In the morning hours on April 19, 1995, the device exploded, killing hundreds of Federal employees and a distressing number of children in the on site daycare center. The blast was so large that one entire side of the building collapsed, making the building look as if a giant monster had taken a bite out of 1/3, slicing through all the floors of the building.
The date of the blast, April 19, 1995, is the anniversary date of the "Waco Massacre", a rallying event for anti-government radicals concerned with the abridgement of the right to bear arms.
The truck bomb, a Ryder "roll door" moving van, was loaded with a fertilizer bomb, driven up to the Federal Building and parked. The explosion caved in half of the building, looking similar to a multi-layer cake with a huge bite taken out, thorugh all layers. The smoking rubble refused to yield many live bodies, however some did escape.
Especially cruel was the deaths of the children in the daycare center.
Timothy McVeigh was later convicted of the killings .Conjecture
supports the Waco theory and evidence presented at the trial supports
that
theory. No hard links to any militia group were found other than past
relationships. During the trial, errors in the FBI investigation
further tarnished that organization's reputation. McVey was
eventually put to death via lethal injection in June of 2001
Another is implicated in the plot to blow up the building was
Terry Nichols who was later convicted in 1997 and sentenced to life for
the deaths of the eight federal agents in the attack as well as the 161
victims (received 161 life sentences).