Warning to Austin: Watch for hidden bombs
PFLUGERVILLE, TEXAS — As a SWAT team closed in, the suspected bomber whose deadly explosives terrorized Austin for three weeks used one of his devices to blow himself up.
But police warned he could have planted more bombs before his death, and they cautioned the city to stay on guard.
Mark Anthony Conditt, an unemployed 23-year-old college dropout, had been tracked down using store surveillance video and cellphone signals.
There were also witness accounts of a strange-looking customer making purchases while wearing a disguise that included a blond wig and gloves.
Police finally found him at a hotel in a suburb just north of Austin known as the scene for filming portions of “Friday Night Lights.”
There, officers prepared to move in for an arrest early Wednesday. When the suspect’s sport utility vehicle began to drive away, authorities followed.
Conditt ran into a ditch on the side of the road, and SWAT officers approached. That’s when he detonated a bomb inside the vehicle, Austin police chief Brian Manley said.
His motive remained a mystery, and authorities did not immediately say whether he acted alone in the five bombings in the Texas capital and suburban San Antonio that killed two people and wounded four others.
Investigators released few details about Conditt, except his age and that he was white.
Neighbours say he was homeschooled.
He later attended Austin Community College from 2010 to 2012, according to a college spokesperson, but he did not graduate.
In posts dated from 2012, a blogger who identified himself as Mark Conditt of suburban Pflugerville wrote that gay marriage should be illegal.
He also called for the elimination of sex offender registrations and argued in favour of the death penalty. He listed his interests as cycling, tennis and listening to music.
Of gay marriage, Conditt wrote: “Homosexuality is not natural. Just look at the male and female bodies. They are obviously designed to couple.”
Jay Schulze, who lives in Pflugerville, said he was jogging Tuesday night when he was stopped by police and asked about the bombings.
He said police flew drones over a home where Conditt lived with roommates for about six hours between Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning.
He described the home as “a weird house with a lot of people coming and going” and a bit rundown.
A neighbour who watched Conditt grow up said he “always seemed like he was smart” and “polite.”
Jeff Reeb said he has lived next to Conditt’s parents for about 17 years and described them as good neighbours. Conditt had visited his parents regularly, he said.
Austin was hit with four bombings starting on March 2. First, packages left on doorsteps exploded, then a bomb with a tripwire was placed near a public trail. A fifth parcel bomb detonated early Tuesday at a FedEx distribution centre near San Antonio.
Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Austin, said Conditt’s “fatal mistake” was walking into a FedEx store to mail a package because that allowed authorities to obtain surveillance video that showed him and his vehicle, along with his licence plate number.
From there, McCaul told Austin television station KXAN, investigators could identify the suspect and eventually track him using his cellphone.
Police warned of the possibility more bombs had yet to be found.
“We don’t know where this suspect has spent his last 24 hours, and therefore we still need to remain vigilant to ensure that no other packages or devices have been left to the community,” Manley said.
By midday, Pflugerville police began evacuating the area around the suspect’s home to deploy a robot to check for explosives, and authorities detained two of Conditt’s roommates for questioning. One was later released. The second was still being questioned.
Investigators initially believed the bombings may have been hate crimes because the victims of the earliest blasts were black, but they backed off that theory after Hispanic and white victims from different parts of the city were also affected.
Fred Milanowski, an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said it was “hard to say” if the bombing suspect had acted alone.
“What we do know is we believe the same person built each one of these devices,” said Milanowski, the agent in charge of the Houston division of the ATF.