Nearly a decade after the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols was found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out what was then the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. He could get the death sentence he escaped when he was convicted in federal court in the 1990s.
Wednesday's verdicts came after only five hours of deliberations. Nichols was stone-faced and stared straight ahead at the judge as the verdicts were read, while his attorneys bowed their heads and clenched their hands together.
Prosecutors beamed, and family members hugged and congratulated them.
"I'm just so thrilled for these families," said a tearful Diane Leonard, whose husband died in the bombing. "After nine years, the families who lost loved ones finally have justice."
Nichols, 49, already is serving a federal life sentence for involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy in the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officials in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building, which killed 168 people.
In this state trial, he was convicted of 161 counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the other victims plus one victim's fetus.
The same 12-member jury will now determine Nichols' fate on the state charges: life in prison or death by injection. The penalty phase will begin Tuesday and is expected to last four to six weeks.
Prosecutors contended Nichols worked hand in hand with former army buddy Timothy McVeigh to acquire the ingredients and build the fuel-and-fertilizer bomb in a twisted plot to avenge the government siege in Waco, Texas, that left about 80 people dead exactly two years earlier.
McVeigh was executed in June 2001, and until now was the only person convicted of murder in the bombing.
"These two were partners, and their business was terrorism," prosecutor Lou Keel said during opening statements.
Prosecutors brought a mountain of circumstantial evidence during a two-month trial that included testimony from about 250 witnesses. They said Nichols bought the explosive ammonium nitrate fertilizer used in the bombing and stole detonation cord, blasting caps and other explosives.
Defense attorneys declined comment after the verdict, citing a gag order.
Prosecutors say McVeigh and Nichols began acquiring the key ingredients for the bomb seven months before the blast, then met at a park near Junction City, Kansas, to pack it inside a Ryder truck on April 18, 1995. Nichols was at his home in Kansas 320km away when the bomb went off.
Defense lawyers had planned on bringing up evidence that a shadowy group of conspirators, including members a white supremacist gang, helped McVeigh with the bombing. But Judge Steven Taylor refused to allow that evidence, saying the defense never showed that such people made any overt acts to further the bomb plot.
A total of 151 witnesses took the stand for the prosecution over 29 days of testimony that included several gruesome and tearful descriptions of the bombing.
The state's star witness was Michael Fortier, who is serving a 12-year sentence for knowing about the plot and not telling authorities.
Fortier, a close friend of McVeigh's, said McVeigh told him Nichols was deeply involved in the bomb plot and Nichols helped gather components, including the fertilizer that was mixed with high-octane fuel in the homemade bomb.
A receipt for the purchase of 900kg of ammonium nitrate fertilizer was discovered in Nichols' home by FBI agents three days after the bombing.
Fortier said McVeigh and Nichols also burglarized a Kansas rock quarry near Nichols' home in Herington, Kansas, and stole the detonation cord and blasting caps. In addition, prosecutors alleged that Nichols robbed a gun collector to finance the bomb plot.
Prosecutors linked Nichols to the explosives theft through forensic evidence from a broken padlock and said gold coins and weapons from the gun collector were found at his home.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS