I never paid attention to this case at the time, but after reading about it, there seems to be several inconsistencies and unexplained events regarding the official story as to what actually happened. The official story claims that after he was discharged from the Army in 1991, McVeigh became ‘radicalized’ after reading a book (“The Turner Diaries”), hearing George Bush and Bill Clinton talking about their “New World Order” and learning about the Ruby Ridge incident and the Waco Siege. - (if this were in fact true, he blew up the wrong building)

McVeigh publicly stated that he purposely chose the second anniversary of the Waco assault for his terrorist act as a message to what he believed is an oppressive federal government. He also stated that he and co-conspirator Terry Nichols had carried out the bombing without anyone else's help.

Several witnesses at the Truck Rental reported that two men  had rented the truck, neither of which matched the description of McVeigh or Terry Nichols. Apparently Nichols was known to be else ware at the time, so even if McVeigh was one of the men, who was the second man? (John Doe 2)

One whiteness testified that a year and half after he first saw John Doe 2 at Elliott's Body Shop, the government convinced him that he had made a mistake and identified a different person who had rented the truck. http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/mcveigh/part05.htm

McVeigh allegedly assembled a 5,000 pound bomb in the back of the rented truck at a lakeside campground near his old Army post, interestingly an aerial picture of a Ryder truck that had been parked near the camp ground latter surfaced, however it was parked inside the fenced area of the Army post.

              Picture was taken in early April of 1995 - The Oklahoma city bombing was April 19, 1995

(in a Washington Post article on June 17th, 1997, the Oklahoma National Guard confirmed that this photo is authentic)

More pictures at:

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/TRUCK/truck.html

Note: in the picture that all encompassing screens set up to conceal the presence of the trucks and the outer screen set up to conceal the entire compound.

When the truck bomb exploded on April 19, 1995, it blasted the government building with enough force to shatter one third of the seven-story structure to bits. (claiming 168 lives). According to the FBI, the only identifiable part of the truck that could be found in the wreckage was the rear axle of the Truck, from it they were able to recover the serial number, from the serial number, they were allegedly able to determine that the truck was registered to a Ryder Truck Rental in Junction City, Ok.

The reason I say allegedly is that standard rear axle housings do not have serialized numbers. There may have been numbers cast into the axel housing, or stamped into the axle tubes, which under normal conditions are difficult to read. The bomb in the back of the truck would have exploded directly over the top of the rear axle, separated by only an aluminum deck. Even if the numbers on axle housings remained legible, they are ‘casting numbers‘, this number can indicate the axles weight rating, model type, year, month and sometimes the day, or the shift that it was made, it will often indicate the location of the plant where it was manufactured.

Casting numbers can not be used to uniquely identify an axle housing, all of the other units of its type which were made on the same day will have exactly the same number.

After they are manufactured, axle housings are shipped to the assembly plants of various customers which ordered them. Because of these factors, it would only be possible to identify a wide range of various truck models which may have been assembled using that particular run of castings. - several hundred, or thousands of possibilities.

Shortly after the bombing, McVeigh was stopped by police for driving his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis with no license plates. McVeigh was arrested for driving without a license plate and carrying and transporting a loaded firearm. Three days later, while still in jail, McVeigh was identified as the subject of the nationwide manhunt.

 -So McVeigh was smart enough to build a 5,000 pound bomb and carry out the worst act of terrorism in the history of our country (at the time), but he was stupid enough to leave the scene of the crime driving a bright yellow, early model car, without any license plates, while carrying a loaded firearm. - It sounds as if he was trying to be captured.  

Brigadier General Benton K. Partin (Ret.) examined the damage that had been done to the building and concluded that "the damage at the Murrah Federal Building is not the result of the truck bomb itself, but rather due to other factors such as locally placed charges within the building itself".

- There have been attempts to discredit this determination (misjudging the power of the blast, etc.) but the Generals conclusion was not based upon the extensive damage, it was based upon the blast and debri patterns.

On August 10th 1995, McVeigh was indicted on 11 counts, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction by explosives, and eight counts of first-degree murder.

On October 20, 1995, the government filed notice that it would seek the death penalty.

On February 20, 1996 the Court granted a change of venue and ordered the case transferred from Oklahoma City to the US District Court in Denver, Colorado presided over by U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch.

On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on all 11 counts of the indictment.

On June 13, the same jury recommended that McVeigh receive the death penalty.

McVeigh's death sentence was delayed pending appeals. One of his appeals was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, which it denied on March 8, 1999. In December, 2000, without presenting a reason for doing so, McVeigh ordered his attorneys to withdraw the rest of his appeals, he then asked U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch to waive all future appeals of his death sentence. In a January hearing the Bureau of Prisons scheduled his execution for May 16.

The news media presented this withdrawal as if McVeigh was wasting his time and money, when in fact he had several legal challenges available to him that would have delayed his execution for many years, the unidentified accomplice who had rented the truck could have even provided reasonable doubt, possibly overturning the execution ruling.

 His execution date was thrown into doubt, when the FBI revealed that it failed to turn over more than 4,400 pages of documents to McVeigh's defense. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was in Oklahoma City Monday, postponed the execution for several weeks.

Again McVeigh chose not to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

McVeigh did not request clemency either. (99.9% of condemned prisoners do, apparently the thought is that it does not hurt to ask)

On March 19, 2001, McVeigh claimed to oppose autopsies for ethical and philosophical reasons, McVeigh's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch to approve an informal agreement under which the Coroner, Susan Amos, agreed not to conduct any "invasive procedure" on McVeigh following his execution. Matsch said he had no objection to the plan but had no jurisdiction, stating that:

"My jurisdiction ends when Timothy McVeigh ends"

 Postmortem autopsies are typically performed after executions in order to discourage prisoner abuse and to provide jailers with defensive evidence from any possible allegations latter made by the executed prisoners relatives. To satisfy this requirement, it was agreed the coroner would check McVeigh for signs of any bruising before the execution. She would then examine his body again after McVeigh's execution, taking photographs and X-rays if necessary. If Amos found evidence of abuse, she could then perform an autopsy if McVeigh's attorney approved.

A new date was set for McVeigh’s execution, it was to be on June 11, 2001, just 5 years after the bombing. All other federal prisoners have had a minimum of eight years until their executions.

At McVeigh's request, no members of his family traveled to Terre Haute for the execution.

 On the day before his execution, McVeigh seemed to be taking it well, he even took a nap.  Before the execution, McVeigh was in amazingly good spirits.

Several whitnesses said that his facial expressions were "about as calm as they can be"

[would you be calm and in good spirits?]

After he was strapped down to the table and given the lethal injection, he looked up above him...and right into the lens of the camera covering the event for the Oklahoma City Victims...and he smiled, then closed his eyes and died....Or did he?

[this is very uncharacteristic behavior compared to other lethal injection executions]

McVeigh's passing, the witnesses said, was remarkably uneventful.

media witness, Crocker Stephenson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said:

"The most remarkable thing to me was how remarkably subtle the process was in which he slipped from life to death, there was no point in which he looked as if he turned a corner"

 McVeigh's body was removed immediately after his execution and driven away in a government van, Justice Department officials said. They would not give any information about its destination. The waiting funeral Hearse was left sitting at the prison as McVeigh was driven away in the white van. It was latter announced that McVeigh’s body had been taken directly to a crematorium, where he was then cremated - without a casket - and his ashes were to be spread at an undisclosed location. His lawyers said information about his remains and any resting-place would remain privileged.

Speaking from the White House briefing room about an hour and a half after the execution, President Bush told reporters that McVeigh "met the fate he chose for himself six years ago." Bush said, "Under the laws of our country the matter is concluded."

There are several things wrong with this story:

Why did McVeigh drop his appeals?

Why did McVeigh not request a new trail in light of the 4,400 pages of documents?

Why did McVeigh not request clemency?

Why was he executed only four years after his arrest and conviction? - other recently condemned inmates it had been delayed at least eight years.

Why did most of the witnesses note the unusual manor that he died?

Why was the information about his remains kept secrete?

Why was McVeigh opposed to having an autopsy? Cremation was not an issue.

Why was his body taken to the crematorium, rather than the morgue?

What about the agreement with the coroner? what about the post mortem exam? 

I suspect that Timothy McVeigh - the first person in history to smile during his own execution - is still smiling today with a new identification, at an undisclosed location.

Speaking of executions, Richard Snell was executed on April 19, 1995, the same day of the Oklahoma bombing. Twelve years earlier, in 1983, Shell had also planned to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, but was arrested, imprisoned, and convicted of unrelated murders.

The circumstances surrounding his 1983 plans were amazingly similar to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing where the FBI had an informant infiltrate the terrorist group. The FBI not only failed to stop that criminal act, they also supplied the explosives to do it.