DROPPING her six-month-old baby off at the daycare centre on the ground floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, Renee Moore made her way to the county courthouse where she worked as a judges’ bailiff.
But shortly after she arrived, at 9.02am on April 19 1995, a huge explosion rocked the .
“We were in court and you could feel it,”; she says. “Ceiling tiles fell down and windows shattered.
“People were shouting, ‘Get out!’ It was chaotic. Outside I heard a policeman tell someone in the crowd, ‘The explosion happened at the Murrah Building.’ And I started screaming, ‘No! No!’
“I kept trying to get into the building but they wouldn’t let us through.
“I remember screaming at a police officer, ‘I’ve got to get to my son. He’s at daycare.’ And, he replied, ‘All the children are being taken to the hospital.’”;
What faced Renee was an as the front third of the building had been completely blown away.
Told to wait in a nearby church for news, she adds: “All the families were there. Everybody who had somebody in the building.
“I remember that first night, it got really cold and it started raining and I was like, ‘Lord, please don’t let my baby be in that building cold and hungry.’ It hurt. It was the worst night ever.”;
As rescue teams battled terrible conditions, looking for life, some, like Amy Downs, were buried alive, praying they would be found.
She had been happily chatting to her friends where they worked in the Credit Union in the building. The next moment she found herself under ten feet of rubble – upside down in her chair.
“My body was numb and I couldn’t move,”; she recalls. “It was hot and dark and I couldn’t see anything. When I would breathe in, it would burn.
“I thought maybe I was dead but then I heard a siren going off in the distance and I realised I was buried alive.
“I was screaming for help but I didn’t hear anything. It was a sickening, terrible feeling. I was just alone.”;
Home grown terror
The Oklahoma bombing is the worst domestic terror attack ever committed in the United States, claiming the lives of 168 people, including 19 children.
Marking the 30th anniversary, the harrowing story is told in the documentary, Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror, which is out today.
Coming on the heels of the World Trade Center bombing in New York two years earlier, the media and many Americans assumed the attack was the handiwork of Middle Eastern terrorists.
Then a possible connection was made to the that occurred on the exact same day in 1993, where the FBI raided a compound belonging to a religious cult which was stockpiling illegal arms.
He has taken the easy road out. We have to live with this. He doesn’t
Renee Moore
When they refused to come out the cops used tear gas, which caused a firekilling 76 people, including 22 children.
It sparked protests across the country about the right to have guns and some extreme right wing groups threatened reprisal.
Could whoever was behind the terror attack on the nine-storey building, which housed 14 federal agencies – including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), social security and recruiting offices for the Army and Marine Corps – be closer to home?
Life or death decisions
Carl Spengler, a resident emergency doctor, was the first physician on the scene and directed early triage efforts.
He has had to live with a heart-wrenching decision he had to make ever since.
“People coming out of the building were walking like zombies and collapsing. They were in shock. There were so many people to see that I only had five, ten, fifteen seconds to test somebody,”; he says.
“I was just looking for signs of life and then I would say which ones should be taken to hospital first, which could wait a few minutes and those who were not going to make it.
“I saw only one child come out with any sign of life and right behind her was an older lady who was brought out on a gurney.
The men shouted, ‘There’s another bomb'
Amy Downs
“Both were just about breathing but the child had catastrophic head injuries and so I got them to wrap her up, move her over to the temporary morgue we had and got somebody to stay with the child until she stopped breathing.
“A lot of people didn’t take that well. I turned around, the mother was behind me. She was lost. She just waved when they took her child away and walked off.”;
At 10.20am, Highway Patrol officer Charlie Hanger pulled over a car with no licence plate in Perry, Oklahoma, and told the driver, Timothy McVeigh, who was tall and slender with a military style haircut, to get out.
He turned out to be carrying a loaded weapon and was arrested.
Pulled from ‘hell'
Meanwhile, Amy’s salvation was close at hand.
She recalls: “I heard men’s voices and I started screaming and someone yelled, ‘We’ve got a live one. We need back-up.’ And then he said, ‘We can’t see you. We have to follow the sound of your voice. Keep talking to us.’
“I could hear they were getting closer. My right hand was sticking outside of the rubble pile and I had the sensation that someone had brushed it and I said, ‘I think you just touched my hand.’ I then felt him grab it and I thought that I would soon be pulled out.”;
But then all hell broke loose as what looked like a second bomb was found amongst the debris and everyone had to evacuate.
“The men shouted, ‘There’s another bomb!’ and, realising what was happening, I just started telling them my name and said, ‘Tell my family I love them.’
“They were leaving me buried alive. I began to think about my life and relationships and doing something to help others. I’d never been a mum.
I was just looking for signs of life and then I would say which ones should be taken to hospital first, which could wait a few minutes and those who were not going to make it
Carl Spengler
“All of a sudden, it was just so clear that I didn’t live a life true to myself. Now that I’m getting ready to die, I’m thinking about it and realising I don’t want to live it this way, I want to live it differently, but it’s too late now.”;
The second ‘bomb’ turned out to be a fake rocket used for a training operation by the ATF. The rescue team returned to try to get Amy out.
She continues: “As they started to uncover me, they told me I was still in my chair, upside down.
“When they pulled me out, everything hurt. Every nerve came alive but that didn’t matter. They took me out the back of the Federal building and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“I didn’t know what my injuries were, I didn’t know about my friends, but I’ll never forget looking up at the sky and taking this breath of fresh air and promising God I would never live my life the same.”;
Terror plotters
It was established that the bomber had parked a truck in a drop-off zone outside the daycare centre, full of explosives that was then detonated.
The vehicle was traced to a rental agency in Junction City, Kansas and three staff described the renter, Robert Kling, as white and looking like he had been in the military.
A sketch artist created an impression and the owner of the Dreamland Hotel, in Kansas, told police that it looked like the man who had booked in on April 14 and checked out four days later, and who drove a Ryder truck.
She showed them the name on his room registration – Tim McVeigh.
A search showed he had made a phone call from the hotel on the Saturday night to a local restaurant where an order was placed by Robert Kling – the name used to rent the truck.
Two days after the bombing, the were startled to learn that McVeigh had been arrested for the traffic and weapon offence in Perry, and were told that he was standing in front of the judge and set to be released within 45 minutes. The race was on.
After a helicopter dash, he was arrested at the court house.
The FBI learnt that McVeigh was close to two former army buddies – Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier.
All three were very anti-government.
At Nichols’ home there was a lot of evidence of bomb construction, including a large amount of nitrate ammonium.
A pre-paid phone card found there helped police trace the bombers' movements, including where they stopped to buy the components.
Fortier was charged with having prior knowledge about the bombing and agreed to testify against McVeigh and Nichols in the hope of getting a lighter sentence.
Civil war
Interviewed in prison by The Buffalo News, McVeigh said he was bullied when he was younger for being skinny and as he got older became fascinated by guns and joined the army where he served in the first Gulf War.
After leaving, he felt lost and became increasingly associated with anti-government, right-wing movements who believed that their rights for having guns were being gradually taken away.
After Waco he felt a sense of purpose and told his interviewer that he had no personal gain from the bombing but wanted to spark a revolution.
“This was something I saw as a larger good,”; he said. “Waco started this war. Hopefully, Oklahoma would end it.”;
Waco started this war. Hopefully, Oklahoma would end it
Timothy McVeigh
But things could not be more personal for Renee.
“I remember the day it was announced that they we were able to get to the area where the babies' bodies were,”; she says. “We were so overjoyed that they would find them. Not that he was alive, but they found him.
“After that, at night, I would drive down to the prison where he (McVeigh) was and just sit out there in the dark, wondering how I could get in so I could hurt him.”;
On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection on 11 June 2001.
Nichols was convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence. Fortier spent ten years in prison and now lives with his wife in the Federal Witness Protection Program.
“I didn’t want [McVeigh] to die when they decided to execute him,”; says Renee. “I wanted to protest. It’s not right. It’s not fair. He has taken the easy road out. We have to live with this. He doesn’t.”;
Amy Downsis now the CEO of the Credit Union she worked for in 1995. She is also a motivational speaker, a triathlete and a mum.
Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror is out on Netflix today
