The families of his victims were allowed to watch him die, but in the years that passed, many were left without a sense of finality. A new book follows these people, searching for an answer to a powerful question: When does a tragedy end?
Eleven years ago today-- on June 11, 2001-- Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection at the federal death chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana. He died with his eyes open, it was reported, staring up at the closed-circuit camera that was beaming his execution back to Oklahoma. Four years earlier, almost to the day, a federal jury in Denver, Colorado, had sentenced him to death for the murder of 168 people, killed in a truck bomb blast at the Alfred P. Murrah federal building on April 19, 1995.
When the death sentence was revealed on June 13, 1997, The Denver Post reported at the time, there was little of the public cheering that had accompanied the jury's first verdict. Then, there had been a measure of jubilation on the streets outside the courthouse in downtown Denver. This time, on Friday the 13th, there was mostly just a sense of relief. "I'm glad it's complete," juror David Gilger said. "I hope it brings a sense of closure to everyone."
Out of this curious history comes Killing McVeigh: The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure, a timely new book by Indiana University School of Law associate professor Jody Lynee Madeira. In it, Madeira asks a question most of us have asked at one time or another in our lives: "What is closure? Does it exist? If so, where and for whom. If not, why?"
Source: The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen. Mr. Cohen is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and legal analyst for 60 Minutes. He is also chief analyst and legal editor for CBS Radio News and has won a Murrow Award as one of the nation's leading legal analysts and commentators.
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