Wouldn’t Hurt Anyone, Bomb Suspect Testifies

A woman on trial for allegedly helping her husband prepare a mail bomb that killed a secretary in 1980 testified Friday that she would never do “anything that would hurt another human being.”

Rochelle Manning told a U.S. District Court jury that she had no idea how her fingerprints got onto a letter mailed with a package containing the bomb that killed Patricia Wilkerson at a Manhattan Beach computer company July 17, 1980.

Manning, 48, and her husband, Robert Steven Manning, 36, are accused of mailing the bomb at the request of Hawthorne realtor William Ross, 51. Ross purportedly intended the bomb for Wilkerson’s boss, Brenda Crouthamel, who was feuding with Ross over a real estate deal.

Wilkerson opened the package in Crouthamel’s office, and, following instructions in an accompanying letter, plugged the bomb into an electrical outlet, believing the device would play a recorded message about computer marketing. She was killed in the explosion.

Still a Fugitive

Rochelle Manning and Ross are on trial. Robert Manning, a suspect in a string of bombings linked to Jewish extremists, is still a fugitive living in Israeli territory.

An enlargement of the blood-spattered letter that survived the blast was displayed for jurors as Rochelle Manning testified.

“If you had been asked to write a seemingly innocuous letter and you knew or found out that it was supposed to accompany a device designed to hurt someone, would you have been willing to type it?” asked her attorney, Michael Adelson.

“I can’t imagine willingly typing anything or doing anything that would hurt another human being,” Manning replied. “I think it’s a horrible thing. I don’t know how my prints could get on it.”

“Did you knowingly have anything whatsoever to do with the killing by way of explosive device of Patricia Wilkerson?” Adelson asked.

“No, sir, I did not,” Manning said.

Rochelle Manning’s attorneys argue that although her prints were on the paper, she did not type the letter. She testified Friday that she occasionally typed for her husband, but was rarely involved in his numerous and varied business affairs.

Ross’ lawyers claim he was too wealthy to resort to violence over one real estate deal.