Rebecca Lopez shares her memories of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, the arrest of Tim McVeigh and the tragedy’s legacy.
DALLAS — It was spring 1995, and I was working in Austin, out on a story, when my pager went off. It said a daycare had been bombed in Oklahoma City.
I rushed back to the newsroom and saw the first images coming in. The whole front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was gone.
My first thought was that it was April 19 — the second anniversary of the Branch Davidian siege outside of Waco, which I had also covered. I immediately thought, this has to be connected.
Waco origins
In February 1993, agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives went to the Branch Davidian compound to arrest the cult leader David Koresh and confiscate a stockpile of illegal weapons.
There was a gunfight and then a 51-day standoff. During the standoff, a young former soldier arrived to protest and hand out anti-government pamphlets. Reporters, including myself, interviewed him. None of us knew at the time that he would go on to become our nation’s worst domestic terrorist.
His name was Timothy McVeigh.
The standoff ended with the feds using tanks to force the Davidians out. The compound burned to the ground. David Koresh and 75 of his followers, including children, died.
Two years later
In 1995, two years later, McVeigh drove a Ryder truck to the Murrah Building with a 7,000-pound bomb inside and detonated it. Berry Black was one of the first FBI agents on the scene.
“I was about seven miles away when the detonation occurred,” Black said. “It registered 3.2 on the Richter, like an earthquake.”
It was 9:02 a.m. The blast took 168 lives – babies, parents, and federal workers. A day that started like any other ended in horror.
I was sent to Oklahoma City and arrived the next day. I remember looking up at the building and thinking, “this looks like war.”
Bodies were still being pulled out.
“Let there be no room for doubt,” said President Bill Clinton at the time. “We will find the people who did this, and when we do, justice will be swift, certain and severe.”
The investigation begins
The investigation moved fast. Investigators quickly found pieces of the Ryder truck.
“The deputy wiped some grease away and revealed the vehicle identification number,” Agent Black said.
Investigators quickly traced the VIN number to the truck rented under the fake name of “Robert Kling” in Junction City, Kansas. They questioned the man who leased it.
“He still had the paperwork,” Black said.
A sketch was drawn of the suspect and another man who was with him. The FBI got 16,000 tips. But one of them cracked the case.
“A man from upstate New York called and said, ‘I recognize that guy. His name is Timothy McVeigh,’” Black said.
The arrest
The FBI ran McVeigh’s name through a database and found out he had been arrested only 90 minutes after the bombing, about 90 miles outside of Oklahoma City. A deputy had pulled him over for not having a license plate.
“He said ‘McVeigh said I have a weapon and it’s loaded,’” Black recalled, “and [the deputy] put his pistol to McVeigh’s head and said, ‘So is mine.’”
The FBI almost couldn’t believe he was in custody so quickly, Black said.
“He was still in jail in Perry, Oklahoma. We put a federal hold on him.”
Authorities believe McVeigh picked the Murrah building because some of the ATF agents who had been in Waco had offices in that building.
He was convicted and sentenced to die. I covered his execution.
McVeigh never apologized. Instead of a final statement, he gave the warden a poem to hand out, called Invictus. It reads in part: “I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul.”
This was a story I covered from beginning to end, from Waco to the final moment when McVeigh’s heart stopped.
April 19th is still raw. But in the face of hate, Oklahoma showed the nation the meaning of resilience.
