Domestic Terrorist. He planned and implemented the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995, in which 168 people were murdered in the explosion. He would state that this bombing was in retaliation for the Waco Siege, Ruby Ridge, and for other governmental activities and policies that he considered tyrannical. Born into an Irish Catholic family in Lockport, New York, he was the son of William and Mildred Noreen Hill McVeigh. His parents divorced when he was ten years old. Quiet and shy, he was picked on by school bullies while he was growing up. He had only one girlfriend during his high school years, which he attributed to his inability to talk to girls. While in high school, he became interested in computers and guns, and in his senior year, he was voted the school's "Most Promising Computer Programmer." He learned to love guns when his grandfather introduced him to shooting, and during his late teen years, he became interested in gun rights and the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. Politically, he supported the Libertarian political party, and voted for the libertarian candidates. Following his parent's divorce, he lived with his father, while his sisters remained with his mother. His father, a devout Roman Catholic, tried to instill the religion in his son, but he later reported that after leaving of his father's house, he had lost contact with religion, never resuming it, and at one point, claiming to have become an agnostic. In May of 1988, he enlisted into the US Army, and would later serve in the Gulf War as a top turret gunner on a M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle with the First Infantry Division, for which he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal. Following the Gulf War, McVeigh tried to join the Special Forces, but was rejected after failing the physical fitness requirements for the program. Failing to live his military dream, he left the Army on December 31, 1991 with an Honorable Discharge. Initially transient, he worked near his hometown of Pendleton, New York as a security guard, then quit his job to move around the country doing odd jobs and finding old Army buddies. Over the next several years, he failed at many things important to a young man: he had a dead-end job, he failed at romantic relationships, the Army billed him for $1,058 that they claimed they overpaid him, he started to gamble and had insufficient money to pay his gambling debts. In 1993, he went to Waco, Texas during the siege to show his support. He began to believe that the government was turning socialist, bigger and more controlling of the people's lives. Following the end of the Waco Siege, he began working at gun shows, and moved around the various states, visiting and working at some 80 gun shows across the country, where he distributed survivalist items such as "The Turner Diaries" and would talk to people about what he perceived as the federal government threat to American liberties. While living with his former Army buddy Terry Nichols, he learned to make explosives from normal, standard household materials. Upset over what he believed was government tyranny in the siege of Ruby Ridge and Waco, he and Nichols began to stockpile weapons, ammunition and ammonium nitrate fertilizer, for fear that the government would start banning their sales. He and Nichols constructed a 5000-pound bomb made of ammonium nitrate or an agricultural fertilizer and nitromethane or a motor racing fuel in a rented Ryder truck. After parking the truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, McVeigh lit two fuses, with one being a backup, and at 9:02 am the bomb exploded, destroying the north half of the building. The blast killed 168 people and injured 450 others. Nineteen of the victims were infant children in a daycare on the ground floor of the building. While driving away from the building and the time bomb, McVeigh had removed the license plate from his car to avoid possible identification from witnesses. A state trooper noticed the missing plate and pulled his car over. McVeigh had also left a pistol on the back seat in plain sight, and the Oklahoma trooper arrested him for carrying a concealed weapon. While still in jail on the gun charge, McVeigh was identified as the renter of the Ryder van used in the bombing, and was quickly rearrested on the bombing charges. McVeigh was indicted on 11 federal counts, including conspiracy, use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction by explosives, and first-degree murder. The Federal District Court agreed with a defense motion to change venue, and the case was tried in Denver, Colorado. Showing no remorse over his actions, McVeigh was convicted of all 11 counts and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, McVeigh would write many essays about his beliefs. His best essay is considered a letter he wrote to Fox News entitled "I Explain Herein Why I Bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City" in which he makes it clear his reasons for the bombing, and ending with the statement "If people say 'The Turner Diaries' was my Bible, then 'Unintended Consequences' would be my New Testament. [It] is a better book." McVeigh was executed by lethal injection at the Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. He selected William Henley's poem, "Invictus," as his final statement. A newly passed Federal Law prohibited McVeigh from being buried in a military cemetery, and no one claimed his body, so he was cremated and given to his lawyer, who scattered the ashes at an undisclosed location.