Original subtitles

[elevator bell dings]

[unsettling music playing]

- [door opens] - [woman 1] There we go.

And everyone's wondering

why I'm walking around with this video camera.

There's Claudine, one of our collection people.

Filmin' this so my mom can see where I work.

[phone rings]

[woman 1] This is collections department. I don't think anybody's here though.

[laughing] I'm here, stupid.

[woman 1] Well, I was lookin' the other way.

And then in here is Pammy, and she is just a sweetheart.

Oh, yeah.

[woman 2] I was working at the credit union

in the federal building downtown.

Hi, Mr. Mog. This is Amy at the credit union.

I was really excited

because I was getting ready to close on my first house.

So when I went to work that morning,

I was chatting about it with my friends.

- [woman 1] There's Claudette. - Hi!

[Amy] And just running around, talking to everybody, visiting.

Not doing any work, you know.

Hi, Mom.

[Amy] I really liked the people that I worked with.

There was a general sense of community in the building.

She's Mary.

Hi, Mom and Dad.

[Amy] And my entire friend group was work.

Those were my friends.

I took it for granted.

- [crow cawing] - [unsettling music continues]

[Amy] The agencies in the federal building were

Social Security, HUD, ATF, Secret Service, and then you had a daycare.

[unsettling music swells]

[muffled children's voices]

[woman] Little Tony was six months old at the time.

And I was working as a judge's bailiff at the county courthouse down the road.

I wanted to see and check on him throughout the day.

So the daycare in the Murrah building was close,

so we decided to put him there.

[helicopter blades whirring]

A big treat coming your way on today's Oklahoma at Four.

We're going to be taking you into the fantasy world...

I was 30 years old. I had worked at Channel 9 for nine days.

Driving to work that morning, I was excited

because I was gonna be the four o'clock anchor in the afternoon,

and we were starting to lay the groundwork out for this new show

that was going to be starting at Channel 9.

I had a green jacket and this big white shirt,

and I thought, "I'm gonna get my nice jewelry on,"

and I wanted to look good.

And I remember driving to work just full of excitement.

It was a beautiful day.

[tense music building]

Do we have any...

I was working at the University of Oklahoma

as a third-year resident in emergency medicine and trauma.

By the time I got off at 7 in the morning, I was half-dizzy, half-nauseated,

and wanted to go to bed.

A friend of mine called, and he wanted to go to breakfast.

In the four years I was at OU, I'd never gone to breakfast,

but I agreed to this one time.

[utensils clatter]

[Amy] One of my coworkers, Robin, who was seven months pregnant,

came and sat down in the desk beside me.

- And the phone rang. - [phone rings]

The next thing I know, I'm hearing this roaring in my head.

- [clock ticking] - [tense music fades]

[ticking stops]

- [crashing explosion] - [glass shatters]

[metal groaning]

[sinister strings playing]

[music stops]

[officer]

[dispatcher]

[officer 1]

[officer 2]

[officer 3]

[birds chirping]

[man] April 19th was a special day.

We had a fundraiser

for the Special Olympics. It was a golf tournament.

Almost all of the heads of law enforcement agencies were there.

We had just hit our first tee shots, and all of a sudden, my pager goes off.

And then, all the other agency heads, their pagers started going off as well.

We were told there's been some type of a bombing

at the federal building.

We then proceeded back to Oklahoma City,

but we never thought it would be at the level that actually occurred.

I'm Tammy Payne, at TV 9 newsroom.

If you are anywhere downtown, you probably heard it and felt it.

An explosion of some kind downtown.

Here is a live picture from Ranger 9.

Jesse is in Chopper 9.

Jesse, tell us what you're seeing from the air.

[Jesse] Tammy, you can see thick black smoke

billowing from the federal court building downtown.

We can see glass blown out of other downtown office buildings

about five blocks away.

[dramatic percussive music]

[Jesse] Tammy.

Tammy.

It looks like part of the building has been blown away.

We'll have to bank around to the other side.

[Tammy] It's the federal building, we're being told.

My mic is open, is that correct? If you... Let's try to keep my mic open if we can,

and I'll be able to talk with Jesse.

If you are... As the chopper goes around the side of the federal building...

- [Jesse] Wow. Holy cow. - [Tammy] Look at that shot.

It is absolutely incredible.

The side of the federal building has been blown off. Jesse?

[Jesse] About a third of the building has been blown away.

And you can see this smoke and debris and fire on the ground.

Downtown, on the ground.

Uh, this is just devastating.

And we are uncertain what caused the explosion at this time.

[Carl] We were having breakfast,

and then there was this explosion that rocked us out of our table.

[distant sirens wailing]

I got up and I walked to the door, and it was raining, like, paper.

It was, like, snowing paper. And there was debris everywhere.

[faint car alarm wailing]

[Carl] But it was surreal. Dead quiet.

[footsteps crunch softly]

[Carl] There was a car alarm in the distance.

Other than that, you could hear the birds chirping.

[birds chirping]

When the shockwave propagated down the street,

it sucked all the windows out of the high-rise buildings.

It just crushed all the cars flat.

[eerie music playing]

And I took off running for the federal building.

[dramatic music playing]

[Renee] When the explosion happened, we were in court, and you could feel it.

The ceiling tiles came in.

Windows shattered.

- [man] Let's go. - [woman] Evacuate.

People shouting, "Get out. Evacuate. Get out."

- [sirens wailing] - [people screaming]

[Renee] It was chaotic.

[Renee] I could hear people saying, "What happened?"

That was when I heard the policemen tell someone else in the crowd

the explosion happened at the Murrah building.

And I was like, "No," and I just remember, I started screaming.

- [fire alarm ringing] - [music darkens]

[Carl] When I showed up, the parking lot was completely engulfed in flames.

The building had been cut in half, so you could see into the building.

People had come out, and they were walking like zombies,

and they'd walk as far as they could walk and collapse.

They were in shock.

One young lady made it all the way to the curb,

and she was staring off into space.

So I walked up and said, "Are you okay?"

And she looked at me, and she goes,

"I don't know. I don't know."

She had no idea what had happened to her.

[anchor] Robin, on the scene.

- Robin, are you with us? - [Robin] Yes, I am.

It's unbelievable.

The thing everyone here is saying, "You would never believe

that this would happen in Oklahoma City."

As a reporter, and as a person, as a human, this is my community.

You're torn in many different directions of

how do you do your job,

and how are you hurting for all these people?

You've treated people. What were they telling you, the people who were hurt?

Just shock. They were just totally in shock.

I remember, not too far away was a police officer, literally just

overwhelmed.

[distant sirens wailing]

I think that's maybe the best word for all of us.

Just... overwhelmed.

[dramatic music pulsing]

When you are involved in a major case, you know it's gonna be total chaos.

This is just ridiculous. I mean, this... I can't believe this.

[Bob] First thing I did was get control of the perimeter,

because you're trying to protect a crime scene.

How many times do I have to say it? Back up!

[Renee] The streets were blocked off.

I kept trying to get in. Could not get in because they wouldn't let us through.

I remember screaming at a police officer,

and I said, "I have to get through. I've got to get to my son."

"He's at the daycare."

And at that point, he said,

"All the children are being taken to the hospital."

Quite hectic here. They're trying to keep it together.

We have not had any reports of fatalities at this point.

Definitely, like I said, plenty of injuries.

Obviously, we wanted to get a handle of all this,

but in this case, the savings of lives was paramount over anything else.

[indistinct overlapping voices]

[Carl] It was going so fast.

You'd have five, ten, fifteen seconds to assess somebody.

[man] Okay, whenever you're ready, we're ready to--

[Carl] So I'm looking for signs of life. Any signs of life.

Corneal reflexes, respirations, heart rate, pulse.

Anything that would give me an indication that there's at least one sign of life.

I would say which ones were gonna go first,

and which ones could wait a few minutes.

This is one of the critical!

And then which ones were not gonna go.

That's mass casualty triage right there.

Can you tell me your name?

[Carl] And to compound all of that, you had children.

Can you tell me your name?

[wailing] Our babies...

[screaming sobs]

[Carl] I saw only one of those children come out

with any signs of life.

And right behind her, there was an older lady

they'd brought out on a gurney, and both are agonally breathing.

[siren wailing]

But the child had catastrophic head injuries,

so I tell 'em to wrap her up,

move her over into the temporary morgue we had,

and somebody stay with the child until she stopped breathing.

A lot of people didn't take that well. And they... cussed me.

They said, "You gotta be fucking kidding me."

And I said, "There's nothing to save. I got a woman here."

"I've got two more coming out. We've had way too many."

[solemn music playing]

And when I stood up and turned around, her mother was behind me.

She was lost. And...

[clicks tongue, sniffles]

She didn't go with her child. She just waved.

She just like...

When we took her away, she just waved... and walked off.

[music fades]

[inhales shakily]

- [exhales deeply] - [helicopter blades whirring]

[tense music playing]

[tense music building]

[man] Oklahoma City headquarters was dispatching one unit after another

to the downtown area.

We knew something major was going on.

I got a radio call from my headquarters,

telling me to remain in my area on routine patrol.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[Hanger] I was driving on the interstate, coming up behind an old yellow Mercury.

I see that there was no license plate on the rear bumper of this vehicle...

[police siren wails]

...so I hit the lights and siren and pulled him over.

And then I opened my driver's door and yelled,

"Driver, step out of the vehicle."

He didn't get out immediately.

I yelled again, "Driver, exit your vehicle."

And the driver's door of his vehicle came open.

He was a tall, slender guy.

A military-style haircut.

So I ask him, "Do you have a driver's license?"

And he went to his right rear pocket,

and I saw a bulge under his left arm that looked like a weapon.

I grabbed the outside of the jacket where the bulge is,

and at the same time I'm pulling my weapon out,

and I stick it to the back of his head.

And he said, "Well, my weapon is loaded."

And I nudged him in the back of the head with the barrel of my pistol,

and I said, "So is mine."

I searched him and handcuffed him,

and I take his license, and I call my dispatcher.

I ask her to run a check to see if Tim McVeigh was wanted.

The car was not reported stolen. He's not reported wanted.

And I can't find a criminal record, but he was carrying a loaded weapon,

and that's why he was taken into physical custody.

- [birds chirping] - [intense percussive music]

[woman] I remember that day.

I was... glued to the TV.

And then, Charlie walks in with a guy that's just like anybody else,

on misdemeanor charges.

The standard operating procedure

for someone booked in on traffic and misdemeanors

is that they are released early the next morning.

[Marsha] I did his fingerprints.

He was not sweaty.

His palms didn't perspire.

He was calm, and he was watching TV with us.

Marsha Moritz and I were discussing what we were seeing on the television,

and McVeigh had looked up at the television a couple times,

but he never made any comment about what he was seeing.

Then, after that, I took his picture.

[anchor] Workers are having to crawl through the wreckage to try...

[McVeigh]

[anchor] ...they're talking to victims...

[McVeigh]

[dissonant strings build]

- [music cuts out] - [water dripping]

- [woman moans] - [faint alarm blaring]

[Amy] My body was numb...

[faint coughing]

...and I couldn't move.

I couldn't really feel much of anything.

[debris creaking]

It was hot and dark.

I couldn't see anything.

When I would breathe in, it would burn.

[faint coughing]

I thought maybe I was dead.

But then I heard a siren going off in the distance.

[siren wailing]

I realized I was buried alive.

I was screaming for help, but I didn't hear anything.

It was the most sickening...

terrible feeling.

It was just...

- I was alone. - [dramatic snare]

- [sirens wailing] - [dramatic percussive music]

[Bob] At this point, communications are shot.

Phone systems themselves were non-operable.

So we set up a command post,

and I'm literally having to use runners to send messages

to the various law enforcement agencies that are there.

And we have to determine the source of the explosion quickly.

[anchor] The cause of the explosion, we've heard several reports.

We've heard it might be a gas main explosion.

We're not sure what happened.

The fire department is looking into a gas main explosion.

If it wasn't a gas leak or something in that order,

if it was a bombing, it implies a level of sophistication.

[Bob] In conferring with my bomb technicians,

we had a large crater right at the front of the building,

which would indicate

that that was the source of the bomb itself.

[helicopter blades whirring]

And the direction of the blast going toward the building.

All of that information together, it was our belief

that this in fact was a bomb.

We'd never had a bomb like this go off in the United States.

Now I'm faced with a situation that is probably going to turn out to be

the largest investigation in the history of the FBI.

Just move out!

[Jennings] It is now clear to the investigators

that the enormous explosion of the federal building...

[Frio] Still no firm numbers on the hurt and missing,

and still no suspects or claims of responsibility...

[reporter 1] ...responsible for the bomb attack in Oklahoma.

As Bill Neely reported...

[reporter 2] There are no reports...

- [reporter 3] ...Los Angeles... - [reporter 4] ...Iran suggested suspects...

[reporter 3] ...criminal courts building, a building that is always...

[indistinct chatter]

The Oklahoma City bombing was the biggest story in the world

from the moment it happened.

It was a news story unlike anything that any of us had ever covered,

because it was so big.

And even before the FBI said this was a terrorist attack,

people started looking at this and trying to figure out

who in the hell could possibly have done this thing.

There were so many different, crazy tips that were coming in very early on.

[phone dials]

[woman]

[man 1]

[man 2]

[woman]

[man 1 speaking]

[man 2]

[woman]

[man 1]

- [woman] - [beep]

There was an FBI bulletin

saying they were looking for a brown SUV with two Middle Easterners in it.

[anchor] Two suspects described as Middle Eastern men,

20 to 25 and 35 to 38 years old, both with beards.

All of a sudden, we were all looking to see,

was there a Middle Eastern connection?

According to a US government source,

told CBS News that it has Middle East terrorism written all over it.

Unofficially, the FBI is treating this as a Middle-Eastern-related incident.

[woman 1] A Muslim woman and a child.

She ran by very fast, at a very high, fast pace, with her daughter.

And they were all dressed up, and I thought that was odd.

A lot of Middle Easterners were in and out of there.

[reporter] What were they like?

They look... I'm sorry, but they all look alike to me.

Can somebody find out, is this the second anniversary of Waco?

- [woman 2] Same day. - Is it the same day it blew up?

- [woman 2] That's why it's the 19th. - [woman 3] Same day Waco happened.

- Jesus. - [woman 3] In '93.

One of our reporters came out, and he pointed out it was April 19th,

and brought up the fact that this could be domestic terrorism.

I don't know that it is too soon now to rule out

this attack as being some sort of payback

for what happened in Waco on this day two years ago.

[intense percussive music]

[Lee] In 1993, there was a raid on the Branch Davidians

that were led by a guy named David Koresh

who was amassing a very large arsenal of illegal weapons in Waco.

[dispatcher] 911, what's your emergency?

[man] 75 men around our building, they're shooting at us.

Tell them there are children and women in here and to call it off!

[Lee] It ended up in a shoot-out and a 51-day siege where the FBI came in.

Bob Ricks was one of the main agents

that was leading what happened during the Branch Davidian siege in Waco.

We try to focus on, are you coming out?

It's always, "I'm waiting for a message from God."

We knew from the beginning

Waco was going to be extremely difficult to resolve.

[tense music playing]

[Lee] On April 19th, they tried to force the Davidians out with tear gas,

and a fire erupted, killing 76 people, including 22 kids.

- [loud boom] - [blaze crackling]

[Lee] Waco was really the lowest point in the modern history of the FBI,

and it became a magnet for all sorts of people

who were worried about what the government was going to do with their guns.

That's a stinking concern about them women and kids.

Why did they go there to start with?

Over a stinkin' gun, that he has a right to have.

All over the country, they were having protest rallies.

Like the Committee of 1776, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

If you pass illegal and unjust gun laws

that ban our right to keep and bear arms, God help you!

- And you had people forming militias. - [shotgun fires]

[man] ATF are the criminals, not me. I'm a law-abiding citizen.

I didn't murder 80-some people at Waco.

[Bob] There were extreme right-wing groups talking about reprisal,

that people have to fight back against what the federal government has done.

Before the bombing in Oklahoma City,

I'd had a situation with the attorney general

when she visited out here.

I said, "You may not understand it, but Waco is still a big deal out here."

And her response was, "I don't think people care about Waco anymore."

[unnerving music]

In fact, we'd been commanded

to stand down and not talk about Waco anymore.

[Lee] Seeing those images the day of the bombing,

immediately it hit me, this has got to be about Waco.

And it was just so jarring,

I had to stop the car, and I threw up in a ditch.

My assistant says, "Bob, today is April 19th."

And, uh, that gave me... kind of a rush of emotion came over me,

and at that initial time,

I believe more than likely that this was related to Waco.

There are many people in this country, numbering in the thousands,

who consider the terrorist...

I say the terrorist attack, they regard it as such.

...the standoff in Waco and the fire that resulted from it

as their shot heard around the world.

They consider themselves to be at war with the government,

and they believe that was the first shot.

There was a very real fear

that this was the opening salvo of something much bigger.

- [jarring music playing] - [helicopter blades whirring]

[man] That morning, I turned on the television,

and I saw the plume of smoke.

I was an FBI agent assigned to the Oklahoma City Division.

The A.P. Murrah Federal Building housed a number of different agencies.

I knew everybody there.

When I saw the building, I hustled out in my car,

popped the red light up, turned on the siren,

and raced downtown to Oklahoma City.

And I was flying.

There's red lights going everywhere, black smoke coming from cars,

and then I come around a corner, and I see the federal building.

- [sirens wailing] - [eerie music playing]

I could see it,

but my brain wasn't really accepting what I was seeing.

[helicopter blades whirring]

And I went inside to find anybody that had survived the bombing

that was still in the building.

But it's not uncommon

that a person who will set off an explosive device

will have a secondary device planted,

and that secondary device is an attack on the responders.

So there were people already looking for any kind of a secondary device.

[fire alarm ringing]

[McPherson] We're looking for evidence.

We're looking for explosives that got kicked out,

anything that's going to hurt people.

The building was nine floors tall,

where every floor was concrete about yea thick,

and it had rebar in the middle of it.

[tense percussive music]

And the floors pancaked when they came down.

The top floors hit the next floor and the next floor, until they got down

to where they couldn't go nowhere else, and that's what you've got to go through.

[alarm bell ringing]

The first thing we did was looking for wounded,

and there was doctors came down,

and they did amputations right there, in the building.

When a surgeon crawled into the hole to do the amputation,

he handed his wallet back and said, "If this collapses, give that to my wife."

[tense music continues]

Inside the building, it was very difficult to maneuver.

Nobody knew if the building was gonna remain standing.

- [siren wails] - [metal clangs]

[Mike] There was a nurse ran in to see if she could help,

and a piece of concrete fell and hit her in the head,

and it ended up killing her.

[alarm bells ringing]

[indistinct yelling]

[man] There's bodies here. We have a man here...

[Amy] I heard men's voices.

I started screaming, and he starts yelling,

"Got a live one. We need backup."

And he said, "We can't see you."

"We have to follow the sound of your voice. Keep talking to us."

- [drilling] - [overlapping voices]

[man] We have another one!

That's good.

Check the line to it.

[drilling continues]

[faint male voice]

[indistinct muffled voices]

I could hear they were getting closer, and my right hand was sticking out

of the side of the rubble pile.

And I had a sensation that someone had brushed my hand.

And I said, "I think you just touched my hand."

He said, "What color shirt do you have on?"

I said, "I don't know." And he said, "Think! What color shirt?"

I said, "Green."

And then as soon as I said green, I felt a hand grab my hand.

I thought, "You know, this is it. They're, one, two, three."

They're getting ready to pull me up and out.

- [intense music] - [indistinct chatter on radio]

I'm walking around the building, and then I looked up

to the top of the debris pile,

and that's when I saw the LAWS rocket box.

[intense music continues]

The LAWS rocket is a shoulder-fired rocket.

It shoots a big projectile.

When it hits, it blows up.

They take out tanks with them.

[Bob] And all of a sudden, I get notice

that another bomb's been found inside the Murrah building.

This building was right in it,

and my mom's in there.

[man 1] There's a bomb!

[man 2] Bomb! Let's go.

Everybody move back, there's a bomb!

[woman 1] There's another bomb! Oh my God!

- [indistinct chatter on radio] - [woman 2] Stop.

[man on radio]

I heard a lot of commotion.

The rubble started kind of shaking,

and I could hear what sounded like people running on top of me.

- [man 1] What's going on? - [man 2] Another bomb.

They're ordering everybody out, including the command.

Everybody is just pouring out of the building on a dead run.

- [indistinct voices] - [faint sirens wailing]

I refused to leave.

I had a patrol point his gun at my leg, "I'm gonna shoot you if you don't leave."

"But I got these patients."

And he was like, "I will effing shoot you in the leg if you don't leave."

So I left.

[anchor] Much concern down there about a secondary explosion.

They are evacuating downtown Oklahoma City.

Medical professionals running from the scene also.

[Amy] The men just started saying, "There's another bomb."

I realized what was happening.

And I just started telling them my name, and to tell my family I love them.

[water dripping softly]

They were leaving me buried alive.

[somber music]

And I'd start thinking about my life, and...

Relationships, and

doing something with your life to help others, and...

I had never been a mom.

And all of a sudden,

it was just so clear.

I didn't live a life true to myself.

Now that I'm getting ready to die, I'm thinking about it and realizing

I don't want to live it this way.

I want to live it differently. But it's too late now.

[somber music builds]

[man] People, you need to go further back. Get further back. Go further back.

- [woman] Move it, idiot! - I need you to go further back.

[intense percussive music]

So we walked up the ladders, me and this trooper.

Now I've got to get it down from the 8th floor of debris

back down this ladder quick because I don't want it going off.

I go over there, and on the business end of this LAWS rocket,

it indicated that it was live.

So then we tied rope around it.

We're carrying this box down.

[intense music continues]

[Mike] We did that.

Put it in the truck.

They took it to the county's bomb range, and they set it on fire.

[Bob] It was not a real device.

It was a fake that was gonna be used in a customs sting operation.

And that was extremely frustrating

because it caused interference in the rescue effort.

And so then I was able to let people go back in.

We also want to pass this along. ATF agents have confirmed

that explosive device they found and had people scattering for

was a training device found in the ATF office,

which is one of their field offices here in Oklahoma City in that building.

[reporter] There are still people inside.

They're not sure at this point whether some of them may be alive or not.

[Walt] I'm running down the street, and I get down in this fire truck.

I see Special Agent Matt Lotspeich, and he clearly was upset.

I say, "Matt, what's going on?"

He said, "I left somebody alive in the building."

We just sort of turned, looked to the building,

and then we both started back.

[intense music playing]

[man] Where is she?

[Walt] The dust was just thick,

and you could feel the building still moving.

And I'm thinking,

"I wish I could tell my kids one more time that I love them."

[music becomes poignant]

Because at that point...

[music darkens]

...I wasn't sure that we were going to come out of there.

[music intensifies]

[saw whirring]

And then we got down to where Amy was buried in this rubble.

There was a slab of concrete that was laying like this,

and this was Amy right down here,

buried in tons of rubble.

So I hear the men's voices, and one of them grabs my hand.

I got her.

[Walt] She was able to grab somebody's hand,

and he was trying to work,

so he put her hand on Matt's boot, and she was hanging on to Matt's boot.

This time, I'm not letting go.

[intense percussive music]

[Walt] Matt and the firemen started handing me debris

to hand up to the police officers that were with us.

Then we started seeing her.

It's just like, "How in the world could she even be alive?"

I was stuck, and as they worked to uncover me,

they told me I was actually still in my chair,

upside down, buried under about ten feet of rubble.

[indistinct voice on radio]

Then all of a sudden, they said,

"We'll count to three. This is probably gonna hurt."

[distant drilling]

And they counted to three and they pulled, and I came out from under the rubble.

[music becomes somber]

Yeah, everything hurt.

Every nerve came alive, but...

that didn't matter.

They took me out of the back of the federal building.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I didn't know what my injuries were.

I didn't know about my friends, but I'll never forget...

looking up at the sky and taking those breaths of fresh air,

and promising God I would never live my life the same.

[dramatic tone]

[anchor] There's still a lot of fear in downtown Oklahoma City,

as the authorities try and figure out who did it

and what could be left of what they did.

[tense music playing]

Oftentimes, bombing cases are extremely difficult

because the evidence is destroyed.

[faint siren wailing]

We have to do a search over roughly a ten-square-block area,

and gathering every piece of evidence that we can.

I was asked who I would like to give assistance,

and I thought Danny Coulson could be extremely helpful.

He was head of the hostage rescue team.

When I drove in, I went directly to the command center to meet with Ricks.

And he said, "Why don't you run the evidence recovery,

and I'll run the investigation?"

We sent in the evidence response team, and started to search the site.

[Bob] We had in the hundreds of people working the scene,

so we systematically could carry out the investigation.

Law enforcement agencies believe that it was a bomb, possibly a car bomb.

That hasn't been proven.

Forensics haven't made a determination yet.

[Danny] We sifted through a lot of things.

The key to it, though, was the differential to the truck.

[Bob] The first key piece of evidence

was found a block away from the federal building,

in front of an apartment complex called the Regency Towers.

A gentleman was outside.

He heard this swirling noise, almost like a helicopter,

and all of a sudden, this rear axle flies into a car.

The FBI came to me because I'd worked auto theft 16 years.

And when I saw that axle housing so far from the borough building,

I knew it had to have come from the truck that blew up the building.

[Bob] The explosion was of such intensity

that it caused the rear axle from the truck

that was used to deliver the bomb to blow out.

[Mike] All I could see was the very last number,

and I took a chem tool and a wire brush, cleaned it down to the bare metal,

and then got the number off the rear end.

And that was a huge break.

[Mike] And I called the National Auto Theft Bureau,

and I told the lady, "I need you to build this confidential number to a full VIN."

She said, "This is an active rental truck."

[Bob] That truck had been rented two days before

at Elliott's Body Shop, in Junction City, Kansas.

- [dramatic sting] - [atmospheric music]

[Scott] The day of the bombing, I was in a one-person office in Salina, Kansas.

I thought my involvement was going to be watching it on TV,

and be frustrated that I couldn't do something about it.

But in the afternoon, about three o'clock, I got a call.

They tell me the truck was rented out in Junction City, Kansas.

Get over there as fast as you can, grab the documents,

and get them back to the lab.

And when I was reviewing the rental documents

from Elliott's Body Shop,

I saw that the name that was used by the renter

was Robert Kling.

We started interviewing people

from Elliott's Body Shop.

I realized we have an opportunity to get some sketches,

and the bureau called me and said

that they've got a sketch artist on a plane,

and that they should be there by morning.

[man clears throat]

President Clinton has declared this a federal emergency.

There was a big debate

over whether to release the Ryder truck information.

Ultimately, we decided that would create thousands of leads,

so we withheld that information.

We have at this time no assumptions

with regard to who caused this particular bombing.

And we have had hundreds, if not thousands, of leads

from individuals calling in to reputed eyewitnesses.

Each one of those is treated very seriously.

But at this point, we cannot speculate with regard to who is responsible.

My intent was to give assurance

to the American public that this was gonna be solved.

[somber music playing]

[Renee] I ended up going to the church.

It was set up as the emergency site for everybody to go wait.

All the families were there.

Everybody that had somebody in the building.

[somber music continues]

I remember Tony coming in.

And...

all I could... all I remember is his face.

And we couldn't even talk.

We just held each other.

[somber music continues]

[Robin] By the time nightfall came,

my job was to talk to all these parents who were there,

who didn't know the fate of their loved one.

Now we need to check in with Robin Marsh.

She's with some family members

who are one of, some of many, who are waiting for news. Robin?

Yes. With us right now are the Cooper family.

We've got a picture of little Antonio.

He is six months old.

This is the baby we're all praying for right now.

What we've heard is that, possibly, a child,

a John Doe that has not been named, could be the Cooper baby.

Mrs. Cooper, you work downtown. Tell me about your morning.

Is that a routine to take baby Antonio to the daycare center?

Yes, every day I drop him off, and...

I go see him every day at lunch, and today I didn't get to go.

[somber music continues]

And I remember that first night, it got really cold.

The temperatures dropped down. [sniffles]

It started raining, and I'm just like, "Lord, please don't let my baby

be in that building, cold and hungry, and...

and hurt."

It was the worst night ever.

[wind billowing]

The last thing anyone needed down here, we're now getting, and that is rain.

But you can see back behind me sort of an eerie sight.

Rescue efforts continue this evening,

and while they are holding out hope that they will find survivors,

one lady who had spent all day helping pull victims out of the rubble

said she fears that the death toll will be in the hundreds.

[somber music continues]

[music fades]

[soft poignant music playing]

There's a story with a happy ending this morning in Oklahoma City.

The story of Amy Petty, trapped for five hours

in the rubble of the Murrah building before finally being rescued.

This morning, she's at Presbyterian Hospital

in Oklahoma City.

How are you feeling?

Sore, but very fortunate to be alive.

[anchor] What are doctors telling you about your condition?

Um, I'm just gonna be sore, and I have a large cut on my leg.

But I'll be fine.

The phone was ringing nonstop,

with family members of my coworkers

calling to ask if I had seen...

[inaudible]

...that person at work that day. Did I see what they had on?

And I don't remember.

I hope that they find them.

I hope they find them, and they're alive.

- [music brightens] - [grinding]

[Jenifer] April 19th was a terrible day,

and April 20th was the moment where people...

came together.

People were bringing food. People were bringing all kinds of things.

[anchor] You can see it by the sign. People are lining up to help.

[woman] Even though we have our differences,

at least we can come together as one to help someone.

[Jenifer] You began to see that for this one act

of madness and terror,

there were hundreds and eventually thousands

of acts of kindness.

Of people reaching out and trying to make it better.

[Danny] They set up a shopping center inside our perimeter.

If you didn't have boots, they'd give you boots.

If you wanted something to eat, they had it. Would not take a nickel.

The people of Oklahoma were unbelievable.

I think it's what kept everybody going.

[intense pulsating music playing]

[Scott] The sketch artist arrived

and started working with the three witnesses

from Elliott's Body Shop.

[intense music continues]

He was surprised because the first witness was describing

a white male that looks like he'd been in the military.

Not a Middle Eastern male.

And it's seven o'clock.

We had two sketches.

John Doe one, and the other, John Doe two.

[music darkens]

And then I got teams of agents to go out and do a canvas of the Junction City area,

to see if there was any sightings of these two people.

[man] Did you notice a Ryder truck, or a large...

[Bob] We set up roadblocks.

We interviewed everybody that might have seen the Ryder truck

or seen anybody suspicious operating in that area.

[intense music continues]

[Marsha] That morning, I called the court clerk's office.

I was trying to get Timothy McVeigh in court that day.

And they said, "We can't get him in today. We're busy." So I said, "Okay."

We kept Timothy McVeigh in another day.

How are you doing? We're conducting an investigation

on the Oklahoma City bombing.

Agents took copies of the sketch and went to restaurants,

auto parts stores, or hotels.

[Lee] FBI agents literally went door to door,

asking, "Have you seen this? Do you know these guys?"

[Scott] They covered a lot of businesses in four hours.

And then we got very lucky

when one team went into the Dreamland Hotel,

and spoke to the owner, Lea McGowan.

When he asked her, "Have you had anybody in here recently with a Ryder truck?"

She says, "As a matter of fact, I did."

We show her the artist's conception from Elliott's Body Shop,

and she says, "Yeah, that looks a lot like the person

who was here that had the Ryder truck."

It was the overall picture of Mr. McVeigh.

And they looked at me, and, "McVeigh?" like I'm lying.

I'm not lying. He wrote down Mr. McVeigh.

This is the first time we heard the name Tim McVeigh.

I asked, "Has anybody done an NCIC offline search?"

NCIC is the database for every arrest made in the country.

[intense music continues]

[Walt] In 1995, there were actual computer tapes that would tell you

if a person had been pulled over.

It'll tell you where they got pulled over, when they got pulled over.

But if you want something off that offline data,

you have to ask the computer to find this name.

Then you load a tape, it searches it.

Unload it, load another one, it searches it.

Like it was in slow motion.

[whirring]

[Bob] At the same time, we check phone records.

Any calls that have been made from room 25 at the Dreamland Motel, rented by McVeigh.

On Saturday night, he made a call to a local restaurant,

where an order had been placed by a Robert Kling.

We know that Robert Kling is the name that was used to rent the Ryder truck.

So now we know that either Timothy McVeigh is Robert Kling

or is associated with a Robert Kling.

We have zeroed in on at least one of the conspirators of this bombing.

[music stops]

[indistinct voices]

Investigators have identified a vehicle

that was used in connection with yesterday's attack

on the federal building here in Oklahoma City.

Further investigation has determined

that two white males were associated with this vehicle.

[journalists chattering]

Composite sketches of these two men have been prepared.

Anyone with information about these two men

should provide it immediately to the nearest FBI office.

[Jenifer] It blew my mind when we saw the sketches.

Looks like a couple of Bubbas!

It looks like some guys wanted for a beer truck robbery.

This does not look like the guys

you think have masterminded this incredible explosion.

And I think we wanted to think someone else did it to us.

And again, Mitch and Jenifer, what a change this is,

from when all of the spin,

and the sense of the thing seemed to be Islamic fundamentalists,

and now, suddenly, the focus of attention is back on Waco.

[Jenifer] The focus is back on domestic terrorism

as opposed to international terrorism.

And you realize... [huffs]

Wow. But that's us.

[anchor] Sadness is still great,

and it is growing by the hour here in Oklahoma City.

The anger is too. We hear it from people who are calling our station.

Let's look at the suspect information we have,

put out by the FBI yesterday afternoon.

[anchor 2] Firstly, the media unveiled a white male, about 5'10".

[McVeigh]

[metal clangs]

[whirring]

[intense music plays]

[Walt] Get up the next morning, come to the command post.

Everybody's excited, and I'm like, "What's going on?"

[Bob] Walt Lamar comes into my office

and says, "Boss, you're not gonna believe it."

"Timothy McVeigh was arrested in Perry, Oklahoma,

about an hour after the bombing."

[intense music continues]

[Charlie] Mid-morning, I receive a telephone call from the FBI,

and they want to know if Tim McVeigh is still in jail.

And so I said,

"McVeigh has already been taken to the courtroom,

and is standing before the judge as we speak."

He was 35, 45 minutes away from walking out the door.

[Bob] He is the linchpin

that is gonna hold this whole investigation together.

I direct Danny to go up to Perry

and to prepare for transportation of McVeigh back to Oklahoma City.

He said, "Danny, go get him."

[music continues]

[indistinct overlapping voices]

[Robin] We start hearing that there's an arrest,

and that someone is in Perry, Oklahoma, at the Noble County Courthouse.

[engine starts, revs]

So I get in the car with the photographer and we go to Perry.

- [engine revving] - [tires screeching]

We have a special report from CBS, a possibility of one arrest.

Let's see if we can go to that right now.

We're told that a suspect, a person is under arrest in Perry, Oklahoma,

that meets the description of one of the suspects,

a composite picture of which was released yesterday.

And then, simultaneous to Perry,

we found out about a raid in Decker, Michigan.

Because on his jail booking card,

McVeigh used a Decker address as his home address.

[Bob] And at the Dreamland Motel,

Timothy McVeigh used the same address in Michigan.

So someone in that house is directly connected to the bomb itself.

[Lee] That very quickly got out to national media.

[anchor] The authorities have located a possible suspect in a house

in a rural area

and is surrounded by federal authorities, local authorities, state authorities.

[Lee] We've got televisions all over the newsroom, and you look up,

and there are live shots of a farmhouse in Decker, Michigan,

where a raid is going down.

[Bob] We learn that that farmhouse is owned by a James Nichols,

and he has a brother named Terry Nichols, that also lives there.

[anchor 1] This house or the outbuilding behind it

may have either a Jerry Lynn Nichols, a James Douglas Nichols, some brothers,

one, both of them, or some family members of them.

And they are two possible suspects in this Oklahoma City bombing.

That's the connection here, you see, to Decker, Michigan.

And we've learned, too, the name of the man

arrested in Perry, Oklahoma. A Timothy McVeigh.

That is the person that was arrested today in Perry, Oklahoma.

We surround the house, and it gets all on national TV,

so it was extremely dangerous.

[anchor 2] They're going into the house. Walking into the house.

You can probably see it even better than I can.

Looks like they're going into the house.

The FBI went into the house in Decker, and they didn't find anybody.

[dark suspenseful music]

[music fades]

[anchor 2] Right now we want to go live to Perry, Oklahoma, with Robin Marsh.

Robin.

[Robin] In the meantime, while we're there broadcasting live,

more people come, and I then look around me,

and there's thousands of people there.

And there are media from all across the world

in this small Oklahoma town.

And you're watching some plainclothes officials coming in

to the Noble County Jail.

They were just driven up by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

McVeigh was very close to getting out.

He was gonna get out of there.

But we were lucky to get there before he was released.

If we had not found Timothy McVeigh when we did,

it would've been an excruciating period of time

for everybody involved.

[intense music playing]

[Danny] I remember walking up the stairs,

and there was a gentleman there, with a cowboy hat.

He walked up and said, "You boys from the FBI?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

He said, "If you have trouble with the evidence,

put that boy out the back gate, we'll have him."

Tensions were high. This crowd wanted to see him.

They should let him loose out front, let everybody have at him.

[man] If they're guilty, kill the son of a bitches.

- [woman] Go tell the camera. - Kill him.

- Kill him. - [boy] I think they should kill him too.

[Robin] I look up, there's a SWAT team on the top of the Noble County Courthouse.

I just kept thinking, "They got to get this guy out."

I was really concerned about a bad guy trying to take him or kill him.

I mean, if he's part of an organization,

if I was running it, the first thing I'd kill would be him.

I don't want him spilling the beans.

[crowd chatters indistinctly]

We just waited and waited. The anticipation was getting very high.

[music intensifies]

The first time I saw McVeigh, he looked like the composite.

[McVeigh]

It's my duty to protect McVeigh.

I don't want to protect him, but it's my job.

[McVeigh]

[music fades]

- [chatter] - [distant barking]

Thank you.

[crowd members wailing]

[crowd booing, yelling]

[McVeigh]

[Robin] Mr. McVeigh just sped away,

here from the Noble County Courthouse, in small Perry, Oklahoma.

He was brought here on a traffic charge and a weapons charge,

but the DA and the judge here did not realize who this man was.

Due to other matters the judge and I had, we had to wait until this morning.

We've said all day long, in most cases, this guy would've bonded out yesterday.

- [man] How do you feel about that now? - Uh, God was watching us.

- [dramatic tone] - [intense music plays]

At the same time, the FBI did start collecting evidence.

It was at the home of James Nichols and his brother, Terry.

The Nichols brothers are very anti-government.

They don't believe in our government system, our banks.

They're full of this government hatred.

[Bob] We learn a lot about Terry Nichols,

who is one of Timothy McVeigh's closest associates.

[Lee] The FBI found out really quickly

that this guy named Tim McVeigh had lived up there for a time,

and had been an army buddy with Terry Nichols.

- [dramatic sting] - [music continues]

[Scott] And we found a company photo

that had both Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh in that photograph.

At that point, I set every bit of my attention

on trying to figure out where Terry Nichols might be.

We learned about a former wife of Terry Nichols named Lana Padilla.

Lana Padilla told us that Terry was living in Herington, Kansas, now.

Herington's only a short drive down the road

from where the Ryder truck was rented in Junction City, Kansas,

so we're really interested in Terry Nichols now.

So we set up on Terry Nichols' house

with the instructions of,

"Try not to get noticed, but don't let him get away."

[Scott] The agents sat there a while,

until they saw Terry Nichols and his wife and child come out,

and get in the truck and start to drive off.

As the agents follow,

Terry Nichols turned around and passed the street that he lived on,

and headed down toward the Herington Department of Public Safety.

[Bob] It looks like he makes the surveillance,

and he goes into the local police department

and turns himself in.

He has been tentatively identified as Terry Nichols of Michigan.

He surrendered to local police, we are told, in Herington, Kansas.

[sirens wailing]

[Danny] McVeigh was with me in the backseat.

He starts to get up and I sat him down,

and I said, "You will behave on this trip, or I'll hurt you."

"Be a gentleman, and we'll be a gentleman." He said, "Yes, sir."

So I handcuffed him to the floor in the center of the helicopter

because I didn't want him bailing out and killing himself.

We want this guy alive. We don't want him dead.

But we don't know exactly what we have here.

This is one guy. This is a guy.

Is he part of a bigger conspiracy, and there's people trying to kill him?

We didn't know. So I got on the intercom with the pilot.

[rotor blades chopping]

I said, "Put this thing on the deck. I don't want a LAW rocket up my ass."

And he went...

We literally jumped over fences. We were that low on the deck.

And McVeigh never blinked.

He sat just like...

Didn't look left. Didn't look right.

Stone cold.

[intense pulsating music playing]

Bob Ricks arranged for us to take him to Tinker Air Force Base.

Plus, he sent an FBI SWAT team for security.

[music fades]

Tonight, the arrest of one American, another American being questioned.

[Danny] In the police department there in Herington,

they interview Terry Nichols for ten hours.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Scott] We start talking to him.

He did not seem flustered. He did not seem nervous.

He was cold and calm.

[music builds]

We kept going back over them going to gun shows,

and them talking about building bombs.

It was the longest interview I'd ever done.

We were able to hit him with some pretty hard stuff.

I said, "Do you think there's any chance that McVeigh could've done this?"

And his response was,

"He could've done it without me knowing about it."

But then, Terry made the statement,

"I know as much as Tim McVeigh does about how to make bombs."

We never did get him to say "I did it" or "We did it,"

but when I heard those two things, as far as I'm concerned,

that's what I needed.

[suspenseful music intensifies]

Now there is no doubt

that if we put this guy before a jury, they would find him guilty.

[crowd yelling indistinctly]

[music fades out]

First, we'll take a look at the news headlines this morning.

Federal agents are moving forward in their investigation of the bombing.

Some would say with amazing speed.

One man has now been charged, others are being questioned.

There is a hint of more arrests to come.

[moody tense music plays]

While Terry has turned himself in, the FBI agents are searching his home.

The question became, is he the only one?

Is he a part of a group? And is this going to happen again?

[tense music continues]

They didn't know if there might be tripwires

or anything that might set off an explosion.

[indistinct male voice on radio]

[indistinct radio message continues]

So the search warrant teams were using an abundance of caution

before they finally started executing the search.

- [man on radio] Come over here. - [crackling]

[indistinct chatter on radio]

We find a trove of evidence inside that house.

We found five rolls of primer det, blasting caps.

We found a calling card,

and a receipt for 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate.

After the bombing, Nichols was trying to get rid of this stuff.

And he was throwing so much ammonium nitrate fertilizer in his yard,

the neighbors said it looked like it was snowing.

[Jon] Now we're starting to put together a good case against Terry Nichols

as well as Tim McVeigh.

But we knew, in a case like this, we needed an insider.

[music becomes ominous]

[music fading]

I call the division in Buffalo, that's where McVeigh was from,

and I had them get his father.

And I'm feeling a lot of sympathy for him.

I mean, if this had been my son,

I couldn't have stood that. That would've been horrible.

So I ask him, I said, "Who would your son do this with?"

[dark music playing]

He said, "Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier."

Bingo.

[dramatic tone]

[Bob] Michael Fortier, Terry Nichols,

and Tim McVeigh served in the military at the same time,

and they were like three peas in a pod.

They were very close to each other, shared anti-government beliefs.

And he's now living in Arizona.

[Danny] Bob Ricks, he said, "We need to approach Michael Fortier."

"I want you to do it."

- [intense music pulsating] - [airplane engine roars]

We arranged with the sheriff to have him brought in to talk to me.

And he looked like a rat.

We said, "We want to talk to you about the bombing in Oklahoma."

And he got indignant.

I do not believe that Tim blew up any building in Oklahoma.

[anchor] McVeigh lived in Kingman off and on the past year.

Fortier helped him find a job.

I don't want to talk.

[anchor 2] Kingman resident Mike Fortier, army buddy of McVeigh,

some sources say, potentially a major witness in the case,

his trailer raided by the FBI.

His life in recent weeks turned upside down

by federal agents and the media.

The problem was that we didn't have enough information

to charge Michael Fortier.

[music becomes sinister]

The most important thing that we found at Terry Nichols' house

that really tied Michael Fortier to the bombing was the calling card.

You have to go back in time because we all didn't have cell phones,

but you could get a calling card that was prepaid,

and every so often, you'd have to replenish those funds.

They got that calling card

'cause they thought that'd hide their identity.

We used that calling card as a roadmap.

[Lee] This calling card was the key piece

that allowed the FBI to map the entire spider web.

But it led them to places that they wouldn't have known about otherwise.

[dialing on phone]

[Bob] And now we can go back to trace where they were

whenever they'd travel around the country,

when they were purchasing components for the bombing.

- [dramatic rumbling sting] - [music continues]

The other thing this calling card told us

was that instead of this big, broad conspiracy

that we suspected initially,

it was limited to just a small group of people.

But we needed to gather evidence that's sufficient for a prosecution.

[Jon] You have an insider telling what happened. It goes a long ways,

especially if you corroborate everything they're telling you.

We had a lot of arguments about that, but we all came to the conclusion.

Sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil.

I remember he said, "You don't understand. We're at war."

I said, "No, we're not. I'd have killed you already."

He said, "It's about the Constitution." I said, "It is."

"We're gonna arrest you under the Constitution."

"I'm gonna convict you under the Constitution."

"And one day,

we're gonna strap you to a gurney, stick a needle in your arm,

and we're going to execute you under the Constitution."

And while we all can't stomach the deal with Michael Fortier,

we knew it needed to be made.

He gave us a lot of information.

That may've been the biggest break in the whole case.

He talked about meeting with McVeigh in his kitchen,

and how McVeigh talked about how he was going to construct the bomb.

And he used soup cans

to show how McVeigh was gonna try to make a shaped charge.

After Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh had acquired the bomb components,

they showed Michael Fortier the bomb components.

[music continues]

[Bob] Tim McVeigh convinces him to take a trip to Oklahoma City,

and he shows him where the bombing is going to take place.

After that occurred, I think Michael Fortier realized, this is real.

[Jon] He absolutely knew what Tim McVeigh was going to do.

He could've stopped all of this with an anonymous phone call.

[anchor] Charged with having prior knowledge of the bombing,

he will testify against McVeigh and Nichols

in hopes of getting a lighter sentence.

- [dramatic tone] - [somber music plays]

[Jon] It was tough for all of us, and we realized that there's a possibility

of three infants still being in that building.

We're zeroing in on now an area possibly where those infants will be found.

[somber music continues]

[Renee] I remember the day they announced

that they were able to get to the area where the babies' bodies were.

We were so overjoyed that they were just able to find him.

Not that he was alive, but they found him.

That was what it turned into,

you know, just, "Please just let him all be there."

[inhales sharply]

After that, at night,

I would drive down to the prison where he was.

Just sit out there.

Just sit out there in the dark,

wondering how I could get in so I could hurt him.

[somber music continues]

The arrest of Tim McVeigh was the result of an extraordinary combination

of skill, luck, and timing on the part of the very government

he allegedly detests for incompetence.

There are so many questions.

One of the most puzzling, if he is guilty as charged,

what led him to do this?

Everybody wanted to find out who he was, and why he did what he did.

And there was a reporter from Buffalo named Lou Michel who got the scoop

that everybody in the world was after as they were covering the bombing.

- [buzzer] - [metal clanging]

[man] While he was in prison,

Dan Herbeck and I recorded about 60 hours of conversations with him.

And for the most part,

the depth of these conversations has never been heard by anyone before.

There was word that he was an army veteran from the first Gulf War,

that he liked guns, but he was really a mystery to everybody.

- [ominous music playing] - So we started with his childhood.

[McVeigh]

The bully theme runs so deep in his DNA

because he was this skinny little kid who got picked on.

[McVeigh]

We can't find that he ever had a meaningful relationship with a woman.

He almost fit the description of a school shooter.

[Lou] He had comic book collections,

and he wound up selling that comic book collection

so that he could buy guns, because guns made him feel secure.

[Lee] From a really young age, he was fascinated with guns.

There's a photograph of McVeigh hanging from a tree

with a shoulder holster with a pistol in it.

That fits into this macho type of military guy that he's trying to be.

[George Bush Sr.] As commander in chief,

I can report to you, aggression is defeated.

- The war is over. - [applause]

He came home from the first Gulf War.

He had a Bronze Star.

He'd killed a couple of Iraqis.

But even in the army, he was an outsider.

[McVeigh]

After the first Gulf War, he was a lost soul.

Wandering around the country,

bouncing from Decker, Michigan, with the Nichols brothers,

over to Kingman, Arizona, to Michael Fortier.

[McVeigh]

As McVeigh was roaming the country, going from gun show to gun show,

he was listening constantly to these right-wing radio hosts,

that were peddling conspiracy theories and spewing this anti-government rhetoric.

[Lou] "We hate the government. They're gonna take our guns away."

And McVeigh was in that fringe.

Dead. Right in the heart.

They're taking away our rights.

[man] What rights?

Our rights for guns.

[Lee] His anger toward the government was just building and building.

So he turned to the book that he idolized, The Turner Diaries.

[mysterious music playing]

[Lee] The Turner Diaries is a book

that was written by a man named William Pierce,

who was a longtime neo-Nazi.

It told the story of a white supremacist revolutionary

that led an insurrection against the federal government.

And it's regarded as a bible for right-wing extremists.

[McVeigh]

Probably the most important idea expressed in The Turner Diaries

is that each person has to stop being a spectator and start being a participant.

[Lee] In The Turner Diaries,

you have an illustration of the main character

blowing up the FBI headquarters with a truck bomb.

The truck is loaded with the same kind of ammonium nitrate explosives

that McVeigh used in his bombing.

Then, Waco happens in '93.

Just arrived today.

Somebody told me a lot of people would be scared

to put something on like this.

[loud boom]

[anchor] As many as 86 people are thought to have died in yesterday's inferno,

including some 17 children.

[anchor 2] There remain serious questions

of why the FBI chose to go in in such force.

[reporter] It's hard to remember

that all of this started with a search warrant

and a cache of allegedly illegal weapons.

[Lee] And for somebody like McVeigh, this was absolute evidence

that the feds were after people like him.

And now he has his sense of purpose.

[McVeigh]

He thought that he could be the hero,

to alert everybody in America that it was time

to take on the government before they came for your guns.

The bombing, he had hoped that that would spark a revolution.

[McVeigh speaking]

[music becomes eerie]

[eerie music continues]

[anchor] The grand jury delivered its indictment at a courthouse

across the street from the site of the worst terrorist attack

ever in the United States.

The indictment alleges

that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols alone

planned and executed the bombing.

Also indicted today, Michael Fortier.

Charged with having prior knowledge of the bombing,

he will testify against McVeigh and Nichols

in hopes of getting a lighter sentence.

[Jon] With what he told us, by the time we got in the courtroom,

the case was really overwhelming.

[moody tense music plays]

Today, the government's star witness against Timothy McVeigh

takes the stand at the Oklahoma City bombing trial.

Michael Fortier is expected to tell the jury

that McVeigh told him in detail how he was going to build a bomb

and blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

I really struggled with the trial.

I didn't want any part of the trial.

I did not want to go to it.

I just almost tried to pretend it wasn't happening.

[anchor] In just 11 days of testimony, the prosecution has presented

more than 90 witnesses,

giving McVeigh a motive and tracing his movements.

Ultimately, McVeigh wanted to take credit for the bombing

that he'd carried out.

[McVeigh]

[moody music continues]

[foreboding dull hammering]

[woman] We, the jury,

find as follows in the case of Timothy McVeigh, count one.

- [spluttering sobs] - Conspiracy.

Guilty.

[whooping and cheering]

- Guilty. - [crowd cheers, applauds]

[Amy] When the verdict was read,

it was like somebody let air out of a tire.

It's over. It's over.

[woman] Based upon these considerations, the jury recommends, by unanimous vote,

that the following sentence be imposed,

that defendant Timothy McVeigh will be sentenced to death.

- [woman] Guilty. - [crowd cheers, applauds]

[unnerving string music plays]

I didn't want him to die when they decided to execute him.

I wanted to protest.

[anchor] Timothy McVeigh showed no reaction,

never flinched as he heard the jury vote for death.

[music becomes somber]

[Renee] This is not right. It's not fair.

He's taking the easy road out. We have to live with this. He doesn't.

[somber music continues]

[church bells tolling]

[somber music continues]

[music becomes poignant]

[Walt] When I talk about the Oklahoma Standard, it's real.

Hundreds of stories of people that day

that responded.

I just wanted to help the people, the victims and their families.

[Walt] They stood up for one another.

They looked after one another.

Let him know there's still some good in the world.

[Walt] They saved one another.

They prayed for each other.

Yeah, a prayer for people who've lost loved ones.

And you think about what that collective response means.

People need someone just to lean on, someone to hold their hand, to hug them.

[Walt] Neighbors, friends, relatives, moms and dads.

Their children.

That's us.

[Charlie] The Oklahoma Standard shined brightly.

It shows what Oklahoma people are about.

That they're caring people.

[somber music playing]

- [blast of air] - [explosion thunders]

[metal groans]

[somber music continues]

[explosions echo]

- [bell tolls] - [rumbling]

- [somber music continues] - [distant explosion thunders]

[Carl] All this mass casualty training I'd had,

never once did anyone train me on the human factor.

The one thing I didn't know going into that

was what it was gonna do to me.

That bothers me still, and that little girl I triaged.

That I had to let go.

That really bothers me.

[somber music continues]

[Renee] My second son, Carlos Moore Jr., was born on Little Tony's birthday.

And I was a helicopter mom for a long time, and many years.

[chuckles] So, it's okay. I'm okay with that.

[somber music continues]

He is the love of my life. [chuckles]

Yeah. He's 22 now. I can't believe it.

But yeah, I love him. [giggles]

[Amy] I'm very blessed to have a second chance.

And I hope that it honors

the lives of the people that don't have a second chance,

that I'm embracing mine.

[music builds]

[moody percussive music]

- [light drum snare] - [music becomes solemn]

[solemn music continues]

[music stops]

[silence]

[solemn music plays]

[solemn music continues]

[music darkens]

[music fades to silence]