| Law enforcement personnel are seen outside a FedEx Store which was closed for investigation, in Austin, Texas, yesterday |
An unemployed 23-year-old man suspected of a three-week bombing campaign in Texas that killed two people and injured five others blew himself up on the side of a highway was identified by local media on Wednesday.
The suspect was identified as Mark Anthony Conditt, of Pflugerville, Texas, according to the local CBS television affiliate and Austin American Statesman newspaper, citing unnamed law enforcement sources. Reuters could not immediately confirm the suspect’s identity.
Public records showed Conditt’s age as 23. Officials had described the suspect as 24.
Police had tracked the suspect to a hotel about 32 km north of Austin, the state capital, and were following his vehicle when he pulled to the side of the road and detonated a device, killing himself, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told reporters near the scene.
“The suspect is deceased and has significant injuries from a blast that occurred from detonating a bomb inside his vehicle,” Manley told reporters. He declined to further identify the suspect, except to say he was white.
Investigators had tracked him for a couple of days before closing in at an unidentified hotel in Round Rock, Texas, not for from his home in Pflugerville, Governor Greg Abbott told Fox News on Wednesday.
“We’ve known for a couple of days who the suspect likely was,” Abbott said. “Law enforcement is at his house in Pflugerville where we are learning whether or not that was the location he was making his bombs.”
The governor added that the suspect is believed to have lived with two roommates, who are not currently considered suspects, Abbott said. The suspect was not a military veteran, Abbott said.
Texas law enforcement officials blocked off the street where the suspect lived, not far from where the first bomb went off on March 2, killing one person.
Jay Schulze, a 42-year-old network engineer, said on Wednesday he lived a few houses away from the bombing suspect and that the suspect and his friends would hang out late at night.
“They would be out in back playing music and partying pretty late,” Schulze said.
While jogging on Tuesday night, Schulze noticed a heavy police presence in the area, with drones flying overhead. He said he was stopped briefly by a person who he thought was an FBI agent.