Signs posted on every door of the closed town hall urged reporters to keep their distance Monday. The sentiment was echoed by residents.

"What more is there to say that hasn't been said before?" Martin Gilbert said as he prepared to close the town's one-room museum.

"Every anniversary, every time the guy has the hiccups, they're here," he said, referring to reporters.

McVeigh, 33, was born and raised in this town, about 25 miles north of Buffalo on the Erie Canal.

His father, Bill, still lives in the modest ranch home where McVeigh spent most of his childhood. Bill McVeigh has said he will be out of town when his son is executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Ind., for the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil.

Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb blew apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people, including 19 children.

"We grieve for the senseless murder of 168 innocent victims," the signs on the town hall read. "We wish we could ease the pain of those who loved them."

About 175 people attended a candlelight vigil at a Buffalo church Sunday to remember the victims of the bombing and the McVeigh family, and to state their opposition to the death penalty.

"The actions of Timothy McVeigh, and the actions of our own government within a few hours are going to take another life," said Jim Mang, who organized the vigil outside St. Joseph's-University Church.

A message from death penalty opponent Bud Welch, whose daughter died in the bombing, was read. "What we are embarking on tomorrow morning is just plain wrong," it said.

Monday morning, an hour before McVeigh's execution, the New York Civil Liberties Union planned an anti-death penalty rally outside Buffalo City Hall.