David Paul Hammer David Paul Hammer David Paul Hammer (born October 9, 1958) is an American federal prisoner serving life without possibility of parole concurrent with a 1200-year Oklahoma State sentence. He was sentenced to death on November 4, 1998 for the murder of his cell mate, Andrew Marti. He is also a writer and anti-death penalty advocate who achieved media fame for his 2004 autobiography "The Final Escape", "Secrets Worth Dying For" (his 2004 first book about Timothy McVeigh), and 2010's "Deadly Secrets: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing", based on information from when McVeigh was a then-fellow death row inmate.
Timothy McVeigh people he wanted to be a gun shop owner and sometimes took firearms to school to impress his classmates. McVeigh became intensely interested in gun rights, as well as the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, after he graduated from high school, and read magazines such as "Soldier of Fortune". He briefly attended Bryant & Stratton College before dropping out. In May 1988, at the age of 20, McVeigh graduated from the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. While in the military, McVeigh used much of his spare time to read about firearms, sniper tactics, and explosives.