TIMOTHY McVEIGH, once a promising young soldier who fought in the Gulf War, was accused of being driven by anti government rage to carry out the deadliest attack on civilians in US history.
The thin, clean cut McVeigh (29) had an ordinary childhood in western New York State, marked by his passion for guns. He excelled in the army where his obsession with neatness and fitness impressed superiors.
But his life seemed to fall apart when he left the army in late 1991 soon after failing to achieve his dream of joining the elite Special Forces. He drifted around the country, becoming increasingly drawn to far rightwing politics.
The government alleged McVeigh planned the Oklahoma City bombing with a former army buddy, Mr Terry Nichols. Both men pleaded not guilty. Mr Nichols will have a separate trial.
Timothy James McVeigh was born on April 23th, 1968, in the small town of Pendleton, New York, the son of a car worker, William McVeigh, and his wife, Mildred. At 14, McVeigh told friends he was a survivalist, stockpiling food and weapons "in case of a nuclear attack or the communists took over the country", according to a neighbour quoted by the Washington Post in 1995.
After graduating from high school, he did several jobs, including working as a security guard for an armoured truck company, before joining the army on May 24th, 1988. During basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he became a close friend of Mr Nichols. Later both men were assigned to an infantry battalion at Fort Riley, Kansas.
But fellow soldiers told the New York Times McVeigh assigned "dirty work" around barracks to black soldiers. One former colleague said McVeigh read The Turner Diaries, a novel that depicts an American race war in which bombers plot to blow up a federal building.
McVeigh served as a gunner on a Bradley fighting vehicle during the 1991 Gulf War, receiving the Bronze Star and several other medals.
He returned to the United States soon after the war to try out for the Special Forces but dropped out on the second day, saying he was not physically ready for the grueling course.
Increasingly embittered, he left the army on December 31st, 1991.
He returned home and found work as a security guard in Buffalo. He showed his frustration with the government in a 1992 letter to a local newspaper: "Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that! But it might."
From 1993 he became a drifter. Often wearing military fatigues, he moved between Arizona and northern Michigan, areas where rightwing militia groups are active.
McVeigh visited Waco, Texas, during the 1993 standoff between the FBI and the Branch Davidian sect.
The siege's fiery end on April 19th, 1993, when an estimated 80 Davidians died, angered many rightwingers who saw it as proof the government wanted to deny Americans the right to bear arms.
Prosecutors alleged that McVeigh and Mr Nichols carried out the bombing exactly two years later in revenge for Waco.