Both Fortiers testified that McVeigh had told them of his plans to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

McVeigh was introduced to firearms by his grandfather, and told people he wanted to be a gun shop owner and sometimes took firearms to school to impress his classmates.

Nichols also said that in 1995 McVeigh told him that FBI official Larry Potts, who had supervised the Ruby Ridge and Waco operations, had directed McVeigh to blow up a government building.

Michael and Lori Fortier testified against McVeigh and Nichols ; Michael was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the U. S. government, and Lori received immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.

In December 1994, McVeigh and Fortier visited Oklahoma City to inspect their target: the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

McVeigh approached Fortier and asked him to assist with the bombing project, but he refused.

In October 1994, McVeigh showed Michael Fortier and his wife, Lori, a diagram he had drawn of the bomb he wanted to build.

During McVeigh's trial, Lori Fortier ( the wife of Michael Fortier ) stated that McVeigh claimed to have arranged the barrels in order to form a shaped charge.

The investigation led to the separate trials and convictions of McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier.

The prosecution called 137 witnesses, including Michael Fortier and his wife Lori, and McVeigh's sister, Jennifer McVeigh, all of whom testified to confirm McVeigh's hatred of the government and his desire to take militant action against it.

" McVeigh lived with Michael Fortier in Kingman, Arizona, for a spell and grew so close to him that he served as best man at Fortier's wedding.

McVeigh experimented with cannabis and methamphetamine, after first researching their effects in an encyclopedia ; but he was not as interested in drugs as Fortier.

They testified against both McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a 12-year prison term for Michael Fortier and immunity for Lori.

Former army buddy Michael Fortier testified against both McVeigh and Nichols.

) Fortier testified that Nichols and McVeigh had expressed anti-government feelings and conspired to blow up the Murrah federal building.

Fortier provided " solid bricks of evidence " for the cases against McVeigh and Nichols, according to the prosecutor.

Fortier also testified that McVeigh and Nichols stole cord and blasting caps from a rock quarry, and that Nichols robbed a gun collector to obtain money for the plot.

McVeigh, Nichols and Fortier were the only defendants indicted in the bombing.

In 1988 Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier ( the Oklahoma City bombing conspirators ) met while in training at Ft Benning.

As he drove toward the Murrah Federal Building in the Ryder truck, McVeigh carried with him an envelope containing pages from The Turner Diaries — a fictional account of white supremacists who ignite a revolution by blowing up the FBI headquarters at 9: 15 one morning using a truck bomb.

When McVeigh was asked if there were other conspirators in the bombing, he replied: " Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building, and isn't it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?

In his senior year, McVeigh was named Starpoint Central High School's " most promising computer programmer ," but maintained relatively poor grades up until his 1986 graduation.

For the five months following the Waco Siege, McVeigh worked at gun shows and handed out free cards printed up with Lon Horiuchi's name and address, " in the hope that somebody in the Patriot movement would assassinate the sharpshooter.

McVeigh instructed his lawyers to use a necessity defense, but they ended up not doing so, because they would have had to prove that McVeigh was in " imminent danger " from the government.

In a 1996 interview, McVeigh professed belief in " a God ", although he said he had " sort of lost touch with " Catholicism and " I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs.

For the film's 25th anniversary, filmmakers David and Scott McVeigh tracked down the participants in Pumping Iron to follow up on their lives and see how the film's success had affected them personally and professionally.

When the compound went up in flames, McVeigh and Nichols were enraged and began to plot revenge on the federal government.

The search turned up blasting caps, detonating cords, ground ammonium nitrate, barrels made of plastic similar to fragments found at the bombing site, 33 firearms, anti-government warfare literature, a receipt for ammonium nitrate fertilizer with McVeigh's fingerprints on it, a telephone credit card that McVeigh had used when he was shopping for bomb making equipment, and a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City.

Inspector John Purnell and Sergeant Phil McVeigh, on duty as part of the dragnet operation, picked up the radio call from the team in Mount Street as the stolen Cortina approached their position.

Timothy McVeigh was tied to several radical religious organizations, however, McVeigh was not yet exposed to the charismatic messages of these groups in his early teen youth and was just joining the Army when the CSA compound was besieged and broken up.

It detailed the life story of Timothy J. McVeigh, a U. S. Army veteran who grew up near Buffalo.

Motivated by his hatred of the federal government and angered by what he perceived as its mishandling of the Waco Siege ( 1993 ) and the Ruby Ridge incident ( 1992 ), McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the deadly fire that ended the siege at Waco.

McVeigh and Nichols cited the federal government's actions against the Branch Davidian compound in the 1993 Waco Siege ( shown above ) as a reason they perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing.

McVeigh later decided to bomb a federal building as a response to the raids.

McVeigh initially intended only to destroy a federal building, but he later decided that his message would be better received if many people were killed in the bombing.

On June 6, federal judge Richard Paul Matsch ruled the documents would not prove McVeigh innocent and ordered the execution to proceed.

After President George W. Bush approved the execution ( McVeigh was a federal inmate and federal law dictates that the President must approve the execution of federal prisoners ), he was executed by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute in Terre Haute, Indiana, on June 11.

In addition to Michael assisting McVeigh in scouting the federal building, Lori had helped McVeigh laminate a fake driver's license which was later used to rent the Ryder truck.

McVeigh, a militia movement sympathizer, sought revenge against the federal government for its handling of the Waco Siege, which had ended in the deaths of 76 people exactly two years prior to the bombing, as well as for the Ruby Ridge incident in 1992.

McVeigh hoped to inspire a revolt against what he considered to be a tyrannical federal government.

McVeigh noted that he had no knowledge that the federal offices also ran a daycare center on the second floor of the building, and noted that he might have chosen a different target if he had known about the daycare center.

On August 10, 1995, McVeigh was indicted on 11 federal counts, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction by explosives and eight counts of first-degree murder.

On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on all 11 counts of the federal indictment.

The U. S. Department of Justice brought federal charges against McVeigh for causing the deaths of eight federal officers leading to a possible death penalty for McVeigh ; it could not bring charges against McVeigh for the remaining 160 murders in federal court because those deaths fell under the jurisdiction of the state of Oklahoma.