TERRE HAUTE, Ind., June 11 -- Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection Monday for committing the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, which cost the lives 168 people.
McVeigh was pronounced dead at 8:14 a.m. EDT at the U.S. Penitentiary just south of Terre Haute in the first federal execution since 1963.
Officials said McVeigh went to his death without resistance and did not make any effort to fight with his executioners, either when they moved him from his cell to the execution chamber, or when they strapped him onto a gurney and inserted an intravenous tube into his right leg. It was through that tube that the deadly mix of sodium pentothal, potassium chlorate and pancuronium bromide was administered.
Those who witnessed the execution said McVeigh tried to display a strict demeanor.
"He seemed resigned to his fate, almost like he was proud of what he did," said Susan Carlson, a reporter with WLS-AM, Chicago, who saw McVeigh die.
McVeigh was brought into the execution chamber in shackles. Once strapped down, various curtains opened, allowing witnesses to see him.
In those moments, McVeigh deliberately tried to make eye contact with each of the reporters who witnessed the event, giving each a glance and a nod. He also acknowledged his attorneys with a nod of his head and attempted to mouth "OK" to them.
Ten people who were family members of those people killed in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building also were present in the execution chamber, although they were kept behind a tinted glass window that prevented McVeigh from making eye contact with them. He gave those witnesses a collective nod.
The one batch of witnesses he ignored were those Justice Department officials who were on hand to witness the event. That is consistent with McVeigh's past statements that he committed the federal building bombing as a political protest against a federal government that he believes to be out of control.
In Washington, President Bush issued a statement, saying the United States had "carried out the severest sentence for the gravest of crimes."
"The victims of the Oklahoma City bombing have been given not vengeance but justice and one young man met the fate he chose for himself six years ago," Bush said.
"For the survivors of the crime and for the families of the dead, the pain goes on. Final punishment of the guilty cannot alone bring peace to the innocent, it cannot recover the loss or balance the scales and it is not meant to do so."
Bush called the Oklahoma City bombing "evil."
"Under the laws of our country, the matter is concluded," Bush said. "Life and history bring tragedies that often cannot be explained, but they can be redeemed. They can be redeemed by dispensing justice."
He added: "May God in his mercy grant peace to all, to the lives that were taken six years ago, to the lives that go on and to the life taken today."
But McVeigh attorney Robert Nigh condemned the federal government for carrying out the execution.
"This morning we killed Tim McVeigh, the person responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing," Nigh said. "But we did much more than that. We also killed Sergeant McVeigh, the young man who joined the army because he wanted to serve his country. ... He was the young man who took up arms on his country's behalf and traveled halfway across the world to meet and engage our enemy. He placed his own life in jeopardy because we asked him to."
Nigh noted McVeigh won a Bronze Star for his efforts.
"We have made killing a part of the healing process," Nigh said, adding that we justify it by calling it a reasoned response.
"There is nothing reasonable or moral about what we have done today," he said.
McVeigh had no last words, but issued a final, signed, handwritten statement, the 1875 poem, "Invictus," by William Ernest Henley, which includes the lines: "My head is bloody, but unbowed.
"I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
McVeigh's written version of the poem matches Henley's version, but the bomber made no mention of Henley's name, writing out the verses so that one might mistakenly think McVeigh was the author.
Witnesses said McVeigh died with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling of the execution chamber where a camera was positioned to beam the execution to survivors and their relatives in Oklahoma City.
Vigo County Coroner Kevin Mayes signed the death certificate, allowing Bureau of Prisons officials to have the body cremated. McVeigh's ashes are to be turned over Nigh.
Prior to his death, McVeigh had told prison Warden Harley Lappin he wanted Nigh, and not any family members, to be responsible for handling funeral arrangements.
Although some have speculated McVeigh, in a sick joke, would want his ashes dumped at the sight of the Murrah Building, Nigh said that would not happen. Other reports indicated McVeigh wanted the ashes scattered at a boyhood fishing site near Buffalo, N.Y.
Nigh refused to confirm the report, saying he would never disclose the final resting place out of fear some people would desecrate the site while other pro-gun fanatics like McVeigh might try to turn it into an informal shrine.
Lappin said there was just one glitch during the procedure -- a problem with the video transmission to Oklahoma City.
"There were no complications after the transmission was started," Lappin said.
Lappin said the execution was still a difficult event.
"It is a difficult thing to do, to kill someone," he said. "But my thoughts are totally with the victims in Oklahoma City That's how I'm getting through this."
Former Attorney General Janet Reno, in an interview on NBC, called McVeigh "a miserable little coward."
Bombing survivor Arlene Blanchard, who witnessed the execution in Oklahoma City, described McVeigh as "stoic" and said watching the execution helped her emotionally.
McVeigh was strapped onto the execution gurney and covered by a white sheet to mid-chest with just his T-shirt and sneakers visible. The first drug began flowing through the IV into his right leg at 8:10 a.m. EDT. The final drug was administered just three minutes later, and death was pronounced at 8:14 a.m.
Some witnesses also said they saw McVeigh's hands twitch slightly at what is believed to be the moment of death. In the final moments before he was pronounced dead, McVeigh's pale white skin turned a slight shade of yellow, as did his lips.
"The most chilling part was the fact he took the time to look up and look at each of us in the eye," WLS's Carlson said. "There was almost a sense of pride. He didn't have anything to say but the written statement, indicating the same sense of pride, that this is what had to be done. This was all part of his plan. He did not fight it. He almost looked proud."
Linda Cavanaugh of KFOR, Oklahoma City, said she was struck by the difference in McVeigh's appearance since the last time she saw him in the courtroom in Denver, following his sentencing.
"He was paler and thinner," she said. "He did not have the same look of arrogance that he had in the courtroom."
Cavanaugh said McVeigh at one point filled his cheeks with air and slowly expelled it. She said the U.S. marshal and the warden stood with their arms crossed, seldom looking at McVeigh during the procedure.
"It was a very orchestrated, clinical procedure," Cavanaugh said. "I think it went very much as they planned it.
" There was almost a sense of wonderment (in the media section) at watching a man die."
McVeigh's execution came after a weekend during which his attorneys tried to persuade him not to give up his legal fight. McVeigh never took his final legal appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, deciding it was unlikely the high court would rule in his favor.
McVeigh spent the final weekend of life lounging around prison cells and occasionally watching television. He passed up a formal final meal, instead asking to be served two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream, which were given to him Sunday night.
Prison officials said McVeigh did get some sleep during the night.
"It was off and on throughout the night," Lappin said.
Prison regulations would have allowed McVeigh's family to be present with him until early Monday, but he passed on having his father or sister present, having had his final visit with them on April 10. McVeigh also passed on having a spiritual adviser or clergyman with him in his final hours.
McVeigh last spoke with his attorneys about two hours prior to his death and Nigh said Monday McVeigh was "calm and collected" in his final hours of life.
Bureau of Prisons officials agreed.
"He has been anything but a problem inmate, all the way to the end," spokesman Dan Dunne said.
The execution followed a series of last-minute appeals by defense attorneys following disclosure by the FBI that it had failed to turn over some 4,000 documents related to the case to McVeigh's attorneys before his trial as required by federal law and a special arrangement between the government and his lawyers that allowed a more sweeping discovery process.
Defense attorneys had hoped McVeigh's death sentence would be commuted to life in prison.
No sympathetic judge could be found and McVeigh's best hope of averting a death sentence passed last week when U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled there were no legal grounds to delay the execution.
Matsch's decision was upheld by a three-judge panel to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. At that point McVeigh instructed his attorneys to halt appeals.
An attempt by an inmate charged with homicide in Pennsylvania to have the execution taped so he could use it in his case to argue execution was cruel and unusual punishment was rejected by the Supreme Court Sunday without comment.
McVeigh originally was scheduled to die on May 16, but Attorney General John Ashcroft postponed the execution following the FBI disclosure.
Ashcroft consistently said the documents contained nothing of relevance that would change the guilty verdict, and Matsch -- who presided over McVeigh's 1997 trial -- last week agreed, saying he did not want his courtroom used to put the FBI on trial.
During McVeigh's trial, prosecutors presented evidence that McVeigh turned a Ryder rental truck into a bomb and parked it outside the Murrah Building.
The resulting explosion left the building in ruins and killed 168 of those inside. Most were employees of various government agencies, but 19 children who were in a day-care facility that was in the federal building also were killed.
In "American Terrorist," a book published earlier this year, McVeigh said the explosion was meant as a protest against a federal government, which he considered out of control and out of touch with his pro-gun, survivalist views.
McVeigh said he felt no remorse, that casualties were necessary to get the government's attention.
Between the original execution date and Monday, McVeigh wrote letters to his hometown newspaper, the Buffalo News, expressing regret over the deaths, but again justifying his actions with his anti-government beliefs. He told his lawyers Sunday he was ready to die.
The explosion was timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the end of the standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidians at their heavily armed compound near Waco, Texas.
Federal agents fired tear gas into the compound and the ensuing conflagration left more than 80 dead.
McVeigh was among those who say the Davidians, who had killed an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, were the victims, and the U.S. government, their murderers.
In December, McVeigh ordered an end to his appeals, saying he was tired of prison life and did not like the idea of another decade of waiting to be put to death.
Two other people also were convicted on federal charges stemming from the bombing. Terry Nichols is serving a life prison term while Michael Fortier is serving a 12-year term.
McVeigh has said the two provided some help in gathering materials for the bomb, but were not fully aware of what he intended to do.
Nichols currently is asking the Supreme Court for a new hearing, claiming the new FBI documents would help bolster his case that he did not realize what McVeigh had planned.
Last week, the high court asked the Justice Department to reply within 30 days, and a decision by the Supreme Court is expected during the summer.
