Oklahoma City Bombing - Arrests

Arrests

Initially, the FBI had three hypotheses regarding who might have been responsible for the bombing. The first was international terrorists, possibly the same group that had carried out the World Trade Center bombing two years earlier. The FBI also thought that a drug cartel might have been carrying out an act of vengeance against DEA agents as the building held a DEA office. The last hypothesis was that the bombing was done by Christian fascists acting on conspiracy theories.

McVeigh was arrested within 90 minutes of the explosion, as he was traveling north on Interstate 35 near Perry in Noble County, Oklahoma. Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped McVeigh for driving his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis without a license plate, and arrested him for having a concealed weapon. For his home address, McVeigh falsely claimed he resided at Terry Nichols' brother James' house in Michigan. After booking McVeigh, Hanger searched his police car and found a business card McVeigh had hidden while he was handcuffed. Written on the back of the card, which was from a Wisconsin military surplus store, were the words "TNT at $5 a stick. Need more." The card was later used as evidence during McVeigh's trial.

While investigating the VIN from an axle of the truck used in the explosion and the remnants of the license plate, federal agents were able to link the truck to a specific Ryder rental agency in Junction City. Using a sketch created with the assistance of Eldon Elliot, owner of the agency, the agents were able to implicate McVeigh in the bombing. McVeigh was also identified by Lea McGown of the Dreamland Motel, who remembered him parking a large yellow Ryder truck in the lot; McVeigh had signed in under his real name at the motel, using an address that matched the one on his forged license and the charge sheet at the Perry Police Station. Before signing his real name at the motel, McVeigh had used false names for his transactions. However, McGown noted, "People are so used to signing their own name that when they go to sign a phony name, they almost always go to write, and then look up for a moment as if to remember the new name they want to use. That's what did, and when he looked up I started talking to him, and it threw him."

After an April 21, 1995, court hearing on the gun charges, but before McVeigh's release, federal agents took him into custody as they continued their investigation into the bombing. Rather than talk to investigators about the bombing, McVeigh demanded an attorney. Having been tipped off by the arrival of police and helicopters that a bombing suspect was inside, a restless crowd began to gather outside the jail. McVeigh's requests for a bulletproof vest or transport by helicopter were denied.

Federal agents obtained a warrant to search the house of McVeigh's father, Bill, following which they broke down the door and wired the house and telephone with listening devices. FBI investigators used the resulting information gained, along with the fake address McVeigh had been using, to begin their search for the Nichols brothers, Terry and James. On April 21, 1995, Terry learned that he was being hunted, and turned himself in. Investigators discovered incriminating evidence at his home: ammonium nitrate and blasting caps, the electric drill used to drill out the locks at the quarry, books on bomb-making, a copy of Hunter (a 1989 novel by William Luther Pierce, the founder and chairman of the white nationalist National Alliance) and a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City, on which was marked the Murrah Building and the spot where McVeigh's getaway car was hidden. After a nine-hour interrogation, Terry Nichols was formally held in federal custody until his trial. On April 25, 1995, James Nichols was also arrested, but he was released after 32 days due to lack of evidence. McVeigh's sister Jennifer was accused of illegally mailing bullets to McVeigh, but she was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against him.

Ibrahim Ahmad, a Jordanian-American traveling from his home in Oklahoma City to visit family in Jordan on April 19, 1995, was also arrested in what was described as an "initial dragnet." There was concern that Middle Eastern terrorists could have been behind the attack. Further investigation cleared Ahmad of any involvement in the bombing.