Timothy McVeigh inmates awaiting the death penalty; most convicts on death row in the United States spend an average of fifteen years there. Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier were also convicted as conspirators in the plot. Nichols was sentenced to eight life terms for the deaths of eight federal agents, and to 161 life terms without parole by the state of Oklahoma for the deaths of the others (including one fetus). Fortier was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and has since been released. Timothy McVeigh was born on April 23, 1968 in Lockport, New York, the only son and the second of
Timothy McVeigh he did not believe in a hell and that science is his religion. In June 2001, a day before the execution, McVeigh wrote a letter to the "Buffalo News" identifying himself as agnostic. However, he took the Last Rites, administered by a priest, just before his execution. Father Charles Smith ministered to McVeigh in his last moments in death row. McVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge against the government for the sieges at Waco and Ruby Ridge. McVeigh visited Waco during the standoff. While there, he was interviewed by student reporter Michelle Rauch, a senior journalism major at Southern