TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - The government Timothy McVeigh so despised executed him by chemical injection Monday, taking his life in exchange for the 168 lives lost when he blew up the Oklahoma City federal building six years ago. He died silently, with his eyes open.
Instead of making an oral statement, McVeigh, 33, issued a copy of the 1875 poem "Invictus," which concludes with the lines: "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul." More Associated Press coverage of the execution
He was pronounced dead at 8:14 a.m. EDT by Warden Harley Lappin, becoming the first federal prisoner executed in 38 years.
In Oklahoma City, about 300 survivors and victims' relatives gathered to watch a closed-circuit TV broadcast of the execution, sent from Terre Haute in a feed encrypted to guard against interception. Others embraced each other at the memorial marking the bombing site.
The lethal injection was administered to McVeigh's right leg. McVeigh made eye contact with his four witnesses, then with the 10 media witnesses, then squinted toward the tinted window shielding the 10 victims' witnesses from his view.
McVeigh looked pale as he awaited death. His hair was cropped short. A white was pulled up to his chest as he lay on the gurney.
When the first drug was administered, he let out a couple of deep breaths, then a fluttery breath. His head moved back, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, and his eyes were glassy.
In Oklahoma City, Kathleen Treanor, whose 4-year-old daughter, Ashley, and her husband's parents died in the bombing, watched the execution on closed-circuit TV. Afterward, she held up a picture of her daughter and said: "I thought of her every step of the way." She said there was no display of emotion in the room as the execution took place.
She said some of the victims were chuckling that they knew McVeigh was dead before the hordes of media outside did.
Janice Smith, whose brother Lanny Scroggins died in the bombing, prayed with her children at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, then left after getting word that McVeigh was dead.
"It's over," she said. "We don't have to continue with him anymore."
The day before McVeigh's execution, his attorneys said that he was sorry for those who suffered but that he didn't regret detonating a massive bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building _ the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil.
"He never, I think, has been the type of guy to tell people what he thinks that they want to hear," attorney Robert Nigh said. "I think that he tries to be honest about his true feeling of sympathy and empathy without being inaccurate about them."
The U.S. Bureau of Prison's 50-page protocol for the execution outlined every detail, including the words the warden must say to the U.S. marshal before the injection began: "We are ready." Before that, McVeigh had four minutes to make a statement.
Among those allowed to witness were 10 victims' representatives, 10 news media members, including one from The Associated Press, and McVeigh's personal witnesses _ Nigh, defense attorney Nathan Chambers, former defense team member Cate McCauley and Buffalo News reporter Lou Michel, who co-wrote a recent book on the bomber.
No members of McVeigh's family traveled to Terre Haute, at his request.
Defiant to the end, McVeigh had told those close to him in his final days that he still considered himself the victor in his one-man war against a government he labeled a bully for its disastrous raids at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge in Idaho.
Prison officials said the decorated Gulf War veteran spent Sunday writing letters, sleeping, watching television and meeting with Nigh and Chambers.
McVeigh was served his final requested meal at 1 p.m. EDT Sunday, eating two pints of mint-chocolate chip ice cream.
Less than 24 hours before his death, McVeigh's mood had been upbeat, his attorneys said.
"He continues to be affable," Chambers said. "He continues to be rational in his discourse. He maintains his sense of humor."
McVeigh was transferred from his 8-by-10-foot cell to an isolation cell near the death chamber at 5:10 a.m. EDT Sunday.
"He was able to look up in the sky and see the moon for the first time in a number of years," Nigh said. McVeigh, he added, slept a few hours Saturday night and planned to do the same before the execution.
McVeigh was born in Pendleton, N.Y., near Buffalo, in 1968 and raised Roman Catholic in a middle-class environment. At a young age, he developed a keen interest in guns from his grandfather.
As he grew up, he developed a distrust of the government, yet he joined the Army and went on to serve in the Gulf War. He returned more disillusioned with the United States, viewing its treatment of the Iraqi people as that of a schoolyard bully.
Drifting across the country and taking on an increasingly survivalist mentality, he stewed over what he saw as government encroachment on the right to bear arms. The federal raids at the Branch Davidian compound at Waco and the cabin of white separatist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge brought his hatred to a head.
He decided it was time for actions, not words.
McVeigh set his sights on the Oklahoma City federal building. He packed a Ryder truck with explosives, lit the fuses, parked it outside the federal building and walked away without looking back.
He was condemned to die for the deaths of eight federal law enforcement agents buried in the rubble, but jurors in the death penalty phase of his 1997 trial labeled him responsible for all 168 deaths.
McVeigh's original execution date was May 16, but it was delayed after the FBI revealed it had withheld more than 4,500 documents from the defense during McVeigh's trial. The Justice Department said nothing in the documents cast doubt on the bomber's guilt.
Defense attorneys sought an additional delay but were turned down. McVeigh then decided to halt all appeals.
After McVeigh's death, officials at the Terre Haute prison _ which houses the remaining 19 federal death row inmates _ must prepare for another execution. Drug kingpin and convicted murderer Juan Raul Garza is scheduled to die June 19.
First Published June 11, 2001, 1:12 p.m.
