Copyright 1994 Southam Inc.
The Ottawa Citizen
December 16, 1994, Friday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. D12
LENGTH: 284 words
HEADLINE: Officials turn to public to find mail bomber
BYLINE: JIM HERRON ZAMORA; SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
DATELINE: San Francisco
BODY:
Conceding that they are stumped in the Unabom case, federal investigators released several intriguing new clues about the mystery bomber in order to generate public interest.
"That's where this case is going to be solved -- through public involvement," Jim Freeman, head of the FBI's San Francisco office, said Wednesday.
After 15 bombs blamed on the Unabomber over the last 16 years that have injured 22 people and killed two, authorities have been unable to come up with the bomber's identity or even his motive.
A $ 1-million reward has not helped, although investigators have received an estimated 3,100 calls on the toll-free tipster line (1-800-701-BOMB) since Sunday.
The mail bomb that killed a New Jersey advertising executive Saturday listed a return addressee of "H.C. Wickel" of the Department of Economics at San Francisco State University on its typed return label, the FBI said Wednesday.
But no one by that name has ever taught or studied at the school, said Daniel Hagberg, chief postal inspector in San Francisco.
The 45-member Unabom task force is seeking calls from anyone with information about the name. Authorities have interviewed people in northern California with the surname Wickel but to no avail.
Paul Snabel, head of the San Francisco office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said Unabom investigators were considering the possibility that the name was an anagram or a literary reference of significance to the bomber.
So far, investigators have found nothing from the New Jersey bomb with the initials "FC," which had been a trademark of previous Unabomber devices, Freeman said. The meaning of the letters is unknown.