Workers Jested About Bomb Before Blast : Unabomber: Forestry Assn. staffers wondered aloud about suspicious package moments before it exploded, killing their boss. Officials stress that warning signs should not be ignored.

They talked about the strange package--even shook it--moments before it blewup and killed their boss.

Now, more than two months after the explosion, Bob Taylor recalls how he and several other staffers at the California Forestry Assn. sorted the mail that day in April, discussed the deadly package and wondered aloud about whether it was a bomb. Eventually, they left it with the group’s president, Gilbert Murray.

Wrapped tightly and neatly in brown paper, the shoebox-size parcel seemed unusually heavy. Taylor, a biologist, recalled how he joked nervously to co-workers: “I’m going back to my office before the bomb goes off.”

Within minutes, his jest turned into a deadly tragedy when the package exploded and killed Murray, the third and latest fatality of the infamous Unabomber.

The warning signs of the deadly package are now seared into Taylor’s memory, and his recollections of that hour before the blast serve as a chilling reminder of how easily the Unabomber’s handiwork has slid into the offices and homes of his unsuspecting victims.

Just 10 days ago, UC Berkeley psychology professor Tom R. Tyler opened a parcel from the Unabomber that carried only his writings, not an explosive device. Tyler opened the letter despite a week of intense publicity about the mail bomber and what officials called “telltale signs” on the package: It had excess postage, was heavily taped and was unexpected.

In fact, even the Unabomber has mocked his victims for opening the packages. David Gelernter, a Yale University computer sciences professor injured in 1993, got a follow-up letter two years later that said, in part: “People with advanced degrees aren’t as smart as they think they are.

“If you had any brains you would have realized that there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world and you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to open an unexpected package from an unknown source.”

Since the self-described anarchist began his string of bombings in 1978, 23 people have been injured and three have been killed. In recent weeks, a flurry of activity has put the spotlight on the case as the bomber threatened to blow up an airplane out of Los Angeles International Airport and sent out copies of his manifesto.

Since Sacramento was shaken by the bombing in April, the Forestry Assn. has moved to a higher-security building and employees remain deeply affected by the blast, which occurred just a few days after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

In an interview last week, the association’s Taylor sketched an inside glimpse of how events unfolded that tragic day.

Taylor said the regular receptionist was out and he and two other employees were sorting the mail in the association’s foyer when they came across the now unforgettable parcel.

Besides being heavy--authorities have estimated five or six pounds--Taylor said it was unusual for several other reasons: It was addressed to the group’s former President William Dennison, who had resigned a year earlier, and it used a 4-year-old name for the association. “So it was not clear what it was or why we were getting it,” Taylor said. “It’s clearly something this guy got off an old mailing list. Something caught his attention.”

He said the mysterious package was professionally addressed, apparently with a typewriter. One of his co-workers recalled an Oakland return address. Frank Ducar, a Postal Service spokesman, confirmed that the return address was a closet company in Oakland. The firm is real but has never been located in Oakland. One telephone call to directory assistance would have uncovered the fictitious address, he said.

“I squeezed it and it was rigid. I tried to figure out what it was,” Taylor said, recalling how the employees speculated that it might be a bomb.

“They even shook it a bit,” said Sacramento police homicide Lt. Joe Enloe.

Taylor said he and his co-workers debated whether the package should simply be forwarded to Murray’s predecessor, Dennison. But they left it up to the boss.

Murray, 46, arrived while the employees were sorting the mail. They voiced concern to him about the package and a secretary asked him what he wanted to do with it. According to Taylor, Murray said, “Let’s not send it on, let’s open it.”

That point was echoed in a Sacramento County coroner’s report on Murray’s death. An investigator said Murray told his employees that he would forward the package if it turned out to be important.

Taylor said he picked up his own mail and headed for his office. Murray was alone in the reception area, officials said, when the bomb went off. “I walked down to my office 60 feet away and tossed the mail on my desk and before I could sit down the bomb went off,” said Taylor.

Taylor said that despite much “soul searching,” it remains unclear to him why the association was targeted by the Unabomber. It is a nonprofit trade group that lobbies on behalf of wood products companies and commercial forest landowners. In 1993, it filed an unsuccessful petition asking the federal government to remove the northern spotted owl from the endangered species list.

Last week, a postal inspector asserted that the Unabomber’s anti-technology philosophy seemed similar to the views of radical environmental groups that often oppose the association’s positions. But any connection between the two was denounced last week by Earth First! spokesman Daryl Cherney. He said the bomber’s writings are not similar to his group’s philosophy. “We have been completely nonviolent to all living beings, including humans,” he said.

Taylor suggested that one lesson from the bombing is to be cautious of the mail. “People tend to not want to assume the worst about the mail,” he said.

His boss Murray, he recalled, “refused to accept that he had to go around with this suspicious view of the world.”

In the blast, bomb fragments were scattered throughout the association’s offices. In fact, Taylor said that when the group was moving recently, pieces of metal embedded in furniture were still being found. They were forwarded to the FBI as possible clues.

Authorities were at a loss to explain why intelligent people would go ahead and open a package they recognized as suspicious.

The first bomb traced to the Unabomber in 1978 went off after a suspicious package was turned over to campus police at Northwestern University. Even though it had a phony return address and was found in a parking lot, an investigating officer opened the parcel and it exploded. He suffered minor injuries.

Last December, advertising executive Thomas J. Mosser was killed after opening a videotape-size mail bomb delivered to his suburban New Jersey home. Just before he opened the package, Mosser reportedly asked his wife if she was expecting a parcel.

“I’ve heard many times where people would make a comment, ‘This looks like a bomb,’ and still open it,” said postal Inspector Dan Mihalko. “That’s one for the psychologists to answer. I guess people figure, ‘It can’t happen to me: I’m an intelligent person. I’m smarter than the bomber.’

“Or,” he said, perhaps “they don’t want to call the police and be embarrassed if it turns out to be nothing.”

Law enforcement officials have continually repeated the warning signs of mail bombs sent by the Unabomber or lesser known bombers. They encourage anyone to call police and refrain from opening a package if it has one or more of these characteristics:

* Weighs more than would be expected for the size of the package.

* Bears postage stamps in excess of the amount needed.

* Has been heavily taped.

* Arrives from an unknown address.

* Shows up unexpectedly.

Mihalko said his office investigates about 16 or 17 mail bombs a year--one for every 10 billion pieces of mail. More than 500 people each year report suspicious packages, he said, most of which turn out to be benign.

“We’d much rather respond to something that turns out to be a package full of clothes or an electronic gadget than respond to a crime scene where we have to pick up the pieces,” Mihalko said.

Gladstone reported from Sacramento and Paddock from San Francisco. Times staff writer Jenifer Warren in Sacramento contributed to this story.