Palm Springs bombing investigation turns to the explosives: How were they sourced and built?

The suspect in Saturday’s bombing at a Palm Springs fertility clinic was a rocket hobbyist with radical views and an extraordinary amount of high-range explosives that appear to have been used with precision in his attack, law enforcement sources and blast experts told The Times.

The FBI said Monday that DNA testing confirmed that the 25-year-old suspect, Guy Edward Bartkus, was killed in the explosion that tore through the American Reproductive Centers building and injured four people in the resort city. The bombing, which occurred when the clinic was closed, is being investigated as an “act of intentional terrorism.”

An hour away, in the small desert town of Twentynine Palms, FBI agents continued to comb through a house that records indicate he shared with his mother, where they have recovered explosive materials, sources said. Nearby residents in the precautionary blast zone said some people were allowed to return to their homes Monday afternoon.

In the days after the bombing, it remains unclear how Bartkus acquired the massive deadly cache.

FBI agents are combing through a house that bombing suspect Guy Edward Bartkus occupied in Twentynine Palms, a small desert town that is also home to the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center

(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

Twentynine Palms is home to the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, which is touted as the largest Marine training base in the world. A spokesperson for the Marine Corps said Bartkus had no affiliation with the military branch. Capt. Johnathon Huizar, a spokesperson for the combat center, said there is also no record of Bartkus accessing the base.

Huizar would not comment on whether there have been any recent instances of lost or stolen explosives and instead directed The Times to submit a formal records request.

In 2021, 10 pounds of plastic explosives vanished from the Twentynine Palms base during a training exercise and were suspected stolen, according to news reports at the time. The material was ultimately recovered, according to news reports, but the military released little information about the episode. Huizar declined Monday to provide any additional information.

Scott Sweetow, a former bomb expert with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the suspect’s proximity to the military base will be a natural line of inquiry for investigators, who will interview people in Bartkus’ social networks, focusing on anyone with a security clearance that would provide access to explosives.

Materials from nearby military training areas and firing ranges can also be used to make explosives. Sweetow said he worked a similar case early in his ATF career, in which the suspects built pipe bombs from spent ammunition and used them in attacks across the Southland and as far away as Chicago.

“But if it turns out it’s from the internet, the dark web or a YouTube or something like that, there’s really little that you can do,” said Sweetow, who now runs a firm called S3 Global Consulting.

Hobbyists and others can buy most of the chemicals used to make explosives online. The Consumer Product Safety Commission regulates companies that sell the material, but there is little oversight of those who buy the chemicals that can be used to make explosives. One major vendor, Skylighter, warns customers that federal regulations require it to scrutinize all orders for possible use in constructing M80s and other illegal exploding fireworks.

The FBI has identified 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus as the suspect in an explosion that tore through the American Reproductive Centers building in Palm Springs.

(FBI)

Even if Bartkus were researching or buying up bomb-making materials without trying to cover his tracks online, the general public would be “disappointed or surprised to know there is no all-encompassing AI program or software that the government has used to screen their search histories,” Sweetow said.

Sweetow said he was struck by images of the blast scene in Palm Springs and that the bomb’s destructive force appeared to be focused in one direction. The explosives were detonated from inside a 2010 silver Ford Fusion sedan, according to authorities. Investigators are still determining whether Bartkus was inside or outside the vehicle at the time of the explosion. They said they believe he had attempted to livestream the bombing.

“Explosions generally radiate energy and effects in a 360-degree arc, but this scene appears to be focused into the building,” Sweetow said.

The suspect could have done this by parking his car with the trunk “angled so that it was facing the back of the building,” he said, adding that the suspect may not have understood the blast physics of what he was doing.

Based on testing the ATF conducted in the 1990s, investigators can determine a rough estimate of how many explosives it would take to produce a certain blast radius, he said.

“One pound will breach the gas tank, and if it’s a soft dirt below, it may leave a mark,” while 10 pounds would “obliterate the inside of the car,” Sweetow said. “Twenty pounds will punch through asphalt.”

The high intensity of the Palm Springs explosion narrows the list of potential bomb-making materials used, said the owner of one pyrotechnics company. That list includes ammonium nitrate, commonly available as a popular fertilizer at farm and garden stores. It was the chemical used, in large quantity, by Timothy McVeigh in bombing the Oklahoma federal building in 1995, killing 168 people. McVeigh detonated an improvised 4,800-pound, TNT-equivalent explosive device in a rented truck outside the building.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Bartkus was a rocket hobbyist, which Sweetow said will be of particular interest to investigators.

The suspect’s estranged father, Richard Bartkus, told The Times that his son had a fascination with fire as a child and once, as a 9-year-old, burned down the house they rented.

Access to commercial-grade materials for explosives is highly regulated, said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Assn.

“But you’re talking about what we call the hobbyist loophole,” she said, which allows anyone over 18 to buy small amounts of a large variety of explosive materials. “When there’s intent, there’s a way,” Heckman said.

An FBI official said the Palm Springs explosion was the largest in his memory, surpassing even the destruction seven years earlier in an Orange County case. In 2018, rocket hobbyist Stephen William Beal used a home-cooked package bomb to rig the explosion that killed his ex-girlfriend at her Aliso Viejo spa.

The car bomb that tore through a Palm Springs fertility clinic blew out windows in nearby establishments and spewed debris for blocks.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

That explosion tore out part of the building and sent body parts into the street. An FBI terrorism investigator said in court filings that police recovered 130 pounds of bomb-making chemicals, called precursors, from the garage of Beal’s Long Beach home.

Saturday’s explosion at the Palm Springs fertility clinic was many times larger, according to Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.

Investigators, they said, were looking into an array of online posts and materials potentially linked to the bombing, including social media, a manifesto published online, and a YouTube account mentioning explosives. A website that contained no name, but appears connected to the bombing, laid out the case for “a war against pro-lifers” and said a fertility clinic would be targeted.

Accompanying the website was a 30-minute audio file, labeled “pre,” that began with the speaker saying he would explain “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,” the speaker said.

Among the usernames associated with Bartkus’ email address was “Pyrotechnical,” which accompanied an avatar of a soldier with a red rose in its mouth.