Final 24 Hours of Timothy McVeigh + Last Meal + Last Words on Indiana Death Row

On June 11th, 2001, after spending 6 years on death row, Timothy James McVeigh was executed by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was 33 years old. In this video, we will talk about what happened, his last words, and his last meal. But to uncover how an American war hero became America’s most notorious domestic terrorist, how a decorated Gulf War veteran transformed into a mass murderer, we have to go back to April 19th, 1995, and a beautiful spring morning in Oklahoma City that would end in

unimaginable horror. A Ryder truck packed with 5,000 lb of explosives, a federal building filled with innocent people going about their day, 19 children in a daycare center on the second floor, 168 people who would never go home, 684 more injured, maimed, scarred for life. And one man, a 27-year-old Army veteran, who parked a truck bomb in front of a building and walked away without looking back.

After killing 168 innocent people, including 19 children, in the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history, Timothy McVeigh would become the first person executed by the federal government in 38 years. And he would die with his eyes open, staring into the camera, silent and unrepentant to the very end.

April 19th, 1995, 9:00 a.m., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was a beautiful Wednesday morning. The sun was shining. The sky was clear. People were going to work, dropping their kids off at daycare, starting another ordinary day. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building stood nine stories tall in downtown Oklahoma City.

 It housed offices for the Social Security Administration, here the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the recruiting offices for the Army and Marine Corps. On the second floor was America’s Kids Day Care Center. 19 children were there that morning ranging in age from a few months old to 5 years old.

 Their parents had dropped them off before heading to their own jobs in the building or elsewhere in the city. The children were playing, laughing, completely innocent. They had no idea what was about to happen. At 9:02 a.m. everything changed. A massive explosion ripped through the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

 The blast was so powerful it registered 3.0 on the Richter scale. It was heard and felt up to 55 miles away. The entire front of the building, 1/3 of the structure, collapsed instantly. She floors pancaked on top of each other. Concrete, steel, glass, and debris rained down. People were crushed, buried alive, blown apart.

 The daycare center on the second floor took a direct hit. All 19 children died. Some were killed instantly by the blast. Others were buried under rubble, suffocating, crying out for help that would come too late. Throughout the building, people were dying. Some were killed by the initial explosion. Others were trapped under tons of concrete and steel.

 Some were impaled by flying debris. Others were burned. The screaming was everywhere. The smell of smoke, dust, and death filled the air. Survivors stumbled out of the building covered in blood, in shock, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Outside chaos erupted. Car alarms blared. Windows in buildings blocks away had been shattered by the force of the blast.

People on the street were injured by flying glass. Emergency services were immediately overwhelmed. This wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t a gas leak. This was a bomb. A massive, deliberate, devastating bomb. And someone had just murdered 168 people in the heart of America. Among the dead were federal employees, children, visitors, people just going about their day.

The youngest victim was a 4-month old baby. The oldest was 73 years old. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents. 168 lives snuffed out in an instant. 684 more people were injured. Some lost limbs. Some lost their sight. Some would be permanently disabled. All would be scarred forever. The question on everyone’s mind was who did this? In the immediate aftermath, many people assumed it was international terrorism.

 Middle Eastern terrorists, Al-Qaeda, some foreign enemy. But they were wrong. The person who did this was an American. A white American. A US Army veteran. A man who had served his country in the Gulf War. A man who believed he was a patriot. His name was Timothy James McVeigh. And 90 minutes after the bomb exploded, he was pulled over by an Oklahoma State Trooper for driving without a license plate.

Timothy McVeigh was born on April 23rd, 1968 in Lockport, New York. His parents, William and Mildred McVeigh, divorced when Timothy was 10 years old. The divorce devastated him. His mother left and Timothy stayed with his father. He felt abandoned, angry, lost. As a teenager, Timothy became obsessed with guns and survivalism.

 And he read books about government conspiracies. He believed that the federal government was becoming tyrannical, that it was trampling on Americans’ constitutional rights. He was particularly obsessed with the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. In high school, Timothy was quiet, awkward, socially isolated. He didn’t have many friends.

He didn’t date. He spent most of his time alone reading, shooting guns, preparing for some imagined apocalypse. After graduating high school in 1986, Timothy drifted. He worked a series of dead-end jobs. He was directionless, angry, looking for purpose. In May 1988, at age 20, Timothy enlisted in the United States Army.

The Army gave Timothy what he had been searching for: structure, purpose, identity. He was good at it. He excelled in training. He became an expert marksman. He was disciplined, uh focused, dedicated. In 1991, Timothy deployed to the Gulf War as a gunner on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. He served with distinction.

 He was awarded a Bronze Star for his service. His fellow soldiers respected him. He was a good soldier. But the war changed him. Timothy saw combat. He killed enemy soldiers. And he started to question what he was doing there. Why was America fighting in Iraq? What were they really fighting for? Was the government lying to the American people? Timothy came home from the Gulf War more radicalized than ever.

He was angry at the government, angry at politicians, angry at a system he believed was corrupt. He tried out for special forces, but washed out during the physical fitness test. The rejection devastated him. He had nothing left, no purpose, no direction. Timothy left the army in December 1991 and returned to civilian life.

But he couldn’t adjust. He worked security jobs, low-paying, meaningless work. He was bitter, resentful. He spent his time reading anti-government literature, visiting gun shows, associating with militia groups and white supremacists. Two events would push Timothy McVeigh over the edge and set him on the path to mass murder. The first was Ruby Ridge.

In August 1992, federal agents surrounded the home of Randy Weaver, a white separatist living in rural Idaho. The standoff ended with Weaver’s wife and son being killed by federal agents. Timothy was enraged. He saw Ruby Ridge as proof that the government was willing to murder its own citizens. The second event was Waco.

On April 19th, 1993, exactly 2 years before the Oklahoma City bombing, federal agents raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The compound caught fire and 76 people died, including 25 children. The federal government claimed the Branch Davidians set the fire themselves. But people like Timothy McVeigh believed the government had murdered those people.

Timothy visited Waco during the siege. He handed out anti-government bumper stickers. He watched the compound burn. And he decided that the federal government had to pay. For 2 years, Timothy McVeigh planned his revenge. He chose his target carefully. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Why that building? Because it housed offices of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the agency responsible for the Waco siege.

Timothy wanted to strike back at the government. He wanted to send a message, and he wanted to start a revolution. Timothy didn’t act alone. He recruited two accomplices, Terry Nichols, a former army buddy who shared Timothy’s anti-government views, and Michael Fortier, another army friend. The three men began gathering materials.

They needed fertilizer, lots of it. Ammonium nitrate, a common farm fertilizer, could be mixed with fuel oil to create a powerful explosive. Timothy and Terry began buying bags of ammonium nitrate from farm supply stores across the Midwest. They used fake names. They paid in cash. They were careful not to raise suspicion.

 They also needed a truck, a big truck, big enough to hold 5,000 lb of explosives. On April 17th, 1995, 2 days before the bombing, Timothy McVeigh walked into Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, Kansas, and rented a 20-ft Ryder truck. He used a fake name, Robert Kling. He paid cash. He told the rental agent he needed the truck to move some furniture.

 The rental agent didn’t think twice about it. Timothy drove the truck to a storage locker in Herington, Kansas, where he and Terry Nichols had been stockpiling their bomb-making materials. Over the next 24 hours, Timothy and Terry mixed the bomb. They combined ammonium nitrate with nitromethane racing fuel. They added barrels of the mixture to the back of the Ryder truck.

They set up a detonation system using non-electric blasting caps and a timed fuse. By the evening of April 18th, the bomb was ready. 5,000 lb of explosives packed into the back of a Ryder truck, powerful enough to level a building. On the morning of April 19th, 1995, Timothy McVeigh woke up early. And he had spent the night at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas, about 270 mi north of Oklahoma City.

He showered. He dressed. He ate breakfast. He was calm, focused. He knew exactly what he was about to do. Timothy got into the Ryder truck and started driving south. He drove for hours alone with his thoughts, knowing that in a few hours he would kill hundreds of people. He didn’t care about the children in the daycare.

 He didn’t care about the innocent people who would die. In Timothy’s mind, they were collateral damage, acceptable casualties in his war against the federal government. He later compared the children’s deaths to the deaths at Waco, saying the government hadn’t cared about the children who died there, so why should he care about the children in Oklahoma City? At around 8:50 a.m.

, a Timothy McVeigh drove into downtown Oklahoma City. He had visited the city before. He had scouted the Murrah Building. He knew exactly where to park to cause maximum damage. He drove the Ryder truck to the front of the building and parked it in a drop-off zone directly beneath the daycare center. He left the engine running.

 He lit the fuse. The timer was set for 2 minutes. Timothy climbed out of the truck. He locked the doors. And he walked away. He didn’t run. He didn’t look back. He walked calmly to his getaway car, a yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis, which he had parked a few blocks away the day before. Timothy got into his car and drove north out of Oklahoma City.

At 9:02 a.m. as Timothy was driving away, the bomb exploded. The blast was massive, catastrophic, devastating. 1/3 of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building collapsed and 168 people died instantly or were trapped and died in the rubble. 684 more were injured. Timothy McVeigh heard the explosion. He saw the smoke rising in his rearview mirror and he kept driving.

About 90 minutes later at 10:20 a.m., Timothy was driving north on Interstate 35 about 60 miles from Oklahoma City. Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger was patrolling the highway when he noticed a yellow Mercury Marquis with no license plate. Hanger pulled the car over. Timothy McVeigh stopped.

 He rolled down his window. Trooper Hanger approached and asked for Timothy’s driver’s license and registration. Timothy handed over his license. But when Hanger looked inside the car, he noticed a bulge under Timothy’s jacket. “Are you carrying a weapon?” Hanger asked. “Yes,” Timothy said. Hanger ordered Timothy out of the car. He found a loaded Glock .

45 caliber pistol in a shoulder holster under Timothy’s jacket. Hanger arrested Timothy for driving without a license plate and for unlawfully carrying a weapon. Timothy didn’t resist. He was calm, polite, cooperative. Hanger had no idea he had just arrested the Oklahoma City bomber. Timothy was taken to the Noble County Jail in Perry, Oklahoma.

He was fingerprinted, photographed, and booked. He sat in a jail cell waiting for a bail hearing, acting like this was just a routine traffic stop. Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City, the largest criminal investigation in American history was underway. The FBI immediately took control of the scene.

 They began sifting through the rubble, looking for evidence, looking for survivors, looking for answers. Within hours, our investigators found a piece of the Ryder truck’s axle. It had a vehicle identification number on it. The FBI traced the VIN to a Ryder rental agency in Junction City, Kansas. Agents flew to Kansas and interviewed the rental agent.

 The agent remembered the customer. He had rented the truck under the name Robert Kling, but he had seen the man’s face. Agents showed him a sketch. The agent confirmed, “That’s him.” The FBI started checking surveillance footage from the area around the rental agency. They found footage of Timothy McVeigh at a nearby McDonald’s on the day he rented the truck.

The FBI now had a name and a face. They ran Timothy McVeigh’s name through the National Crime Information Center database, and they got a hit. Timothy McVeigh was currently in custody at the Noble County Jail in Perry, Oklahoma. He was arrested 90 minutes after the bombing for a traffic violation. The FBI couldn’t believe their luck.

They immediately dispatched agents to Perry. On April 21st, 1995, just as Timothy was about to be released on bail for the traffic charges, FBI agents burst into the jail. They arrested Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Timothy said nothing. He was transported to a federal facility.

The investigation continued. The FBI arrested Terry Nichols on April 21st. They arrested Michael Fortier soon after. Both cooperated with investigators. Terry admitted to helping build the bomb. Michael admitted to knowing about the plot, but doing nothing to stop it. Timothy McVeigh’s trial began on April 24th, 1997 in Denver, Colorado.

 The trial had been moved from Oklahoma City because of concerns that Timothy couldn’t get a fair trial there. The lead prosecutor was Joseph Hartzler. The lead defense attorney was Stephen Jones. The prosecution’s case was overwhelming. They presented evidence showing that Timothy had rented the Ryder truck.

 They presented evidence showing that Timothy had purchased bomb-making materials. They presented testimony from Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, both of whom testified that Timothy had planned and executed the bombing. They presented forensic evidence linking Timothy to the bomb. They presented Timothy’s own writings, letters in which he expressed his hatred for the federal government and his belief that violence was justified.

The prosecution also presented victim impact testimony. Survivors of the bombing testified about the horror they experienced. Family members of the dead testified about the loved ones they had lost. The jury heard about the 19 children who died in the daycare center. They saw photographs of the victims.

 They saw photographs of the destroyed building. The defense tried to argue that Timothy was a scapegoat, that there were other conspirators, that the government was hiding evidence. But the evidence against Timothy was too strong. On June 2nd, 1997, after 4 days of deliberation, the jury found Timothy McVeigh guilty on all 11 counts of murder and conspiracy.

The trial moved to the penalty phase. The jury had to decide, should Timothy McVeigh be sentenced to death or to life in prison without parole? The prosecution argued that Timothy deserved to die. He had murdered 168 people, and including 19 children. He had shown no remorse. He had planned the attack for months.

 He had walked away from the truck knowing that hundreds of people would die. He was the most prolific mass murderer in American history. The defense argued for life in prison. They presented testimony from Timothy’s family members who begged the jury to spare his life. They argued that executing Timothy would make him a martyr.

 They argued that life in prison would be a harsher punishment. The jury deliberated for 2 days. On June 13th, 1997, they returned with their decision. Timothy McVeigh should be sentenced to death. Timothy showed no emotion. He was taken to the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana to await execution on death row. Timothy spent the next 4 years on death row.

 He filed appeals, but he didn’t really fight his sentence. He wanted to die. He saw himself as a soldier who had been captured by the enemy. He believed he had struck a blow against a tyrannical government. He believed he was a patriot. In interviews, Timothy showed no remorse. He said he regretted nothing. He said he would do it again.

He compared the deaths of the 19 children to collateral damage in a war saying, “I didn’t define the rules of engagement in this conflict. The rules, if not written down, are defined by the aggressor. It was brutal, no holds barred. Women and kids were killed at Waco and Ruby Ridge. You put back in the government’s face exactly what they’re giving out.

In early 2001, Timothy announced that he was dropping his appeals. He wanted to be executed. He was tired of waiting. He was ready to die. He set a date, May 16th, 2001. But six days before the scheduled execution, something happened. The FBI admitted that it had withheld more than 3,000 pages of evidence from Timothy’s defense team during the trial.

 The documents had been sitting in FBI field offices across the country, never turned over to the defense as required by law. Attorney General John Ashcroft delayed the execution for 1 month to give Timothy’s attorneys time to review the documents. The new execution date was set for June 11th, 2001. Timothy’s attorneys reviewed the documents.

 They argued that the documents proved there was a larger conspiracy, that other people were involved, that Timothy deserved a new trial. On May 31st, 2001, Timothy’s attorney, Rob Nigh, met with him to determine if he wanted to appeal. Timothy decided to request a stay of execution, but his reason wasn’t to overturn his conviction.

 He wanted to put the government on trial. He wanted to demonstrate that justice had not been served. US District Court Judge Richard Matsch heard the request and ruled that there would be no stay granted. The documents, Matsch said, cast no doubt on Timothy’s guilt. Timothy’s attorneys appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

 Within 48 hours, the three-judge panel upheld Judge Matsch’s ruling. The execution would proceed as scheduled. June 10th, 2001. Timothy McVeigh’s final day on death row. Timothy was moved from his holding facility at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute to the execution chamber in the early morning hours. He showered.

 When the water initially ran cold, he joked with guards that it was cruel and unusual punishment. Timothy was given the opportunity to request a last meal. He chose two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream. That was it. No elaborate meal, no steak and lobster, just ice cream. In the evening, Timothy watched television until 9:00 p.m.

Then he turned off the television and tried to sleep. But he was restless. He tossed and turned throughout the night. He knew tomorrow he would die. At some point during his final hours, Timothy was visited by Father Charles Smith, a Catholic priest. Father Smith administered last rites. This surprised Timothy’s attorney, Nathan Chambers, because Timothy had always professed to be agnostic.

But in his final hours, perhaps Timothy was hedging his bets. Or perhaps deep down, he was afraid of what came next. Timothy declined to make any media interviews in his final days. He had said everything he wanted to say. He had no apologies, no regrets, no remorse. He had chosen a final written statement, the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, written in 1875.

The poem ends with the lines, “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” Timothy saw himself as a warrior, a soldier, a man who had taken control of his own destiny. He refused to be portrayed as a victim or a monster. He was, in his mind, a patriot. June 11th, 2001, 7:00 a.m. The execution chamber at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Timothy McVeigh was escorted into the room. He was wearing a white t-shirt, white pants, and white slip-on shoes. He was strapped to a gurney. His arms were extended. Our IV lines were inserted into his right leg. One to sedate him, one to paralyze his breathing, and one to stop his heart. The drugs were sodium thiopental, pancuronium, and potassium chloride.

 The same three-drug cocktail used in most executions. Witnesses began gathering. There were three groups of witnesses. 10 victims’ representatives, 10 news media members, and Timothy’s four personal witnesses. Timothy’s witnesses were his defense attorneys, Rob Nigh and Nathan Chambers, former defense team member Kate McCauley, and Buffalo News reporter Lou Michel, who had co-written a book about Timothy.

In Oklahoma City, about 250 people gathered to watch the execution on a closed-circuit broadcast. All of them were bombing survivors or family members of victims. The government had set up a highly secured broadcast so they could watch Timothy die. Uh the execution was scheduled to begin at 8:00 a.m.

 Eastern time, but there was a 6-minute delay due to technical troubles with the video link to Oklahoma City. Once the link was fixed, the curtain opened. Timothy lay on the gurney, strapped down, IVs in his leg. He turned his head and made eye contact with his four witnesses. He looked at them for a moment, then he turned and made eye contact with the 10 media witnesses.

Then he squinted toward the tinted window shielding the 10 victims’ witnesses from his view. Finally, Timothy stared directly at the camera that was beaming the video to Oklahoma City. He didn’t blink. He didn’t look away. He stared into the camera with his eyes wide open. The warden asked Timothy if he had any final words.

Timothy declined to make a verbal statement. He had already submitted his written statement like the poem Invictus. At 7:08 a.m. Central Time, 8:08 a.m. Eastern Time, the drugs began flowing into Timothy’s veins. The first drug, sodium thiopental, was designed to render him unconscious. Timothy’s eyes remained open.

 He continued staring at the camera. Witnesses said he never closed his eyes, not once. The second drug, pancuronium, paralyzed his diaphragm and lungs, stopping his breathing. The third drug, potassium chloride, stopped his heart. Timothy McVeigh died silently. His eyes remained open the entire time. He never blinked.

 He never looked away from the camera. He stared into it until the moment he died. At 7:14 a.m. Central Time, 8:14 a.m. Eastern Time, 4 minutes after the first drug was administered, Timothy McVeigh was pronounced dead. He was 33 years old. The curtain closed. The execution was over. In Oklahoma City, all of the 250 people watching the closed-circuit broadcast sat in silence.

Some cried. Some felt relief. Some felt nothing at all. Martha Ridley, the mother of a bombing victim who was caring for her two orphaned granddaughters, said, “It is definitely time for Mr. McVeigh to go. And the only thing I’m going to say after that is good. I’m glad he’s gone. Janice Smith, whose brother Laney Scroggins died in the bombing, prayed with her children at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

When she got word that Timothy was dead, she laughed. “It’s over,” she said. “We don’t have to continue with him anymore.” An hour after the execution, President George W. Bush issued a statement. “Today, every living person who was hurt by the evil done in Oklahoma City can rest in the knowledge that there has been a reckoning,” Bush said.

 He, Timothy McVeigh’s body, was cremated at Maddox Ryan Funeral Home in Terre Haute. There would be no burial, no gravestone, no place for his supporters to visit and turn into a shrine. In 1997, President Bill Clinton had signed special legislation introduced by Senator Arlen Specter to bar Timothy McVeigh and other veterans convicted of capital crimes from being buried in any military cemetery.

Timothy had served his country in the Gulf War. He had been awarded a Bronze Star, but his actions on April 19th, 1995 had stripped him of any honor he had earned. He would not be buried with military honors. He would not be remembered as a soldier. He would be remembered as a terrorist, a mass murderer, the man who bombed America.

Timothy McVeigh was the first person executed by the United States federal government in 38 years. Like the last federal execution before Timothy, was Victor Feguer, who was hanged in Iowa on March 15th, 1963. For 38 years, the federal government had not executed anyone. Timothy McVeigh ended that streak.

 His execution reopened the door to federal executions. In the years since Timothy’s death, the federal government has executed more inmates, but none as notorious as Timothy McVeigh. The Oklahoma City bombing remains one of the darkest days in American history. 168 people died. 684 were injured. Families were destroyed.

 Lives were shattered. The attack traumatized an entire city, an entire nation. And it was carried out by an American, not a foreign terrorist, not an enemy from overseas, an American, a white American, a US Army veteran, a man who believed he was fighting for freedom. Timothy McVeigh saw himself as a patriot.

 He saw the federal government as tyrannical. He saw Waco and Ruby Ridge as proof that the government was at war with its own people. And he decided to strike back. He chose a federal building. He packed a truck with 5,000 lb of explosives. He parked it in front of a daycare center. He lit the fuse. And he walked away. 168 people died.

 19 of them were children. The youngest was 4 months old. They were innocent. They had done nothing wrong. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. And Timothy McVeigh didn’t care. He called them collateral damage. He said he regretted nothing. He said he would do it again. For 6 years, Timothy sat on death row, giving interviews, writing letters, showing no remorse.

He wanted to be executed. He was ready to die. But he saw himself as a soldier captured by the enemy. And on June 11th, 2001, he got his wish. Timothy McVeigh died with his eyes open, staring into the camera, silent, unrepentant, defiant to the very end. He never apologized. He never expressed regret.

 He never acknowledged the pain he caused. He believed, until the moment he died, that he had done the right thing, that he had struck a blow for freedom, that he was a patriot. But history will not remember Timothy McVeigh as a patriot. History will remember him as a terrorist, a mass murderer, a man who killed 168 innocent people, including 19 children, in the name of a twisted ideology.

Six years on death row, multiple appeals, mostly abandoned by Timothy himself. A last meal of mint chocolate chip ice cream, a final written statement. “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” And finally, on a Monday morning in June 2001, a needle in the leg, three drugs flowing through his veins, and a heart that stopped beating while his eyes remained wide open, staring into the camera, into the faces of the people he had terrorized.

 Justice, such as it is, was served. The case of Timothy McVeigh is now closed.