Los Angeles Times

Austin bomber had list of future targets and a room at home to manufacture bombs

PFLUGERVILLE, Texas - Investigators have discovered that the serial bomber who terrorized Austin in recent weeks had a list of future targets and had set up a room in his home to manufacture bombs, officials said Wednesday.

After hundreds of investigators swarmed Austin in recent days to stop the serial bomber terrorizing Texas' capitol city, it was a combination of high-tech surveillance and old-fashioned shoe-leather that led officials to Mark Anthony Conditt, native Texan who had no apparent motive or criminal record.

The six bombs used similar components that made it easy for officials to link the devices: unusual batteries, apparently purchased online from Asia, and nails used as shrapnel, according to U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Trying to find the buyer of the nails, officials "went to every hardware store" in the area to find buyers who had made large purchases, and they struck gold with a Home Depot store in the Austin suburb of Round Rock, McCaul said in an interview

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