Mail Bombing Suspect Faces Other Charges

Federal officials Tuesday arrested the man identified as their prime suspect in last year’s wave of Southern mail bombings on charges stemming from a 1972 case.

Federal officials announced that Walter Leroy Moody of Rex, Ga., was indicted, along with his wife, Susan McBride Moody, on 13 counts, including obstruction of justice, bribery and tampering with witnesses in the 1972 case. That year, Moody was convicted for the unlawful possession of a pipe bomb. He has filed several appeals of that conviction.

Tuesday’s indictment charges that, in 1986, Moody and his wife “induced witnesses to sign false declarations and to give perjurious testimony” before the U.S. District Court in Macon, Ga.

According to a statement by federal officials, the Moodys “endeavored to obstruct the due administration of justice by means of bribery, intimidation and misleading conduct, among other things.”

The statement does not mention the bombings that last December killed U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert S. Vance at his home near Birmingham, Ala., and Savannah, Ga., attorney Robert Robinson. However, officials close to the investigation view the Tuesday arrests as a significant step forward in those cases.

The arrests are part of federal efforts to establish links between Moody and the 1989 bombings, according to one federal source who noted that the new charges are serious in themselves.

Both Vance and Robinson were killed with pipe bombs sent through the mail. According to investigators, those bombs resembled the one Moody was convicted of possessing in 1972. That similarity led investigators to suspect Moody, and for months, they have had him under surveillance.

In the 1972 case, federal prosecutors said Moody planned to send the bomb and an extortion note demanding $65,000 to an Atlanta car dealer who had repossessed his car. The bomb exploded when Moody’s wife accidentally opened the package at their home.

Staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington contributed to this story.