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American Morning

McVeigh Execution: Convicted Bomber Weighing Legal Options

Aired May 16, 2001 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to start today with the man who was convicted of the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Timothy McVeigh was supposed to have been executed by lethal injection today, but the convicted Oklahoma City bomber instead, today, is weighing his options with his defense team as he sits on death row.

Our Susan Candiotti is live in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the execution was supposed to take place. She has the latest.

Susan, good morning.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Had the government's original plan been carried out, at this hour, convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh would be dead. His execution by lethal injection had been scheduled for this morning. It has now been postponed until next month.

Well, later this morning, McVeigh's two lawyers will be paying him a visit. This is the second time McVeigh will be seeing at least one of his lawyers in about six days. That's just about how long it's been since the FBI's embarrassing admission that it failed to turn over more than 3,000 pages of documents - new material never before seen by the defense before trial. The lawyers will discuss with McVeigh his options, which include asking for a second stay of execution and possibly a new trial.

The FBI insists there is nothing in these documents that will exonerate McVeigh. It includes information about additional John Doe #2 sightings, information that possibly someone else was involved.

Here's an example.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's some small caves here and there's a larger cave back around the other direction.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): This remote piece of land in the Missouri Ozarks figures in a number of FBI documents not turned over to the defense at trial. Two real estate men told the FBI McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols came looking for a hideout half a year before the bombing. But witnesses said a third man was with them, seen in this copy of an FBI sketch. His name was Robert Jacques: j-a- c-q-u-e-s.

JOE LEE DAVIDSON, REAL ESTATE AGENT: The day he was here he seemed to be the one that was in control and in charge of what was going on. Nichols never said a whole lot. McVeigh never did come in - actually into the room. This guy was the one that was doing the questioning and talking about the land.

CANDIOTTI: Did they say anything about why they were interested in the land?

WILLIAM MAHONEY, REAL ESTATE AGENT: No, I asked him if he was trying to find a place to hide, though, and they didn't respond to that.

CANDIOTTI: This is the land that they were originally interested in.

The FBI did turn over those witness interviews and its sketch of a possible John Doe #3 but the defense did not get all the follow-up reports.

The FBI agent in charge of the Oklahoma City Bomb Task Force, Danny Defenbaugh, talked about the Ozarks tip in an interview with us a few weeks ago.

DANNY DEFENBAUGH, FBI AGENT IN CHARGE: We ended up taking and looking at every single Robert or R. Robert, B. Bob Jacques and with all the different -- I think it's 123 different variations of spelling of Jacques for anyone who ever came into, worked, lived, left, ever had any type of license here in the United States. But we were not able ever to identify any R. Robert, B. Bob Jacques who had any association whatsoever with McVeigh or Nichols.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: McVeigh himself has repeatedly said there is no John Doe No. 2.

Now McVeigh's lawyers have said that they do not know if they have enough time to review all this new material by the new execution date of June the 11th. They do have the option of asking the court for more time and possibly more money to hire additional help to help them review all of these documents before deciding what they do next -- back to you, Daryn.

KAGAN: Susan Candiotti in Terre Haute, Indiana. Thank you.

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