Mililani family seeks closure in execution

By Yasmin Anwar
Advertiser Staff Writer

All Bonnie DeGuzman-Woodfall cares about when she scours today's news is, did Timothy McVeigh suffer?

It's not that the 42-year-old Mililani mother of two is cruel. But when it comes to the killer of her favorite cousin, Marine Capt. Randolph Guzman, DeGuzman-Woodfall finds it difficult to forgive.

So, while a part of her planned to sleep through McVeigh's execution today at 2 a.m. — and awaken with a sweet sense of closure — the wounded side of her wanted to be in Terre Haute, Ind., witnessing McVeigh helpless in the face of death.

"It's going to sound ugly, but I just wanted to see the pain in his face, maybe hear him cry," DeGuzman-Woodfall said. "But the truth is, I don't think he has any emotions. He's a human devil."

Even McVeigh's death can't blot out six years of rage from the families of the 168 men, women and children killed April 19, 1995, in the Oklahoma City bombing, known as the worst case of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

Two Hawai'i families mourned the loss of love ones killed in the explosion at 9:02 a.m. that was triggered by a two-ton bomb inside a Ryder rental truck. The blast turned the nine-story federal building into a 20-foot-by-30-foot crater.

Among those buried in the rubble was Peter Avillanoza, 57, a former Honolulu police officer and firefighter who had moved to Oklahoma to work for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. His body was found 20 days after the bombing.

Guzman, 28, was stationed at the Kane'ohe Bay Marine Corps base for four years before being transferred to California in 1993 and then Oklahoma.

At the time of the bombing, he was operations manager at the sixth floor Marine recruiting office at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and soon to be married.

His body was found, still in uniform, at his recruiting desk.

Guzman's family in California flew out to Oklahoma while his family in Hawai'i waited anxiously for news.

DeGuzman-Woodfall, who delivered the eulogy at his funeral, recalls how hard it was to register that her favorite cousin, the one who had everything going for him, could have been at absolutely the wrong place at the wrong time.

"He was fit. He was happy. He would have been an ideal husband," she said. "It just didn't make sense."

Over the years, she and hundreds of other relatives of victims have observed milestones, such as McVeigh's capture, prosecution and his latest abandonment of appeals.

For many of them, today's execution held the greatest promise of finality. And that makes it doubly hard because what if they wake up still feeling angry?

For Gerald DeGuzman, the 61-year-old uncle of Guzman, it's just tough to forgive when so many lives have been lost.

Justice would be served if McVeigh died 168 deaths, he says. But the families will have to make do with one.