Topeka — For a while, Bud Welch wished Timothy McVeigh dead.
Welch's daughter, Julie Marie, was one of the 168 people killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. Welch acknowledges that he abandoned his lifelong opposition to capital punishment and supported McVeigh's execution for the 10 months after Julie Marie's death.
Welch now says his position was fueled by rage and a desire for vengeance, the same emotions that caused him to abuse alcohol. He has returned to his opposition to the death penalty and no longer wishes to see McVeigh executed.
Welch came to Kansas last weekend as part of a "Journey to Justice" campaign against capital punishment. Death penalty opponents walked from Wichita to Topeka as part of the campaign.
"This vengeance and rage that I was living with nearly destroyed me," Welch said during an interview Monday. "Vengeance was why Julie and 167 others were dead."
Welch's daughter worked as a Spanish translator for the federal Social Security Administration in Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building. Welch carried with him photos of his daughter, including one taken only three days before she died on April 19, 1995.
McVeigh's execution is scheduled for May 16 at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. He was convicted of murder, conspiracy and weapons-related charges.
Welch, 61, operates a Texaco service station in Oklahoma City.
He said his father and grandfather opposed capital punishment and passed that opposition on to him.
"All my life, I opposed the death penalty," he said. "People told me, 'You'd feel differently if it happened to you."'
Welch said he was in favor of McVeigh's execution because he was looking for something to make him feel better about losing his daughter.
He turned to alcohol and smoking for the same reasons, he said.
Eventually, Welch said, he realized about McVeigh's execution that, "There was nothing in it that was going to give me peace."
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