Background information:
On the morning of April 19, 1995,
a tremendous blast demolished
a federal office building in Oklahoma City,
instantly killing 168 innocent people
---employees of dozens of different agencies
and unlucky citizens who happened to be there
that morning seeking government services.
There was also a day-care center
for children of the employees.
The terrorist bomber was not a foreigner
with a grudge against the United States
but a US citizen, trained by the US military,
who was preoccupied by the deluded belief
that destroying an office building and everyone inside
would spark a revolution of the people
to overthrow the federal government.
He had read the idea in a novel.
And he had hoped that 400 people would die.
He was caught, sentenced to death
and he was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.
He was 33 years of age.
That same day these two letters were sent to TIME
magazine,
noting the unnecessary waste of his organs.
Return to the Medical Ethics Index page.
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