The man charged with funneling chemicals to enable the bombing of a Palm Springs fertility clinic has died in federal custody, officials said Tuesday.
Daniel Jongyon Park, 32, was found unresponsive in his cell at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center at around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons told the Daily News in a statement.
“Responding employees initiated life-saving measures,” the bureau said, but Park was pronounced dead at the hospital. The bureau did not reveal his cause of death.
Park had fled to Poland four days after the May 17 explosion, but was extradited and then arrested at JFK Airport in New York City earlier this month. He was sent back to California to face charges and had been held at the L.A. detention center since June 13.
Authorities said the Seattle-area resident had supplied nearly 300 pounds of ammonium nitrate to the bomber, 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus of California, 180 pounds of it shipped months before and another 90 pounds sent a few days before the bombing.
Bartkus researched how to combine the ammonium nitrate with fuel to create powerful explosions, according to the Department of Justice. The two also experimented with the materials in Bartkus’ garage in California to concoct an “explosive recipe” akin to that used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, FBI Assistant Director Akil Davis said upon Park’s arrest.
They turned the lethal combo into a car bomb that Bartkus then detonated outside the American Reproductive Centers in Palm Springs. The explosion was felt a mile away as it gutted the offices of the fertility clinic, blew out windows in surrounding buildings and wounded four people.
Bartkus died in the apparent suicide bombing, which is being treated as a terrorist attack, authorities have said. He left behind rambling, nihilistic, “anti-pro-life” writings indicating he believed people needed to stop procreating.
Park held similarly extremist views and was charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists, though officials said it was not clear whether he knew Bartkus’ exact plans.
With News Wire Services
