If there’s any person who can sympathize with the parents of Donald Trump’s would-be assassin it’s Bill McVeigh.
McVeigh is the father of 1995 Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City federal office building bombing, which left 168 people dead and hundreds more injured, Bill McVeigh, a soft spoken long-retired auto factory worker who has lived in the same Buffalo suburban home for decades, found himself in the middle of an international storm, with the FBI, media, and so many others showing up at his door wanting answers.
Did he know what his son was about to do? Was he always like that? Were there any signs? As a parent, how are you handling it?
During a phone interview last week, McVeigh, who remains private yet cordial, said he hadn’t made the connection between his situation and the family of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks.
“I sort of have let it go by, or made it go by,” he said of his son’s crime and execution. “I’ve tried to forget it.”
But when asked, he said it would be wrong to blame Crooks’ parents for the sins of the son.
“You never know what they’re going to do,” McVeigh said of grown children. “You don’t have much control over it. He’s a little younger than Tim was, but still.”
Unlike McVeigh, Crooks’ parents won’t have to endure a criminal trial. McVeigh in 1997 was found guilty and condemned to death. He was executed by lethal injection at the age of 33 on June 11, 2001. His father, at his son’s request, did not attend the execution, not that he would have wanted to. His son’s ashes were privately disposed of. Bill McVeigh has said he has no idea where they were scattered.
Crooks, 20, was shot dead at the site by law enforcement moments after firing on Trump. His father, Matthew Brian Crooks, last week told reporters who had descended on him and his family at a local grocery store that “we just want to try to take care of ourselves right now. Please, just give us our space.” He said they will release a formal statement when the time is right.
McVeigh has long said he didn’t understand, or condone, what his son did. Moving on wasn’t easy as he juggled his love for his son with the horror of what he did.
At the time, he invited reporters who traveled to his house inside, saying as long as they were respectful, he had no problem speaking with them. “I felt if I let one in, I need to talk to everyone,” he said.
It was also appreciated by him that many of the relatives of the victims of his son’s crime had reached out to tell him they don’t blame him for what Timothy McVeigh did and are praying for him.
The Oklahoma City bombing brought worldwide coverage, as did Trump’s shooting. But Bill McVeigh was adamant in saying he isn’t comfortable giving any advice to the Crooks family on how to best deal with it.
“I imagine it’s tough,” McVeigh said. “I don’t really want to get into it. Everybody’s different. I don’t know any circumstances of that, but I stay out of it.”
He just knows that looking back on the toughest period of his life, “I handled it. I’m not sure how, but I made it. I just took it one day at a time.”
Long retired and his life back to as normal as it can be, he said now he runs a golf league on Tuesdays. He was doing his golf scores when I contacted him. And he proudly proclaimed that he still tends to his garden.
The throngs of reporters and others who regularly reached out to him for several years after his son’s bombing and then execution, have largely faded, though he expects that will change next year, which is the 30th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. He’d rather leave it in the past, however.
“I came out of it all right,” McVeigh said. “That’s all I could say. It ain’t easy. You have no control, (but) you don’t have no choice.”
Lovett is an award-winning former 30-year reporter, including 11 years as the Daily News Albany bureau chief. He first interviewed Bill McVeigh in 2001.
