a war hero and grew up in the suburbs of buffalo. we needed to know. it was a sense, an obligation to find out who this man was. >> timothy mcveigh was born on april 23rd, 1968, in the town of lockport in upstate, new york. by all accounts, he had an ordinary childhood and adolescence. >> we were never told anything that would have gave you warning he was going to do something like this. in fact, as a teenager, he was the young man that people in the neighborhood would choose to babysit their kids. >> he was a good student. he was bright. above average intelligence. sometimes you look at the history of severe criminal conduct and there's childhood abuse or abandonment, and you can see how someone developed into it. nothing striking in mcveigh's background. >> but the young mcveigh did have a dark side.