Michael William Brescia

Of Irish-Italian ancestry. he was born to William and Kathleen McNulty Brescia.[3] He grew up in the Andorra neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his father was a firefighter and his mother was an accountant. Brescia was both a member of the Aryan Republican Army[4] and a part-time student at La Salle University, at the time of his arrest.[1]

While a student at La Salle University, Brescia attempted to create a white supremacist group on campus. In 1993, during his third-year at the school, he abruptly dropped out of school and told friends he was moving to Oklahoma for a job. He actually moved to Elohim City, a white separatist community in Eastern Oklahoma. While staying at Elohim City, Brescia was roommates with Andreas Strassmeir, a German national who was phoned by Timothy McVeigh two weeks prior to the bombing.[5]

Private lawsuits by Edye Smith and Glenn Wilburn worked on the assumption that Brescia was the "John Doe Number Two" seen by several witnesses with McVeigh in the days preceding and the day of the bombing. The Daily Telegraph also ran an interview with a witness named Connie Smith who said "I kept telling them that the man in the (John Doe II) sketch was that Mike guy, a nice-looking guy, dark-skinned. But the FBI made me feel guilty, then ignorant, as if I didn't know what I was saying. Then, later, I tried to call in with more information and they wouldn't even talk to me." Strassmeir claimed that on the day of the bombing, Brescia was in Arkansas attending a rally protesting the execution of Richard Wayne Snell.[5]

Federal officials have stated that there is no link between the ARA robberies and the Oklahoma City bombing.[8]

• Elohim City, Oklahoma