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.
This is collections department.
I don't think anybody's here though.
I'm here, stupid.
Well,
I was lookin' the other way.
And then in here is Pammy,
and she is just a sweetheart.
Oh, yeah.
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.
- There's Claudette.
- Hi!
And just running around,
talking to everybody, visiting.
Not doing any work, you know.
Hi, Mom.
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.
And my entire friend group was work.
Those were my friends.
I took it for granted.
The agencies
in the federal building were
Social Security, HUD, A*F, Secret
Service, and then you had a daycare.
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.
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.
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.
One of my coworkers, Robin,
who was seven months pregnant,
came and sat down in the desk beside me.
And the phone rang.
The next thing I know,
I'm hearing this roaring in my head.
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 expl*si*n 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.
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.
Tammy.
Tammy.
It looks like part of the building
has been blown away.
We'll have to bank around
to the other side.
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
- Wow. Holy cow.
- Look at that shot.
It is absolutely incredible.
The side of the federal building
has been blown off. 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 expl*si*n at this time.
We were having breakfast,
and then there was this expl*si*n
that rocked us out of our table.
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.
But it was surreal. Dead quiet.
There was a car alarm
in the distance.
Other than that,
you could hear the 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.
And I took off running
for the federal building.
When the expl*si*n happened,
we were in court, and you could feel it.
The ceiling tiles came in.
Windows shattered.
- Let's go.
- Evacuate.
People shouting, "Get out.
Evacuate. Get out."
It was chaotic.
I could hear people saying,
"What happened?"
That was when I heard the policemen
tell someone else in the crowd
the expl*si*n happened
at the Murrah building.
And I was like, "No," and I just
remember, I started screaming.
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.
Robin, on the scene.
- Robin, are you with us?
- 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.
I think that's maybe
the best word for all of us.
Just overwhelmed.
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.
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!
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.
It was going so fast.
You'd have five, ten,
fifteen seconds to assess somebody.
Okay, whenever you're ready,
we're ready to--
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?
And to compound all of that,
you had children.
Can you tell me your name?
Our babies
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.
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 f*cking 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."
And when I stood up and turned around,
her mother was behind me.
She was lost. And
She didn't go with her child.
She just waved.
She just like
When we took her away,
she just waved and walked off.
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.
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
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 p*stol,
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.
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.
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.
Workers are having to crawl
through the wreckage to try
they're talking to victims
My body was numb
and I couldn't move.
I couldn't really feel much of anything.
It was hot and dark.
I couldn't see anything.
When I would breathe in, it would burn.
I thought maybe I was dead.
But then I heard a siren
going off in the distance.
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.
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 expl*si*n quickly.
The cause of the expl*si*n,
we've heard several reports.
We've heard
it might be a gas main expl*si*n.
We're not sure what happened.
The fire department is looking into
a gas main expl*si*n.
If it wasn't a gas leak
or something in that order,
if it was a bombing,
it implies a level of sophistication.
In conferring
with my b*mb technicians,
we had a large crater
right at the front of the building,
which would indicate
that that was the source
of the b*mb itself.
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 b*mb.
We'd never had a b*mb 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!
It is now clear
to the investigators
that the enormous expl*si*n
of the federal building
Still no firm numbers
on the hurt and missing,
and still no suspects
or claims of responsibility
responsible
for the b*mb attack in Oklahoma.
As Bill Neely reported
There are no reports
- Los Angeles
- Iran suggested suspects
criminal courts building,
a building that is always
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 t*rror1st 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.
There was an FBI bulletin
saying they were looking for a brown SUV
with two Middle Easterners in it.
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.
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.
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?
- Same day.
- Is it the same day it blew up?
- That's why it's the 19th.
- Same day Waco happened.
- Jesus.
- 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.
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 ill*gal weapons in Waco.
911, what's your emergency?
75 men around our building,
they're sh**ting at us.
Tell them there are children
and women in here and to call it off!
It ended up in a sh**t-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.
On April 19th, they tried to force
the Davidians out with tear gas,
and a fire erupted,
k*lling 76 people, including 22 kids.
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 g*ns.
That's a stinking concern
about them women and kids.
Why did they go there to start with?
Over a stinkin' g*n,
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 ill*gal and unjust g*n laws
that ban our right to keep
and bear arms, God help you!
And you had people forming militias.
A*F are the criminals, not me.
I'm a law-abiding citizen.
I didn't m*rder 80-some people at Waco.
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."
In fact, we'd been commanded
to stand down
and not talk about Waco anymore.
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 t*rror1st
I say the t*rror1st 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 w*r
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.
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.
I could see it,
but my brain wasn't really accepting
what I was seeing.
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 expl*sive 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.
We're looking for evidence.
We're looking for expl*sives
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.
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.
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."
Inside the building,
it was very difficult to maneuver.
Nobody knew if the building
was gonna remain standing.
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 k*lling her.
There's bodies here.
We have a man here
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."
We have another one!
That's good.
Check the line to it.
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.
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.
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.
And all of a sudden, I get notice
that another b*mb's been found
inside the Murrah building.
This building was right in it,
and my mom's in there.
There's a b*mb!
b*mb! Let's go.
Everybody move back, there's a b*mb!
There's another b*mb! Oh my God!
Stop.
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.
- What's going on?
- Another b*mb.
They're ordering everybody out,
including the command.
Everybody is just pouring out
of the building on a dead run.
I refused to leave.
I had a patrol point his g*n at my leg,
"I'm gonna sh**t you if you don't leave."
"But I got these patients."
And he was like, "I will effing sh**t
you in the leg if you don't leave."
So I left.
Much concern down there
about a secondary expl*si*n.
They are evacuating
downtown Oklahoma City.
Medical professionals
running from the scene also.
The men just started saying,
"There's another b*mb."
I realized what was happening.
And I just started telling them my name,
and to tell my family I love them.
They were leaving me buried alive.
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.
People, you need to go further back.
Get further back. Go further back.
- Move it, idiot!
- I need you to go further back.
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.
We did that.
Put it in the truck.
They took it to the county's b*mb range,
and they set it on fire.
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.
A*F agents have confirmed
that expl*sive device they found
and had people scattering for
was a training device
found in the A*F office,
which is one of their field offices
here in Oklahoma City in that building.
There are still people inside.
They're not sure at this point whether
some of them may be alive or not.
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.
Where is she?
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."
Because at that point
I wasn't sure
that we were going to come out of there.
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.
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.
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.
Then all of a sudden, they said,
"We'll count to three.
This is probably gonna hurt."
And they counted to three and they pulled,
and I came out from under the rubble.
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.
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.
Oftentimes, bombing cases
are extremely difficult
because the evidence is destroyed.
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.
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 b*mb, possibly a car b*mb.
That hasn't been proven.
Forensics haven't made
a determination yet.
We sifted through a lot of things.
The key to it, though,
was the differential to the truck.
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.
The expl*si*n was of such intensity
that it caused the rear axle
from the truck
that was used to deliver the b*mb
to blow out.
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.
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."
That truck had been rented
two days before
at Elliott's Body Shop,
in Junction City, Kansas.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And I remember that first night,
it got really cold.
The temperatures dropped down.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
You can see it by the sign.
People are lining up to help.
Even though
we have our differences,
at least we can come together
as one to help someone.
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.
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.
The sketch artist arrived
and started working
with the three witnesses
from Elliott's Body Shop.
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.
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.
Did you notice a Ryder truck,
or a large
We set up roadblocks.
We interviewed everybody
that might have seen the Ryder truck
or seen anybody suspicious
operating in that area.
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.
FBI agents
literally went door to door,
asking, "Have you seen this?
Do you know these guys?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 expl*si*n.
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.
The focus
is back on domestic terrorism
as opposed to international terrorism.
And you realize
Wow. But that's us.
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.
Firstly, the media unveiled
a white male, about 5'10".
Get up the next morning,
come to the command post.
Everybody's excited,
and I'm like, "What's going on?"
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."
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.
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."
We start hearing
that there's an arrest,
and that someone is in Perry, Oklahoma,
at the Noble County Courthouse.
So I get in the car with the
photographer and we go to Perry.
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.
And at the Dreamland Motel,
Timothy McVeigh used
the same address in Michigan.
So someone in that house is
directly connected to the b*mb itself.
That very quickly got out
to national media.
The authorities have located
a possible suspect in a house
in a rural area
and is surrounded by federal authorities,
local authorities, state authorities.
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.
We learn that that farmhouse
is owned by a James Nichols,
and he has a brother named
Terry Nichols, that also lives there.
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.
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.
Right now we want to go live
to Perry, Oklahoma, with Robin Marsh.
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.
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.
If they're guilty,
k*ll the son of a b*tches.
- Go tell the camera.
- k*ll him.
- k*ll him.
- I think they should k*ll him too.
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 k*ll him.
I mean, if he's part of an organization,
if I was running it,
the first thing I'd k*ll would be him.
I don't want him spilling the beans.
We just waited and waited.
The anticipation was getting very high.
The first time I saw McVeigh,
he looked like the composite.
It's my duty to protect McVeigh.
I don't want to protect him,
but it's my job.
Thank you.
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.
- How do you feel about that now?
- Uh, God was watching us.
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.
We learn a lot about Terry Nichols,
who is one of Timothy McVeigh's
closest associates.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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 k*lling 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 k*ll him?
We didn't know.
So I got on the intercom with the pilot.
I said, "Put this thing on the deck.
I don't want a LAW rocket up my a*s."
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.
Bob Ricks arranged for us
to take him to Tinker Air Force Base.
Plus, he sent an FBI SWAT team
for security.
Tonight, the arrest of one American,
another American being questioned.
In the police department
there in Herington,
they interview Terry Nichols
for ten hours.
We start talking to him.
He did not seem flustered.
He did not seem nervous.
He was cold and calm.
We kept going back over
them going to g*n 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.
Now there is no doubt
that if we put this guy before a jury,
they would find him guilty.
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.
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?
They didn't know
if there might be tripwires
or anything
that might set off an expl*si*n.
So the search warrant teams were using
an abundance of caution
before they finally started
executing the search.
Come over here.
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.
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.
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?"
He said, "Terry Nichols
and Michael Fortier."
Bingo.
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.
Bob Ricks, he said,
"We need to approach Michael Fortier."
"I want you to do it."
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.
McVeigh lived in Kingman
off and on the past year.
Fortier helped him find a job.
I don't want to talk.
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.
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 road map.
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.
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.
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.
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 w*r."
I said, "No, we're not.
I'd have k*lled 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 b*mb.
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 b*mb components,
they showed Michael Fortier
the b*mb components.
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.
He absolutely knew
what Tim McVeigh was going to do.
He could've stopped all of this
with an anonymous phone call.
Charged with having
prior knowledge of the bombing,
he will testify
against McVeigh and Nichols
in hopes of getting a lighter sentence.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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 w*r,
that he liked g*ns, but he was
really a mystery to everybody.
So we started with his childhood.
The bully theme runs so deep in his DNA
because he was this skinny little kid
who got picked on.
We can't find that he ever had
a meaningful relationship with a woman.
He almost fit the description
of a school sh**ter.
He had comic book collections,
and he wound up selling
that comic book collection
so that he could buy g*ns,
because g*ns made him feel secure.
From a really young age,
he was fascinated with g*ns.
There's a photograph of McVeigh
hanging from a tree
with a shoulder holster
with a p*stol in it.
That fits into this macho type
of military guy that he's trying to be.
As commander in chief,
I can report to you,
aggression is defeated.
The w*r is over.
He came home from the first Gulf w*r.
He had a Bronze Star.
He'd k*lled a couple of Iraqis.
But even in the army,
he was an outsider.
After the first Gulf w*r,
he was a lost soul.
Wandering around the country,
bouncing from Decker, Michigan,
with the Nichols brothers,
over to Kingman, Arizona,
to Michael Fortier.
As McVeigh was roaming the country,
going from g*n show to g*n show,
he was listening constantly
to these right-wing radio hosts,
that were peddling conspiracy theories
and spewing this anti-government rhetoric.
"We hate the government.
They're gonna take our g*ns away."
And McVeigh was in that fringe.
Dead. Right in the heart.
They're taking away our rights.
What rights?
Our rights for g*ns.
His anger toward the government
was just building and building.
So he turned to the book
that he idolized, The Turner Diaries.
The Turner Diaries is a book
that was written
by a man named William Pierce,
who was a longtime neo-n*zi.
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.
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.
In The Turner Diaries,
you have an illustration
of the main character
blowing up the FBI headquarters
with a truck b*mb.
The truck is loaded with the same kind
of ammonium nitrate expl*sives
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.
As many as 86 people are thought
to have died in yesterday's inferno,
including some 17 children.
There remain serious questions
of why the FBI
chose to go in in such force.
It's hard to remember
that all of this started
with a search warrant
and a cache of
allegedly ill*gal weapons.
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.
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 g*ns.
The bombing, he had hoped
that that would spark a revolution.
The grand jury
delivered its indictment at a courthouse
across the street from the site
of the worst t*rror1st attack
ever in the United States.
The indictment alleges
that Timothy McVeigh
and Terry Nichols alone
planned and ex*cuted 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.
With what he told us,
by the time we got in the courtroom,
the case was really overwhelming.
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 b*mb
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.
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.
We, the jury,
find as follows in the case
of Timothy McVeigh, count one.
Conspiracy.
Guilty.
Guilty.
When the verdict was read,
it was like
somebody let air out of a tire.
It's over. It's over.
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.
Guilty.
I didn't want him to die
when they decided to execute him.
I wanted to protest.
Timothy McVeigh
showed no reaction,
never flinched
as he heard the jury vote for death.
This is not right. It's not fair.
He's taking the easy road out.
We have to live with this. He doesn't.
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.
They stood up for one another.
They looked after one another.
Let him know
there's still some good in the world.
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.
Neighbors, friends, relatives,
moms and dads.
Their children.
That's us.
The Oklahoma Standard
shined brightly.
It shows what Oklahoma people are about.
That they're caring people.
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.
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.
So, it's okay.
I'm okay with that.
He is the love of my life.
Yeah. He's 22 now. I can't believe it.
But yeah, I love him.
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.
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Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror (2025)
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