Austin bomber, in confession, said he felt no remorse

AUSTIN, Texas — The suspected Austin bomber called himself a “psychopath” in a recorded confession and said he felt no remorse for deadly explosions that killed two people and terrorized the city, a congressman said Saturday.

Investigators are still looking into what motivated 23-year-old Mark Anthony Conditt, but the recording he left on his cellphone shows that he was a “sick individual,” U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said.

“He did refer to himself as a psychopath. He did not show any remorse, in fact, questioning himself for why he didn’t feel any remorse for what he did,” McCaul said.

Conditt makes no mention of a racial motivation on the recording, but investigators are still looking into that as a possibility, he said. The first three victims were minorities.

McCaul, a former federal prosecutor who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, spoke at a news conference where he thanked law enforcement for bringing the three-week siege to an end. He called the investigation, which included more than 800 officers, a textbook example of local, state and federal agencies working together.

Beginning March 2, police say, Conditt planted bombs in different parts of Austin, killing two people and severely wounding four others. He began by placing explosives in packages left overnight on doorsteps, killing 39-year-old father Anthony Stephan House and 17-year-old musician Draylen Mason, and critically injuring 75-year-old Esperanza Herrera. He then rigged an explosive to a tripwire along a public trail, injuring two young men who crossed it. Finally, he sent two parcels with bombs via FedEx, one of which exploded and injured a worker at a distribution center near San Antonio.

Conditt died after detonating an explosive device Wednesday as SWAT team officers ran toward his vehicle to arrest him in an Austin suburb. Investigators said they discovered a roughly 25-minute recording that Conditt made on his phone confessing to the crimes.

Interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said the department would not make the recording public while investigators look into Conditt’s motive and whether anyone else was involved. He said that Conditt’s two roommates have been questioned and that several more people will be interviewed.

For days, Manley has been under fire for calling Conditt “a challenged young man” and not a terrorist. He struck a different tone Saturday, saying: “The suspect in this incident reined terror on our community for almost three weeks.”

The identification of Conditt as the bomber continued to baffle residents in Pflugerville, the Austin suburb where Conditt lived.

Mark Roessler, 57, lives across the street from where Conditt moved in last year. Conditt and his father had purchased the home, and spent months remodeling it together. Roessler said he got to know Conditt’s father, Pat, during the project and said he was “kind of envious” of the time he spent working with his son. He said Mark Conditt was “polite, very quiet and respectful.”

Roessler said he last saw Conditt some time after the first bombing but didn’t talk with him.

“People died and it’s a horrible tragedy. My feelings move from shock and disbelief to going to the ‘whatifs,’ ” he said. “What if I tried to reach out to him that last time I saw him? ‘Hey Mark, how are you doing?’ ”