It is April 19, 1995.
The place is the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
The time is 8:57 am.
One block away, a Ryder truck approaches.
Behind the wheel is Timothy McVeigh. As he drives, he lights a five-minute fuse leading the truck's cargo – 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel mixture.
Arriving at his destination, McVeigh parks the Ryder truck in a drop-off zone situated under the Murrah building's day-care center. He locks the truck and quickly walks to a getaway vehicle nearby and drives away.
At 9:02 am, the Ryder truck detonates.
The effects of the blast are equivalent to over 5,000 pounds of TNT, destroying or damaging 324 buildings within a 16-block radius.
It shatters glass in 258 nearby buildings. (Broken glass alone accounts for 5% of the death total and 69% of the injuries.)
The death toll will eventually reach 168, among them 19 children from the building’s daycare center. The youngest victim is 4 months old.
THE DEADLIEST ACT OF HOMEGROWN TERRORISM IN U.S. HISTORY, THE BOMBING OF THE ALFRED P. MURRAH FEDERAL BUILDING CAN BE HEARD AND FELT FOR UP TO 55 MILES..
Among those who hear the blast are Special Agents of the FB.
Special Agent Barry Black is at Tinker Air Force Base that morning seven miles from the Murrah building.
“I remember it was very loud and you immediately snapped your head toward town,” he said. “It was loud enough where you could see the people outside hunker down because of the noise.”
Black drives to the blast site to help determine what had happened. Pick up his story below.
Bob Ricks, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Oklahoma City Division dispatched the bomb squad to the scene and sets up a command post.
Hear his story.
Evidence collected by the FBI quickly leads to Timothy McVeigh.
Agent Jim Norman recalls the events that followed.
A search of police records shows that McVeigh was stopped by a state trooper just 90 minutes after the bombing!
His getaway car is missing a license plate and the trooper arrests him for carrying a concealed firearm. McVeigh, sitting in the Noble County jail in Perry, Oklahoma, is taken into custody by the FBI.
Timothy McVeigh, a former U.S. soldier, is convicted on 11 counts of murder, conspiracy and using a weapon of mass destruction in the blast, and is later executed. Another ex-soldier, Terry Nichols, is convicted on similar charges for his role in the bombing and sentenced to life without parole.
“One of our missions was to build a place that would teach the moral of the story and the tenderness of the response.”
Kari Watkins, executive director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.