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CNN Live Today

Authorities Apprehend Pipe Bomb Suspect; Excerpts From Writing

Aired May 08, 2002 - 10:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: First up this hour on CNN, federal authorities called in -- they called it, rather, domestic terrorism, and across the Midwest the fear looms as close as the curb. After days of pipe bombings and anti-government ranting, federal authorities say that they have the man behind the multi-state campaign, a 21-year- old art student at a small Wisconsin college.

Our Charles Feldman is standing by now in Reno, Nevada. That happens to be where Luke Helder is now in jail -- good morning.

CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. And we understand, first of all, that it was as you said. It was a high- speed chase. We understand that they located him partly because of some cell phone transmissions. And he is in jail here in Reno in this building behind me.

And let me bring in the sheriff here -- good morning and thank you for joining us.

SHERIFF DENNIS BALAAM, WASHOE COUNTY, NEVADA: Good morning. How are you?

FELDMAN: Fine. I am told, in fact I was told by you when we talked earlier that the young gentleman is on a suicide watch now. Tell us a little bit about that and why.

Well, as inmates are brought in here, either the arresting agency, our medical staff or our staff determine if in fact there is a concern of cause and harm to themselves. In this particular incident, he had threatened suicide, and so at the request of the FBI, he was placed on a suicide watch, which is monitored 100 percent of the time on camera and then checked 15 minutes by our staff.

FELDMAN: Now, am I correct that there was a gun found in the car that he was driving, as well as some explosive material?

BALAAM: Right. He did have a weapon in the car, and there was some explosives found in the car. Our bomb team went out and neutralized that, and our FIS team went out and processed the scene there.

FELDMAN: And you heard me mention that one of the ways that he was located was by cell phone. So that's because -- what -- when you get on one of these little cell phones, it sends out a signal, and they traced him that way?

BALAAM: Well, whenever you are using a cell phone, across these cell sites show up. And when you are using a particular cell site, you move from different parts of the country, those trigger those, and they are able to trace what cell site it is hitting in order to transmit.

FELDMAN: Now, what happens now, as we understand it, is he is going to be moved from here shortly to the court downtown, is that right?

BALAAM: Right. He is at the Washoe County Sheriff's office. He will be moved by the U.S. Marshals from here down to the federal courthouse in downtown Reno.

FELDMAN: And he'll be arraigned before a magistrate. And then how long do you think he is going to be staying here?

BALAAM: I would imagine it will be a relatively short period of time. He is booked here on Iowa charges out of the district of Iowa of federal charges, and I am sure that the U.S. Marshals will get him back into that area in a relatively short time. And that's anywhere from three to five days.

FELDMAN: Sheriff, thank you very much and thank you for taking the time this morning. And so that's the latest. And as you heard, the next step in the legal process will be an arraignment later this morning before a federal magistrate here in Reno, Nevada. That's it -- Charles Feldman, CNN, live from Reno.

HARRIS: And, Charles, before you go, the sheriff there just about answered the question I was going to ask you. Since this Helder is going to be accused of having committed crimes in a number of different states, do we know exactly where he is going to stay and where he might be held -- be standing trial, at least?

FELDMAN: What I was told is that it is more likely that, or most likely that it will be in Iowa, because that's the jurisdiction that brought the first charges against him. And then what typically happens in these federal cases that go across state lines is they may be a bit of a battle among different U.S. attorneys to see who is going to take the lead in prosecuting. But at the moment, it looks like it's going to Iowa.

HARRIS: All right. Well, we will wait for the next step on this story. Charles Feldman, thank you very much -- reporting live in Reno, Nevada.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Word of Luke Helder's arrest has reverberated across the campus of the University of Wisconsin at Stout. That is where Helder was enrolled as a junior majoring in art and industrial design.

CNN's Jeff Flock has been talking to students there. He joins us with the reaction. Jeff, it seems like if you could think about anyone in America who might have done, the person who alleged to have done it is just about the last person a lot of people would have suspected.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You are right, Daryn. It just does not compute with the people that we talked to here in Menomonie, which is where Helder has spent the past three years at school. This is his apartment complex back here. Nobody that lived with him here knew that Luke Helder.

We just talked in the last hour to the place where he worked. He worked for Service Master, cleaning office buildings here in town. They said they did a background check on him when he got hired about a year ago, and that turned up nothing. They said that he had never said anything anti-government or anything. He was a nice guy according them.

I also just talked to the spokesman for the university here, the University of Wisconsin-Stout, who says that his check of Helder's record turned up absolutely nothing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ENGER, SPOKESMAN, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-STOUT: We had no indication whatsoever that there was a potential problem here. There is no record of any kind of student discipline, no arrests or citations at the university, nothing to indicate that this was in the offing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLOCK: Also to his roommate freshman year, someone who knew him well, who saw him just a few weeks ago, said he was perfectly normal. He also said that a pipe bomber and a person ranting against the government was not the Luke Helder he knew.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT DECORSY, SUSPECT'S FORMER ROOMMATE: Not at all. This is the farthest thing I could see him doing, something like this. He was, you know, like I said, a really nice kid. And I just don't see him being violent like this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLOCK: Still, as Charles Feldman reports, the evidence mounts. The other piece of evidence that came here to Wisconsin was a letter allegedly sent by Helder, postmarked on the 3rd of this month. That was the day the pipe bombings began, postmarked Omaha, Nebraska. And that letter said to the student -- it was sent to the student newspaper in Madison that he was essentially on a suicide mission.

A portion of that we may have for you. He says: "I'm dismissing a few individuals from reality to change all of you for the better. Surely you can understand my logic. I will die/change in the end for this, but that's OK, ha ha. Paradise awaits. It sounds kind of crazy, and the people here say that is not the Luke Helder they knew.

One final perhaps piece of light that we can shed on it, we have got some pictures of Luke Helder from the Web site for his band. It was a band called Apathy. The best we can tell, it broke up about a year or so ago. If you see the Luke Helder in those pictures, not at all like the man you saw apprehended out in Nevada, long hair, long blonde hair, looking like his idol. Kurt Cobain was his idol in the group, Nirvana, his favorite band. He tried to model Apathy after Nirvana. And in fact, when he was arrested near Nevada, he was wearing a Kurt Cobain T-shirt.

Some have suggested that perhaps it was his music that sowed some of the seeds of that. We have been trying to listen to it. It's kind of hard to make out the lyrics. We will get back to you perhaps when we know more. That's the latest here from Menomonie, Wisconsin -- Daryn, Leon, back to you.

KAGAN: Jeff, thanks for the background on Luke Helder. I happen to have a copy of the entire letter that he sent to the school paper, "The Badger Herald." It's basically a manifesto, and there are some shocking things in there, not the least of which he signed his name, and perhaps...

(CROSSTALK)

FLOCK: I know. You know, there wasn't a whole lot of other evidence. And it's funny, this letter, other than his dad who sort of indicated he kind of knew where his son was coming from maybe, but that letter is evidence right there. And as you say, it is pretty extensive.

KAGAN: At the end of the letter he signs it, "Luke Helder." In the beginning, it starts with: "Mailboxes are exploding. Why you ask?" And yes, it's not going to help this young man.

We are going to talk to the editor of the school paper coming up in the next hour.

Jeff Flock, thank you so much for the latest in Wisconsin. As I mentioned, the editor from the school paper, from "The Badger Herald" is coming up with us in the next hour. And then about 10 minutes from now, we are going to talk with a former FBI profiler who had a key role in identifying the Unabomber -- get his insights into this case.

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