Survivors say postponement a 'gosh-awful' shock
'It is just unbelievable'
By Michele Holtkamp
Tribune-Star
Don Rogers could not believe what his wife was telling him when she called with the news Friday that Timothy McVeigh's execution had been delayed.
"It is just unbelievable," said Rogers, who was manager of the former Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and a survivor of the 1995 bombing. "Here this person is that needs to be put to death, and he's gonna get another 30 days to live on this Earth."
Rogers shock reverberates throughout survivors and family members of victims of the 1995 bombing of Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The man responsible for it, Timothy McVeigh, was five days away from execution at the U.S. Penitentiary, Terre Haute, when Attorney General John Ashcroft postponed it for 30 days, citing the FBI's failure to turn over all investigation documents to McVeigh's defense during his trial.
Ashcroft said McVeigh's execution will now take place June
11.
"It's gosh-awful that this had to happen," said Florence
Rogers, who was president of the credit union in the Murrah building.
"What else? What else?"
Rogers was slightly injured in the bombing, but half of her staff was killed.
Calvin Moser, who survived the blast but lost more than half of his hearing in the bombing, said these are going to be 30 more painful days for the victims.
"It was kind of a hope that by the time the 17th [of May] arrived that I wouldn't have to worry that there would be another quote from McVeigh, or a picture of him on a front page," said Moser, who planned to watch the closed-circuit broadcast of the execution.
Don Rogers expressed the same fear.
"He's gonna use this time, and his lawyers are going to use this time," he said. "We are going to get bombarded by all of his rhetoric."
McVeigh has shown no remorse for the bombing, which claimed 168 lives, 19 of which were children.
Priscilla Salyers said she was looking forward to the execution being behind her but is glad that the FBI made the revelation before McVeigh was executed. While she's confident that nothing in the newly discovered documents will free McVeigh of his guilt, the process is necessary to prevent more conspiracy and government cover-up theories.
She had prepared herself for viewing the closed-circuit broadcast of the execution in the past week, spending time thinking about friends lost and the field of empty chairs at the memorial site, Salyers said. She was working on the fifth floor of the federal building when McVeigh bombed it, and was trapped in the rubble for more than four hours.
"And I started feeling some anger again at McVeigh, because he has no remorse and no thought for human life, including his own," Salyers said.
"So the thought of postponing it is a little hard, but we'll get through it."
Moser supports Ashcroft's delay only because it is in compliance with agreements that were made before the trial. And he can see how some documents may have been overlooked, considering the scope of the case.
Florence Rogers isn't surprised with the delay.
"I always just felt like I'd believe it when I see it, or hear it, and that hasn't happened yet," she said. "Apparently, the whole nation is disturbed."
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