McVeigh Guilty in Bombing : Death Penalty Trial Next in Oklahoma Tragedy

DENVER — Timothy J. McVeigh was found guilty Monday of the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history and jurors now will decide whether the 29-year-old former soldier should die for bombing the Oklahoma City federal building two years ago.

At 1:34 p.m., U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch read the verdict to a hushed and crowded second-floor courtroom in downtown Denver: guilty on each of the 11 counts of the indictment.

McVeigh sat with his hands on his chin, his eyes zeroing in on the judge, while some 50 victims, survivors and family members cried quietly in back rows of the courtroom.

The jurors will return to the courtroom Wednesday to hear testimony on whether the death penalty should be applied.

Outside, about 500 people converged on Stout Street in front of the federal courthouse, breaking into raucous cheers and applause at news of the conviction.

Joseph H. Hartzler, the chief prosecutor, wiped away a tear as he left Courtroom C204. Then he and his team of government lawyers moved outside and through the crowd, flashing smiles and thumbs-ups as they made their way to a small Catholic church a block away where another 100 victims were gathered in the parish hall

“We thank the victims for their patience and dignity throughout this whole ordeal,” Hartzler said.

Justice was theirs more than two years after the April 19, 1995, explosion tore off the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring another 500.

“We are obviously very pleased with the result,” Hartzler said. “We always had confidence in our evidence and now everyone else will have confidence in our evidence and the verdict. We are ready to move on to the next stage.”

Stephen Jones, the lead attorney for McVeigh, cited the judge’s order against discussing the case as he walked through the crowd, his wife on his arm.

“We will be ready for the second stage in the morning,” Jones said. He congratulated Hartzler and Pat Ryan, the U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City, “and the FBI agents who were responsible for the investigation and the prosecution of this case, and for their work on behalf of the United States and their presentation in court.

“We have visited with Mr. McVeigh,” he added. “We will be working with him tonight and tomorrow for the preparation of the second stage.”

That second step promises to be highly contested and emotional, with the prosecution’s witnesses to include doctors who have treated children who were permanently disabled by the blast.

Nichols’ Brother to Be Witness

Defense attorneys will call the brother of co-defendant Terry L. Nichols and McVeigh may or may not testify before jurors decide whether he should die by lethal injection in a federal execution chamber in Terre Haute, Ind., or whether he should be sentenced to life in prison.

After Monday’s verdict, victims and family members pushed their way out of the courtroom, gathering in hallways and in the courthouse lobby to hug, cry and express in one voice how they believe McVeigh should be punished--by death.

Jannie Coverdale, who lost two little grandsons in the Murrah building day care center, sat through almost every proceeding of the five-week trial, which was moved here when Matsch ruled that Oklahomans could not set aside their biases and treat McVeigh fairly.

“I’m glad he was convicted,” she said. “But I feel sorry for him because he had so much to offer the country and he did something so bad. I wish this hadn’t happened.

“And in the courtroom, when they said he was guilty on all the charges, it felt like Aaron and Elijah were there--my grandchildren.”

Then, holding her head high, speaking without a trace of arrogance or hate, she said:

“I want him to get the death penalty. I’m not asking for this out of revenge. But I think it is necessary because I haven’t seen any remorse from Timothy McVeigh and I believe that if he is ever allowed to walk the streets again, that he will murder someone else. And I don’t want to see anyone ever hurt the way we were hurt.”

Jury Deliberated for 23 Hours

The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for 23 hours over four days, beginning Friday morning. As Matsch read their verdict, reciting the word “guilty” 11 times for each one of the 11 separate counts in the federal indictment, two women jurors clutched tissues and fought to hold back tears.

Matsch then gave them today off and sent them home. Lawyers for both sides are to be back in court today for a hearing to determine how much latitude each side will have in presenting evidence during the penalty phase.

Among those on the government’s witness list of 73 are victims, rescue workers, doctors and Michael and Lori Fortier--the Kingman, Ariz., couple who were the government’s chief witnesses against McVeigh in the first phase of the trial.

The witness list includes Michelle Kirby, the therapist for Brandon Denny, a child who suffered serious brain damage in the blast, and Dr. Morris Gessouroun, the physician for another severely injured child, P.J. Allen.

Sources on the defense team said one argument for leniency will be the emotional effect on many Americans of the 1993 FBI raid that killed about 80 Branch Davidian cult members near Waco, Texas--an event that McVeigh’s friends and acquaintances have said helped to sear into his mind hatred for the federal government.

Among the witnesses on the defense list is James Nichols of Decker, Mich. The Nichols brothers and McVeigh were together on April 19, 1993, at the Nichols farm near Decker and watched the scenes on television as the FBI siege at Waco turned into a deadly fireball that killed those inside the Branch Davidian compound.

The defense also hopes to bring up evidence and testimony that the government had previous knowledge that the Murrah building was targeted for destruction. Defense sources said that McVeigh’s attorneys want to argue their theories that other conspirators were involved in the bombing--a position that the judge did not allow in the trial.

Broad Latitude for the Defense

Defense attorneys noted that federal law generally gives broad latitude in what it allows defense lawyers to present in the penalty phase.

“Let’s deal the cards, let’s get it on,” said one source on the defense team. “McVeigh is not going to die with the push of a needle in the arm.”

Still to be decided, they said, is whether McVeigh will testify to plead for mercy. “There’s been no decision yet on that,” the source said.

Shortly after the verdict, a defense attorney began meeting with McVeigh in his cell in the basement of the courthouse, a source said. The two discussed the defense expectation that the trial would end with a conviction because Matsch did not allow evidence or testimony from the defense that a larger conspiracy was behind the murder.

“We had told him this would probably happen,” a source said.

The penalty phase is expected to last one to two weeks. The jury then will meet to decide McVeigh’s fate--and the judge is bound by their decision.

Before dismissing jurors for the day, Matsch told them about the gravity of the new issue. “Whether Mr. McVeigh should be put to death for these crimes is a question to be answered by the jury serving as the conscience of the community,” he said.

“This is, of course, a solemn question,” he added. “It must be addressed seriously and in accordance with the instructions that will be given to you in the next phase of the case.”

Of the 11 counts against McVeigh, the first three accused him of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, using the weapon, and destroying the Murrah building “by explosion.”

The remaining counts dealt with the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officers in the building. It is those charges that carry the possible death sentence.

The eight:

Secret Service agents Mickey Maroney, Donald R. Leonard, Alan G. Whicher and Cynthia Lynn Campbell-Brown; Customs agents Paul Douglas Ice and Claude A. Medearis; Drug Enforcement Administration agent Kenneth G. McCullough and Paul G. Broxterman, an agent for the Housing and Urban Development inspector general.

Co-defendant Faces Death Penalty

After McVeigh’s trial is complete, the court will turn to the trial of Terry Nichols, an Army friend of McVeigh. Nichols also faces capital punishment if convicted, although he is thought to have played a secondary role to McVeigh. His trial could begin as early as August.

The two men also face possible state murder charges in Oklahoma. The prosecutor’s office in Oklahoma City said this week that it will proceed with murder trials against McVeigh and Nichols regardless of the outcomes in the federal trials.

But some legal observers, including John Coyle of Oklahoma City, McVeigh’s first lawyer, said the federal government can block any state proceedings because McVeigh is a federal prisoner and the government is not obligated to turn him over to state authorities. “They would have an enormous jurisdictional problem,” Coyle said.

Even so, with many Oklahomans demanding death for the defendants, federal authorities are considered likely to release the two men for state trial if federal jurors refuse to put them to death.

Regardless of what happens next, federal prosecutors here clearly saw Monday’s conviction as a victory.

As prosecutors made their way through the crowd, they waved to the sounds of applause and then went to a closed meeting of victims at the Church of the Holy Ghost. There, Hartzler and Ryan again thanked the victims and family members for support and the victims expressed their appreciation for the lawyers’ work.

Charles Tomlin, whose 46-year-old son, Ricky Lee Tomlin, was killed in the blast, left the church meeting just as clouds covered the downtown area and a light sprinkle fell.

“Prosecutors pulled a noose around him every day, and it just got tighter and tighter,” he said. “And he couldn’t get out.”

And the proper punishment for McVeigh? “Death. I want him to get the same treatment my boy had. The only thing is that it will probably take five or 10 years before that happens.”

Does that upset him? “No. I will be waiting for it.”

In Pendleton, N.Y., McVeigh’s home town, his father, William, and sister, Jennifer, watched news of the verdict on television. Two hours later, Lou Michel, a family friend and reporter for The Buffalo News, stepped outside and read a short statement from the family.

“Even though the jury has found Tim guilty, we still love him very much and intend to stand by him no matter what happens . . ,” the statement said. “We would like to ask everyone to pray for Tim in this difficult time.”

Government Put On Compelling Evidence

Timothy McVeigh never testified during the trial and he has never spoken publicly about what happened on April 19, 1995. But the government put on a compelling track of evidence that, though mostly circumstantial, tended to depict him as the driving force behind the Murrah explosion.

Prosecutors presented letters he wrote to friends and relatives laying out his hate for the government, particularly the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which initiated the siege on the Branch Davidians near Waco.

He once typed a warning to the ATF on his sister’s word-processor: “Die, you spineless cowardice bastards.”

He sent a letter to a friend in Michigan just two months before the bombing, boasting that he had transformed from “intellectual . . . to . . . animal” and that he no longer was just going to talk about his distrust of the government.

Other evidence included testimony that he and Nichols rented a series of storage lockers and purchased two tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil and that McVeigh rented a Ryder rental truck in Junction City, Kan., two days before the blast.

He was arrested 75 minutes after the bombing as he drove north out of Oklahoma City, stopped by an Oklahoma State trooper because he had no license plate on his 1977 yellow Mercury Marquis.

Strapped under his arm was a German-made Glock pistol. He wore a T-shirt with a picture of Abraham Lincoln on one side. On the other was a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “Sometimes the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

In his car was a sealed envelope with more anti-government propaganda. One piece was a statement from Samuel Adams, an American Revolutionary-era patriot, about the meaning of liberty. Underneath it McVeigh had written: “Maybe now there will be liberty.”

McVeigh was held for two days in a small town jail in Perry, Okla., before the FBI realized that the man about to be released on bail on the traffic charge could be implicated in the Oklahoma City bombing. FBI tests later found traces of explosive residue on his clothing.

When he was escorted from the jail, dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit, a throng of local citizens jeered at him, calling him a “baby killer.”

By that time in Oklahoma City, the last of the survivors had been pulled from the wreckage of the Murrah building.

More Coverage

* MILITIA SUSPICIONS: Militia members say they believe the public isn’t being told the whole truth about the bombing. Debate rages on the Internet. A18

* CLINTON COMMENT: The president hailed the verdict as a “long overdue day” for the survivors and families of those who died. A23

* DEATH SENTENCE: If the jury orders Timothy J. McVeigh to die, he will join 12 others on federal death row. The last federal execution was in 1963. A25

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RELATIVES REACT

“I want him to get the death penalty . . . I have never seen any remorse from Timothy McVeigh . . . “

--Janni Coverdale

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Life or Death?

The jury will now hear more testimony to determine whether Timothy J. McVeigh gets a life sentence or the death penalty. If he receives the death penalty, it will be carried out by lethal injection. The last federal execution was in 1963.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Evidence File

Key points in the prosecution’s case:

TRUCK PARTS: Prosecutors introduced charred truck pieces, including a 250-pound mangled truck axle with a vehicle identification number that was traced to a Ryder truck. The owner of the rental agency identified McVeigh as the man who rented the truck using an alias two days before the blast.

BOMB RESIDUE: An FBI chemist said traces of high explosives were found on the clothing McVeigh was wearing when he was pulled over on a traffic violation after the bombing.

BOMB PREPARATIONS: Witnesses told jurors McVeigh purchased books on how to make bombs and went on a nationwide search for components.

WITNESSES: Key witnesses Michael and Lori Fortier said McVeigh told him of his plans to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City about six months before it occurred. Fortier said he and McVeigh cased the building in Oklahoma City.

Sources: Times staff and wire reports