College Student Held in Mailbox Bombings

Following a nationwide manhunt, authorities arrested a Wisconsin college student on Interstate 80 outside Reno on Tuesday and charged him with planting a string of mailbox pipe bombs that rattled mail carriers and customers across much of the country’s midsection.

Luke John Helder, 21, an art student and the leader of a garage rock band called Apathy, faces 70 years in federal prison if convicted on two felony counts.

As federal agents and local officers began tailing his 1992 Honda Civic in Nevada, Helder for the most part obeyed the speed limit but refused to pull over for 46 minutes. About 50 miles outside Reno, he finally came to a stop and surrendered peacefully, authorities said.

Helder was taken into custody just hours after the FBI issued a nationwide alert for him, having received a tip in Wisconsin, where he attended school, and after interviewing his family at their home in the town of Pine Island, Minn.

The FBI, as well as his father, had taken to the airwaves earlier in the day to plead with Helder to turn himself in.

“Please don’t hurt anyone else,” a tearful Cameron Helder said, reading from a statement at the family home. “You have the attention you wanted.”

The bombs, six of which detonated, injuring four mail carriers and two residents, were all accompanied by an antigovernment manifesto. Helder said his son was opposed to many United States government policies and was “just trying to make a statement.”

Explosives experts were still going through Helder’s car late Tuesday night. “It’s unclear if any bombs are in there, but the makings of a bomb--bomb parts--are inside,” said Andrea Edwards of the Pershing County Sheriff’s Department.

Helder, who had alerted authorities to his whereabouts when he made a cell phone call in eastern Utah on Monday night, called his parents during the pursuit and was patched through to an FBI agent, authorities said. He volunteered to surrender, asked not to be tackled and turned over a gun when he gave himself up.

The mop-haired, green-eyed Helder, a student at the University of Wisconsin at Stout, in Menomonie, majored in art with an emphasis on industrial design, school spokeswoman Jennifer Klement said. Klement said Helder’s roommate had told the school that Helder hadn’t been to class since last week. Finals are next week.

Tuesday began with what appeared to be more evidence of a cross-country pipe-bombing spree, with another device found in a mailbox in Amarillo, Texas. The device appeared similar to the other 17 found since Friday, and like some of the others was contained in a zip-top plastic bag along with an antigovernment note. A resident discovered the device and called police. It did not explode. Unlike the other devices, the Texas bomb was discovered in a residential neighborhood.

The bomber’s apparent path west and the timing of the bombings, however, seem to call into question whether the Amarillo device, which would be the 18th bomb, was indeed planted by the same person.

On Monday, the 17th bomb was found in Salida, Colo. Helder is now believed to have been in Moab, Utah, that evening, and near Reno less than 24 hours later. Because Moab is 890 miles from Amarillo, it is unclear how he could have been in all those places in such a short time frame.

Authorities in Texas could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.

In Utah, law officers spent the day investigating two reports that appeared to have helped lead to Helder: a cell phone call and a possible sighting of his car.

The phone call originated about 6 p.m. Monday from an area near the southeastern high-desert city of Moab, according to authorities.

After Helder’s name and the description of his car was made public Tuesday, a man reported to the FBI that a car matching the description cut him off Monday night while traveling west near the city of Green River, 66 miles west of Moab on Interstate 80. The incident took place just two hours after the cell call was made from Moab, said FBI Special Agent Dale Weiss in Salt Lake.

Investigators had difficulty determining when the bombs were placed because some residents were out of town or for other reasons did not check their mailboxes daily. It also has never been clear precisely the route the bomber took, though I-80 appeared to be the primary artery west after the first bombs were found Friday in northwestern Illinois and eastern Iowa.

Additionally, with details of the bombs’ construction and the text of the letter made public early on, officials have been especially wary of copycats.

Once a tie-wearing type, Helder, whose Menomonie apartment was guarded Tuesday by a police officer, in recent years began growing his hair, dressing in grunge-style clothing and learning to play guitar.

Apathy recorded one amateur-sounding collection of songs called “sacks of people” in 2000. On the band’s Web site, in a brief biography, Helder calls himself a huge fan of the now-defunct grunge band Nirvana and its lead singer, Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994. “I really am quite infatuated with this band,” he writes. “I know everything about Kurt ... try me, hahaha.

“Well, the top things I care about are my girlfriend ... , and my music/band,” he continues, later adding: “I party, play guitar, and talk online to everyone. That’s my life.”

He makes no mention of antigovernment feelings authorities believe he may have been espousing in the letters left with the bombs.

The typewritten note accompanying each bomb touches on death, the desire to “avoid negative emotion/pain” and various other topics, but reads mostly as a vague rant against the government.

“Conforming to the boundaries, and restrictions imposed by the government only reduces the substance in your lives,” it says. “When 1% of the nation controls 99% of the nations total wealth, is it a wonder why there are control problems?

“The United States strives to provide freedom for their people. Do we really have personal freedom? I’ve lived here for many years, and I see much limitation.”

On Tuesday, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the Badger Herald, said it gave the FBI a seven-page letter that was received over the weekend and signed with Helder’s name. The letter was postmarked in Omaha on Friday--the day the first eight bombs were found--and a day before eight more bombs turned up in Nebraska.

The letter’s first page is identical to the antigovernment notes found with the bombs. The letter also said, in part: “I will die/change in the end for this, but that’s ok, hahaha paradise awaits!”

People acquainted with Helder said he was a clean-cut kid who once held a job bagging groceries. They said he became absorbed in the alternative music scene, but he had never espoused antigovernment or violent views.

“I’ve known Luke for a long time, and I can’t see him pipe-bombing people,” said Andy Hielscher, whose brother Eric is Helder’s band mate. “I may be wrong. He was such an easygoing guy. He never talked about politics or the government.”

Hielscher said his brother has known Helder and his family since childhood. “His parents called a couple of times recently looking for Eric’s number, but I didn’t think anything about it. Maybe I should have.”

Josh Scott, a Rochester, Minn.-area musician who worked at the studio where Apathy recorded, said Helder was better known for playing “pretty bad music” than holding extreme political views.

Helder and his band were viewed in the music community mostly as mediocre and out of date.

“We mocked him all the time ... not to his face,” Scott said. “He totally dressed the [grunge] part, his hair and his voice. Everyone [at the time] said, ‘Nirvana, give me a break, this is 2000.’”

Times staff researchers Lianne Hart in Houston, Belen Rodriguez in Denver and John Beckham in Chicago contributed to this report.