Search for the Attacker (Full Episode) | Oklahoma City Bombing: One Day in America | Nat Geo

-Still hard to believe we are looking at our own backyard. The deadliest terrorist attack in the history of this country in downtown Oklahoma City. -Casualties very hard to say. Certainly approaching 100 in terms of injuries, many of them critical, fatalities. A number of reports, none of them absolutely confirmed yet, including one report that six children were killed. -In Oklahoma City, more than 200 FBI agents, 45 US Marshals, and dozens of ATF agents are now involved in a massive manhunt for the bomber. -I'd been a trooper for 18 and a half years. You never know what you will encounter. You get to meet a lot of nice people... but you get to meet some evil ones too. So, I'm traveling on the interstate when I come up behind this, er, old yellow Mercury. I notice there's no license plate on the rear bumper, so I became a little suspicious that maybe the car was stolen to begin what I thought was just, er, another routine traffic stop. I got out and I yelled for the driver of the vehicle to get out. And he's not immediately getting out of the car. It put me on high alert. He looked like a clean-cut young guy. I mean, he's about 6 foot tall, slender, er, military-style haircut. He has military boots on. I could see a bulge under his jacket that I believed to be a weapon, and I pulled my weapon, and I said, “I need to look under your jacket”. He slowly unzips his jacket and he's just starting to pull it back when he looks me in the eye and he says, "I have a weapon". I was telling him to get his hands up and turn around and he says, "Well my weapon is loaded" and I nudged him in the back of the head with the barrel of my pistol, and I said, "Well, so is mine." [♪ theme music playing] [overlapping chatter] [reporter] People are running like crazy away from the area because there is a concern for a second explosion. Unfortunately, there are still people trapped in the Alfred Murrah Building. [Reporter 2] They're now delaying the rescue efforts that were going on. The evacuation efforts. And as you can well imagine in these kind of critical emergency situations, time, er, really is the difference between life and death. -As soon as she comes back then get her up on a live shot. -I don't want you to be in danger, Dave. We're getting confirmation now that two more devices have been found in the building. -What's Rick's last name? Rick, er, from ATF. Rick, FBI, what's his name? Just thought, what is so evil in someone's heart that would make them do this? I mean, what? Who are you? -We do need to send producers down to the trucks. So, you guys figure out, er, do you wanna go down? [Robin Marsh] My news director's like, "Get down there. Get mic'd up. So, if they come to you, Robin, you'll be ready to go". We're in the car heading to downtown Oklahoma City. I can remember someone on the radio said, "We've gotten a call. We think this is something from the Middle East." -There have been some reports that police are looking for a light blue pickup truck with three Middle Eastern men inside. [producer] Stand by Robin. [Robin Marsh] When I first got there... -Move back! [Robin Marsh] People were running for their lives... [officer] Get your stuff back now! Get back! Go! [overlapping panic chatter] -We had word from the fire department that there were people still trapped inside the building. And that was what makes you so darn mad, knowing that people are in there that need help, but they can't get to them. [reporter] We also are getting word that there might be an ATF agent trapped on the ninth floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Building. -My friend, Luke Franey, was still trapped on the ninth floor. And I was hunkered next to a wall waiting for the blast to go off. And I put my finger in one ear, and I had the radio on the other. I kept trying to hit him on the radio, "Luke? Luke?" And I did that for about five minutes. But nobody's answering. That's when I'm thinking the worst. [Luke Franey] There was people screaming for help. People screaming in pain. To see literally everybody sprinting away from the building was terrifying. Because at that point, it really sinks in that you're trapped. Hanging out the window of the ninth floor. That's when I got scared, because it was like, wow, this is really happening and I've gotta make a decision here. The bombing cut the ATF office in half. There was a large portion of floor missing, maybe 10 or 15 feet. I didn't think I could make it across. Things flash before you and you think about your children, you think about, you know, your loved ones, your family. Whether you're gonna get to see them again. I'm literally thinking that there is another bomb with a timer on it and there is a countdown. And I think I'd rather die trying to get out than going through another explosion. But it looked like, you literally took the entire inside of the building and put it in a blender, turned it on, and dumped it back out. And you've got a 20 to 30-knot Oklahoma wind blowing. And the whole building was just shaking. It was going back and forth like this. I was having to kick and, and punch my way through dry wall. Eventually, I was able to open the door and I was like, alright, there's a stairwell. So, I'm thinking beat the clock. I am literally sprinting down the stairwell. Holding onto the rail and I'm running down the stairs and I start kind of slipping and sliding and I stop for a minute and look, and I realize that the handrails, you know, are covered in blood. The stairwells are covered in blood. And I was just like, oh man. So, I just kept going and eventually got down to the second floor where the plaza was. And that door opened and I ran away from the building. As I come up to the area where the agents were standing they were all there looking up at the 9th floor because they had no idea, you know, I had gotten out. And I walk up and grab Mark by the shoulder. -And I look and there's Luke. That's when my knees kind of buckled a little bit. -Mark was very happy to see me. And I was very happy to see him. [Mark Michalic] I was so relieved that he was fine. But it's like, I'm sorry that I didn't do more to help ya. [Luke Franey] You know, why, why did myself and others get out of the building and why did a lot of other people not? And I don't think, I don't think you ever get the answer to that. [Mark Michalic] Friends that I'd just seen the day before, they're no longer there. You just kind of take all that and you compartmentalize it the best you can and then you tuck that away as deep as you can and go do the job you were hired to do. Let's move back! -Can someone pass this to the anchors right away? -Alright Governor, we have some, if you can hold on the line we have some new information for you. -Police have confirmed down at the Federal Building that they have disarmed a second device. -It was a great relief that, that I learned it was not actually a bomb. It was a mock-up of a missile that was used for training by one of the agencies in the building. Now we have to, to solve this and solve it as quickly as possible. For me, the pressure was truly overwhelming. You're talking about a massive crime scene. I was walking west, roughly a block away from the Murrah Building. And I come upon a couple of agents and a deputy sheriff that are surrounding this, uh, this, uh, metal, uh, piece that's laying there in the street. They told me that more than likely, this is something that exploded from, uh, from the bomb itself. But it became clear that this is a rear axle out of the vehicle that was used to deliver the bomb. VIN number is, is printed on all the major pieces in a vehicle. I said, "Guard this with your lives. This could be the most important evidence that we have in this whole crime scene." This is gonna be the first step in identifying at least the type of truck and can lead to the identification of the person who rented the truck. -It was complete silence. It was pitch black. I couldn't see anything. I'm laying there, thinking... this is it. No one's coming. [sirens] -I've already backed out once. I'm not backing out again. The area that Amy was in was real unstable. My worst fear was when we came back, she would have been gone. You're racing the clock to get them out. And you can barely get to them, much less get them out. [Amy Downs] And then I hear commotion, and I hear what sounds like men's voices. [Walter Lamar] When we first crawled down into the, what was deemed "the pit" it was an incredibly scary place because you could still feel some of the vibration in the building. There was a fireman pulling things away from Amy to try to free her. At that moment, talking to her was all I could do to help. [Amy Downs] There was a man who seemed very friendly. And I just remember feeling like, when I heard his voice, that there was somebody that was gonna save me. -I'm a member of the Black Feet Nation of Montana and the Wichita Tribe of Oklahoma. There's this whole camaraderie in that, in those communities. If somebody's in need, somebody helps. I couldn't really imagine how Amy was still alive. There was this, this wedge, a huge slab of concrete that was, was laying at an angle. She was buried in tons of rubble, still in her office chair. The blood trails leading away from desks. -I remember him joking with me. And he took my hand and put it around a, a boot of somebody. It made me feel like someone was going to take care of me. -She said, "Um, if you guys can get me out of here, I'm gonna bake you chocolate chip cookies." I mean, it sounds as strange as hell to say it, but there was this calmness to what was going on right there. -I've never seen the likes of those poor little kid that, you know... -They're all buried under there still. We can't get to the kids. -I, I moved... I started moving over and trying to find a place to put the rubble and I found two more little kids underneath. You know... -I moved a piece of ductwork and there was a lady looking at me in the face. -Yeah. -I couldn't believe it, man, my dear lord. [reporter] Oklahoma... There's 200 people have been injured. There are triage nurses, doctors, rescue crews... -We have the Governor here. He's ready to go. People are clamoring for him. You've got to come to us right now. I'm not kidding. We'd better go. We're gonna get pulled away. Somebody's gonna steal the Governor if we don't do it now. Yes. Governor Keating is right here. Have you toured the scene? What have you, what can you tell us? -Well, it's unspeakable horror and tragedy. For the families involved our sympathies and prayers. For the perpetrators, we'll get 'em. You're operating by the seat of your pants really. I was not trained to respond to a building collapse and a bombing. The number of casualties, the injured and dead are gonna be very substantial. I know lots of the people in there. It's Beirut. I mean, it's, er, it's just incredible. [reporter] Governor Keating telling us about his tour through the scene... -Thanks, guys. A while later, we were walking and I saw a firefighter coming up and I said, "Thank you very much for being here." He was rather harsh and he said, "Well, who are you?" And I said, "I'm the Governor of the state." And then you would expect him to say, "Oh Governor, nice to meet you." He didn't. He took his finger, and he stuck it in my chest, and he said, "Well, then you find out who did this because the only thing I pulled from that rubble was a child's finger and an American flag." And he stormed on up the street. He was angry and who wouldn't be? [Bob Ricks] We set up a mobile command post and put together the investigative team. At that point, we had no specific clues other than the VIN number on the rear axle. So, we get an agent to run the number through one of our databases. And then we get a call back that there was a hit. It matches to a Ryder truck rented out of Junction City, Kansas... One of my agents went down there... ...and we quickly learned that the truck had been rented by a Bob Kling. So, now we have the name of Robert Kling. We don't, we don't know any Robert Kling. He doesn't appear in any of our databases. But at least we now have a name. So they find a mechanic who has the best recollection of what the, the renter looked like. So, we sent a sketch artist out there to get a composite drawing of the suspect. This could be the breakthrough that we desperately needed. -Sir, based upon our situation we developed a, a reputation to the state... [Frank Keating] It was just such a blizzard. You're up to your eyeballs in trying to make sure that everything that needs to be done is being done. I was in our command center, trying to get briefed by people there as to what they thought occurred. -We have one point down here that's controlling access, er, of the recovery teams pulling the bodies in and out. Taking them to the morgue area. [Frank Keating] And then I was informed that the president wanted to talk to me. -I was just shell-shocked by the... ...sheer scope of the killing, and I wanted us, us meaning the United States Government to be there for the state and for the city. So, I called the Governor of Oklahoma. I knew him when we were in college. He was actually a year or so ahead of me at Georgetown. Our politics were very different but I knew that I was talking to somebody that whatever the politics were, I trusted to be on the level. -He immediately said, "What in the world is going on?" “What help do you need from me?” And I said, “If you can send FEMA teams then we're gonna be in a position to respond as we should, save a lot of lives, and find out who did this.” -I remember almost immediately I said, you know, "Everybody's gonna think this is a foreign terrorist incident." But I thought it was very important not to make that assumption. -As soon as our view walks in the door, gonna have him send this tape back to the tape room. He's got great, awesome tape he says. -It's just kinda like journalism 101. Who? What? Where? Why? -What we need to know is, like, a history of terrorism bombings in the US. I wonder if we have any tape of any of those. I mean, is there anything comparable? -Yeah, I mean in Lebanon every day. -Not here. [Robin Marsh] It just got us thinking, Why Oklahoma? Why today? From the moment that bomb went off, we just wanted to figure it out. [Robin Marsh] And then viewers started calling in. -Okay, thank you very much. I'll pass that on. -You guys, can somebody find out, is this the second anniversary of Waco? -The same day. -Is it the same day it blew up? -That's why it's the 19... -Jesus... [Robin Marsh] In the newsroom we started realizing what was really playing out and the correlation of April 19th. [Robin Marsh] The fact that it was two years to the day since the end of the Waco siege, there's like no way this could be a coincidence. And then we realized that some of the same government agents who had been at Waco worked in Oklahoma City. Some of them in the Murrah Federal Building. -The Waco siege was a standoff between the, the United States government and Texas law enforcement against a religious cult known as the Branch Davidians. You had the leader of this cult, David Koresh, living on this compound with his followers and their families. -You will not be ashamed for all your sins you committed against me. Sounds good. [Bob Ricks] It started off with ATF, the Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms Agency, receiving a complaint that grenades were found in a, in a shipment that was going to the Branch Davidians. -They fear inside this heavily armed fortress there is not only an arsenal of illegal weapons but also hand grenades and rocket launchers. -They were violating the federal firearms laws. They were manufacturing machine guns illegally. Making improvised explosive devices illegally. ATF obtained a search warrant for the Davidian compound and ATF attempted to execute the search warrant. [gunfire] -I was with a small group of agents that were assigned to a sniper team. [Luke Franey] In the gun battle with the Davidians... ...four of our agents were killed and twenty were wounded. [Bob Ricks] As a result of the total failure of that raid, the FBI was asked to come in and take over. I was the chief spokesperson for the FBI and also worked with the negotiators in trying to negotiate people out. We're using non-lethal means, we're not assaulting the place. We had no FBI agents go into the compound. Even though we have probably had over 200 rounds of ammunition fired at us. After 51 days, the decision was made to teargas the Branch Davidians to drive them out. [reporter] The Bradley armored vehicle begins to punch holes in the flimsy walls. A boom attached to the Bradley pumps non-lethal teargas at 15-second intervals inside the compound. The FBI says the device is designed not to create sparks that could cause fire. -Once we teargassed the place after approximately six hours the Branch Davidians decided to set the place on fire. Some people were coming up with these horrible theories about what the FBI had done. Claims that we had prevented people from escaping from Waco. That we purposefully set fire to the Branch Davidian compound and assassinated literally those people inside. -I was at Waco and at the end of the day, there was tragic loss of life, children died that day. And that's raised a lot of controversy. [Mark Michalic] Unfortunately 76 Branch Davidians died that day. When the bombing happened in Oklahoma City, we were thinking, well maybe somebody is mad at us for Waco and was trying to get back at us. [Bob Ricks] Some extreme right-wing groups believed that the Davidians were attacked because of Second Amendment issues. Because they owned weapons. So, once we'd realized the correlation between the date of Waco and the date of the bombing, we suspected that the person we were after might have done this because they were angry at the government. [Amy Downs] I had been trapped in the rubble for six and a half hours. The firefighter says, "Amy, we're gonna count to three and we're gonna pull. And this is probably gonna hurt." And I said, "Do it. Okay." And they counted to three and they pulled, and every nerve came alive in my body. But for the first time I was out, and I could see. They took me out of the back of the Federal Building on the gurney. I remember looking at the sky and promising God, that I will never live my life the same. I will never take it for granted. -Her coming out was euphoric, for me. You can't imagine the exhaustion. All that frustration. Our race against the clock. We just won. -I know, Mom. I'm okay. I love you too. Everything hurt but I was so relieved to be out, and I see my husband. And I see the worried look on his face. And I looked at him and said, "So, do you think this means that we can't close on our house tomorrow?" Because I thought if I could make a joke, he would know I'm okay. You know, it's going to be okay. My co-workers are my friends, and I love them. I just, I hope that they find them. I really hope they find them, and I hope they're alive. I held out such hope that they were gonna find everybody else. I just knew if they found me, they're gonna find the others. They just have to get to them. But then, as people kept calling and asking, did I remember what this person was wearing or that person was wearing and no one else was coming out of the building alive, then I'm realizing that they're trying to identify the bodies and they're wanting to know what they were wearing. I didn't realize that I was going to be one of the very last people that they got out of the building alive. [crew] Stand by! -Okay. Alright guys, we're here at the triage center. We are east of where the building is. These nurses from this triage center, where we were anticipating they were going to be bringing some of the people who were wounded here. We've set up with about probably three to four hundred volunteers here. And tell me your name and tell me what they've just told you here at this triage center. -My name's Joanne McCurley. They just told us they've found 80 people and only two were alive and they told us all to go home. -Thank you. I... [Joanne McCurley] You bet. -Ready to go. -Oh God. [Robin Marsh] You can't comprehend it at that time so many people lost their lives. You know, in a moment's notice... It's devastating. -How? People... How could people do this? -It's sad, it's sad, it's sad! -I can't believe this. -By the end of that night it was like you felt like the whole world was shattered. [♪ somber music playing] [announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States... [President Clinton] Well, I knew the country would be profoundly disturbed. I wanted to both comfort and reassure them, and to steel their spines for whatever we might have to do to deal with it. Good afternoon. Please be seated. And all the time, I'm just thinking about all these kids that were killed at the daycare center. And that was particularly painful for me because a man who had been on my Secret Service security detail, Al Whicher, who we all thought was great. He had applied to transfer to Oklahoma City because he had little kids, and he thought it would be a good place to raise his family. And the idea that somebody thought it was okay to snuff out his life and rob his kids of a father for whatever reason, I found insane. Whoever did it, we will find out and there will be justice that will be swift and certain and severe. And there is no place to hide. Nobody can hide any place in this country. place in this world from the terrible consequences of what have been done. This was an attack on innocent children, on innocent victims. On the people there in Oklahoma City. But make no mistake about it, this was an attack on the United States, our way of life, and everything we believe in. Thank you very much. [Bob Ricks] The artist's impression of the suspect was faxed to us. And it gave us further confirmation and cemented what we'd suspected. He was not Middle Eastern. He was White with a crew cut, clean-shaven, and was wearing military gear. Now we had to find this person and get them behind bars so they no longer pose a threat to other innocent life out there. We flooded Junction City, Kansas, with agents... -Did you notice a Ryder truck or a yellow truck? [Bob Ricks] ...trying to find someone that had seen someone that looked like the artist's conception that had a Ryder truck. -How you doing today, Sir? We're currently conducting an investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing. [Bob Ricks] We were going to business establishments, motels, restaurants, anywhere we could think of in the area, but nobody had seen anything. Then we tried the Dreamland Motel. -Leah... [Bob Ricks] The general manager says, “Matter of fact, I did see the young guy”. He registered in room 25 as Tim McVeigh. Then we pulled all of his telephone records and we find out on Saturday night he calls a local Chinese food place. The name on the order was Bob Kling. So lights go off. We now have a Timothy McVeigh we don't know who he is. We have a Bob Kling, we don't know who he is. We know we got two names now that are connected with the bombing. [Mark Michalic] So, we ran a search on one of our government databases. For a name of Timothy James McVeigh. We find out there's a highway patrol trooper named Charlie Hanger. He remembers hooking up a guy on the morning of the bombing with the last name of McVeigh. And he was taken to Noble County jail in Perry, Oklahoma. So, I'm thinking okay, we got something maybe. -I hadn't thought too much about that arrest at all. My job was finished. Most people would've, uh been released the next morning. [Mark Michalic] So, I call up. I said, “Hey, listen, Charlie Hanger hooked an old boy up on, uh, Wednesday morning and uh, brought him to your jail, do you, do you have any information on that?” He said, “Yeah, well hold on here for a second,” and I'm talking and about that time everybody else seems to put their phone down, and it's just one of those just surreal moments, and so I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, I'm waiting. Finally, he comes back, and he goes, “Yeah, Mark, that guy that, uh, Charlie arrested, yeah, uh, yeah no, uh, he, he's still here." He goes, “His name's Timothy James McVeigh”. And I said, “Well Sheriff where is that guy right now?” he says, “Well I've got a deputy walking him over to court for his initial appearance.” And that's when I said, “Well Sheriff, do me a favor, spin that old boy around and put him back in your hotel, there's gonna be some federal boys come see ya.” He said, “Okay.” [Walter Lamar] Bob Ricks said, “I need you to go up there and get a lay of the place so that we can figure out how to get him out of there.” I'm thinking I need to hurry up. So, I hop in a helicopter, and we took off for Perry, Oklahoma. [Walter Lamar] Perry is a small, quiet, rural Oklahoma community, it's about 80 miles from Oklahoma City. I made contact with the Sheriff and the first thing he did was took me straight to where McVeigh was. For us, the least amount of notice and commotion the better. [Robin Marsh] My boss called me and said, "You've gotta get to Perry, Oklahoma." And I'm like, "Why?" and they said, "We think one of the suspects has been arrested and is in the Noble County jail, and not a lot of people know about it." And so, I'm like, "Okay, I'm going." I, I'm back on the air. Can you... I'm back here on the phone. [Walter Lamar] There was a news crew made it into the hallway of the courthouse and they're filming, er, trying to find out what's going on. I tell 'em, you know, "You've gotta get out of here". [Robin Marsh] Well, we said, "Hey, did y'all arrest someone? Is there someone here that people are looking for?" and they were like, "Get out" so we knew... He's there. [Walter Lamar] Right after that the phones start ringing and there was a person there at the desk answering the phone and she'd answered the phone, and she goes, “I don't know but there is an FBI guy standing right here” and I'm like, “No, no, no, no” I don't wanna, well it was the media that started calling, so I told the Sheriff, I said, “Sheriff if they're calling, they're coming. I would bring in your reserves, the local police, maybe even the Boy Scouts if you need to have ‘em because it's gonna get very active up here.” [reporter] I am told now that we do have, er, Robin Marsh on, on the phone. Tell us what you're seeing. [Robin Marsh] Well, I can tell you that there are media from all across the world in this small Oklahoma town, I've been talking with townsfolk's here and they just cannot believe the scene that has converged on the Noble County Courthouse. There are two Oklahoma Highway Patrol cars right at, at the door of the courthouse and we're just all waiting. [reporter] Helicopters are, are still overhead, mostly media helicopters and about, I'd say 250, 300 people... -They wanted him to know how they felt. -I think they should've let him loose out front and let everybody have at him or take him to Oklahoma City and let all those people have at him. [Walter Lamar] McVeigh still had to be transported from Perry to Oklahoma City but there is all kinds of commotion going on, I was thinking oh my God, it's, it's gonna be crazy up here. [reporter] The police wanna protect this man. We did hear some people in the crowd saying, “They had better protect him well because there are a lot of people in Oklahoma who would like to take a shot at him.” [Walter Lamar] By now these other agents got there and they're like, “We've gotta go now.” [Robin Marsh] Most of the Sheriff's officials who have been closer to the door have all just kind of walked out, they're actually closer to this, er, yellow tape but we might wanna just keep it here for a little bit because we're just getting the impression that, er, something is going on. [crowd booing] [Robin Marsh] 27-year-old Timothy McVeigh walked out of the Noble County courthouse and loaded up into a brown van that is being, uh, taken away to Oklahoma City where he will appear before a federal magistrate on charges for the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Wednesday. You never thought this would happen here, never Oklahoma City, never home. It might even be harder to accept that it's an American who did this. [reporter] There goes Tim McVeigh, the first confirmed arrest in the Oklahoma bombing case. [Robin Marsh] We knew his name but now we wanted to know who in the heck this man was. That was the question. [reporter] Timothy McVeigh, the lone suspect to be charged with the bombing so far is under tight security as investigators try to figure out his exact ties to the tragedy. Despite being perhaps the most infamous man in America today, McVeigh remains a relative unknown. A loner with a shrouded past.