Timothy McVeigh - Incarceration and Execution

Incarceration and Execution

While incarcerated, Timothy McVeigh had the Federal Bureau of Prisons register # 12076-064. McVeigh's death sentence was delayed pending an appeal. One of his appeals for certiorari, taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, was denied on March 8, 1999. McVeigh's request for a nationally televised execution was also denied. An internet company also unsuccessfully sued for the right to broadcast it. At ADX Florence, McVeigh and Nichols were housed in "Bomber's Row", the same cell block as Ted Kaczynski, Luis Felipe and Ramzi Yousef. Ramzi made frequent, unsuccessful attempts to convert McVeigh to Islam.

McVeigh said:

I am sorry these people had to lose their lives. But that's the nature of the beast. It's understood going in what the human toll will be.

He said that if there turned out to be an afterlife, he would "improvise, adapt and overcome", noting that:

If there is a hell, then I'll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war.

He also said:

I knew I wanted this before it happened. I knew my objective was state-assisted suicide and when it happens, it's in your face. You just did something you're trying to say should be illegal for medical personnel.

The BOP moved McVeigh from ADX Florence to the federal death row at United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1999.

McVeigh dropped his remaining appeals, giving no reason for doing so. On January 16, 2001 the Federal Bureau of Prisons set May 16, 2001 as McVeigh's execution date. McVeigh stated that his only regret was not completely leveling the federal building. Six days prior to his scheduled execution, the FBI turned over thousands of documents of evidence it had previously withheld to McVeigh's attorneys. As a result, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced McVeigh's execution would be stayed for one month.

The execution date was reset for June 11, 2001. McVeigh invited California conductor/composer David Woodard to perform pre-requiem Mass music on the eve of his execution. He also requested a Catholic chaplain. McVeigh chose William Ernest Henley's poem "Invictus" as his final statement. Jay Sawyer, relative of one of the victims, noted, "Without saying a word, he got the final word." Larry Whicher, whose brother died in the attack, described McVeigh as having "a totally expressionless, blank stare. He had a look of defiance and that if he could, he'd do it all over again." He was executed by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first federal prisoner to be executed by the United States federal government since Victor Feguer was executed in Iowa on March 15, 1963. He requested two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream for his last meal.

On November 21, 1997, President Bill Clinton signed S. 923, special legislation introduced by Senator Arlen Specter to bar McVeigh and other veterans convicted of crimes from being buried in any military cemetery. His body was cremated at Mattox Ryan Funeral Home in Terre Haute, Indiana. The cremated remains were given to his lawyer, who scattered them at an undisclosed location. McVeigh had earlier written that he considered having his ashes dropped at the site of the memorial where the Murrah building once stood, but decided that would be "too vengeful, too raw, too cold." He had expressed willingness to donate organs, but was prohibited from doing so by prison regulations.

"Psychiatrist John Smith concluded that was a decent person who had allowed rage to build up inside him to the point that he had lashed out in one terrible, violent act." McVeigh's IQ was assessed at 126.