wfn.org | McVeigh Trial Promises Pain

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3497 notes).

Note 3491 by UMNS on March 17, 1997 at 15:38 Eastern (3013 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT; Linda Bloom                          137(10-21-71B){3491}
          New York (212) 870-3803                   March 17, 1997

Oklahoma City bombing trial
promises pain for Marshall
     
     NEW YORK (UMNS) -- The trial of Oklahoma City bombing suspect
Timothy McVeigh, to begin March 31 in Denver, promises fresh pain
for Anne Marshall.
     Marshall's husband of nearly 13 years, Raymond Johnson, was
one of the 168 victims who died when a bomb blast destroyed the
Alfred P. Murrah federal office building on April 19, 1995. He was
a Social Security Administration employee.
     "The emotional pain really hasn't lessened that much since
April of '95," said Marshall, employed here as an executive with
the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and
Interreligious Concerns. "You have to deal with it."
     She decided recently to give up an opportunity to testify
later against a second suspect, Terry Nichols, because it would
have prevented her from following McVeigh's trial.
     Instead, she intends to join the lottery for the 24 court
seats allotted to family members of victims. Each family will be
given a seat or seats for a week during McVeigh's trial, expected
to last a minimum of three to four months and probably longer.
     Although she's had a lot of contact with the U.S. attorneys
involved in the bombing cases, Marshall said she has felt a "sense
of disconnect" because she lives in New York, where the bombing
rarely makes the news these days.
     "Whenever I go back to Oklahoma, there's a lot of emphasis
placed on it," she explained.
     But distance hasn't made the ordeal much easier. She still
picks up the phone often to call their Oklahoma home and tell her
husband about the day's events or some news item she's heard
about. "It rings," she said. "Then I realize he's dead and he's
not there."
     The sight of an older couple walking together also can prompt
a jolt of painful reality. "I suddenly realize that I'm not going
to have anybody when I'm 65," Marshall said.
     That lost promise of their future life together -- Johnson
was to retire at the end of 1995 and join her in New York -- has
helped fuel Marshall's anger against McVeigh and Nichols.
     "They gave us a sentence that we have to live with ... of me
living without my husband," she declared.
     The different aspects of who she is -- a widow, a Christian,
a Native American -- have produced conflicting emotions about
whether the death penalty should be imposed if the defendants are
found guilty. 
     Marshall acknowledges that as a Christian, she should
forgive, and as a Native American, she should follow traditional
beliefs that justice be allowed to take its own course.
     As a widow, however, she's not sure forgiveness is possible.
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