'... I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul'
McVeigh executed
Oklahoma City bomber was cooperative, calm in minutes before his death
By Sue Loughlin And Michele Holtkamp
Tribune-Star
Timothy J. McVeigh calmly cooperated in his own death early this morning, declining to speak any final words and nodding to and making eye contact with those who watched him die at the U.S. Penitentiary, Terre Haute.
McVeigh was pronounced dead at 7:14 a.m., just minutes after positioning himself on the gurney in the prison's execution chamber and after straining against the gurney straps to his head to look each of his own witnesses and each media witness in the eye.
The mastermind of the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing in which 168 people died in the country's worst act of domestic terrorism, McVeigh, 33, died soon after a lethal cocktail of drugs began to flow into his veins through a tube in his right leg at 7:10 a.m.
"The court order to execute Inmate Timothy J. McVeigh has been fulfilled," said prison Warden Harley Lappin at the news conference immediately after the execution.
"Inmate McVeigh was calm throughout the entire process. He cooperated entirely," Lappin said.
McVeigh died with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, said Karin Grunden, reporter for the Tribune-Star who was among the media witnesses at the execution, which she described as "very sterile."
"He was expressionless It almost looked like he stopped breathing after the first drug was administered," Grunden said.
When Grunden walked into the execution chamber, the curtain was closed. When it was opened soon after, McVeigh already lay on the gurney, restrained, with two intravenous tubes attached.
Still, he raised his head slightly to look each witness in the eye - each except those representing the Oklahoma City bombing victims and survivors, whom he could not see.
McVeigh's skin was pale, his lips were tight and it appeared he had lost weight, witnesses said.
"He did not have the same look of arrogance as he had in the courtroom in Denver," said Linda Cavanaugh, a reporter for KFOR-TV, Oklahoma City.
Kevin Johnson, USA Today criminal justice reporter, said McVeigh's eyes became increasingly glassy, almost watery, as he lay on the gurney.
Susan Carlson, of WLS Chicago Radio, the most chilling part was when he took time to "look up and look each of the us in the eye."
"He seemed very resigned to his fate," she added.
Carlson said later, "He almost was proud of what had happened," that this was all part of his plan.
McVeigh did not make a final spoken statement, but media witnesses received copies of his final written statement, the poem "Invictus," written by William Ernest Henley.
Robert Nigh, one of McVeigh's attorneys, squinted into the sun as he spoke soon after the execution, saddened by the event.
"We killed and Bill and Mickey's son this morning, and we killed Jennifer's brother," Nigh said at 8:30, as he talked for about five minutes. "It would be a lie to say that we did not double their pain."
Nigh was remorseful that he couldn't get McVeigh to finally show remorse. Still, he was upset that the movement for a moratorium on federal executions did not come soon enough for his client.
"We have made killing a part of the healing process," Nigh said.
McVeigh took his last glimpse of moonlit sky about 4:10 a.m. Sunday, when Bureau of Prison officials transported him from the Special Confinement Unit to the execution holding cell.
McVeigh spent his last day in a 9-by-14 foot cell, a short walk from the execution chamber. Prison officials said the decorated Gulf War veteran spent Sunday writing letters, sleeping, watching TV and meeting with attorneys Robert Nigh and Nathan Chambers, both of whom witnessed their client's lethal injection.
He was served his final requested meal at noon Sunday, eating two pints of mint-chocolate chip ice cream. He was allowed to eat standard prison fare before his execution, if he wished.
Less than 24 hours from death at the hands of the government he despises, McVeigh's mood was upbeat, his attorneys said.
McVeigh was convicted in 1997 of April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, including eight federal agents and 19 children.
He was the first federal prisoner to be executed in 38 years.
While the intricate and well-practiced plans for his 7 a.m. execution unfolded, those close to the Oklahoma City bomber said he continued to believe the 1995 blast that killed 168 people was a military action brought on by an overreaching federal government.
His attorneys said he is sorry for those who suffered, but
doesn't regret blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
In Oklahoma City, about 300 survivors and victims' relatives prepared
to watch a closed-circuit feed of the execution, to be sent from
Terre Haute in a feed encrypted to guard against interception.
Protestors began gathering at area parks Sunday night, and were transported via prison buses to separated areas on prison grounds.
"I feel a great sadness for Tim McVeigh and his family and all of us," said Bonnie Johnson of Franklin. "We have been unwilling participants in this horrible execution. Killing McVeigh only serves to perpetuate the cycle of violence."
As she cried after the execution, Amy Robertson of Salina, Kan., sat away from everyone else, hugging her knees.
"Those who set forth this execution I pity them ... because they brought greater harm upon themselves as well as this nation. I believe love, forgiveness and truth would have brought healing to all families throughout this nation. That was not what was demonstrated here today."
Death penalty supporters Phil Banks, and daughter Kelly from Sullivan, Ill., were introspective, sitting were sitting together through the whole thing.
"We've been talking through his last thoughts, trying to imagine whether he would be remorseful or frightened or what he thinks of the afterlife," Phil Banks said.
Nathan Placentia, from Terre Haute, also supports the death penalty, he said Monday, but was thinking more about the victims that morning.
"I'm here to support the death penalty and to support the families of the 168 people," Placentia said.
McVeigh remained defiant until the end.
In excerpts from letters to The Buffalo News released Saturday, McVeigh insisted the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building was necessary to send a message to what he called an out-of-control government.
"I am sorry these people had to lose their lives," McVeigh wrote his hometown newspaper. "But that's the nature of the beast. It's understood going in what the human toll will be."
He referred to the April 19, 1995, bombing as "a legit tactic" in his war against the government.
Victims and others had readied themselves for McVeigh's execution nearly a month ago, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that more than 4,000 pages of documents in the bombing investigation had been accidentally been kept from McVeigh's defense attorneys.
All pertinent documents were supposed to be shared with the defense during McVeigh's trial. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft postponed McVeigh's May 16 execution date to give the defense team time to review the documents.
McVeigh's attorney's filed for a stay of execution to give them adequate time to review the documents. They argued that material the FBI turned over only six days before McVeigh's first execution date might have been used to sway the jury to hand McVeigh - America's worst home-grown terrorist - a sentence of life in prison.
But U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch denied McVeigh a further stay on Wednesday, saying the new documents didn't change that McVeigh was the "instrument of death and destruction" in the bombing.
His attorneys appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals 10th Circuit, where a three-judge panel upheld Match's ruling, saying that "McVeigh has utterly failed to demonstrate substantial grounds upon which relief might be granted."
McVeigh decided Thursday not to seek a further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or to seek clemency from President Bush.
McVeigh had delivered a 7,000-pound fuel and fertilizer truck bomb outside the federal building shortly before 9 a.m. on April 19, 1995.
He was arrested a little more than an hour later on gun- and weapon related charges north of Oklahoma City. The next day, he was recognized from Federal Bureau of Investigation sketches as the man wanted in connection with the bombing.
A Gulf War veteran, McVeigh has said in interviews since his conviction that he bombed the building to avenge wrongs committed by the government in incidents at Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco.
The Murrah building has since been demolished. Now, a national memorial center and the Oklahoma City National Memorial for the Prevention of Terrorism stand in its place.
McVeigh's execution, which difficult to carry out, was a necessary answer to that act of terrorism that destroyed the Murrah building, Lappin said after the execution Monday.
"I anticipated this to be a very difficult thing to do, and it was, but I think today my thoughts and prayers are with the many victims of this tragedy in Oklahoma City," Lappin said.
Tribune Star reporters Matt Miller, Zach Taylor and Pete Ciancone contributed to this report.
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