I pastored a church in Pendleton, NY and lived down the road from Timothy McVeigh's Dad.  I also knew and often met with his priest and even preached in Tim's church where he had served as an altar boy as a child.  I will share these 4 observations about Tim:

(1) The TV news networks camped on his Dad's lawn and prevented him from grieving privately.  This invasion of privacy outraged local citizens. 
(2) Reporters sought out everyone who knew him to dig up "dirt" on his youth to help explain why he killed all those innocent people  Most refused to talk to these reporters because they preferred to remember Tim the way he was--a very polite, respectful young man who worked at our local Burger King. 
(3) His priest had fond memories of Tim as a devoted altar boy, who was a model Catholic.
(4) A young woman told me she had a dating relationship with Tim and always found him to be the perfect gentleman. Tim was fondly remembered for his years at Starpoint High School in Pendleton. 

Hannah Arendt wrote a provocative book entitled "The Banality of Evil."  She had studied the lives of Nazi guards who had worked in their concentration and death camps.  What she discovered is chilling in an unexpected way.  These men were loving husbands, excellent caring fathers, and benevolent coontributers to their community (e. g. as soccer coaches, youth leaders, etc.)  in every other way, except that they tortured and murdered Jews.  There was nothing about the rest of their lives that could explain why such decent men would participate in such horrific cruelty. It is a cop out to simply blame Nazi ideology. 

So what happened to Tim during his decorated military career in Iraq?  His stated reasons--the Ruby Ridge killings and the Branch Davidian massacre--really do nothing to explain Tim's unspeakable evil.  Evil is ultimately a mystery because it can simply blossom from irrational poor choices made by otherwise decent men.