Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Aug 17, 2022 | Museum, USA: Oklahoma

The Oklahoma City National Memorial is a memorial that honors the victims, survivors, rescuers, and all who were affected by the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.

Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum: 620 N Harvey Ave, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

The memorial is located in downtown Oklahoma City on the former site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which was destroyed in the 1995 bombing.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a Ryder rental truck filled with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The resulting explosion killed 168 people and destroyed the entire north face of the building.

It was a day that started like any other day.

The building housed 19 federal agencies with a daycare center.

The building will be built between two churches, #1 and #2, on the map.

The federal building

The bomb blasted at 9:02 AM.

The faces of the people killed in the bomb blast.

The fire department and the police responded immediately.  By 9:31 AM, the police command post was on site and operational.

The report of the blast went out to all by 9:14 AM.

Recreated computer graphic video.

Searching for the bomber — Tim McVeigh stayed in this motel, Dreamland.

On the next day, April 20, the rear axle of the Ryder truck was located at the blast site, which yielded a vehicle identification number that was traced to a body shop in Junction City, Kansas.

Employees at the shop helped the FBI quickly put together a composite drawing of the man who had rented the van. Agents showed the drawing around town, and local hotel employees supplied a name: Tim McVeigh.

A quick call to the Bureau’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division in West Virginia on April 21 led to an astonishing discovery: McVeigh was already in jail.

He’d been pulled over about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City by an observant Oklahoma State Trooper who noticed a missing license plate on his yellow Mercury Marquis. McVeigh had a concealed weapon and was arrested. It was just 90 minutes after the bombing.

They learned about McVeigh’s extremist ideologies and his anger over the events at Waco two years earlier.

They discovered that a friend of McVeigh’s named Terry Nichols helped build the bomb and that another man—Michael Fortier—was aware of the bomb plot.

The gallery honors the people killed that day.

The list of people killed.

Many babies from the daycare center were also killed.

The getaway car used by McVeigh.

McVeigh’s possession when the police stopped him

The search for the suspect led to many places.

The trial

The result of the trial for all three suspects.

Epilogue

Looking at the monument in the garden from the museum building.

The 168 Chairs represent those killed on April 19, 1995.