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Marion Nichols Biography & Facts

Terry Lynn Nichols (born April 1, 1955) is an American domestic terrorist who was convicted for conspiring with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing plot. Prior to his incarceration, he held a variety of short-term jobs, working as a farmer, grain elevator manager, real estate salesman, and ranch hand. He met Timothy McVeigh during a brief stint in the U.S. Army, which ended in 1989 when he requested a hardship discharge after less than one year of service. In 1994 and 1995, he conspired with McVeigh in the planning and preparation of the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people. In a federal trial in 1997, Nichols was convicted of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter for killing federal law enforcement personnel. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after the jury deadlocked on the death penalty. He was also tried in Oklahoma on state charges of murder in connection with the bombing. In 2004, he was convicted of 161 counts of first degree murder, including one count of fetal homicide, first-degree arson, and conspiracy. As in the federal trial, the state jury deadlocked on imposing the death penalty. In the longest prison sentence ever given to an individual, he was sentenced to 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, and is incarcerated at ADX Florence, a super maximum security prison near Florence, Colorado. He shared a cell block that is commonly referred to as "Bomber's Row" with Ramzi Yousef and Eric Rudolph, as well as Ted Kaczynski until his transfer in 2021. Early years Nichols was born in Lapeer, Michigan. He was raised on a farm, the third of four children of Joyce and Robert Nichols. Growing up, he helped his parents on the farm, learning to operate and maintain the equipment. According to the Denver Post, he also cared for injured birds and animals. Adulthood Nichols attended Lapeer High School where he took elective classes in crafts and business law. Throughout school, friends characterized him as shy. While in high school he played junior varsity football, wrestled, and was a member of the ski club. His brother James, who self-published a 400-page book about the bombing, has stated that Terry was book smart and good at artwork. He graduated from high school in 1973 with a 3.6 grade point average, with ambitions of becoming a physician. Nichols enrolled at Central Michigan University. He completed one term of 13 credit hours with B grade average. He had Cs in biology, chemistry and trigonometry, a B in literature and an A in archery. In 1974, after another brother, Leslie, was badly burned in a fuel tank explosion on the farm, he offered to give him skin for grafts. He tried farming with his brother James for a while, but they did not get along; he felt his brother was too bossy. Later he moved to Colorado and obtained a license to sell real estate in 1976. Soon after he closed on his first big sale, his mother told him she needed his help on the farm, so he returned to Michigan. In 1980, Nichols met real estate agent Lana Walsh, a twice-divorced mother of two who was five years his senior. They married and had a son, Joshua, in 1982. During the marriage, Nichols engaged in a succession of part-time and short-term jobs: carpentry work, managing a grain elevator, and selling life insurance and real estate. According to Lana, she was the one with a career; Nichols was a house husband, who spent most of his time at home with the children cooking and gardening. Nichols had never liked farm life, and in 1988, at the age of 33, he tried to escape it by enlisting in the United States Army. He was sent to Fort Benning next to Columbus, Georgia for basic training. As the oldest man in his platoon, he had difficulty with the physical aspect of the training, and was sometimes called "grandpa" by the other men. However, he was soon made the platoon guide because of his age. Timothy McVeigh was in his platoon, and they quickly became close friends. They had a common background: both men grew up in white rural areas. Both had tried college for a while and had parents who were divorced. They shared political views and interests in gun collecting and the survivalist movement. The two were later stationed together at Fort Riley in Junction City, Kansas, where they met and became friends with their future accomplice, Michael Fortier. Nichols's wife filed for divorce soon after he joined the Army. Due to a conflict over childcare, he requested and was given a hardship discharge in May 1989 to return home to take care of his son, who was seven years old at the time. As he departed, he told a fellow soldier that he would be starting his own military organization soon, and would have an unlimited supply of weapons. In 1990, Nichols, 35, married 17-year-old Marife Torres from the Philippines, whom he met through a mail-order bride agency. When she arrived in Michigan several months later, she was pregnant with another man's child. The child died at age two when he suffocated after getting tangled up with a plastic bag from a banana box that was left overnight in his bedroom. Marife initially suspected foul play from either Nichols or McVeigh, but there were no bruises or signs of trauma to the child. The death was ruled accidental. Nichols and Marife had two more children during their marriage. Nichols and Torres frequently visited the Philippines, where she was attending a local college working on a degree in physical therapy. He sometimes traveled to the Philippines alone, while she remained in Kansas. Nichols left a cryptic note and a package of documents with his ex-wife, Lana (Walsh) Padilla, prior to one of his many visits to the Philippines. Upon returning from the visit to learn that she had prematurely opened a letter instructing her what to do in the event of his death, he made a series of telephone calls to a Cebu City boarding house. Nichols and Torres divorced after his arrest. Marife returned to the Philippines with the children. Anti-government views Nichols' anti-government views developed and grew over the years. Nichols spent most of his adult life in the Lapeer and Sanilac County areas of Michigan where mistrust and resentment of the federal government was common, especially after bank foreclosures of many farms during the 1980s. Neighbors said he attended meetings of anti-government groups, experimented with explosives and got more radical as time went on. Nichols began to adhere to sovereign citizen ideology. In February 1992, he attempted to renounce his US citizenship by writing to the local county clerk in Michigan, stating that the political system was corrupt, and declaring himself a "non resident alien". Several months later, he appeared in court and tried to avoid responsibility for some of his credit card bills (he owed approxima.... Discover the Marion Nichols popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Marion Nichols books.