Local News in Brief : Bomb Suspect Could Get Boxes, Jury Told

A Van Nuys businessman who was granted immunity from prosecution testified Thursday that a suspect accused in the 1980 bombing murder of a Manhattan Beach secretary had access to his plant where the cardboard box used to mail the explosive was obtained.

Steven Smason said in Los Angeles federal court that because of the “father-son” type relationship he had with Robert Steven Manning, Manning could have visited Smason’s sales company at any time during the period in which the bombing occurred.

Postal inspectors traced the cardboard box back to Smason’s company after Patricia Wilkerson, 32, was killed when a bomb ripped through a computer company where she worked. Smason was granted immunity after he learned of the box’s link to his company, prosecutors said.

Robert Manning’s wife, Rochelle Ida Manning, 48, and millionaire Hawthorne real estate broker William Ross, 52, are on trial in Los Angeles federal court in connection with Wilkerson’s death. Robert Manning is a fugitive living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Robert Manning’s fingerprints were found on the box and his wife’s were on the letter that accompanied the bomb, postal inspectors said. Ross is accused of inducing the Mannings to send the explosive.