Californian’s Death Rekindles 8-Year Hunt for Unknown Bomber

The explosion roared through a suburban shopping center and left Campbell Scrutton dying in an alley, the latest victim of a mysterious bomber consumed by a bizarre interest in computers, academia and aircraft.

The genial Scrutton, 38, owner of a computer company, was described by his neighbors as a “real gentleman” and a “man with an immaculate reputation.” But his life ended abruptly Dec. 11 during the noon hour when he casually touched a harmless-looking package outside the rear door of his store.

The parcel, wrapped in paper and tied with string, contained a powerful pipe bomb that blew up, shooting shrapnel more than 400 feet.

“Oh my God! Help me!” he screamed before collapsing. He died 30 minutes later.

Eight-Year Search

For nearly eight years, state, local and federal investigators have conducted a quiet nationwide hunt to find the bomber, tracing explosions and attempts through the South, Midwest and Far West. FBI spokesman Mike McCrystal said “every field office has been alerted, which is unusual, and it’s a very vigorous investigation.”

Police psychologists have compiled several profiles of the bomber, but they refuse to disclose details of their probe or the kind of person they are hunting, except to say the bombings are linked by the bombs’ “fingerprints”--the shards of debris left by the explosives.

At least 19 people have been injured and one person--Scrutton--killed by the unknown bomber, whose targets have included Illinois, Michigan and California and Penn State and Northwestern universities. Several explosives were parcels that had been mailed; others were left in public places.

The bomber, who police say could be a disgruntled academician or computer worker, has not struck since Dec. 11.

Until Scrutton’s death, the search had been conducted without publicity. But Scrutton’s murder prompted authorities to go public, hoping the publicity might pry loose information about the bomber.

Investigators say the explosives and fragments were similar to those from bombs planted at 10 other sites throughout the United States since May, 1978, all of them linked somehow to computers, universities or airplanes. One bomb, in November, 1979, blew up in a mail pouch of an American Airlines 727 bound to Washington, D.C., from Chicago, causing 12 injuries by smoke inhalation. The plane managed to land safely.

The airplane bombing was potentially the most dangerous of any of the serial blasts. The aircraft, carrying 72 passengers, filled with smoke during a 10:25 a.m. approach to Dulles International Airport in Washington.

“The pilot and forward passengers said they heard a muffled explosion,” American Airlines spokesman Lee Elsesser said in a telephone interview from his Texas headquarters. He described the explosive as “an incendiary device that was supposed to burn rather than blast,” and it contained an altimeter triggering device.

Campus Explosions

Six other bombs exploded on college campuses, generally in technical or computer-related departments or classrooms, each injuring one person.

Two explosions were related to aircraft--the American Airlines bombing and, in June, 1980, a device intended for United Airlines President Percy Wood. Investigators say Wood escaped death because he put the package on the kitchen table of his Elk Grove, Ill., home before opening it, and the blast went through the ceiling.

John Hauser was not so lucky.

On May 15, 1985, Hauser lost parts of the fingers on his right hand when a package exploded in a classroom at the University of California at Berkeley. Hauser, an electrical engineering graduate student, was typing at a computer terminal when he noticed the innocent-looking parcel and reached for it to take a look. Two years earlier, another of the serial bomber’s packages exploded in the same building, injuring a professor.

Hauser, who is an Air Force captain, has since learned to write with his left hand.

Two other bombs were disarmed without injury.

“There are three common threads here,” said Sacramento County Sheriff’s Homicide Lt. Ray Biondi, the lead investigator in the case, “computers, universities and airplanes. It’s unlike any cases we’ve had and it’s very difficult to get a handle on all that’s occurred.”

Random Victim

Federal and local investigators believe Scrutton was an innocent, random casualty, a man unconnected to any illegal activity, who met his death because he was the first to touch the package. “Anyone who happened by that business could have been a victim,” Biondi said. “It was a random thing. After an extensive investigation, we’ve determined that he was as clean as a whistle. The thing we’re trying to do now is find the common links between the bombings.’

Agents from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, along with U.S. Postal Service officials and local police and sheriff’s officers are probing the nationwide bombing spree.

“We have three separate psychological profiles of the unknown suspect, but we can’t release them,” Biondi said. “It’s just that they are very general in most respects and if we put them out, we’d get data back on every weirdo in the United States.”