long distance calls. Well, armed with this information, look, the police and the federal government did not stop once they had Timothy McVeigh, once they had Terry Nichols. Once they had Michael fortier, they didn't stop. Once they had those guys, they believed that the plot was much bigger and spread far and wide, that either people had involvement because having. Just having knowledge of this is a crime. Having prior. Yes. So they were looking for everybody that could be involved. Meanwhile, you basically have Timothy mcveigh. That's saying, I'm. I was kind of a lone wolf on this one. This one was me. I was. You know, this was what I was trying to do. But yet we know, Terry, we know that Nichols was involved. We know that a lot of people believe, and I believe the federal government believes this as well, that Nichols brother probably had prior knowledge of what was going on, but they weren't able to prove it. But now, using that calling card account, they were able to determine that Timothy McVeigh made phone calls to elam city as. As close to two weeks before Oklahoma city bombing. So he made phone calls to Elam city. He made phone calls to the author of the turner diaries. What the hell was that book about? Blowing up a federal building and inciting. Overthrowing the government and inciting a race war. Oh, by the way, they find a cocktail waitress working at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, strip club who tells authorities that on at least one occasion, Timothy McVeigh was in the establishment. And telling her and anybody willing to listen that pretty soon he was going to be famous. Now, the versions of that story change a little bit depending on where you find the information. There are some. Some that state that he said the name of the building or said the date. I don't know how much I believe that, but I do believe that he was there saying that he was going to be famous or everybody was going to know his name one day. Then we have this other very strange situation that is difficult to know what level of truth there is to these claims. But we have Chevy kehoe, who, some of you may recall, we mentioned his name in our first hate made in america episode because he was an individual that lived at elam city for a while. He was also an individual that was involved in creating one of these Aryan nation groups, and he wanted to use this group and build an army of people to rob and commit violent crimes. And he did. He. Unfortunately, he was successful in that. He was the part of the Aryan people's republic militia. And as we said in our first episode of hate made in America, this guy went on to kill. He was convicted of at least three homicides, Gotten several shootouts with police and state troopers, and, oh, by the way, when he was growing up in Washington State, he and Israel Keys happened to be neighbors, which is a very strange coincidence. But after this guy is eventually locked up and after Oklahoma City. So he lived in the state of Washington. And there is thought that he may have had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma city bombing in April 19th of 1995. And where that stems from is it's not, not a terrible leap to. To suggest that maybe McVeigh and he and Kehoe knew one another. But what we have is he, he actually lived at this motel called the Shadow Motel, which was located in Spokane, Washington. And the manager of the Shadow Motel in Spokane has openly, publicly made these statements and claims to have seen Timothy McVeigh with Chevy Kehoe at that motel four to six months prior to the bombing. This same individual, the manager, also claims that on the morning of the bombing, Chevy appeared at the motel office asking if the manager would turn the TV to cnn and says that Chevy Kehoe became ecstatic when the news of the.
- [61:05]
Captain
Bombing appeared by an unspeakable act. 8. The apocalypse would occur soon.
- [61:12]
Colonel
More white supremacist groups, more anti government groups.
- [61:16]
Captain
David Koresh, Ruby ridge siege. Timothy McVeigh, more than 80 people dead. Bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City. Hate by an unspeakable act. There is so little hope left.