The execution, which also was watched on closed-circuit TV by 232 witnesses in Oklahoma City, drew a wide range of reaction. Some of the responses:
“It’s a demarcation point. It’s a period at the end of a sentence. I needed to know in my heart that I was done with this man.”
“Unless you’ve gone through something like this, I don’t think you realize there will never be closure.”
“I anticipated this to be a very difficult thing to do and it was.”
“His eyes became increasingly glassy, almost watery as the process went on.” -Kevin Johnson, reporter for USA Today, describing the execution
“He died with his eyes open.”
“I don’t think he got what he deserved, but I’ll settle for it.” -Grayson Jones, one of the victims who watched from Oklahoma
“If ever the moral code cried out for real justice, it was this case.”
“At 7 a.m. this morning we killed Tim McVeigh. But we did more than that….There is a reasonable way to deal with crime and it doesn’t involve killing a human being.”
“The victims of the Oklahoma City bombing have been given not vengeance but justice,” President George W. Bush, before departing for Europe, where death penalty opponents are likely to be protesting.
“The U.S.A. has allowed vengeance to triumph over justice and distanced itself yet further from the aspirations of the international community.”
“The death penalty is a barbarism inappropriate to our times.”
“It’s quite cruel to revel in the death of another person.”
“I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”
