Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist who carried out the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.[5][6] The bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism in the United States prior to the September 11 attacks. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. A Gulf War veteran, McVeigh sought revenge against the federal government for the 1993 Waco siege that ended in the deaths of 86 people, many of whom were children, as well as the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident and American foreign policy.
He hoped to inspire a revolution against the federal government, and defended the bombing as a legitimate tactic against what he saw as a tyrannical government.[7] He was arrested shortly after the bombing and indicted on 160 state offenses and 11 federal offenses, including the use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was found guilty on all counts in 1997 and sentenced to death.[8]
McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. His execution was carried out in a considerably shorter time than most inmates awaiting the death penalty.
Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier were convicted as conspirators in the plot. Nichols was sentenced to eight life terms for the deaths of eight federal agents, and to 161 life terms without parole by the state of Oklahoma for the deaths of the others. Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and has since been released. Lori Fortier was given immunity in exchange for her testimony against the others.
As years pass violent right-wing (if we want to we can label those as McVeigh terrorists even if the FBI don't) anti- government individuals as McVeigh don't receive as much public notoriety press as people as Oswald and Manson.
Oswald, of course, killed a president and Manson was portrayed as a madman.
There is much more press value in there than in etching in the public mind ordinary far-right anti-government people. You know, we're told there are fine people in that group too.
Guessing there is a feeling that condemning those people, as say Manson was condemned, would intrude on the sensibilities of many other Americans. There are many who would see themselves as relating to them more.