A suspect believed to have carried out the bombing outside a California fertility clinic on Saturday has been identified as 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus.
Bartkus has been named as a suspect in the bombing outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic, two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told KCAL News.
The bombing, just outside the American Reproductive Center in Palm Springs around 11 a.m., left one person dead and several others injured. The blast gutted the IVF clinic, which was housed in a single-story building.
Authorities have described the suspect as having “nihilistic intentions.” It has been confirmed that Bartkus acted alone. His car was a 2010 silver Ford Fusion.
“That’s critical because we need the public’s help in identifying the gaps in our investigation. We know where Mr. Bartkus was at about 6 a.m. We know the timeline of when he entered the city; However, we need the public’s help for identifying where he traversed within the city before the explosion,” Akil Davis, the head of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said Sunday.
Sources told KCAL that Bartkus allegedly stated in writings and recordings that he was against bringing people into the world against their will.
In one writing, Bartkus described being a “pro-mortalist” as someone who intends to bring about their own death as soon as possible in order “to prevent your future suffering, and, more importantly, the suffering your existence will cause to all the other sentient beings.”
In addition to his writings, Bartkus also recorded a 30-minute audio clip describing his motives.
“I figured I would just make a recording explaining why I’ve decided to bomb an IVF building or clinic. Basically, it just comes down to I’m angry that I exist and that, you know, nobody got my consent to bring me here,” he said in the recording.
Bartkus went on to say that he was “angry” that IVF clinics exist.
“These are people who are having kids after they’ve sat there and thought about it. How much more stupid can it get?” he says.
In an interview with The New York Times, Bartkus’ father, Richard Bartkus, said that he had not spoken to his son in more than ten years.
The elder Bartkus also said that his son liked to play with matches, “stink bombs” and “smoke bombs” in his teens.
“Nothing major, nothing like a ‘bomb’ bomb, but he’d build rockets, shoot them in the air,” he added.
On another occasion, the suspect set fire to the family home, Richard Bartkus said in a separate interview with KTLA.
“After he had burned the house down, he started changing a little bit, he’d light fires. I was too strict for him, so he wanted to stay with Mom until the divorce came through. Mom was lenient,” he said.
He added that his son was easily influenced by others.
Dr. Maher Abdallah, who runs the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic where the explosion occurred, told The Associated Press in a phone interview that all of his staff were safe and accounted for.
The explosion damaged the practice’s office space, where it conducts consultations with patients, but left the IVF lab and all of the stored embryos there unharmed.
The incident is being investigated as an act of terrorism, officials said.
The sources said Bartkus is a resident of Twentynine Palms, home to a large marine base about an hour from Palm Springs. The FBI and San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies have also searched Bartkus’ home.
Bartkus attempted to record or live stream, a source told the AP.
According to several reports, the suspect died in the attack.
“Make no mistake: This is an intentional act of terrorism,” Davis said Saturday.
“[This is] probably one of the largest bombing investigations that we’ve had in Southern California,” Davis added.
The FBI did not say how it determined the explosion was an act of terrorism, or provide details about the writings left behind, or a possible motive in the attack.
An AK-47 and an AR-platform rifle were recovered from the scene of the explosion.
Officials have said that the explosion damaged buildings several blocks away. The car's engine was blown onto the other side of the street.
A local gallery owner, Tim Prendergast, told The Los Angeles Times that he thought the explosion was an earthquake.
“I was on Palm Canyon, and I saw the upper torso of a full body. There were a lot of body parts, but they were all radiating away from the explosion of the car. I also noticed the hundreds and thousands of pieces of car parts radiating in every direction from the car circular pattern that was only interrupted by the back facade of the American Reproductive Center,” he told the newspaper.
Authorities are set to provide more information during a news conference Sunday at 10 a.m. local time.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
