Posted on 05/08/2002 2:08:08 PM PDT by Shermy
The Badger Herald received a letter from pipe bomb suspect and UW-Stout junior Luke John Helder postmarked Omaha, Neb., Friday, May 3, 2002.
The Herald turned the letter over to the FBI Tuesday afternoon.
Click here to see text of letter.
Click here to see the actual letter.
The FBI took Helder into custody at 6:55 p.m. CST about 90 miles northeast of Reno for his connection with recent pipe bombings in mailboxes throughout the rural Midwest. Police surrounded him in Nevada at 6 p.m. Tuesday before arresting him after he dropped a gun out of his car window. At least one other gun was found in the car and bomb squads found explosives, possibly pipe bombs.
Helder was charged in Iowa with using an explosive to maliciously destroy property affecting interstate commerce and using a destructive device to commit a crime of violence. Helder faces up to life in prison and fines of $250,000.
After his license plate was broadcast nationwide, a motorist on Interstate 80 spotted his vehicle and notified authorities. The FBI then called Helder on his cell phone and began negotiations and got him to slow down.
Helder said he would surrender if he was not harmed.
"He requested not to be tackled," Trooper Alan Davidson told the Associated Press. "He surrendered the gun and was taken into custody without incident."
At a news conference Tuesday, FBI agent Jim Bogner did not say why Helder is suspected, but did say he is "a person of interest that we would like to question."
The FBI announced their search for Helder a day after a pipe bomb and letter were found in a mailbox in Amarillo, Texas. The bomb matched the 17 others found in the Midwest and Colorado since Friday. Anti-government notes were attached to the bombs, which warned "More 'attention getters' are on the way."
In the letter to the Herald, signed by Helder, he said he is willing to die for his cause and threatened the lives of others.
"I will die/change in the end for this, but that's ok, hahaha paradise awaits!" the letter read. "I'm dismissing a few individuals from reality, to change all of you for the better, surely you can understand my logic."
Entitled "Explosions! A Bit of Evidence for You!" the letter detailed Helder's philosophies on life and death.
Helder cautions people to avoid governmental control.
"If the government controls what you want to do, they control what you can do," he said.
Much of the letter revolves around Helder's views on death, which he said he believes does not exist.
"To 'live' (avoid death) in this society you are forced to conform/slave away," the letter reads. "I'm here to help you realize/understand that you will live no matter what! It is up to you people to open your hearts and minds. There is no such thing as death."
Helder contends his happiness depends on his examination of authority.
"I'm happy because I know," he said. "I often wonder why anyone would be content with believing when they could know."
Cameron Helder, Luke's father, said his son is attempting to make his political beliefs heard.
"I think he's just trying to make a statement about the way the government is run," he said.
Molly Webb, a UW-Madison junior and former classmate of Helder, said he might have a drug problem, but she believed this was not the source of his anger.
"I think he just wanted to get his message out there," she said. "He's not the kind of guy who would hurt anyone."
Another high school friend, Ryan Swan, played in several bands with Helder and said he was not surprised to learn Helder's story. "He just seems like the type of person who would get on a tangent and go with it," Swan said.
Josh Scott, UW-Eau Claire sophomore, worked with Helder three years ago at Rainbow Foods and said he seemed harmless.
"He was a quiet, mellow guy who kept to himself," Scott said. "I remember talking to him about old times, and he seemed like a great guy."
However, Scott said he heard Helder holds strong anti-government beliefs.
"He always believed he had something important to say," Scott said.
John Ender, UW-Stout executive director of university relations, said Helder had no disciplinary problems at school. His only offense was a charge for drug paraphernalia last September.
The bombs killed no one, but injured six. Rural residents in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska were asked to leave their mailboxes open to ease the worry of nervous postal workers. Officials described the bombs as three-quarter-inch steel pipes attached to nine-volt batteries, and said they appeared to be triggered by being touched or moved.
UW Stout professors said they last saw Helder April 24; his roommates reported seeing him last week.
The 21-year-old is majoring in art and industrial design.
You talk of this place called heaven. Heaven resides within you. You control your own destiny. You are your own god! Earth is a place where free will resides.
This is all New Age pablum (take it from me, in my former life I used to live with people who used to write for the New Age Journal). Somebody needs to find out where he got these influences and they need to be exposed.
And who knows what this statement means:
See you all in 2011 (or sooner).
My New Age experience is from 30 years ago. Is there a cult that has a timetable now?
Remember we talked about the "Smiley Face Theory?" The theory that the bomber was making a Smiley Face design with his targets? For example, here.
Look how he ends his 7 page letter to his college newspaper:
See you all in 2011 (or sooner). Now go find your higher selves!As clear and concise as possible :),
[SIGNATURE]
Lucas Helder
He ends it with a smiley face emoticon!
Don't gimme a tinfoil alert. This guy is a wad of foil, and an art major!
It all sounds like standard new age "wisdom" to me. Right down to the lucid dreaming stuff. I've heard this stuff from women (and men!) who've gone to "spritual retreats" for decades. Heck, if you read Michael Crichton's autobiography ("Travels," by Michael Crichton ), he recounts his stays at many such retreats where many (not all) of the same beliefs are accepted at face value.
Theosophy (grown from eastern mysticism) has been preaching that "souls" are here in the material world "learning" for generations. It's the whole karma thing -- souls that profit from life experience get to transcend the material world, those that don't, come back either as humans, or as animals. (That's why Hindus don't kill cows...)
Actually -- and I hate to do this because it's a really good book -- this entire world view of humans as spiritual beings in material "containers" being oppressed by exploitative power elites is lifted almost idea for idea from a very famous fringe book called:
The Gods of Eden," by William Bramley
Mark W.
Yes! A very influential pseudo-science new age bunch. Check it out:
"December 21, 2012 A.D. We arrived at this particular end date without knowledge of the Mayan Calendar, and it was only after we noticed that the historical data seemed to fit best with the wave if this end date was chosen that we were informed that the end date that we had deduced was in fact the end of the Mayan calendar. "
[short excerpt from Timewave Zero, written by Terence McKenna, Posted Wed, 6-Jul-1994 22:06:33 GMT]
This group -- any many other similar groups, along with non-similar groups who also key to the Mayan calendar -- have gotten lots of attention in the mainstream media. Timewave Zero, with their pseudo-scientific, highly "detailed" computer program for "predicting" the "end of time as we know it" was featured on television in a Sightings episode...
Mark W.
BTW, the wacko who killed Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn two days ago also has extreme-environmental views and sounded like a nut, not just ultra-sensitive.
Thanks for the link, buddy! It feels good to say that I am now so unknowledgeable about New Age stuff.
"Don't gimme a tinfoil alert. This guy is a wad of foil, and an art major!"
You dismiss my "va-va-voom" theory...???
ED DAMES - 2011 A. D. VS GENESIS OF LIGHT - Seeing Beyond 2011 A. D.
There is some goofy "spiritual" meaing to this date for the kid, I bet.
The writing shows a lack of contact with reality, which isn't limited to schizophrenia.
Yep. No rightwing stuff. Just anarchist and Mother Earth stuff from the type of kid who identifies heavily with the group Nirvana.
His parents are part of the problem. That his father has said that all he wanted to do, is get his message out , is outrageous ! the kid could have killed people, and claims ( which I soubt ) to HAVE killed people. He certainly is NOT " harmless " .
:)
Great catch! I bet people who follow the new age stuff closely will have lots of links for this kid's ideas.
And we need to remember: The FBI originally "profiled" the letter writer as an OLD person -- just speculation, of course, but I'd bet that this kid was traveling with or in contact with someone acting as his "guru" and constantly feeding him mental re-inforcement of these beliefs.
And, although I haven't followed all the threads, has anybody noticed that his circular bomb patterns could be seen as similar to crop circles?! Crop circles occur in rural areas and are frequently interpretted by new age nuts as signs and calls for attention...
Mark W.
;)
I see my link to the actual letter itself is not right on. Keep going to the article and there is a link to pictures of the letter and envelope, 9 pages in all.
The last page shows the "emoticon." I'm mistaken. The "text" as transcribed by the paper makes the smiley face an "emoticon." However, the actual letter shows a Microsoft Word smiley face, that is, upright and with a full circle for the head, like the famous button.
Any ideas on the big numbers on some of the pages of the letter? School examination paper?
We are talking about a kid who went to a good high school and was an upper division student at a 4-year college. Yet, he was so naive and lacking in knowledge -- so very ignorant -- that he believed all that enviro-wacko crap. And he believed with enough passion to take aggressive action and risk killing fellow human beings -- who were themselves totally innocent.
That is, of course, the very definition of "terrorism".
Yes, Helder obviously has a mental problem. But a significant part of his "mental problem" was that he had gone to school...and hadn't been exposed to any truth!
Instead, I suppose, he got reinforcement for his whacko ideas from fellow students and idiot faculty. Perhaps, his parents, as well.
In any event, the Helder Saga serves as a convincing condemnation of our educational establishment.
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