Barry Black — Building the Case Against Timothy McVeigh | Part 2
Ninety minutes after the Oklahoma City bombing, a trooper stopped Timothy McVeigh for driving with no license plate. Nobody knew for two more days.
FBI bomb technician Barry Black walks through how the case was actually built. (Part 1 linked below.) A confidential serial number off a truck axle came back to Ryder, and Ryder to Elliott's Body Shop in Junction City, Kansas, where a man calling himself Robert Kling had rented the truck. Sketch artists produced John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, and fifteen thousand leads came in. A motel clerk recognized one of the sketches.
An offline NCIC search closed the loop: Trooper Charlie Hanger had already arrested McVeigh, ninety miles north of town, on a plate charge and a concealed weapon. Barry flew up by helicopter and seized the car himself. Terry Nichols surrendered the next afternoon. Then came the part that took two years — phone records, prints, and a
business card wedged into a patrol car's back seat reading "need more
TNT at $5 a stick," carrying McVeigh's fingerprint.
The last third is about what it cost. Funerals held while the case was
still running. Seven-day weeks for two years. A room at the memorial he still will not walk into. And an honest answer about what passed for mental health support in 1995, from a man who now teaches students that you need friends, faith and family, because you are not going to forget it.
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🔗 Part 1: https://youtu.be/J834tvNtspY
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Timestamps:
0:00 — The traffic stop nobody connected
1:49 — A rental counter in Junction City and a man named Kling
5:42 — The business card in the back of a patrol car
10:39 — Why three men got three very different sentences
16:16 — The pager, the voicemail, and a very long wait
17:47 — Two years of seven-day weeks
19:26 — The room at the memorial he won't walk into
25:47 — What he wants Americans to remember
Keywords:
Barry Black, Charlie Hanger, Robert Kling, Dreamland Motel, Junction City Kansas, John Doe sketches, offline NCIC search, Ryder truck rental, Terry Nichols sentencing, Michael Fortier plea, Turner Diaries, federal prosecution Oklahoma City, business card TNT, National Bombing Memorial, law enforcement mental health, police counseling stigma, FBI bomb technician interview, 9/11 ground zero illness, Heroes Behind the Badge, Citizens Behind the Badge
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