![]() ![]() Investigators also have considered the possibility that the bomber is somehow affiliated with the Mormon Church, headquartered in Salt Lake City. The economic boom in Utah lasted until the mid-1980s, when oil prices collapsed and several major manufacturers laid off thousands of workers. There was also steady growth in a well-established defense industry and new computer software, pharmaceutical, biomedical and other high-tech companies. Local economists say Utah's job market was bullish in the late 1970s and early 1980s, sparked primarily by a sharp rise in oil prices that fueled massive investment in the energy sector. There just wasn't anything special at the university to attract him. ![]() "But the professors we brought into our department were too young to have attracted students from around the country. "Usually, students come to a university when a professor publishes and makes a name for himself," explained Harold Bauman, a University of Utah history of science professor who has been interviewed extensively by the FBI. They even had agents posing as students attend classes and wander the hallways of BYU.īoth BYU and the University of Utah were growing rapidly during the late 1970s and early 1980s, though officials at the two schools say there is nothing in particular that might have drawn the bomber, who has shown some knowledge of political science, history and sociology. ![]() Using extensive databases, they have compared student lists from schools around Chicago, Salt Lake City and northern California to generate names of students who took the path the bomber did. Investigators long have believed that the bomber is either a student or has some connection with universities. Investigators also asked him to read the manifesto to see if he could identify the author. He was given diagrams of the bombs and asked if he could see some idiosyncracy in the design that could lead them to a student. "They asked if I had ever had affairs, if my wife had ever had affairs. "I went over my entire childhood," he said. Since the investigation into the Unabomber was revived in 1993, Bearnson has spent entire days with investigators, trying to find some connection between himself and the bomber. "I don't think I know him, but I don't know." "I have no idea who he is," said Bearnson, sitting in his crowded office. The return address on the package was LeRoy Bearnson at BYU. In 1982, more than four years before the bomb was placed outside the Salt Lake City computer store, an explosive was mailed from BYU's student union building to a professor in Tennessee. Like everyone involved in the case, he was brought into it suddenly and for reasons he can not fathom. One of the professors asked to read the Unabomber's manifesto is LeRoy Bearnson, a soft-spoken, 60-year-old computer expert at BYU. Investigators want to know who checked out four books the Unabomber cited in his manifesto during the time investigators believe he lived in the state. In May, federal authorities subpoenaed library records at BYU, and they are planning to subpoena circulation records at the University of Utah library, sources said. In recent weeks, federal investigators have asked a half-dozen academics at the University of Utah and at Brigham Young University in nearby Provo to analyze the Unabomber's 35,000-word tract in hopes of evoking memories of a student who may have voiced ideas about the devastating effects of technology on modern society. By the fall of 1987, investigators believed the bomber moved from this city at the foot of the Rocky Mountains to northern California, and the investigation largely moved along with him. They followed hundreds of leads, interviewed thousands of people and tailed a half-dozen suspects. They mailed copies of the sketch to every household in Salt Lake City. The bomber planted or mailed four explosive devices from Utah, one each in 1981, 1982, 19.īefore the Unabomber recently gave investigators new clues with his rambling manifesto, they pinned their hopes for capturing him on the sketch based on that chance sighting outside the Salt Lake City computer store.įor six months after that last Utah bombing, law enforcement officials pursued him tirelessly across the state. Investigators are interested in the Utah connection because it is only one of three places, along with Chicago and northern California, where they are certain the bomber has spent time. ![]()
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