Word: oklahomas
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...wide-ranging conspiracy. No criminal masterminds. Not even any hardened zealots dedicating their life to the disciplined terrorist pursuit of an ideological cause. Just two drifters and misfits with a rented truck and a homemade bomb. That is the story behind the killing of 168 people in Oklahoma City last April, so far as it can be drawn from a federal grand jury indictment of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. The indictment, issued last week, contains only a bare-bones description of how they allegedly built the bomb that blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April...
...which makes the horror that much more chilling. FBI officials say even if they had had the legal authority and had hired enough agents to infiltrate every extremist group in the country, they could not have prevented the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh and Nichols may have shared the government-hating ideology of many armed militias, but they were such fringe figures that even intense surveillance of organized militia groups would probably have failed to identify them as potential terrorists...
...terrorist acts charged in the indictment, and it will be at least six months (one prosecution estimate) before the start of a trial gives it a chance--more likely nine months to a year. Jones estimates that the defense's demands to hold the trial someplace other than Oklahoma City will take three or four months to settle. Then come discovery proceedings, which involve each side disclosing what witnesses will be called and what evidence may be presented...
Last week's indictment of Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh surprised hardly anyone. But events breaking around the indictment did present an unpredictable opportunity to TIME correspondent Patrick E. Cole, who began covering the Oklahoma City story hours after the April 19 explosion. Unexpectedly, Stephen Jones, McVeigh's attorney, gave Cole permission to interview William and Jennifer McVeigh, his client's father and sister. "I always wonder how the accused and the family feel when they're in the spotlight," Cole says. "Getting to the McVeigh family for their first in-depth interview was thus all the more exciting...
...suspect himself added to the excitement, balking at the interview at the last minute because he did not want family members answering questions about him. Jones' associate, Robert Nigh Jr., hurried to the El Reno prison near Oklahoma City and persuaded Tim McVeigh to let Cole proceed. McVeigh may have relented, in part, because he trusted the correspondent's work; he had answered a set of written questions from Cole the week before that resulted in an exclusive TIME interview...