Murder trial of Nichols divides Oklahoma residents

McALESTER, Okla. -- Ask Darlene Welch whether the state of Oklahoma should have put Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols on trial for murder -- even though he's already serving a life sentence in federal prison -- and her response is direct and angry.

"It is unfathomable to me that someone who could take part in the murders of 168 people is still alive nine years later," says Welch, whose 4-year-old niece, Ashley, was killed when a fuel-and- fertilizer bomb in a rental truck was detonated outside the federal building on April 19, 1995. "If he doesn't get the death penalty, then we should do away with it."

Her feelings are shared by many victims' relatives, who say the state is right to have spent an undisclosed sum, estimated to be millions of dollars, to try to trump Nichols' federal sentence with state convictions that almost certainly would result in his execution.

The relatives hope that Nichols' state trial, which began here in March, will help to answer a range of questions about the bombing. Among them: whether mastermind Timothy McVeigh, who was executed in 2001, had help from someone other than Nichols.

But mostly, relatives who support the trial hope it brings a harsher brand of justice -- call it revenge, if you like -- to Nichols, who in federal court was found guilty of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter, rather than murder.

But as Nichols' defense team began to present its case last week, it was clear that many others here see Nichols' new trial as a painful and unnecessary reminder of the bombing, which, until the 9/ 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, was the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

"When you're living with retribution and hate, it will flat-out destroy you," says Bud Welch, who lost his 23-year-old daughter, Julie, in the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Bud Welch, no relation to Darlene, says he wants nothing to do with the Nichols trial.

"I attended the execution of Timothy McVeigh," says Kathy Wilburn, whose two grandsons were among the 19 children killed in the bombing. "It didn't make me happy. I'm hoping that someday, somebody will at least tell us why they did it. But dead men don't talk."

The state's push to execute Nichols, 49, has divided Oklahoma residents since shortly after a federal jury spared his life in 1997. The jury's verdict came just a few months after another federal jury had given a death sentence to McVeigh, an Army buddy of Nichols, for the murders of eight federal law enforcement officers who were killed in the bombing. Like those against McVeigh, Nichols' federal charges focused on the federal officers because those convicted of killing an agent of the government can face execution.

Since Nichols' federal trial, statewide polls consistently have shown that most Oklahomans oppose a state trial for Nichols. Late last year, a survey conducted for the Daily Oklahoman newspaper found that 52 percent of state residents would rather have seen prosecutors pursue a plea bargain with Nichols than go forward with a costly trial that few people have the stomach to follow.

The bombing changed the lives of people here, but at the midpoint of Nichols' trial in the Pittsburg County Courthouse, the indifference that local residents show toward the proceedings is jarring. The trial rarely creeps into daily conversation in McAlester, a community of 17,800 where the state trial was moved last year because of concern that Nichols would face a biased jury in Oklahoma City, about 120 miles west.

Hardly anyone seems to notice -- or care -- each weekday when Nichols, wearing a bulletproof vest, is brought to the courthouse on McAlester's main street from the state prison a few miles away.

Parking is plentiful near the courthouse, and there are no lines of spectators waiting for seats in Chief District Judge Steven Taylor's spacious courtroom. On the opening day of Nichols' defense on Thursday, the courtroom was nearly empty except for a cluster of reporters and a few victims' family members.

Before the trial began, McAlester had braced for an invasion of spectators, lawyers and reporters.

Mayor Dale Covington hired a meter attendant to patrol parking areas near the courthouse, out of concern that downtown merchants' customers would not be able to find spots. She has since been reassigned, Covington says.

Nine years after the bombing, "a lot of people just want to move on," says Paul Heath, a bombing survivor and treasurer of the Oklahoma City Murrah Building Survivors Association. Heath has been attending the Nichols trial.

"Nobody cares about this thing," says former Pittsburg County district attorney Jim Bob Miller, whose opinion still carries some weight here, even if it's limited to the morning regulars at Mike's Biscuits and Burgers. "Most of the people in Oklahoma were against this before it even started. I think many believe it's a waste of money."

But Oklahoma City officials say that if nothing else, the symbolism of trying Nichols again is important. The most vocal supporters of the state trial say that someone should be held accountable for the deaths of the 160 people and one fetus who were not part of the charges in the 1997 federal trials of McVeigh and Nichols.

Some also believe the state trial might satisfy long-held suspicions that others might have taken part in the bombing plot.

"This trial needed to go forward because all along, I felt others were involved in this," says Gloria Chipman, whose husband was killed in the blast. "If others were involved, they need to be caught. During the defense case, maybe those names will be divulged."

Last week, Nichols' attorneys did not offer any new names. But in an attempt to distance their client from the plot, they offered testimony from some of the witnesses in the federal cases who reported hearing or seeing at least four others with McVeigh just before the bombing. Those others, one seen by a Chinese-food deliveryman at McVeigh's hotel room in Kansas four days before the bombing, did not appear to resemble Nichols.

Before they rest their case, defense attorneys also are likely to emphasize that Nichols was at his farm in Herrington, Kan., with his family when the bomb exploded.

Like Chipman, Darlene Welch wants to know whether others were involved in the bombing. But she is certain that Nichols played a central role.

"I think he was the instigating factor," she says. " I felt a great deal of peace when Timothy McVeigh died. To me, McVeigh's execution meant one thing: One down, and one to go."

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