A Life Wasted

Deception as a Tactic

I was heavily influenced by the ancient Chinese classic, "The Art of War." I particularly liked the concept of using deception as a tactic. In my mind I was alone and at war against a superior force. It would be suicide to attack this enemy head-on so guerrilla warfare was my only course. Since I was further inhibited by my inability to harm anyone, my options were further limited. I did consider the possibility of property destruction, namely destroying clinics, yet even this I choose to avoid over concern that someone would be harmed. Even were I able to ensure no one was in or near the building there was always the possibility that a fireman could be killed fighting a fire I had caused.

When you eliminate everything that could harm a person all I had left to fight with was deception. This appealed to my vanity because to fight with deception I would have to out-smart my opponent. I have always believed my brain was my greatest asset, so I was confident as I moved in this new direction.

I knew from what I had read that those in the abortion industry were afraid of me. The impact of my threat letter was evidence of this. There were also two cases where I had been spotted near a clinic and the clinic was closed as a result. The first time it had falsely been reported that I had been seen in a group of protesters, which caused the clinic to close. I read about this and found it interesting, so the next time I spotted protestors I joined them and allowed myself to be seen. The results were so crazy that I never tried that again, but it was a proof of concept. They were scared of me. I think this had to do with the fact that I wasn't simply a nameless possible threat, but a threat with a face that they had all memorized.

Something I don't think I mentioned is that during my trial in Illinois I told my jury that my only regret was that I had been caught before killing at least one abortion doctor. (If that's not proof of insanity I don't know what is). So when I escaped a month later everyone assumed I planned on carrying out that threat. Understandably. So they had reason to be scared of me. My plan was to take advantage of this. This is what I would build my deception on.

The first thing I did was historic research. I studied past clinic violence to see what types of violence had been effectively used by others. Burning down a building was the most common tactic. After that it was bombs and guns. What I decided to do was to make it look like I was going to employ those tactics as a way of stirring things up. So I built a bomb. I didn't know how to build a bomb so what I came up with was a basic pipe filled with black powder with a fuse pulled from a large firecracker. I have no idea if it would actually explode, but it looked good. I also had a rifle. It too looked good with its high-dollar scope and bipod. My plan was simple. First I put my finger prints on the rifle and bullets, as well as on the bomb. Had to make sure they knew it was me for this to work. Next I would find a clinic with the right setup and stage either the rifle or the bomb near it so looked like I had planned an attack but abandoned it for an unknown reason.

Easy peasy. Instant deception with minimal risk for me and no risk that someone would get hurt by accident. And all it cost was equipment that I wasn't going to use anyway.