McVeigh's Final Days

By Stephen M. Silverman

04/10/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

As authorities prepare to execute convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, 32, on May 16, preparations at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., are turning bizarre, reports The Washington Post. McVeigh's last meal will be anything of his own choosing, says the paper, so long as it does not contain alcohol or cost more than $20. For the 1,400 journalists who will be covering his death, the Post says that they will receive "chilled bottle water," a "padded chair," writing tables, phone service and transportation by golf carts, all for the price of $1,146.50 each. Reporters who don't fork over that fee will simply go without. Not that the payment will entitle the journalists to anything more than to report on the atmosphere surrounding McVeigh's lethal injection. The right to witness the event reportedly will be reserved for those 10 media representatives allowed inside an about-to-be christened, two-story, windowless "execution chamber" situated in a building about 100 yards from the main prison facility. In related news, Attorney General John Ashcroft will allow survivors and relatives of the 1995 bombing to watch McVeigh's execution over closed-circuit TV, the New York Times reported Thursday.