What turned home-schooled ‘nerd’ into a serial bomber?
PFLUGERVILLE, Texas — A serial bomber suspected of terrorizing Texas for three weeks before blowing himself up Wednesday, left behind two chilling mysteries: why he did it and whether he planted more explosives.
Mark Anthony Conditt, an unemployed 23-year-old college dropout, drove into a ditch and detonated a bomb in his SUV as a SWAT team closed in on him in the town of Round Rock, 36 km from Austin.
He had been tracked down using store surveillance video, cellphone signals and 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 the Austin suburb 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 vehicle began to drive away, authorities followed.
Even after the explosive ending, a city on edge was told to stay on guard. “Two very important things before we can put this to rest. One, we don’t know if there are any other bombs out there and if so, how many and where they may be,” Gov. Greg Abbott said on Fox News.
“Second, very importantly, we need to go throughout the day to make sure that we rule out whether there was anybody else involved in this process.”
Investigators also don’t know the motive behind the five bombings in the Texas capital and suburban San Antonio that killed two people and wounded four others.
They released few details, except his age and that he was white. Neighbours say he was home schooled. He later attended Austin Community College from 2010 to 2012, according to a college spokeswoman, but he didn’t graduate.
Conditt was a quiet, “nerdy” young man who came from a “tight-knit, godly family,” Donna Sebastian Harp, who had known the family for nearly 18 years, told The New York Times.
Conditt’s family issued a statement saying they were “devastated and broken” to be caught up in the attacks: “We had no idea of the darkness that Mark must have been in. Our family is a normal family in every way. We love, we pray, and we try to inspire and serve others. Right now our prayers are for those families that have lost loved ones,
for those impacted in any way, and for the soul of our Mark.”
Conditt lived in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville, in a house he shared with two roommates — both of whom were detained and questioned by investigators Tuesday.
Mark Roessler, who lives across the street, told The Daily Telegraph that Conditt and his father, Pat, bought the house two years ago and Mark moved in last year.”
Jeremiah Jensen, 24, from the same community, told the Austin
American-Statesman newspaper that Conditt regularly attended the Austin Stone Community Church. “I know faith was a serious thing for him,” 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.
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.
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.