That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to one of the bombers, Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.

McVeigh, an American militia movement sympathizer who was a Gulf War veteran, had detonated an explosive-filled Ryder truck parked in front of the building.

McVeigh had previously visited Moore's ranch, but doubts have been raised about Nichols and McVeigh's involvement in the robbery for several reasons.

McVeigh wrote a letter to Moore in which he claimed that the robbery had been committed by government agents.

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

McVeigh had originally intended to use hydrazine rocket fuel, but it proved to be too expensive.

McVeigh rented a storage space, in which he stockpiled seven crates of 18-inch-long Tovex sausages, 80 spools of shock tube, and 500 electric blasting caps, which he and Nichols had stolen from a Martin Marietta Aggregates quarry in Marion, Kansas.

" Underneath, McVeigh had scrawled, " Maybe now, there will be liberty!

After booking McVeigh, Hanger searched his police car and found a business card McVeigh had hidden while he was handcuffed.

McVeigh was also identified by Lea McGown of the Dreamland Motel, who remembered him parking a large yellow Ryder truck in the lot ; McVeigh had signed in under his real name at the motel, using an address that matched the one on his forged license and the charge sheet at the Perry Police Station.

Before signing his real name at the motel, McVeigh had used false names for his transactions.

FBI investigators used the resulting information gained, along with the fake address McVeigh had been using, to begin their search for the Nichols brothers, Terry and James.

McVeigh later stated that he was unaware of the day-care center when choosing the building as a target, and if he had known "... it might have given me pause to switch targets.

McVeigh, he said, had developed a hatred of the government during his time in the army, after reading The Turner Diaries.

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

Michael revealed that McVeigh had chosen the date, and Lori testified that she created the false identification card McVeigh used to rent the Ryder truck.

In addition to arguing that the bombing could not have been carried out by two men alone, Jones also attempted to create reasonable doubt by arguing that no one had seen McVeigh near the scene of the crime, and that the investigation into the bombing had lasted only two weeks.

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.

Even many who agreed with some of McVeigh's politics viewed his act as counterproductive, with much of the criticism focused on the deaths of innocent children ; critics expressed chagrin that McVeigh had not assassinated specific government leaders.

McVeigh later said he considered " a campaign of individual assassination ," with " eligible " targets including Attorney-General Janet Reno, Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. of Federal District Court, who handled the Branch Davidian trial, and Lon Horiuchi, a member of the FBI hostage-rescue team who shot and killed Vicki Weaver in a standoff at a remote cabin at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992.

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.

Although the defense teams in both McVeigh's and Nichols trials suggested that others were involved, Judge Steven W. Taylor found no credible, relevant, or legally admissible evidence, of anyone other than McVeigh and Nichols having directly participated in the bombing.

In reference to theories that he had assistance from others, McVeigh responded:

Nichols's lawyers said he was the " fall guy " and that others had conspired with McVeigh.

Among others, he interviewed Howard Stern, Laurence Olivier, Subcomandante Marcos, Timothy McVeigh, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Bill Bradley, the 92-year-old George Burns, and Michael Jordan, as well as conducting the first television interview of Bob Dylan in 20 years.

Two years after that, in 1995, this was the date chosen by Timothy McVeigh, in protest against the Waco incident among others, to bomb the Federal building in Oklahoma City.

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.

McVeigh stated in his authorized biography that he wanted to minimize nongovernmental casualties, so he ruled out a 40-story government building in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of the presence of a florist's shop on the ground floor.

In addition, McVeigh believed that the open space around the building would provide better photo opportunities for propaganda purposes.

" The FBI stated that McVeigh scouted the interior of the building in December 1994 and likely knew of the day-care center before the bombing.

McVeigh told Fortier of his plans to blow up a federal building, but Fortier declined to participate.

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.

") They would have argued that his bombing of the Murrah building was a justifiable response to what McVeigh believed were the crimes of the U. S. government at Waco, Texas.

McVeigh stated that his only regret was not completely leveling the federal building.

McVeigh had earlier written that he considered having his ashes dropped at the site of the memorial where the Murrah building once stood, but decided that would be " too vengeful, too raw, cold.

McVeigh read Unintended Consequences and noted that if it had come out a few years earlier, he would have given serious consideration to using sniper attacks in a war of attrition against the government instead of bombing a federal building:

Bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh claimed he bombed the building in retaliation for the 1993 Waco massacre.

Residents of Oklahoma City suffered substantial losses on April 19, 1995 when Timothy McVeigh set off a bomb in front of the Murrah building.

* In an interview before his execution, convicted U. S. bomber ( and Gulf War veteran ) Timothy McVeigh referred to the deaths of 19 children killed in the government office building during the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as " collateral damage ".

McVeigh said that he bombed the Murrah building on the two-year anniversary of the Waco Siege in 1993 to retaliate for US government actions there and at the siege at Ruby Ridge.

Before his execution, McVeigh said that he did not know a day care center was in the building and that, had he known, " It might have given me pause to switch targets.

" The FBI said that McVeigh scouted the interior of the building in December 1994 and likely knew of the day-care center before the bombing.

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

He said he helped McVeigh survey the building before the attack.

She also testified that Nichols traveled to Oklahoma City three days before the bombing, supporting the prosecution's contention that Nichols helped McVeigh station a getaway car near the Murrah building.