McVeigh’s Parents Plead for His Life as Testimony Ends

DENVER — Timothy J. McVeigh’s mother Wednesday read a short note to the jury that will decide whether her son lives or dies. She wrote the note on her third attempt in three hours.

“I am pleading for my son’s life,” said Mildred “Mickey” Frazer. “He is a human being, just as we all are.”

His father brought a 10 1/2-minute videotape into the courtroom. The painfully shy William McVeigh did not look at the jury or his son. He stared at the floor as the jurors watched scenes of life in the McVeigh family in Pendleton, N.Y.

Afterward, defense lawyer Richard Burr showed the jury a five-year-old photograph of the smiling and laughing father and son standing arm-in-arm in the kitchen of their small family home.

“Is the Tim that we see in this picture the Tim that you know?” asked Burr.

“I believe so,” the father answered.

“Do you love the Tim in this picture?”

“Yes, I love Tim.”

“Do you love the Tim in this courtroom?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you want him to stay alive?”

“Yes, I do.”

Neither Frazer nor the senior McVeigh shed tears during their brief appearances on the witness stand in a federal courtroom here.

They were married in 1965 and divorced in 1986. They had three children. Their middle child and only son, Timothy, born in 1968, was convicted of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. The death toll of 168 makes this case the worst act of domestic terrorism.

At one point, watching the home movie, the defendant dabbed at his eyes--the first moment in a trial begun almost two months ago that he has shown any real emotion.

Today, the 12 jurors who 10 days ago found him guilty in the bombing will return once again to their deliberation room, this time to decide whether he should be executed by lethal injection or sentenced to life in prison with no parole.

His parents were the last witnesses to testify. But the last word came from government lawyers. Larry Mackey, an assistant federal prosecutor, rose and read from a letter to the editor from the defendant to his hometown paper.

McVeigh wrote the letter in 1992, the same year he and his father were photographed with their arms around one another in the family kitchen. In the letter, titled “America Faces Problems,” he railed about the rising crime rate and what he believed should be done with criminals.

Mackey read only the first and last paragraphs, and it was the last thing the jury heard from the two opposing sides.

“Crime is out of control,” McVeigh had written. “Criminals have no fear of punishment. Prisons are overcrowded so they know they will not be in prison long. This breeds more crime in an escalating cyclic pattern.”

And the last paragraph:

“We have no proverbial tea to dump; should we instead sink a ship of Japanese imports? Is a Civil War imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that! But it might.”

Judge Richard P. Matsch then told the jurors that the presentation of evidence and testimony was completed in the penalty phase of the trial. He sent them home at midmorning. Today, they will hear closing arguments and then begin their secret discussions on life or death for the former decorated Army tank gunner from the Persian Gulf War.

“This is a heavy responsibility,” the judge said.

He gave them his best advice. “I think it’s time perhaps for you during this recess to sort of take a deep breath,” he said, “before even in your own minds you attempt to answer the questions that will be put to you.”

The court day lasted barely an hour. It began with the final cross-examination of Dick J. Reavis, author of a book on the FBI raid on a religious compound near Waco, Texas. The defense has sought to show that McVeigh was enraged over the federal government’s actions during the 1993 incident in which about 80 cultists and four federal agents were killed.

In an unusual development, the defense also has filed a motion with the judge asking his permission to tell the jury that a death sentence for their client could have the adverse effect of turning him into a political martyr.

The McVeigh attorneys said that militia groups and other far-right extremists might not canonize McVeigh if he is given life in the federal system and that they would be more accepting of a capital sentence if it comes later in a separate death-penalty trial in state court in Oklahoma.

“Considering the implications of Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing,” defense lawyers said, “it is in the national interest for domestic tranquillity that Timothy McVeigh not be executed by the federal government, but instead be prosecuted by the state of Oklahoma with the possibility of the death penalty.”

They added: “The execution of Timothy McVeigh by the federal government would tend to make him a political martyr in certain political groups.”

Prosecutors, in their written response, said that the jury should not be given this argument as a possible mitigating factor on why McVeigh’s life should be spared.

“This factor has nothing to do with the defendant’s background or character and nothing to do with his crime,” they said. “It should not be part of the jury’s moral judgment as conscience of the community.”

Judge Matsch will reveal his ruling on the matter today when he formally instructs the jury.

Frazer, the defendant’s mother, took the stand in a long white dress, her long brown hair resting across her shoulders. Rarely has she spoken about her son or the bombing. She lives in Fort Pierce, Fla., and works as an assistant helping to transport mentally and physically disabled children.

She unfolded the short note she had worked so hard to perfect.

“I cannot even imagine the pain and suffering the people from Oklahoma City have endured since April 19th of 1995,” she began.

“This tragedy has affected many people around the world, including myself. I also understand the anger many people feel.

“I cannot tell you about Tim McVeigh, the son I love, any better than it already has been told. . . . He was a loving son and a happy child as he grew up. He was a child any mother could be proud of.

“I still to this day cannot believe he could have caused this devastation. There are too many unanswered questions and loose ends. He has seen human loss in the past and it has torn him apart.

“He is not the monster he has been portrayed as. He is also a mother and father’s son, a brother to two sisters, a cousin to many, and a friend to many more.”

She ended by telling the jury: “You must make this very difficult decision on my son’s life or death and I hope and pray that God helps you make the right one.”

She was followed by her ex-husband, a large man in a bright green sport coat who works at a car radiator manufacturing plant. His video featured scenes of Timothy McVeigh as a young boy riding behind his father’s garden tractor, swimming in their backyard pool, clowning around at Halloween and Christmas.

The elder McVeigh narrated the video, describing the small town of Pendleton and how their Irish and German ancestors immigrated there years ago. He told how “Timmy” and his friends would play alongside the Erie Canal, how as a young teen his son worked at two Burger King restaurants and how proud Tim was when he became a young soldier going off to war in the Persian Gulf in 1991.

“He didn’t seem to mind going,” William McVeigh said. “He was ready to go when the time came.”

And when the brief war was over, he said, “he seemed happy when he came home.”

With that, his parents were gone. The jury retired until today. And Timothy McVeigh was escorted back to his cell in the basement of the federal building to wait alone for what tomorrow will bring.