AUSTIN, Texas _ Investigators who had devoted weeks to finding the Austin bomber moved fast in the hours after getting their most promising lead 18 days after the first bombing. An FBI crime analyst had matched a suspect's name with store receipts showing he bought the same items found in the explosive devices.
Property records showed he lived at a house just off Main Street in Pflugerville. He had no criminal record. His social media footprint was barren. Internet searches revealed no ties to radical groups.
The highest-ranking officials overseeing the investigation decided it was time to make their move. They hoped to get warrants to raid his house and arrest him. Nervous about information seeping out, they hand-picked a small team of investigators from two federal agencies _ the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives _ and the Austin Police Department to present their case to top leaders and prosecutors.
They crammed into a small conference room. Standing at a dry-erase board, Austin police homicide Detective Rolando Ramirez and several federal agents began listing everything linking the suspect to the bombings.
U.S. Attorney John Bash and Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore scrutinized their work.
"Things were moving fast," Moore said. "Our attention turned to, 'We've got to do this right. Everything has to be perfect. We have to be solid.'"
Investigators started with the biggest clue: The suspect drove a truck like the one a FedEx employee saw after the disguise-wearing bomber shipped two explosives.
By then, investigators had gone through hours of security video from a Fry's in North Austin. There was footage of the suspect strolling through the electronics aisles, tossing five batteries with "snap connectors" into a shopping basket _ just like the kind found in the bombs. Investigators then matched the customer in the security video with a driver's license photo of a clean-shaven young man in glasses. That left little doubt the suspect had been out shopping for bomb parts three days before the first explosion.
Surveillance video from a Fry's electronics store in North Austin on Feb. 27, 2018, shows Mark Conditt, who purchased materials for making bombs.
Investigators had also learned that the suspect had bought five "Drive Like Your Kids Live Here" signs March 13 at a Home Depot in Round Rock _ identical to the ones used to anchor a tripwire in the Travis Country blast five days later. In the same purchase, he bought a six-pack of pink work gloves that matched the pair the bomber wore to the FedEx store.
Based on the time of his Home Depot purchase, investigators backtracked and found more security video footage. Once again, the customer looked like the same person in the suspect's driver's license photo.
"There is information coming in so quick that even the command wasn't aware of all the information," said Fred Milanowski, special agent in charge of the Houston division of ATF, which includes Austin. "Once they got to about the sixth thing that tied this person, I was like, 'That's our guy. Now the big question is, 'Where is our guy?'"
