Oklahoma City Bombing Victim’s Father Says Executions are Not Part of the Healing Process

Bud Welch, father of Julie Welch who was killed in the Oklahoma City Bombing, recently appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show, just a few days before the 15^th anniversary of the bombing in Oklahoma. Welch, who is the president of Murder Victims’ Familes for Human Rights, has been a long-time opponent of the death penalty and has said that executions are more often “staged political events” instead of a part of the healing process for victims. When asked how he came to oppose the death pealty for Timothy McVeigh, Welch told Maddow, “I reached that point probably about a year after the bombing — close to a year. All my life, I had always opposed the death penalty. I just thought it was something that society should not be doing. And after Julie‘s death, I was so full of revenge and hate that I had to get retribution in some way. So I was for the death penalty probably for the first year. And after recognizing that killing Tim McVeigh was not part of my healing process, then I was able to move forward.” Read the full transcript of the interview here.

(The Interview, The Rachel Maddow Show, April 16, 2010). See also Victims.