Authorities on Tuesday charged a 21-year-old college student in connection with the 18 bombs left in mailboxes from Illinois to Texas, a case of domestic terrorism that injured six and frightened others across the nation’s midsection.
Eight hours after the FBI issued an all-points bulletin for Lucas John Helder, of Pine Island, Minn., he was captured along Interstate Highway 80 in Nevada, nearly 100 miles east of Reno. That was 1,400 miles from Amarillo, Texas, where the 18th bomb was found Monday.
Federal prosecutors in Iowa charged Helder with using an explosive to maliciously destroy property affecting interstate commerce and with using a destructive device to commit a crime of violence. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison and fines of $250,000.
A spokesman for the Nevada Highway Patrol said Helder was arrested after dropping at least one gun out the car window. He was apprehended after a 40-mile chase at speeds that reached 100 m.p.h.
The bulletin citing Helder was the first breakthrough in determining a possible suspect in the planting of the pipe bombs, first found Friday. Explosives rigged in rural mailboxes injured six people in Illinois and Iowa, and authorities later found explosives in mailboxes in Nebraska, Colorado and Texas, though some apparently were not set to detonate.
The discoveries caused the Postal Service to suspend delivery in parts of Illinois and Iowa on Saturday. Carriers there and in other parts of the country have since been told to deliver mail only in boxes that are open.
FBI officials released Helder’s name Tuesday morning, saying they wanted to talk with him in connection with the case. An FBI supervisor in Wisconsin, where Helder attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, called him “a key suspect.” Helder is enrolled as a junior majoring in art and industrial design.
Bureau officials did not say why or how they focused their attention on Helder.
Though Helder’s family declined to speak to a Tribune reporter, his father read a statement Tuesday in which he urged his son to call home. Authorities said later that Helder and his parents talked by phone before he was arrested.
Father makes plea
“I really want you to know that Luke is not a dangerous person,” Cameron Helder said outside the family’s home in Pine Island, about 50 miles south of the Twin Cities. “I think he’s just trying to make a statement about the way our government is run. I think Luke wants people to listen to his ideas, and not enough people are hearing him, and he thinks this may help.”
He added: “Luke, you need to talk to someone. Please don’t hurt anyone else. It’s time to talk. You have the attention you wanted. Luke, we love you very much. We want you home safe.”
Shortly after Helder’s name became public, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison gave investigators a letter it received Monday signed by a Lucas Helder.
Postmarked Friday in Omaha, the mailing began with a cover page saying, “Explosions! A Bit of Evidence for you! You have received this because you can help.”
The mailing also included the anti-government letter that was found with the bombs as well as a six-page treatise that touched on spirituality and death, urging people to reach a higher consciousness.
“Wake up, people!” the author writes. “You’re here for such a short time, why have regrets? I’m taking very drastic measures in an attempt to provide this information to you. You people have failed long enough . . . can we now grow?
“I will die/change in the end for this, but that’s ok, hahaha paradise awaits! I’m dismissing a few individuals from reality, to change all of you for the better, surely you can understand my logic.”
Alexander Conant, editor in chief of the Badger Herald, said the paper turned over the letter to the FBI when the bureau released Helder’s name. He said agents told the paper’s staff that the letter was “consistent with other things they’ve seen,” and that some individuals had received similar mailings.
Conant said he did not know why the author sent the letter to his paper, though he noted that the Badger Herald is the largest college newspaper in the state.
The FBI did not return the Tribune’s calls about the letter.
Investigators questioned officials at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and Helder’s roommates, said John Enger, the school’s executive director of university relations. School officials said Helder apparently had not been on campus for several days.
FBI agents searched Helder’s apartment in a two-story building near campus. Menomonie police spokesman Brian Swantz said two houses near the building were evacuated because of “potential danger” but refused to elaborate.
Suspect described as ordinary
Some who knew Helder described him as an ordinary young man. Don McPhail, who coached him on the Pine Island High School football team, recalled him as an average kid. High school acquaintances said he was good in science, and college classmates and professors called him laid-back.
“I don’t want it to be him,” said Nancy Blum-Cummings, a professor of art and design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She said students who take her class are usually adept in mechanics and electronics.
Helder was also a guitarist and a fan of the rock band Nirvana, according to high school classmates and a Web site for a band that Helder apparently played in, called Apathy.
“I’m a huge Nirvana fan,” Helder wrote in a biography on the Web site. “I really am quite infatuated with this band. I know everything about Kurt [Cobain] . . . try me, hahaha.”
He added: “Having fun while perfoming is surely of greatest concern, and if a performer is having a blast, then the audience can get into it too. So I always attempt to be very animated, and choke (fellow band members) if they aren’t 😉 . . . It’s all good though. I don’t mean to come off all bitter or anything . . . it’s just a pet peave ..haha.”
The Web site offered two songs by the band, “Conformity” and “Back and Black,” but their lyrics were unintelligible.
