Transcript of the warden's press conference and statements by media witnesses after the execution of Timothy McVeigh.
I'm Harley Lappin, warden at the United States penitentiary in Terre Haute. The U.S. marshal is still in the execution facility completing his protocol and responsibilities. The court order to execute Timothy James McVeigh has been fulfilled.
Pursuant to the sentence of United States District Court, in the District of Colorado, Timothy James McVeigh has been executed by lethal injection. He was pronounced dead at 7:14 a.m. Central Daylight Time. McVeigh's body will be released to a representative of his family.
I will take a few questions, and then the news media who witnessed the execution will provide you with their observations.
Q: What were his final words?
A: Inmate McVeigh did not make a final statement. I have provided to the press a written statement he provided to me and I have asked them to share that with you.
Q: Did he seem calm?
A: The question is, what was his demeanor. Inmate McVeigh was calm throughout the entire process. He cooperated entirely during the time he was restrained in the execution holding cell to the time he walked into the execution room. He stepped up onto a small step and sat down on the table. We then positioned himself, he then positioned himself for us to apply the restraints. He cooperated throughout this entire process.
Q: This is your first execution, what feelings did you have watching this?
A: As you've heard me say before, 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.
Q: Was there any reaction from family members?
A: I'd also like to say I have great appreciation for the citizens and community leaders of Terre Haute, who supported us and provided us with assistance throughout this entire process. And for the many federal, state and local law enforcement officials, who partnered with us as we completed this execution.
Q: When were the drugs administered?
A: I don't remember the exact time the drugs were introduced, but we can provide that to you once we've taken a look at the log.
Q: Did everything go as planned?
A: Everything went as planned, except for one issue. We initially had slight difficulty gaining a transmission, or a good transmission to Oklahoma City. So it took us a couple of minutes to resolve the problem. At which time we started up again after we gained a good transmission.
Q: Do you know how long that took?
A: There were no complications once the transmission was started.
Q: Could you please tell us how many IVs you used?
A: We used one. One more [question].
Q: Where was it?
A: The IV was placed in his right leg.
Thank you.
Q: Did Mr. McVeigh tell you in advance that he would not be
Woman prison official: I'll introduce each of the media witnesses individually, I'll let them make their statements, and then you'll have the opportunity to ask questions. We'll start with Karin Grunden with the Terre Haute Tribune-Star. (mumbling in background) I lied. Um, they have an order that they have arranged within the media pool, um, and I'll just let them introduce themselves as we go.
Good morning. I'm Byron Pitts from CBS News. (Spells name.) Timothy James McVeigh died with his eyes open. When the curtains came back, he made eye contact with, uh, his people who came to support him. Ah, when the curtain passed the media center Mr. McVeigh seemed to look up and intentionally make eye contact with each of us. Then when the curtain passed the room where the victims' relatives were and survivors, he turned his head to the right and made eye contact with them. He did not speak. But Mr. McVeigh did make a written statement that the warden passed out to each of us, I'll read it to you now. It reads, and this was written by Timothy McVeigh by hand:
Final Written Statement of Timothy McVeigh
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears,
Looms but the horror of the shade.
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll.
I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul.
He signs it at the end, June 11, 2001.
I'm Shepard Smith from Fox News Channel. We were taken in as a group, (spells name), we were standing at a glass window 18 inches from his feet. He was wearing sneakers, you could see that. There were sheets up to here, folded over. His hands were down, he looked straight at the ceiling. When the curtains opened to his left, were his representatives. He sat up as much as he could in that chair, and looked toward this window, and nodded his head like that. Then came toward the media window where there were 10 of us, plus five people from the prison, plus two media representatives as well. He seemed almost to be trying to take charge of the room and understand his circumstances, nodding at each one of us individually, then sort of a cursory glance toward the government section.
He lay there very still, he never said a word, his lips were very tight. He nodded his head a few times, he blinked a few times. Then when we were told the first drug was administered, his very tight lips and his very wide eyes changed considerably. His lips relaxed, his eyes relaxed, he looked toward the ceiling, where there happened to be a camera staring right at Oklahoma City. And at that point, his eyes seemed to roll back only slightly. His body seemed to relax. His feet shifted just a bit. There was the administration of one drug, and then another, and after the last drug, there was a very slight movement here.
It was like standing on the other side of a glass wall, and looking directly at a hospital bed. Tim McVeigh right at us, his hair very short, almost yellow, the only change between the prison jumpsuit shot we all knew so well and today's was that he seemed to have aged a little bit. And he chose to say nothing.
My name is Linda Cavanaugh. I'm with KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City. The last time I saw Tim McVeigh was in a courtroom in Denver. He had changed markedly. He was paler, he was thinner, and he did not have the same look of arrogance he had in the courtroom in Denver. Ah, today when we came in, his head was almost shaven. As they have described, he was laying flat, but as the windows opened, as though you were in a bed and you were trying to see what was over the edge of it, he strained his neck to look at us. His lips were partly open, his eyes were open, and when they started administering the drugs, he began staring at the ceiling. After the first drug was administered, his lips began turning a little bit paler, his skin became pale.
After they administered the next drug, it appeared that he was breathing through his mouth for the first time, as though he was trying to control his breathing. He took two or three breaths like that, and then from that point on, for the next several minutes when the final drug was administered, until he was pronounced dead, there was no additional movement from Timothy McVeigh.
It was a very orchestrated, clinical procedure. I think it went fairly much as they had planned it. The marshal who was in the room and the warden who was in the room stood with their arms crossed in front of them, seldom looking at Timothy McVeigh. And the atmosphere in the pressroom was one of almost wonderment at what was transpiring in front of you, watching a man die. The procedure began when they said, "We are ready, you may proceed," at that point they began the execution process, it culminated when the warden pronounced him dead at 7:14.
My name is Susan Carlson. I'm a reporter with WLS radio in Chicago. When we walked into the room, we saw him just a few feet in front of us, and he was wrapped tightly in a white sheet. He almost looked like a mummy. And he deliberately lifted up his head and looked at one of us, each by each, he took the time to make eye contact with each of us. And he was slowly nodding as he was looking at each of us across the room, the media witnesses, and the relatives, and the victim witnesses who were in a room adjacent to us.
After he looked at everyone, he put his head back down and he stared straight up at the ceiling, and his eyes did not move from that position for the rest of the procedure. In fact, I didn't even see him blink once after they started administering the drugs, and he died with his eyes open. As he laid back in position and they started administering all the drugs, his breathing became a little more shallow. At one point, he filled up his cheeks with air and then just kind of let it go, but I don't believe that was his last breath, there was still some shallow breathing that followed. His skin began to turn a very strange shade of yellow towards the end, and he remained extremely rigid.
I think, as a reporter, you cover a lot of things and we've seen dead bodies, but the most chilling part of this was the fact, for me at least, that he took the time to look up and look at each of us in the eye. And there was almost a sense of pride, as he nodded his head, laid back down and seemed very resigned to his fate. He didn't have anything to say. But his poem, the written statement he handed out, that he wrote before he passed on, indicated that same sense of pride, that this was what had to be done, what he did, and what happened to him today was all part of his plan. And he seemed very content and very resigned to the fact that he was going to die, and he did not fight it, and he almost looked proud of what had happened.
At this point we are going to open it up for questions.
Did the execution start at exactly 7? (a reporter)
What?
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.
Aren't we going to do the rest of the people?
Carlson: Originally it said we were going to do four people, and then questions.
Well I think we should do everybody.
Carlson: Absolutely.
My name is Rex Huppke, I'm with the Associated Press. Um, Let me give you a better idea of sort of a timeline about how things unfolded. The first thing that we heard in the room through the speakers which were in the ceiling was the warden's voice saying "Testing 1, 2, 3." He was checking the feed to Oklahoma City. Um, that happened at about 7:02. Uh, we heard his voice come back on, about a minute later saying "Having a little trouble with the video, just like I said. OK?" Now the curtains were still drawn so I can't say for sure if he was speaking to McVeigh or not, but it sounded like it. The testing went on and his voice came on again at about 7:05, again he said the same thing, "Testing 1,2,3," and then we heard him say at 7:06 "We're ready." And uh, then the curtains were pulled, as they've described, McVeigh looked, he looked first towards his lawyers, or towards his witnesses, which included his lawyers, uh, and he kind of shook his head towards them, uh then he looked at the media, and kind of bounced his head towards each one of us. And then he looked over to his right towards the victim witness room which was a tinted glass pane, so he couldn't see into it but he looked over, and he sort of, not real dramatic, but he sort of squinted a little bit like he was trying to see through the tinted glass to see if he could see anything. Uh, he, uh, at 7:10, they announced that the first drug had been administered. Uh, at that point he was still conscious it seemed, he was uh, his eyes were opened, he was blinking a little bit. Uh, very slowly his eyes stopped moving, and his head was really perfectly lined up, he wasn't to one side or the other, he was very rigid and straight up and down. Uh, and uh, the eyes had sort of started to slowly move back just a little bit. Uh, the second drug was administered at 7:11, then uh, at that point, is were we saw some of the uh, not really spasms exactly, but you saw a couple heavy breaths and then that was by and large it, there was a little stomach movement uh, and at 7:15 they announced that the final drug had been administered, and then, um, I'm sorry, 7:13, and then at 7:14, the warden came on through the speaker again and announced that he had died.
I am Nolan Clay (spells name), with the Daily Oklahomian in Oklahoma City, I just have a few more details. The uh, poem was the "Invictus" poem, that British poem that was written in the 1800s. I had a copy of it off the Internet, I compared it to the written statement that was given to us. I will see if we can get copies to people. Can we make copies of this? (Mumbling.) OK. At the top, it says "Final Written Statement of Timothy McVeigh." Uh, it's signature is a scribbled thing, that sometimes Mr. McVeigh would write and has June 11, 2001. We compared it to the poem, it seems to be word for word, punctuation, all that.
Uh, let me give you a few more details. When the warden, the warden at one point said "Marshal, we are ready, may we proceed?" and then the marshal picked up a red phone and said, "This is the U.S. marshal, to the Department of Justice Command Center, may we proceed?" Something was said back to him, and then the marshal, who was Frank Anderson said, uh, "We may proceed with the execution."
Now McVeigh was wearing a white T-shirt. The uh, sheet came up to right about here, you can see the shoulders, the uh, IV tubes looked to be yellow and gray, they came from a uh, a slot in the wall behind us. He did look to be hooked up to an EKG machine, there's a black uh line, uh and he did stare straight up. His eyes, the dime of his eyes opened, correct? His eyes did roll back slightly. I also saw the gulping breath where his cheeks bubbled up, I saw that twice.
And I'll be glad to answer any questions after everybody's done, and if anybody wants to see me, I'll go through more details.
I'm Karin Grunden (spells name) from the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, and I'll provide you with a few more details as well. Um, when we walked into the room, the curtain was closed, It was a bluish-green curtain. And a metal railing that came out from the wall kept us from the window about 18 inches.
There was a little bit of whispering among the guards right before this happened, some whispering in the room. As the time got closer, again we had the "Testing, 1, 2, 3" from the warden, and a correctional officer explained to us that they were checking the feed from Oklahoma City. And they also mentioned that "We will be testing again," is what the correctional officer told us, "they're having some problems in Oklahoma City with the video feed." When they got that straightened out, the warden again said, "Testing, 1, 2, 3, we're ready," and you could hear the sound of the curtain opening at that point.
The white sheet was up to his chest and he was also laying on a white sheet, there was a white sheet draped on the gurney. The warden and U.S. Marshal Frank Anderson both had earpieces in, they were standing next to each other. The warden did say, "Inmate McVeigh, you may make your last statement." At that point there was silence. At that point the warden read the Justice [Department] sentencing information, and then a red phone was picked up after the warden said, "Marshal, we are ready. May we proceed?" The marshal responded, "You may proceed with the execution."
And as others described, he looked around, he did swallow and puff some air. You could see his chest moving up and down. The warden didn't look at Timothy McVeigh. His blinked a few times, and then they remained open. And I'll let someone else go ahead.
My name is Kevin Johnson with USA Today. I'll take you outside the execution chamber a little bit. We were dropped off on a, I guess the main entrance. Uh, we walked up a path to a 13-foot-high chain link fence topped by razor wire with a couple of heavily armed guards out front. And then we were ushered in.
I thought perhaps the most remarkable part of it was, as other people have suggested here, said here, reported here, that his eyes, his line of sight followed the roll of the curtain from right to left, passing first the attorneys' window, ah, or his witnesses' window, then ours, past the government witnesses, then past the victim witnesses of Oklahoma City. As others have stated, he did strain up, strain himself in, from the gurney, to look at each window. And as others have reported here, he did make eye contact with each of us, or at least try to do that.
Once that happened, though, it was relatively unremarkable in the sense that he, his expression, he moved his head back and never moved it from that position, staring straight at the ceiling. His eyes became increasingly glassy, um, almost watery, as the process went on. However, before the first drug was administered, I think we all saw the couple of deep breaths, quick swallows, and then a fluttered breath from his lips. And then not much movement after that, perhaps a slight chest movement as others have reported here before.
Toward the end of the process, sometime before the warden pronounced the time of death, it wasn't clear, or at least, any signs of breathing were not visible to us. And he appeared, again, as others have reported, to have -- his eyes were completely glassy at that point and his skin color turned from almost a very, very pale, when we first saw him, to a light, light yellow. His lips also turned that color as well.
Hi, I'm Diana Penner representing Gannett News Service. Rather than reiterating what my colleagues have said, I'll give you two impressions.
When the curtains opened, from our right to left, and he looked at each one of us with this little nod, I remember my first impression being, like, he's counting us. I don't know if he was acknowledging us or what he was doing, but that was my first thought. When he looked to the window of his representatives, he made what wasn't a smile, but it was, uh, kind of like, it's OK, I'm OK, or sort of an acknowledgement of something. Again, that's my impression.
Um, overall, it seemed to go pretty smoothly with the exception of the slight delay with the feed. It was a very sober kind of a feeling, very uh, mechanical, clinical, um, and I guess nothing that I could have expected.
My name is Crocker Stephenson. I'm a reporter with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. (Spells name.) I-I know everyone else has remarked about Mr. McVeigh looking at us as the curtain opened. Um, the thing that immediately, you know, at that point we didn't know what his final words were going to be or his final statement. But the way in which he lifted his head recalled part -- to me, recalled part of "Invictus" where he said my head is bloodied but unbowed. There was a certain pertinence to the way he looked at each of us, there was an attempt to make eye contact. There was absolutely no expression on his face other than in his eyes, a sharpness, a real sense that he was looking through the window at you.
The other thing I'd like to add is how remarkably subtle the process was in which he swept from life to death. There was no point in which he looked as if he had turned the corner of even as the process went on his skin became increasingly yellow. But there was no sign of suffering, there was no sign of discomfort, there was no sign of fear. There was an emotionless about it that I wouldn't describe as peaceful; I would describe it more as blank.
You know, I think we all have small little details that we would be happy to share with you. Please feel free to stop me, and I'll be happy to talk with you.
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