McVeigh Lets Feeling Show for Defense

DENVER — On Friday, Timothy J. McVeigh showed emotion. He smiled.

After more than two days during which government prosecutors presented tearful testimony from victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, defense lawyers had their chance Friday to tell a federal court jury why McVeigh should not die for committing the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Through their witnesses, the defense told the McVeigh story:

He was a middle-class, Catholic kid from upstate New York. He baby-sat the neighborhood children. His family had the only backyard pool in the neighborhood and he played lifeguard. He collected comic books. He was voted most talkative in high school.

In the Army, he excelled. He served as a tank gunner in the Persian Gulf War. He was awarded a chestful of medals.

This trial began almost two months ago and throughout, the 29-year-old, lanky McVeigh seldom, if ever, displayed emotion. He remained stoic when he was convicted. Even when relatives of the 168 people killed in the bombing told their wrenching stories of terrible loss over the last few days, McVeigh’s countenance did not change.

But Friday, as his boyhood and Army friends took the witness stand, McVeigh often grinned, sometimes broadly.

Only when Richard Burr, one of his lawyers, told the jury that McVeigh was deeply troubled by events surrounding the FBI’s siege of the Branch Davidian cult compound near Waco, Texas, in 1993 did the impassive expression return to his face.

The government has contended that McVeigh’s rage over the Waco episode, in which more than 80 people perished, drove him to bomb Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building exactly two years later, on April 19, 1995.

In his comments, Burr stopped short of suggesting that McVeigh was taking responsibility for the bombing or that McVeigh’s attitude about the Waco siege was a possible motive. But he said his client was one of many Americans angered by the government’s actions at Waco.

“From the very beginning, he was deeply concerned about what he thought was happening there,” Burr said. “He was fearful about what he saw happening. He thought it was wrong.”

He said that, as McVeigh looked further into the siege, he viewed videotapes produced by extremist groups lambasting the federal government for its actions. The lawyer said McVeigh was influenced by extensive coverage of the event in the right-wing Soldier of Fortune magazine.

He told the jurors: “You will have to walk in his shoes and see gradually how he felt.

“He felt the ATF started this . . . ,” Burr said, referring to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which had launched a raid on the cult that turned bloody and led to the standoff that ended in a deadly conflagration. “They fired first. From their helicopters and from the ground. Four ATF agents were killed and six Branch Davidians [in the initial raid], and the ATF was responsible for this.”

Burr stressed that there still exists a different McVeigh, despite what he said has been his portrayal in the media as a “monster.”

McVeigh, he told the jurors, “could be your son. He could be your brother. He loved America, just like the rest of us.

“And after you have sifted through all of the evidence, you will come to the right conclusion of a life sentence.”

McVeigh was found guilty by the same jury Monday of all 11 bombing-related charges he faced. He was convicted of eight counts of murder and three of conspiracy. The penalty phase of the trial began Tuesday and the jury is expected to start deliberating on his sentence sometime next week.

Under federal law, there are only two options: death by lethal injection or life with no parole.

The first witnesses for McVeigh were former Army friends. They all recalled a highly motivated career soldier.

Jose Rodriguez Jr. was a fellow sergeant with McVeigh at Ft. Riley, Kan., where they trained together before Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. “I trusted him very much,” Rodriguez said.

He said McVeigh collected guns and worried about federal laws to control firearms. “He thought it wouldn’t be wise for such a thing to happen in case there was an uprising of some sort,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez added: “My son liked him a lot. At one time, I considered him to be my son’s godfather.”

Royal Witcher remembered McVeigh as a “model soldier.” They shared a house off-post near Ft. Riley where, Witcher said, McVeigh kept guns throughout the place, even in his bedroom where he slept on sheets with pictures of the cartoon character Garfield the cat.

He said McVeigh also kept a gun in his car because, “you never know . . . .”

Sgt. Robert Daniels, who is still on active duty, testified in his Army uniform. At one point, Burr held up McVeigh’s old green uniform and he had Daniels identify the rows of medals and ribbons affixed to the front and sleeves.

Daniels said that even when McVeigh washed out of competition to become a Green Beret--a position he coveted and a failure that prosecutors said began to turn him against the government--he saw no real change in his friend.

“He still seemed like the same McVeigh to me,” Daniels said.

Also testifying were a married couple who lived next door to the McVeigh family when he was growing up in Pendleton, N.Y.

Elizabeth McDermott recalled sending him a Christmas card and cookies when he was overseas during the Gulf War. She read portions of the letters he mailed back. In one, he described living in quarters similar to that destroyed by a truck bomb in Lebanon, an explosion that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983.

“Right now we’re in barracks very similar to those made famous in Beirut,” he wrote. “This is definitely the real stuff now. We had an alert yesterday. Everyone had to get into their chemical protective gear and wait.”

In a second letter, he described the people of Iraq whom he had encountered during the war.

“It isn’t pretty,” he wrote. “We met these starving kids and sometimes adults coming up to us begging for food. Because of the situation, we can’t give them any. It’s really trying emotionally. It’s like the puppy dog at the table but much worse.

“The sooner we leave here the better. I can see how the guys in Vietnam were getting killed by children. Thank God this isn’t that way.”

As a youngster, McDermott said, McVeigh gave away candy at church parties. He baby-sat for their two children. “He was wonderful,” she said. “He spent time with the kids. The kids played with him. Yes, he was super.”

She added: “I loved him. . . . I loved him.”

Her husband, John G. McDermott, recalled that “Timmy” collected comic books and hoped to save money for college. He said McVeigh often visited their home as a teenager and “he used to eat us out of house and home.”

He was the last witness to testify Friday and his last words did not come easily. He broke down in tears.

“I liked him very much,” McDermott said as he sobbed. “I trusted him. I can’t imagine him doing anything like this.”

Then, McVeigh showed one other emotion. His face turned red.