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Pipebomber caught { May 7 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://wcco.com/topstories/StoryFolder/story_848330373_htmlhttp://wcco.com/topstories/StoryFolder/story_848330373_html
Bomb Suspect's Father Appeals To Son
Suspect Is 21-Year-Old Minnesotan
VTS
Luke John Helder
Related Links
Text of letter that accompanied mailbox bombs
(WCCO) (PINE ISLAND, Minn.) May 7, 2002 11:07 am US/Central
The father of a Minnesota man suspected of being involved in a string of mailbox bombings said Tuesday that his son is "just trying to make a statement" and is looking for attention.
The FBI issued an all-points bulletin Tuesday for Luke John Helder, 21, of Pine Island, in connection with the wave of pipe bombs found in rural mailboxes in the last few days, police in Texas said.
FBI Agent Jim Bogner told a news conference in Omaha, Neb., Tuesday that Helder is a "person of interest" in the pipe bombs. He described Helder as an "intelligent young man with strong family ties."
Although some descriptions have said that Helder is armed and dangerous, Bogner said he had no knowledge that Helder has any firearms.
The announcement by Lubbock police came shortly after a pipe bomb similar to 17 others found in four other states was discovered in a rural mailbox in Amarillo with a letter attached.
The FBI in Omaha, where the investigation is centered, immediately refused to confirm that the man is a suspect in the case.
Agent Larry Holmquist would say only that investigators were aware that an all-points bulletin had been issued for him.
Bill Morgan, a spokesman with the Lubbock Police Department, said Helder is driving a gray 1992 four-door Honda Accord with Minnesota license plate number EZL 873.
Holmquist said the bomb found in Amarillo, about 110 miles north of Lubbock, "looks similar to the others."
"Upon our initial inspection, it appears it would be from the same source," he said.
Also Tuesday afternoon, police cordoned off an area surrounding an apartment building in Menomonie, Wis., where Helder, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, lives.
Correction
WCCO mistakenly identified a picture of Eric Hielscher as pipe bomb suspect Luke John Helder.
Eric Hielscher is a former bandmate of Helder's and is in no way connected to the FBI's investigation.
We regret the error.
Police would not say why the apartment building was cleared. Federal agents arrived in Menomonie, 65 miles east of the Twin Cities, Monday night.
Cameron Helder, speaking late Tuesday afternoon from his home in Pine Island, said his son is not a dangerous person and appealed to him to call home.
"Luke, you need to talk to someone," Cameron Helder said, his voice breaking as he read from a prepared statement. "You have the attention you wanted."
Cameron Helder said his son doesn't like the way the U.S. government is being run and is "just trying to make a statement" by planting pipe bombs in mailboxes.
"I think Luke wants people to listen to his ideas," Cameron Helder said. "Not enough people are hearing him, and he thinks this will help."
He also asked reporters to give his family privacy. "Let us try to cope with this," he said, before turning and walking back into his home.
Authorities on Tuesday also urged Helder to come forward to avoid injury to himself or anyone else.
The Utah Highway Patrol said late Tuesday afternoon that Helder may have been in Utah in the last 24 hours. Iron County Sheriff Dude Benson said Helder made a cell phone call Monday from Moab, Utah.
They believe that he may have traveled along Interstate 15 through southern Utah. All mail carriers in that part of the state were taken off their routes Tuesday as a precaution.
UW-Stout spokesman John Enger said the FBI notified the school Tuesday about Helder.
Enger said Helder is a junior majoring in art with an industrial design concentration. The campus directory lists Helder's hometown as Pine Island.
A tipster, possibly a roommate of Helder's, told authorities that Helder had been recently "acting strangely." When the friend asked why, Helder reportedly told him, "Watch TV."
Classmates and instructors at UW-Stout said they hadn't seen Helder on campus for weeks.
Helder previously played guitar and provided vocals for a band based in Rochester, Minn., called Apathy. A source said Tuesday that the band broke up three years ago, although its Web sites remained up until late Tuesday afternoon, when it appeared that they had been shut down.
Late Tuesday morning, one of Apathy's Web sites was inundated with message postings -- many of them obscenity-laden -- from people who apparently had just heard that Helder was being sought by authorities, and did an online search for his name.
"This is the worst music I've ever heard, but you have a great publicist!" one person wrote.
"Please post your dates for the 'Mailbox 2002' tour," another one said.
That site and another Apathy site were unavailable off and on earlier Tuesday as more and more people did searches and discovered the sites.
Former high school classmates described Helder Tuesday as "mellow," infatuated with the grunge band Nirvana and preoccupied with Kurt Cobain.
A former classmate said Helder was a good student in such subjects as chemistry and biology. He played on the football and golf teams.
Katie Markham, a high school classmate of Helder's who still lives in Pine Island, described Helder as "always a good guy" who was never aggressive.
On one of the band's Web sites, Helder wrote: "The top things I care about are my girlfriend ... and my music/band. I party, play guitar, and talk online to everyone. That's my life."
The bomb found in Texas was accompanied by a letter, the FBI said. Most of the 17 earlier bombs, found in the Midwest and Colorado, were accompanied by anti-government notes that warned, "More 'attention getters' are on the way."
The bomb was found Monday afternoon, said Holmquist, spokesman for the Omaha-based task force investigating the string of mailbox bombs. There were no immediate details on where or how it was found.
There have been no arrests and no injuries reported since six people were hurt Friday.
Authorities said anti-government notes found with most of the earlier devices were nearly identical, and profiling experts have said whoever wrote them is probably an older American man.
Investigators had not yet inspected the letter attached to the Amarillo bomb, Holmquist said.
"We haven't made any comparisons yet, but everything else, including the bomb itself, looks similar in nature," he said.
The FBI said Tuesday that the first 16 bombs clearly came from the same source and all carried similar anti-government letters.
And FBI agent Mark Mershon said the 17th bomb, found Monday in south-central Colorado, was consistent with the others.
The discovery of that bomb in a Colorado mailbox already had made authorities fearful that the wave of terrorism had spread out of the Midwest.
"The logical concern here, given that this device is consistent with the others, is: 'Is this the tip of the iceberg?"' Mershon said after the 17th bomb was found in a plastic bag in a curbside mailbox outside Salida, Colo.
Postal carriers in the area were told not to deliver materials to any closed mailbox.
The scare began Friday when six people were injured by mailbox explosives in Illinois and Iowa, creating new fears about domestic terrorism striking the heartland.
By the end of the weekend, eight bombs had been found in Illinois and Iowa, and then eight more were discovered in rural areas of Nebraska.
The bombs in Iowa and Illinois were found in rural locations that form an uneven ring about 70 miles in diameter. The Nebraska bomb sites form a large ring about 90 miles across.
Those two areas are separated by about 350 miles but connected by Interstate 80. Salida, about 100 miles southwest of Denver, is more than 400 miles west of the Nebraska bomb sites.
Amarillo is about 325 miles southeast of Salida.
A suspected explosive device found Monday in a field about 80 miles east of Salida turned out not to be related to the case, said Rich Marianos, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Officials described the bombs as three-quarter-inch steel pipes attached to 9-volt batteries, and said they appeared to be triggered by being touched or moved.
(© 2002 Viacom Internet Services Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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