Two people have died in the past three weeks from a series of bombings in the Austin region that have stumped law enforcement and put people on the alarm, until now.

For 19 days packages would show up at Austin residents’ homes and explode. These attacks started on March 2. The first three attacks followed a common pattern. A package would be left on a doorstep and when the resident came to retrieve the package, it would explode. The first bomb killed 39 year old Anthony Stephens. The second and third bombings took place on March 12. The second of two fatalities happened during the second bombing, which killed 17 year old Draylen Mason. The third bombing injured a 75 year old woman. Both Stephens and Mason where African American and the woman is Hispanic. This lead some to believe that the attacks were racially motivated. Also, all three of the first bombs were not delivered by a commercial shipping company.

The next bombings took a different approach and different targets. Instead of a package, a tripwire was set up on a street sign that blew up and injured two men, 22 and 23, both white. The next bomb did not reach a Austin home, but instead blew up on a FedEx conveyor belt in San Antonio, TX two days after the tripwire incident.  

Up until this point the prime suspect remained anonymous, until police used security camera footage at the FedEx property to identify a man dressed in a blonde wig and pink gloves carrying two packages. With this footage, a forensics team confirmed that the bombs were made from standard household appliances, and investigators used receipts from various hardware stores and eye witness accounts to identify the suspect. When police closed in on a van believed to belong to the suspect, 23 year old Mark Anthony Conditt stepped out of the vehicle as the van blew up. Conditt was either killed by the blast or an officers gunfire on March 21. A confession video where Conditt explained how the bombs we made,developed and what they were made out of was found. Most recently two of his roommates have been arrested. As of March  25, there has been no definitive motive found for the attacks.