A suspect linked to the bombing at a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, last month has died in federal custody, the Bureau of Prisons revealed Tuesday.
Daniel Park, 32, from Seattle, was charged earlier this month in connection with the bombing. He was found unresponsive at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, the agency said in a statement.
Staff responded and initiated life-saving measures, and emergency medical personnel took Park to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death was not immediately apparent. The bureau noted that no members of staff or other incarcerated people were injured.
Park was a U.S. citizen who arrived at the detention center on June 13 following his indictment on malicious destruction of property. After flying to Warsaw a few days after the bombing, he was detained in Poland earlier this month. The bombing took place at the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic on May 17. Park was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York after being deported from Poland.
Park was accused of shipping around 180 pounds of ammonium nitrate to the bombing suspect, identified as Guy Bartkus, 25, who died in the explosion. Ammonium nitrate is usually used as a precursor to make homemade explosives. Four people were injured in the blast.
The 32-year-old is alleged to have spent two weeks visiting Bartkus in late January and February as they conducted bombmaking experiments.
Akil Davis, the FBI assistant director in charge, noted that Park and Bartkus encountered each other in online forums discussing the anti-natalist movement as they connected over a “shared belief that people shouldn’t exist.”
Anti-natalism is a fringe theory arguing that people shouldn’t procreate, with officials saying that Bartkus targeted the fertility clinic as part of a terror attack. The FBI noted that he tried and failed to livestream the blast.
The explosion severely damaged the clinic and blew out the windows of buildings in the area. Witnesses said they heard a loud boom and described chaotic scenes with a body found near a charred car outside the clinic.
Investigators have yet to say if Bartkus intended to take his life as part of the attack or why he selected that particular clinic, which provides services to help people get pregnant, including in vitro fertilization and fertility evaluations.
Davis has noted that authorities conducted a search of Park’s Seattle home and found “an explosive recipe that was similar to the Oklahoma City bombing.”
Retired ATF explosives expert Scott Sweetow previously said that the damage caused led him to believe that the suspect had used a “high explosive” similar to TNT or dynamite instead of a “low explosive” such as gun powder.
He added that while such explosives are usually difficult for civilians to get ahold of, more and more people are figuring out how to make explosives at home.
“Once you know the chemistry involved, it’s pretty easy to get stuff,” he said. “The ingredients you could get at a grocery store.”
