There was no official ceremony or service at the memorial, which stands at the site of the decimated Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. For most of the morning, members of the media outnumbered the general public. One bombing survivor at the memorial was grateful for the media attention, however. Said Dr. Paul Heath, a retired psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs, “I’m grateful for the eyes of the world being here to focus on this hallowed ground. This place offers strength, peace, hope and truth. When I see children, fathers, mothers and sons putting flowers at the memorial chairs this morning, it puts a lump in my throat. It’s a day for us to remember those who died as well as those who survived. After today, it will be a lot easier for us.”
Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating made an early morning visit to the memorial, and reflected on McVeigh’s impending death. “To the victims it will not represent closure, because there’s no closure if you lost a loved one,” said Keating. “But, to the community, it represents the end of an extraordinarily important moral and legal process. And, it will bring a sense of peace to us.”
When the time for the execution drew near, Heather Lambert and her mother, Patty Badgett joined a crowd gathered around a small portable television set on the steps of the memorial. When word came of McVeigh’s death, a few people applauded, and a car honked its horn. Otherwise, there was no great display of emotion. “I think most people are just privately giving a sigh of relief,” Lambert said. “I myself am here for spiritual reasons. I wanted to pray to the Lord that he will give McVeigh some kind of forgiveness.” Badgett added, “Coming here is extremely sad. I feel the spirit of the victims here. I feel bad for McVeigh, because he’s going to a bad place. Hopefully, not for all eternity. I actually wish he could have stuck around a little more and told us more that he knew. More investigation should have been done about the federal government. There are still a lot of questions. I know it sounds strange, but I feel sorry for Tim McVeigh.”
John and Gloria Taylor can’t force themselves to utter McVeigh’s name. They have spent the morning hovering over a memorial chair containing the name of their daughter, Teresa Lauderdale. John wears a picture of Teresa on his shirt. She worked in the Murrah Building as a secretary for HUD. For the Taylors, the death of McVeigh brings little consolation or relief. “We feel the same as we did yesterday, and we’ll feel the same way tomorrow,” said John Taylor, with tears in his eyes visible beneath his sunglasses. “We’ll go on from day to day, just like we have in the last six years. The execution doesn’t give us peace, but it closes a book on someone who can no longer hurt us. This place will be different, now that he’s gone.”
“It seems to me our death penalty nowadays is not a just sentence,” said Gloria Taylor. “You just get put to sleep. That’s the easy way out. To think of the pain he inflicted on 168 people. We don’t know how much pain our daughter endured. I think it was appropriate that just as they were announcing his death, the sun came up over the memorial buildings. Our Lord is with us, still.”
Deb Ferrell-Lynn’s cousin Susan Ferrell was an ttorney for HUD and died in the blast. Like the Taylors, she decided not to attend the close circuit live broadcast of McVeigh’s execution. “We can’t focus on him,” she said. “We’re here to focus on the people he hurt. McVeigh’s going to have to make peace with his maker. He’s almost a non-person to me. But, we’ve all moved so far beyond the bombing. Many of the victim’s families are working at the memorial now, and at the Center for the Prevention of Terrorism that’s attached to the Memorial Institute. For us to let him be the focus of our lives would essentially mean that he got what he wanted.”
Still, Ferrell-Lynn expects the day will be a difficult one for other families of victims. “Many of us have grown very close over the years, as you can imagine,” she said. “We’ve all given each other a lot of hugs over the last six years. We’ll need to give them today, more than ever.”
