It’s not that she expected the execution to bring an end to her grief, something she says won’t happen until “they throw dirt on my grave.” But she figured McVeigh’s death would at least bring justice. “We’ve all been waiting for this man to be silenced,” she told NEWSWEEK. “That won’t happen now.”
At least not as soon as the victims’ families thought. The decision to delay McVeigh’s execution stunned the country, but no group of Americans took the news harder than the survivors and the families of the 168 dead. For months they’d prepared for the execution, and for the blizzard of publicity that would accompany it. Many found the constant media exposure overwhelming, and they awaited the day reporters would stop calling and McVeigh would disappear from their television screens. “It’s very upsetting, because it means the whole thing just goes on and on,” says Amy Petty, who was trapped under rubble for six hours after the explosion. “Every night I go home and dodge the news channels because I’m sick to death of him.”
Some of the families are openly angry at the FBI, bewildered that thousands of documents in one of the bureau’s most extensive investigations could simply be lost. “I think this whole situation stinks,” says Patti Hall, who was badly injured in the blast. “I absolutely think that the credibility of our justice system should be checked out.” Yet many others have been reluctant to judge the government too harshly. “I’m glad they found it a week before instead of a week after,” says Susan Walton, who was visiting the Murrah credit union at the time of the bombing and has required more than two dozen operations to repair her injuries. “That way, there isn’t any doubt cast on the verdict.”
If the execution had gone forward despite the last-minute evidence, some of the victims say, it would have only fueled conspiracy buffs. “It would have been another opportunity for McVeigh to laugh in the face of the government,” says bombing survivor Richard Williams, who believes the Feds did the right thing by delaying the execution. The FBI’s willingness to come forward with the documents could wind up strengthening the case against McVeigh, making it even more difficult for anti-government fringe groups to make a martyr of him. “I think it shows how honest our Justice Department really is,” says Jim Denny, whose two children narrowly escaped death in the bombing. “It completely goes against what McVeigh believed about the government. They could have taken the documents to the archives and hidden them away and nobody probably ever would have found them.”
Frustrating as the delay may be for the families of the victims, none seemed concerned that McVeigh would eventually escape his death sentence. “I really don’t see him getting off,” Treanor says. “He’ll pay for this.” For that, she says, she is willing to wait.
