- April 25th 2001

Victims Passionately Split on Execution of McVeigh

By SARA RIMER As the May 16 execution of Timothy McVeigh approaches, the victims and survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing are embroiled in a death penalty debate.OKLAHOMA CITY, April 24 Bud Welch has been calling Bill McVeigh a couple of times a week since federal officials announced that Mr. McVeigh's only son, Timothy, 33, would be executed on May 16 for the 1995 bombing that killed 168 people here and injured nearly 700. Mr. Welch's only daughter, Julie Marie, 23, died in the blast."He's going to lose his son," said Mr. Welch, 61, a Texaco service station owner, who since the bombing has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, a stance that is shaped in large part by his Roman Catholic faith. "And when we take Tim McVeigh out of that cage to execute him," Mr. Welch said, "it isn't going to bring Julie Marie back."Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) traveled here two weeks ago to meet with some 90 victims and survivors and later decided to allow the closed-circuit television viewing of the execution in order to allow victims to "meet their need to close this chapter in their lives." The group that met Mr. Ashcroft represented only a fraction of the more than 2,300 people who are listed as victims and survivors in a database at the United States attorney's office here.From the initial aftermath, when the previous attorney general, Janet Reno (news - web sites), pledged to seek the death penalty for the killers, to the trial, when 38 witnesses and survivors testified for the prosecution in the penalty phase, to Mr. Ashcroft's recent visit, the victims and survivors ha ve been portrayed as monolithic, all bent on the ultimate punishment.But while no one doubts that in this staunchly pro-death penalty state the majority of the group favors capital punishment for Mr. McVeigh, as May 16 approaches, there is plenty of debate. Is it right to show the execution on closed-circuit television? Is it right for the federal government to put Timothy McVeigh to death? What does the Bible say about capital punishment? Will the execution "close this chapter" in the lives of the victims and survivors, as Mr. Ashcroft seemed to suggest?While he may be the most visible member of the group, Bud Welch is not alone in opposing the execution on moral and religious grounds. Tim McCarthy, 30, whose father, Jim, 53, was killed in the blast, acknowledges that he does not know what he would do if left alone in a room with Mr. McVeigh. And yet, as a Catholic, he says that he believes it is wrong for the government to kill him.Patti Hall, 64, who was crush ed by six floors of concrete in the blast and has been on permanent disability ever since, recalls that she celebrated when Mr. McVeigh was sentenced to death four years ago, but she says she has since decided that "it isn't right to take a life." "God says `Vengeance is mine,' " said Ms. Hall, a Southern Baptist. "But he also says, `Pray for those who persecute you.' I'm praying for his soul."Those who were inside the federal building when it was bombed, and those whose family members died in the blast, may be the largest and most powerful group of survivors of a crime in recent American history. They built a $29 million national memorial in a record three and a half years, raising $5 million from both the federal and state governments, as well as private contributions.Some of them successfully helped lobby for passage of a federal bill that sharply restricts the appeals of death row inmates. They also won the right to have Mr. McVeigh's trial shown on closed-ci rcuit television in Oklahoma City.Early on, they divided into subgroups: injured survivors, uninjured survivors, high-profile victims who used the bombing to lobby for victims' rights, and victims who preferred to grieve in private, to name a few. They disagreed on everything from who should be considered an official survivor to the design of the memorial.Now, so volatile is the subject of whether Mr. McVeigh should be executed that Florence Rogers, who escaped the bombing with minor injuries but lost 35 members of her staff at the federal credit union, says she does not want to state her opinion."I've got friends on both sides of the issue," she said in an interview. "Bud Welch is a very good friend of mine. He's totally against the death penalty. And I've got some that want to see him [McVeigh] fry tomorrow that are good friends of mine."Peggy Broxterman, 70, whose son Paul, 42, was killed in the bombing, is one of the 10 people among the survivors and v ictims' relatives chosen by lottery last week to attend the execution in Terre Haute."It's all for my son," Mrs. Broxterman, a retired elementary school reading specialist, said in a telephone interview from her home in Las Vegas, explaining why she wanted to watch Mr. McVeigh die. "That means McVeigh is out of here, he's gone. He's out of life entirely. I don't even want him breathing."The anger of those who favor the execution has intensified in recent weeks with the publication of a new book, "American Terrorist" (Regan Books), in which Mr. McVeigh refuses to express remorse. If he had known there was a day-care center inside the federal building, Mr. McVeigh told the authors, Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, he might have considered switching targets. "That's a large amount of collateral damage," Mr. McVeigh said, referring to the babies among the 19 children killed by his bomb. Calvin Moser, a federal worker who lost 35 colleagues in the explosion, was amo ng the group that lobbied for the closed-circuit viewing. "How can you turn around and say collateral damage?" said Mr. Moser, 59, who lost more than half of his hearing in the explosion, and lives with a permanent ringing in his ears. "He's a baby killer."It is hard to know at this point just how much interest there is in viewing the execution. In January, the United States attorney's office here sent out letters to 1,100 households of victims and survivors many households have multiple victims asking people if they wanted to participate in the execution in some way. There were 285 responses from people expressing interest. A new mailing went out last week, asking specifically about the closed- circuit viewing. Responses are due back on May 1. Kathleen Treanor, whose daughter, Ashley, 4, and whose father and mother-in-law, Luther and LaRue Treanor, 61 and 55, were killed in the bombing, says she not only plans to participate in the closed-circuit viewing, but wa nts her sons David, 15, and Zachary, 13, to join her. "They want to watch," Mrs. Treanor said, adding that she intends to write Mr. Ashcroft a letter asking him to make an exception to the rule that only those 18 and over can watch. "I think it might hurt them if they don't if I deny them the satisfaction of them being the last ones standing and looking at this guy's face and triumphing over this evil that has haunted them for years." Susan Walton, who was severely injured in the bombing and came close to having both her legs amputated, says she does not oppose the execution, even though she knows people who think "keeping him alive and in prison is more of a punishment than the death penalty." But she added: "I don't want to watch it. I don't need to see him take his last breath, like some of them do."Even if she had not decided that the execution was wrong, Patti Hall said, she would not want to watch. "There's been enough death," said Ms. Hall, who brok e bones in 40 places in the bombing. With all the fervor for Mr. McVeigh's execution that is being expressed by a handful of victims' relatives and survivors on television these days, the mood here is not as strident as it was in the beginning.Rob Roddy, 50, escaped the building unharmed but lost 35 co-workers in the blast. "I was opposed to the death penalty, prior to the bombing," he said. "But for the first couple months I was thinking maybe we ought to have a one-time exception in Rob's system of morality. Maybe we ought to let one or two people be executed that could do something like that." "It was a couple months before I got my senses back," Mr. Roddy said. "I have certain core beliefs, core values. If I lose that, I become something of a victim, more than I had been."For months after his daughter was killed, Bud Welch recalled, he was nearly obliterated by feelings of rage and vengeance. "I didn't even want trials for them," he said. "I wanted the m fried. The best way I can describe that is as a period of temporary insanity." Eventually, he became a spokesman for Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, a national organization that opposes the death penalty, and began traveling the country giving speeches. It was during one of those trips, to upstate New York three years ago, that he arranged to meet Bill McVeigh at his home.The one subject on which all sides seem to agree is that "closure" does not exist. "You close on a house," said Mrs. Broxterman.