Biography
Terry Nichols grew up, as one of four children of Robert and Joyce Nichols, on a family farm in Lapeer, Michigan. A shy boy and an uninspired student, Nichols graduated in 1973 from Lapeer High School with a 2.6 grade point average.
After one year at Central Michigan University, Nichols returned to Lapeer to help his recently divorced father with the family farm.
Nichols married Lana Walsh in 1981 and the couple had a son the following year. Nichols paid the bills with a variety of jobs, ranging from managing a grain elevator, to doing carpentry work and selling life insurance.
In May 1988, at age 33, Nichols joined the Army. He met Timothy McVeigh in basic training at Fort Benning, and their friendship continued to grow as the two served in Fort Riley, Kansas. Nichols and McVeigh shared a common hostility to gun control and a common belief in the importance of survivalist training. Nichols served in the Persian Gulf War, failed to make the grade in Special Forces, and then resigned from the military.
In 1990, two years after Lana filed for divorce, Nichols remarried, this time to seventeen-year-old Marife Torres, a women he met through a mail-order bride service based in the Philippines. Marife was six months pregnant with another man's son when she arrived in Michigan. (The son died on Nov. 22, 1993 from accidental suffocation.) The couple would have two more children after moving in to a farm owned by Terry's brother, James Nichols.
By the spring of 1992, Nichols extremist political views led him to renounce his U. S. citizenship. In a letter sent to a state agency, Nichols wrote: "I am no longer a citizen of the corrupt political corporate state of Michigan and the United States of America." Later that year, in court over credit card debt, Nichols unsuccessfully tried to argue that the court lacked jurisdiction over him because of his lack of citizenship.
Following his discharge from the Army, Nichols spent considerable time with Timothy McVeigh. The two reinforced each other's anti-government hatred and traveled together to gun shows. At the Nichols farm on April 19, 1993, the two men watched television together--in shared outrage--as the Branch Davidian compound near Waco went up in flames, killing nearly 80 people.
Beginning in 1994, Nichols and McVeigh began implementing plans to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Together, they purchased or stole key ingredients for the bomb. To help pay for the project, Nichols carried out a robbery, planned by McVeigh, of a well-to-do Arkansas gundealer. (Although Nichols apparently tried to keep most of the stolen cash for personal use, hiding it in a Las Vegas storage unit.)
Nichols continued to assist in the bombing plans right up to the day before the explosion. (He told McVeigh that he didn't want to be involved on the day of the bombing.) Nichols drove to Oklahoma City with McVeigh on April 16 to station a getaway car. Two days later, he helped McVeigh load explosives from a Kansas storage unit into the Ryder truck, and then met McVeigh near Geary Lake, Kansas, to assist in mixing the ingredients.
When the Ryder truck exploded in front of the Murrah Building on the morning of April 19, 1995, Nichols was at home with his family in Herington, Kansas. Following McVeigh's arrest, investigators quickly focused on Nichols, who was busily spreading large quantities of ammonium nitrate fertilizer around his yard. He voluntarily surrendered to authorities on April 21. A search of the Nichols home turned up blasting caps, guns, and a receipt for far more ammonium nitrate than a homeowner is likely to need. Three weeks later, he was formally charged in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing.
In December 1997, a federal jury in Colorado convicted Nichols of conspiring to bomb a federal building and the involuntary manslaughter of eight federal agents. The jury failed to reach unanimous agreement whether to impose the death penalty, and in June 1998 Nichols received a sentence of life in prison without opportunity for parole. Nichols was sent to the same maximum security prison in Colorado that housed the Unabomber.
In January 2000, Nichols was brought back to Oklahoma to face state charges: 160 counts of first-degree murder. On May 26, 2004, he was found guilty of all charges. Again, a jury deadlocked on the death penalty, thus sparing Nichol's life.
whether to impose the death penalty, and in June 1998 Nichols received a sentence of life in prison without opportunity for parole. Nichols was sent to the same maximum security prison in Colorado that housed the Unabomber.
In January 2000, Nichols was brought back to Oklahoma to face state charges: 160 counts of first-degree murder. On May 26, 2004, he was found guilty of all charges. Again, a jury deadlocked on the deat
After one year at Central Michigan University, Nichols returned to Lapeer to help his recently divorced father with the family farm.
Nichols married Lana Walsh in 1981 and the couple had a son the following year. Nichols paid the bills with a variety of jobs, ranging from managing a grain elevator, to doing carpentry work and selling life insurance.
In May 1988, at age 33, Nichols joined the Army. He met Timothy McVeigh in basic training at Fort Benning, and their friendship continued to grow as the two served in Fort Riley, Kansas. Nichols and McVeigh shared a common hostility to gun control and a common belief in the importance of survivalist training. Nichols served in the Persian Gulf War, failed to make the grade in Special Forces, and then resigned from the military.
In 1990, two years after Lana filed for divorce, Nichols remarried, this time to seventeen-year-old Marife Torres, a women he met through a mail-order bride service based in the Philippines. Marife was six months pregnant with another man's son when she arrived in Michigan. (The son died on Nov. 22, 1993 from accidental suffocation.) The couple would have two more children after moving in to a farm owned by Terry's brother, James Nichols.
By the spring of 1992, Nichols extremist political views led him to renounce his U. S. citizenship. In a letter sent to a state agency, Nichols wrote: "I am no longer a citizen of the corrupt political corporate state of Michigan and the United States of America." Later that year, in court over credit card debt, Nichols unsuccessfully tried to argue that the court lacked jurisdiction over him because of his lack of citizenship.
Following his discharge from the Army, Nichols spent considerable time with Timothy McVeigh. The two reinforced each other's anti-government hatred and traveled together to gun shows. At the Nichols farm on April 19, 1993, the two men watched television together--in shared outrage--as the Branch Davidian compound near Waco went up in flames, killing nearly 80 people.
Beginning in 1994, Nichols and McVeigh began implementing plans to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Together, they purchased or stole key ingredients for the bomb. To help pay for the project, Nichols carried out a robbery, planned by McVeigh, of a well-to-do Arkansas gundealer. (Although Nichols apparently tried to keep most of the stolen cash for personal use, hiding it in a Las Vegas storage unit.)
Nichols continued to assist in the bombing plans right up to the day before the explosion. (He told McVeigh that he didn't want to be involved on the day of the bombing.) Nichols drove to Oklahoma City with McVeigh on April 16 to station a getaway car. Two days later, he helped McVeigh load explosives from a Kansas storage unit into the Ryder truck, and then met McVeigh near Geary Lake, Kansas, to assist in mixing the ingredients.
When the Ryder truck exploded in front of the Murrah Building on the morning of April 19, 1995, Nichols was at home with his family in Herington, Kansas. Following McVeigh's arrest, investigators quickly focused on Nichols, who was busily spreading large quantities of ammonium nitrate fertilizer around his yard. He voluntarily surrendered to authorities on April 21. A search of the Nichols home turned up blasting caps, guns, and a receipt for far more ammonium nitrate than a homeowner is likely to need. Three weeks later, he was formally charged in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing.
In December 1997, a federal jury in Colorado convicted Nichols of conspiring to bomb a federal building and the involuntary manslaughter of eight federal agents. The jury failed to reach unanimous agreement whether to impose the death penalty, and in June 1998 Nichols received a sentence of life in prison without opportunity for parole. Nichols was sent to the same maximum security prison in Colorado that housed the Unabomber.
In January 2000, Nichols was brought back to Oklahoma to face state charges: 160 counts of first-degree murder. On May 26, 2004, he was found guilty of all charges. Again, a jury deadlocked on the death penalty, thus sparing Nichol's life.
whether to impose the death penalty, and in June 1998 Nichols received a sentence of life in prison without opportunity for parole. Nichols was sent to the same maximum security prison in Colorado that housed the Unabomber.
In January 2000, Nichols was brought back to Oklahoma to face state charges: 160 counts of first-degree murder. On May 26, 2004, he was found guilty of all charges. Again, a jury deadlocked on the deat
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