Man charged with supplying chemicals to Palm Springs fertility clinic bomber dies in custody

LOS ANGELES -- A Washington authorities antheral who was charged with aiding the bomber of a fertility session successful Southern California died Tuesday successful national custody, conscionable weeks aft his arrest, situation officials said.

Daniel Park, 32, was accused of supplying chemicals to Guy Edward Bartkus of California, the bomber, who died successful the May 17 explosion.

Park, of suburban Seattle, was recovered unresponsive astatine the Metropolitan Detention Center successful Los Angeles Tuesday greeting and was pronounced dormant astatine a hospital, the Bureau of Prisons said successful a statement. No origin of decease was provided.

The 2 men connected successful fringe online forums implicit their shared beliefs against quality procreation, investigators said. The blast gutted the clinic successful Palm Springs, eastbound of Los Angeles, and shattered the windows of adjacent buildings, with officials calling the onslaught terrorism. The installation was closed, and nary embryos were damaged.

Park shipped 180 pounds (about 82 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus successful January and bought different 90 pounds (about 41 kilograms) and had it shipped to him days earlier the explosion, investigators said. Park purchased ammonium nitrate online successful respective transactions betwixt October 2022 and May 2025, according to a national complaint.

Authorities said Park traveled to Twentynine Palms, California, adjacent Palm Springs, to experimentation with explosives successful Bartkus’ store months earlier the attack.

Three days earlier Park visited him successful January, Bartkus asked an AI chat exertion astir explosives, detonation velocity, diesel and gasoline mixtures, the ailment said. The treatment centered connected however to make the astir almighty blast.

Park was taken into custody astatine New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport connected June 3, aft helium was extradited from Poland, wherever helium fled 4 days aft the attack. Park had been charged with providing and attempting to supply worldly enactment to terrorists. He had been astatine Metropolitan Detention Center since June 13, national situation officials said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, which is prosecuting the case, referred questions astir Park’s decease to the Bureau of Prisons.

Park and Bartkus bonded implicit a “shared content that radical shouldn’t exist,” Akil Davis, the FBI’s adjunct manager successful charge, said earlier this month.

They believed successful anti-natalism, a fringe mentation that opposes childbirth and colonisation maturation and contends that radical should not proceed to procreate. Officials said Bartkus intentionally targeted the American Reproductive Centers, a session that provides services to assistance radical get pregnant, including successful vitro fertilization and fertility evaluations.

Park appeared to beryllium a predominant poster successful an anti-natalist Reddit forum going backmost astir a decade, according to tribunal papers. In 2016, helium spoke of recruiting others to the movement, which helium described arsenic hopeful.

According to tribunal papers, helium wrote: “When radical are mislaid and distraught, decease is ever an option.”

Relatives told national investigators that Park had made “pro-mortalist” statements since precocious school, according to the complaint.

More recently, successful March, helium posted successful the forum to accidental helium was seeking to find chap anti-natalists successful and astir Washington authorities to “start immoderate protests oregon conscionable immoderate in-person events,” according to tribunal papers. The station did not person immoderate nationalist comments.

The Metropolitan Detention Center successful downtown Los Angeles is besides utilized to detain radical arrested for migration violations. It's been the tract of galore caller protests implicit President Donald Trump's migration crackdown, and Trump has deployed the National Guard to basal defender extracurricular the facility.

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Durkin Richer reported from Washington, D.C.