TEXAS BOMBER LEFT BEHIND VIDEO CONFESSION, SAY POLICE
AUSTIN— The man who blew himself up as police closed in on him, following a series of bombings in Texas, left behind a recorded video confession that police said portrayed “challenges in personal life.”
Police said they surrounded Mark Conditt, a 23-year-old white male, outside a hotel in the city’s suburbs, where a series of bombings that began on March 2 killed two men, both black, and injured several others.
Conditt detonated a device in his car and died, Austin police chief Brian Manley said, bringing a dramatic end to the massive manhunt involving hundreds of federal agents and local police.
Police recovered a roughly 25-minute video recording from a phone that was in Conditt’s possession when the explosion occurred and Manley said he “would classify this as a confession.”
7 explosives
In the recording, Conditt described seven explosive devices.
Manley said “we have accounted for the devices that we have known about.”
He added that on the 25minute video, Conditt “does not at all mention anything about terrorism nor does he mention anything about hate.”
“Instead, it is the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point,” he said.
Police zeroed in on Conditt in the past 24 to 36 hours, as evidence came in from video footage and witness accounts, Manley said.
A sealed federal arrest war- rant and criminal complaint had been filed on Tuesday night, charging Conditt with one count of illegal possession and transport of explosives, the US Department of Justice said.
Bomb components
Law enforcement officers searched a home in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville, which had been identified as Conditt’s residence.
Police evacuated people in a five-block radius and detained Conditt’s two roommates for questioning.
Fred Milanowski, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), said an ATF team discovered explosive materials in the house, along with bomb components that resembled those found at the scenes of previous explosions.
Information about Conditt’s past began to trickle out.
The Houston Chronicle reported that Conditt grew up in a religious family.