A Life Wasted

Taking Credit

Mary managed to convince me that the raid on our family wasn't a big deal to her, but it was still a big deal to me. They had hit our home to stir me up. I was certain of this as there could have been no other reason for the raid. I was also hearing of anti-abortionist around the country being rousted by search warrants, all in search of evidence related to the two anthrax mailings. It might be that I'd had enough of the FBI bothering people I was aligned with or perhaps I was just bored. Whatever the case, I decided it was time to pull the heat off everyone else by taking credit for the fake anthrax attacks myself.

I debated numerous ways to do this, but in the end I decided to use Neal Horsley as my messenger. Neal was an accredited journalist and he was someone I could trust. My visit to Neal Horsley's house on November 23, 2001, has been well written about by Neal himself, though I've said little about it myself. Now that Neal has passed on, I can add my side of that story.

Neal didn't know I was going to stop by as I didn't trust the phones or email to announce my intentions; neither did I care to give anyone advance notice of my location. That includes Neal Horsley, whom I trusted to a degree. So I stopped by unannounced. When he saw me at his back door Neal said, "My life is about to change, isn't it?" A bit melodramatic, but that was Neal. I told him that I had done the fake anthrax attacks and that I wanted him to report on it. At first Neal didn't believe me. Even he was convinced those two attacks had been carried off by a group of people. He said, "No," and then named several anti-abortionists he believed had done the deed. He didn't fully believe me until I handed him one of the unused Fed-Ex air bills and a copy of the threat letter I had sent.

My goal was to give Neal a taped interview along with the evidence that tied me to it so that he could report on it. Neal was game to do this, but his wife was home and he didn't dare let her know I was outside her home. His wife was about to leave with their children to visit her parents. Neal was staying home, so he asked me to return in an hour. I didn't like this at all. I didn't like anyone knowing where I would be in the future, but I reluctantly agreed.

An hour later I drove my stolen car, a 1999 Mercedes 430CLK up his drive and followed it as it curved out of sight behind his house. Where he setting me up they would be waiting there. I confess that I was more than a little nervous when I rounded that drive to his back door. But Neal stood there alone and invited me in. Neal had a video recorder set up for the interview but I wasn't willing to go with video as I had changed my appearance and didn't want to give away what I looked like. So he took the camera down and replaced it with a professional looking cassette player.

I won't recount the interview as I am sure that is still available if someone wants to hear it. The highlight of it was that I confessed to doing the fake anthrax attacks on hundreds of abortion clinics in two waves, the first being via US Mail and the second via Federal Express. I went into great detail as to how I did this, mostly to demonstrate that I did it alone, which Neal was still skeptical about. I produced one of the envelopes I had not mailed and one of the Fed-Ex air bills I didn't use. I also gave him copies of both letters. I might have given him a sample of BT powder, but I can't remember. But what I did do was to say on the tape, "I'm putting my finger print on the envelope, letter and air bill now to prove I was here." It was the first time any of those items had my print on them, so I was a little upset later when it was announced by the FBI that they had "found" my finger print on one of the envelopes. I know it's being vain, but it bothered me that they were portraying me as being stupid enough to accidently leave my finger print on one of those letters.

Another thing I did in that interview was to come up with a convoluted story about having 42 chosen targets. It was a lie. The whole thing was a lie and Neal knew it, but he played along beautifully. I also made up a system by which someone who was on my list could get off of it by quitting their job. I'd told them that I had their car's license number, so if they agreed to quit "killing babies" they should post the first letter of their license plate and the name of their state, or something silly like that. People tried to respond on Neal's blog but it was so confusing that they couldn't figure it out. When I later listened to the tapes I couldn't figure it out. Like I said, I made it all up there on the fly and that part came out too confusing to follow.

To keep Neal from being arrested as an accomplice I used duct tape to secure him to his office chair. I did it in a way that he could get loose, but we'd agreed to wait an hour. He'd call 911 and reported what happened, but he had to tell them he had not seen my car. I couldn't afford to have the FBI know what I was driving. While I was securing him to the chair, Neal's dog started snarling at me. I had petted his dog the whole time I was there, but now the dog figured out something was wrong and he didn't know what to do. It was a large dog; I think it was called a Schnauzer. Whatever it was, the dog wasn't sure enough that I was doing something wrong to bite me, but he repeatedly hit my leg with his closed mouth. He was able to hit me hard enough to hurt, but he held back from actually biting me. It was one of the strangest things I have ever seen a dog do.

Neal talked to the dog and calmed him down, but after I'd tied him up good Neal said, "I think he needs to pee." So after I tied Neal up, I let his dog out to pee, and then got his dog some water because his bowl was empty. It was almost comical.