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McVeigh Unrepentant As Execution Nears
June 8, 2001 1:06 pm EST
By Michael Conlon
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (Reuters) - Still publicly unrepentant for the 168 lives he took in the worst act of terrorism ever to strike U.S. soil, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh faced the last days of his life on Friday after dropping all further court appeals.
McVeigh's decision to end legal challenges to his execution, appeals that had been based on thousands of pages of belatedly revealed FBI documents, swung the spotlight back to Monday's scheduled execution.
MAY BE MOVED TO DEATH HOUSE
Prison officials said McVeigh could be moved from his prison cell on death row as early as Friday to the death house -- a windowless red brick building containing a small cell just a few steps from the death chamber -- where the execution will take place.
"He has reached the point where he wants us to press no further and ... we must respect that position. Quite frankly we are not in his position and we don't have to make the mental preparations that he does," one of his lawyers, Robert Nigh, said.
He is to die by a lethal injection of Sodium Pentothal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride at 7 a.m. CDT (8 a.m. EDT) Monday. Death usually occurs within 10 to 15 minutes when the chemicals stop the heart and lungs. The prison's warden, Harley Lappin, will walk to a camera-jammed podium on the edge of the prison grounds to announce the time of death.
His last meal, if any, will not be revealed until the day of the execution, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said. No formal announcement on the disposal of his remains has been made, though his father has said McVeigh asked for cremation, with the ashes to be turned over to his Tulsa-based lawyer Nigh.
NO AUTOPSY
McVeigh has obtained an agreement from the local coroner that there will be no autopsy of his remains. He also asked that no memorial be held -- though his father plans to hold a prayer service at the church near his home where McVeigh in his grade school years was confirmed as a Roman Catholic.
The younger McVeigh has cited a growing anti-government rage for his act, including revenge for the 80 people killed in the 1993 federal siege of a Branch Davidian sect compound near Waco, Texas.
The closest he has come to regret or repentance can be found in the book "American Terrorist, Timothy McVeigh & the Oklahoma City Bombing" by newspaper reporters Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck. There he said he might have chosen a different target had he realized the "collateral damage" that happened because the federal building housed a day care center. Nineteen children died in the blast.
McVeigh waived his last chance for an appeal. His only chance to prevent the lethal needle being inserted into his vein next week would be a pardon, stay or commutation from President Bush, something not likely. Bush has already turned down a request for mercy from Pope John Paul II and the human rights organization Amnesty International.
Demonstrators both for and against the death penalty will be allowed on the prison grounds beginning at midnight, seven hours before the execution. They will be separated by the distance of a good-sized farm field.
McVeigh meanwhile has apparently chosen to speak his epitaph when he is given the chance to make a short statement before his death.
According to the Michel-Herbeck book, he will take his text from English poet William Ernest Henley's 1875 "Invictus." The four-verse work concludes with the famous lines:
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul."
June 8, 2001 1:06 pm EST
By Michael Conlon
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (Reuters) - Still publicly unrepentant for the 168 lives he took in the worst act of terrorism ever to strike U.S. soil, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh faced the last days of his life on Friday after dropping all further court appeals.
McVeigh's decision to end legal challenges to his execution, appeals that had been based on thousands of pages of belatedly revealed FBI documents, swung the spotlight back to Monday's scheduled execution.
MAY BE MOVED TO DEATH HOUSE
Prison officials said McVeigh could be moved from his prison cell on death row as early as Friday to the death house -- a windowless red brick building containing a small cell just a few steps from the death chamber -- where the execution will take place.
"He has reached the point where he wants us to press no further and ... we must respect that position. Quite frankly we are not in his position and we don't have to make the mental preparations that he does," one of his lawyers, Robert Nigh, said.
He is to die by a lethal injection of Sodium Pentothal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride at 7 a.m. CDT (8 a.m. EDT) Monday. Death usually occurs within 10 to 15 minutes when the chemicals stop the heart and lungs. The prison's warden, Harley Lappin, will walk to a camera-jammed podium on the edge of the prison grounds to announce the time of death.
His last meal, if any, will not be revealed until the day of the execution, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said. No formal announcement on the disposal of his remains has been made, though his father has said McVeigh asked for cremation, with the ashes to be turned over to his Tulsa-based lawyer Nigh.
NO AUTOPSY
McVeigh has obtained an agreement from the local coroner that there will be no autopsy of his remains. He also asked that no memorial be held -- though his father plans to hold a prayer service at the church near his home where McVeigh in his grade school years was confirmed as a Roman Catholic.
The younger McVeigh has cited a growing anti-government rage for his act, including revenge for the 80 people killed in the 1993 federal siege of a Branch Davidian sect compound near Waco, Texas.
The closest he has come to regret or repentance can be found in the book "American Terrorist, Timothy McVeigh & the Oklahoma City Bombing" by newspaper reporters Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck. There he said he might have chosen a different target had he realized the "collateral damage" that happened because the federal building housed a day care center. Nineteen children died in the blast.
McVeigh waived his last chance for an appeal. His only chance to prevent the lethal needle being inserted into his vein next week would be a pardon, stay or commutation from President Bush, something not likely. Bush has already turned down a request for mercy from Pope John Paul II and the human rights organization Amnesty International.
Demonstrators both for and against the death penalty will be allowed on the prison grounds beginning at midnight, seven hours before the execution. They will be separated by the distance of a good-sized farm field.
McVeigh meanwhile has apparently chosen to speak his epitaph when he is given the chance to make a short statement before his death.
According to the Michel-Herbeck book, he will take his text from English poet William Ernest Henley's 1875 "Invictus." The four-verse work concludes with the famous lines:
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul."
