Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh’s former lawyer, Stephen Jones, has spoken out about the man he previously defended in the courtroom, noting that he is a “terrorist” and a liar. The defense team released a nearly one million page document that contained hand-written notes from McVeigh along with polygraph tests results to the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas.
The documents were finally organized last year and paint a picture of the frightening man who was responsible for the death of 168 people, including 19 children. One of the more startling documents contained in the files features a polygraph test in which McVeigh admits that he thought the bombing was a “failure” because it didn’t take out the entire building.
The New York Daily News reports that McVeigh underwent a series of polygraph tests, resulting in a number of startling revelations about the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The report indicates that McVeigh found the bombing to be a “failure” despite killing an astonishing 168 people because it did not take out the entire building.
“In McVeigh’s mind, he believed that he had definitely screwed up because he left the building still standing.”
Following the bombing, McVeigh was sentenced to death for the terrorist attack while his co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, was convicted separately and sentenced to life in prison. In 2001, McVeigh was executed. However, McVeigh’s former attorney, Stephen Jones, said he doesn’t believe justice has been fully served since he does not believe McVeigh and Nichols acted alone. He believes that a third suspect was involved in the plot.
Jones said that McVeigh was a liar and that polygraph tests point to a third conspirator in the bombing. Jones believed so strongly that a third accomplice was involved that he wrote about it in a book he published in 2001. In the book, Jones says that there is no way McVeigh and Nichols could not have been alone in carrying out the bombing.
Jones says though McVeigh denied any knowledge of another collaborator. When given a polygraph exam and asked about a third collaborator, the results showed “indications of deception.” Therefore, Jones believes that there was at least one other person involved in the Oklahoma City bombing that has still not been brought to justice.
With the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing tomorrow, do you think that officials should continue the investigation into the possibility of a third conspirator in the deadly terrorist attack?
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