- The Alfred P. Murrah
building
in downtown Oklahoma City
ripped apart by,
as far as we could tell,
a single expl*si*n.
- It comes back to a Ryder
truck with expl*sives in it.
- Where did the vehicle
come from?
- The truck was rented
by a Robert "Bob" Kling.
Is Timothy McVeigh
Robert Kling,
or is there a second person
involved?
- About 90 minutes
after the bombing,
an Oklahoma Highway Patrol
trooper had stopped McVeigh.
- We have no doubt
that Timothy McVeigh
is involved with the bombing.
- You m*rder*r!
- Now,
with one suspect in jail,
the FBI says another
remains on the loose.
- When Timothy McVeigh
was booked,
he gave an address
in Decker, Michigan.
We immediately
dispatch agents.
- All right, they're going
into the house.
They are walking
into the house.
- The basic tenants of hatred,
hatred for the government,
are alive and well.
McVeigh tried to
recruit Fortier.
- We actually put wiretaps
on Fortier's residence.
We have him under
constant surveillance.
- We had 4,000 pounds
of ammonium nitrate.
- Literally, he was
trying to start a w*r
against the United States.
- In the FBI, we make
a lot of headlines.
Drug busts,
mob stings,
t*rror1st takedowns.
- Get down! Get down!
- We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.
- Mark it.
- Freeze!
- FBI.
- FBI!
- Action!
- But they don't know
the half of it.
What really goes down,
we save that for each other
when we're talking
agent-to-agent.
This is "FBI True."
- It's very chaotic.
We don't know exactly
what caused the expl*si*n.
Police reports
have said that
it is in the federal
courthouse building.
- The fear generated
by the Oklahoma expl*si*n
is rippling across the country.
- Now, with one suspect
in jail,
the FBI says another
remains on the loose.
- We have Timothy McVeigh
in custody.
- He was actually
sitting in jail
in a small town called Perry.
- You're in charge of
this ginormous event.
What are you thinking, Bob?
- Did he deliver the b*mb?
Did he participate
in building the b*mb?
Was he just a co-conspirator?
None of these questions
we have fully answered
at this stage,
but we have no doubt
that Timothy McVeigh
is involved
with the bombing
in Oklahoma City.
- You m*rder*r!
- What happens next?
- Troopers had stayed
with McVeigh's car
to make sure
nothing happened to it.
I accompanied the vehicle
with a trooper
to this remote location,
and we relocated that
to a secure off-site,
where our evidence response
team could process it.
And inside were
a lot of documents,
references to
"The Turner Diaries,"
some of McVeigh's
handwritten notes.
- What is "The Turner Diaries"?
- Turner Diaries is a novel,
a fictional work
where a group
of right-wing extremists,
they destroy
a federal building in DC
and k*ll hundreds of people.
- The FBI buildings.
- Yes.
- Wow.
And that was in the car?
- Pages from it,
excerpts from it.
There were statements
from McVeigh,
some of McVeigh's
handwritten notes,
anti-government sentiments
that showed some intent.
- Deep down in my heart,
I felt more than likely
that the Oklahoma City bombing
was connected to the events
that had occurred
in Waco two years before.
- Tragedy tonight
in Waco, Texas.
At least four federal agents
and a member of a cult group
are dead after
an hour-long g*n battle
at the cult's ranch.
- We know he was at
the Branch Davidian standoff,
made numerous trips to Waco.
- And ultimately,
the attack on April 19,
the second anniversary
of the fire.
That date was
so important to him,
he used that date
as his date of birth
on the false identification,
the Robert Kling ID.
- We learned that
the truck was rented
by a Robert "Bob" Kling,
a pseudonym
of Timothy McVeigh.
- What happens then?
- When Timothy McVeigh
was booked
in the Noble County Jail,
he gave an address
in Decker, Michigan.
So we immediately
dispatch agents
to Decker, Michigan,
which is now the next step
in the investigation.
- Just as the media descended
on the Noble County Courthouse
in Perry, Oklahoma,
federal agents
began swarming around a
farmhouse in Decker, Michigan.
- The authorities have been
looking, throughout the day,
at four buildings
in particular--
the farmhouse, a shed,
a metal building,
and a red barn.
- It turns out
that the property
was owned by two brothers,
James and Terry Nichols.
- Neighbors were still
trying to sort out today
how the Nichols family
fits into all of this.
Some describe James Nichols
as a quiet farmer.
Another told of seeing
Terry Nichols detonate
a b*mb several years ago.
- All right,
they're going into the house.
They are walking
into the house.
- So what do you say
about the bombing?
- Terry Nichols had actually--
had left the property,
but we learned that
Terry Nichols
and Tim McVeigh
are best friends.
- Wow.
- Both of them expressed
the need to take reprisal
against the federal government.
- Timothy McVeigh was a close
friend of the Nichols brothers
and a frequent visitor
to the farm.
He lived here in the Nichols
house for eight months
until about a year ago.
- Terry Nichols now
lived in Kansas.
We had Terry Nichols
under surveillance,
but we weren't trying
to be secretive about it.
We wanted him to know
that we were there.
- So we have Timothy McVeigh
in custody.
You were watching
Terry Nichols.
Now what?
- Well, now we're trying to
see, who is Timothy McVeigh?
What is his role
in the bombing?
We do not have
the whole picture.
Not only are we trying
to prove a criminal case,
we want to know why.
Why did this happen?
- Yeah.
- What could cause
somebody to do this?
And the only way
to really do that
was to examine his entire life.
What was the contributing
factor that caused someone
like Timothy McVeigh
to carry out a bombing
against innocent people?
I brought Timothy McVeigh's dad
to Oklahoma City.
- Suspect Tim McVeigh was
escorted from the courthouse.
As McVeigh was being moved,
his father was taken in
for questioning.
- He's living in a suburb
of Buffalo, New York.
- ok.
- He's a blue collar worker
and worked for one company
for most of his life.
Good fellow.
You know, salt of the Earth.
- How do you handle things?
How do you get through this?
- A day at a time.
- And of course,
he doesn't believe
his son could possibly
do this.
But he is very cooperative,
wants to help,
do whatever he can.
What he relays is a
description of a young man that
was troubled in many ways.
The divorce that his parents
had gone through
affected him greatly.
- His mother and father's
frequent marital battles
left him feeling angry
and isolated.
- He also was one
that was bullied.
He was picked on, made fun of.
Actually was
a bright young man
that scored around 120 IQ,
but not very successful.
Mediocre.
He loved his granddad,
who taught him how to sh**t.
He loved to go out and hunt,
and that was something
that he was good at.
And then eventually,
joins the military.
- He was fairly successful
in the military.
He won a Bronze Star.
He k*lled an Iraqi in combat
in Desert Storm.
Timothy McVeigh's dad says that
he had two best friends,
Terry Nichols
and Michael Fortier.
They had joined the military
at the same time,
had gone to boot camp
together.
And if anything had happened,
he believed that both of those
would have been involved.
- So the dad was suggesting,
hey, you may want to talk
to Michael Fortier.
- Right.
So that's when we decide now
to dispatch another crew
to Kingman, Arizona,
where Michael Fortier lives
with his wife, Lori,
and a young baby.
So that's now a new focus
of the investigation.
So we have now
the primary locations
are obviously Oklahoma City,
Decker, Michigan,
Terry Nichols's house
in Kansas,
and Kingman, Arizona.
We actually put wiretaps
on Fortier's residence,
and he's very circumspect.
He doesn't reveal
anything at all
with regard to the bombing.
We approach him, but he's
not cooperative initially.
- Are you doing OK?
- But we keep the pressure up.
We have him under
constant surveillance.
Finally, we have subpoenas
that are issued
for his appearance
in Oklahoma City.
- How do we get to him?
And what happens with him?
- They knew it was
going to happen.
They knew when it was
going to happen.
They knew where it was
going to happen,
and they knew how it was
going to happen.
It really got down to
wanting to protect his wife.
They just had a new baby.
- OK.
- He was concerned that
if we learned
the entire plot...
- Right.
- That she was going to go
away for a substantial time.
And she would because
she was as much involved
as her husband.
- McVeigh was
Fortier's army buddy,
the best man at his wedding,
and now Fortier
is McVeigh's
most damning accuser.
They both hated
the federal government.
When Waco went up in flames,
both blamed federal agents
for causing the fire.
Fortier testified
McVeigh started
to talk about blowing up
a government building
on Waco's anniversary.
Fortier--
"He wanted to cause
a general uprising
in America."
- While McVeigh
was living with him,
he took soup cans
from their cupboard
and used them to show how he
was going to array the barrels
in the back of the truck
to maximize
the damage to the building.
He told Michael Fortier
that he and Nichols
had stolen
some of the expl*sives.
It filled in the blanks.
- When it got down to it,
Michael Fortier struck a deal
with the government
that he would testify
as long as his wife, Lori,
did not go to prison.
- What happened
to Terry Nichols?
- Terry Nichols surrendered
himself to the local police
once he saw McVeigh
was in custody.
- Oh, wow.
- The second suspect,
now identified
as Terry Nichols
of Decker, Michigan,
surrendered
in Herington, Kansas,
without a fight after coming
under police surveillance.
- But he did not exercise
his Miranda rights.
He was willing to talk with us.
- Oh.
- Terry Nichols said that
in the fall of '94,
they rented storage sheds
to store the components
because we're talking
about thousands of pounds
of ammonium nitrate,
hundreds of pounds of fuel.
- Ammonium nitrate
and fuel oil
were the principal ingredients
in the Oklahoma City b*mb.
- So he facilitated
the rental of those.
He purchased
the ammonium nitrate
and then actually helped him
assemble the b*mb out of the--
- Oh, wow.
- It's called
Geary Lake State Park.
- He was directly involved
in mixing the b*mb,
putting the b*mb together.
The weekend before,
he went to Oklahoma City
and helped Timothy McVeigh
stash the car--
the getaway car, the Mercury.
- OK.
- Picked him up
and took him back to Kansas.
He wanted to talk his way
out of it,
but he also, you know,
lied through his teeth.
So it was difficult to know
when he was telling the truth
and when he was not.
Most of the time, he was lying,
but he actually gave us
some helpful information.
- And then the following day,
we ex*cuted a search warrant
at Terry Nichols' home
in Kansas.
- Timothy McVeigh,
the man charged in the crime
yesterday, remains in custody.
The two Nichols brothers
questioned yesterday
are being held
as material witnesses,
but have not been charged.
- It was really invaluable,
some of the things
that we obtained there.
We recovered
29 or 39 weapons
that had been taken
in a burglary,
armed robbery situation.
- Oh, wow.
- There were still coins,
jade jewelry,
that was taken from
a robbery of a guy
named Moore in Arkansas.
This guy dealt and sold
a lot of armaments.
- To finance the bombing,
McVeigh told Fortier
that they were going
to rob Roger Moore.
We found a receipt for 40
50-pound bags
of ammonium nitrate.
It was wrapped around
a roll of gold coins,
which were similar to those
that were stolen
at the Roger Moore burglary,
but it had Tim McVeigh's
fingerprint on it.
So that's 2,000 pounds.
We had a general idea about
the size of the b*mb
based on the damage
that we saw,
so we sent agents to the co-op
to see if any other purchases
had been made.
In fact, there was one in
October and one in September,
both for 2,000 pounds.
- Wow.
- That's a lot of fertilizer.
- Plus we found out
that Terry Nichols,
when he learned that we might
be coming for his house,
had taken the ammonium nitrate
and had spread it out
over his yard--
his porch
and portions of his yard.
- What are you thinking
at this point?
- This was starting
to make sense.
We had 4,000 pounds
of ammonium nitrate,
which is starting
to approximate the estimate
for the size of the device.
- There was one key
piece of evidence
that we haven't talked about.
- Oh.
- There was
a calling card
that we recovered
during the search warrant
of Terry Nichols' house.
But Bridges was
a name that they
had used for the calling card.
It was one of the
key things that
enable us to tie the
entire conspiracy together.
- Oh, wow.
- They thought that
they were secretive,
and they would use that
to make
their confidential phone calls.
So we really were able
to put together and link
where they were
at different times.
- I think there was a total
of 604 calls made...
- Wow.
- Using the calling card.
We were able to match,
literally,
the Yellow Pages
for chemical companies.
He had told Fortier
that the expl*sives
were going to be in barrels.
We saw calls
to barrel companies.
And then when we ex*cuted
the warrant at Nichols' home,
we found barrels there.
They were
chemically identical--
same color, same size.
The calling card
had calls to racetracks
where you sell nitromethane,
which is a good fuel
for the other side
of that expl*sive equation.
- We also found a drill,
a cordless drill,
that was used to burglarize
an expl*sives quarry
where some of the expl*sive
materials were stolen
that were used in the b*mb.
- Wow.
- That tied Terry Nichols
directly to it.
- Yes.
- And with
the testimonial evidence
Fortier was able to provide,
Fortier said
McVeigh told him that we stole
expl*sives from a quarry.
Well, we've got
that testimony,
and we've got the lock.
And we've got the drill
and the drill bit
in Terry Nichols' home.
We also recovered expl*sives
that match the same type
that were stolen.
We also took McVeigh's clothes,
and the clothing
had expl*sive residue in it.
Each expl*sive has
a chemical signature.
Those were the
components of the device
that we're able to track
through evidence
recovered at Nichols' home.
We showed that McVeigh made
a call to Nichols' home,
and then, magically,
five hours later,
they show up in
Oklahoma City together,
which is the travel time.
When Nichols was interviewed,
he said that he hadn't
seen McVeigh for months
until that Sunday.
But we were able to show,
through forensic evidence,
that he was not being truthful,
so it tied it all together.
- Wow. Amazing.
- McVeigh tried to
recruit Fortier,
and Lori and Michael said,
you know, not going to do it.
So McVeigh was living with them
up until early April.
When he realized
they weren't going to,
he left and went to a motel.
- Sources say Fortier
knew of the plot,
but did not take part
in the attack.
- Terry Nichols was more
of a witting accomplice.
- He had a significant,
active role.
- Oh, sure.
- It could not have happened
except for the actions
of Terry Nichols.
He was talkative.
He kept thinking he could
talk his way out of the deal.
But when he was finally
done through talking,
he was arrested and
brought into custody.
- The results
of this investigation--
what did you learn
the plot was?
- Some newspapers
wrote that it was
directed against me because I
was the spokesperson for Waco.
- ok.
- It was not our intention that
this compound be burned down.
I can't tell you the shock
and the horror that all of us
felt when we saw those
flames coming out there.
- Timothy McVeigh was asked,
was that the case?
By one of his attorneys.
He said, no.
Said he knew I worked
in Oklahoma City,
but his primary goal
was to attack the A*F,
whom he believed
had agents at Waco,
and also other
federal agencies.
He had said, if he
would have gotten me,
it would have been a bonus.
The end goal was to cause an
uprising in the United States
that would ultimately
cause a revolution.
- That's chilling
on so many levels...
- Mm-hmm.
- For so many reasons.
- We tried to determine
if he was involved
with any militia groups
and so forth.
- Soldiers on
training maneuvers,
but they're not the US Army.
They are the
Michigan Citizens Militia,
which claims 15,000 members.
It is part of a growing
nationwide phenomenon
whose enemy
is the US government.
- If they hurt our
Constitution anymore,
they are going to have
to answer to us.
- And I promise you, we're not
going to give up our g*ns.
- But Timothy McVeigh
belonged to no group.
- As early as tomorrow,
a federal grand jury
is expected to indict
three men
in the
Oklahoma terror bombing.
The indictments will allege
the mass m*rder
was motivated by
a hatred of government
and financed with the sale
of stolen weapons.
- What are you feeling
as this is all unwinding,
as you're watching the news?
- What could cause a young man
to turn against his country?
What could drive a person
to that extent?
We learned that he was
a very troubled young man
and ultimately ended up
blaming the US government
for his own failures.
- Prime suspects Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols
will be charged
in the bombing itself
and will face
the death penalty.
Also to be indicted,
Michael Fortier,
an army buddy of the suspects
who will plead guilty
to relatively minor charges
in return for his testimony.
- What did McVeigh get?
What was his conviction?
- He was convicted
under what was then
a new weapons
of mass destruction statute,
which carries
the death penalty.
- Everybody knew
almost somebody
inside that federal building.
- Right.
- We knew people,
Secret Service, DEA,
the ladies at the credit union.
It's a relatively
small community.
It's difficult
when you know people.
- It took me about 10 years
to go to the memorial.
People say, why?
Because, uh...
- That's--I understand.
- The, uh...
You're not able to express
those emotions.
- Right.
- But they're there.
- Yeah.
- And it took me
a long time to say,
"I can go and see this,
and touch it, feel it."
- Yeah.
- And you almost
depersonalize it to the point
where you can't trust it
as being real.
- Yeah.
- But you have to be objective.
- Yeah.
- And so
it was difficult for me.
It still is.
These were individuals, people
I knew, people I worked with.
And their life was snuffed out
in seconds
for no real good cause,
no reason.
And we had to do
everything in our power
to see that they
obtained justice,
or that would have
been a thing
that would been hard
to have lived with,
if we did not find justice
for them.
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