Man Appears in Court on Charges of Mailing Bomb

A Costa Mesa man charged with mailing a parcel bomb that exploded and severely injured a Santa Ana man Friday made his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Monday.

Darryl Anthony Carr, 34, a car painter and former electrical engineering student, did not enter a formal plea but has denied mailing the bomb that, authorities say, injured the roommate of a man whom prosecutors say rebuffed his romantic advance. Carr was arrested on federal mail bomb charges after he was caught Saturday throwing away a pipe similar to the device that exploded at the Santa Ana residence, according to court records.

Peter Marshall was listed Monday in stable but guarded condition at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana after suffering injuries to his hand, arm and abdomen in the blast that shattered windows and rattled nearby apartment units.

The parcel was marked as a birthday gift for a person who uses the name “Jenny,” but instead, Marshall opened the box, according to a court affidavit filed by U.S. postal inspectors working on the case.

Authorities say the intended victim told them to investigate Carr, who he said also may have engaged in similar attacks on one of his close friends in Huntington Beach, the affidavit states. The man, investigators say, works as a prostitute and Carr had been a client who grew angry over his other liaisons.

Santa Ana police detectives found a postmark among the debris and tracked the parcel back to a Huntington Beach post office. There, a clerk who remembered the man who mailed it gave them a description matching Carr, the affidavit states.

Postal inspectors trailing Carr on Saturday watched him leave his Costa Mesa apartment with a brown paper bag and, when they stopped him, found a length of steel pipe that matched the pipe used in the parcel bomb, the document states.

When questioned, Carr insisted that he did not mail the bomb, and said instead that he visited the post office branch to ship a package of pornographic material, according to the affidavit. The document states that Carr told the inspectors that “he has feelings for Jenny” and was upset by his other boyfriends.