Community Police & Fire
California clinic bomber mentioned Fox Island murder victim in his online manifesto
Guy Edward Bartkus, the 25-year-old man whom authorities say detonated a bomb outside a California fertility clinic on May 17, said in an online manifesto that he was close friends with the victim of an April 20 homicide on Fox Island.
Bartkus died in the explosion outside an American Reproductive Centers clinic in Palm Springs, California.
Sophie Tinney
Investigators subsequently found a website and audio recording that they attributed to Bartkus. Published reports indicate that the recording mentioned the recent death of Sophie.
Investigators believe he was referring to Sophie Tinney, 27, who Pierce County deputies say was shot and killed by her boyfriend Lars Eugene Nelson On April 20 on Fox Island.
“I’ve never related to someone so much, and can’t imagine I ever would again,” Bartkus said, according to a Los Angeles Times story.
Guy Edward Bartkus. FBI photo
Pierce County prosecutors charged Nelson, 29, with second-degree murder on April 22. The incident occurred on the 800 block of Fox Drive on Fox Island.
Pierce County deputies said in April that Nelson called 911 to report the shooting as a suicide. But Tinney died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head, which is “inconsistent with her allegedly (dying by) suicide,” according to a probable cause statement filed by prosecutors.
Tinney’s family told investigators that she considered suicide on multiple previous occasions. They indicated that she may have coerced Nelson into killing her in lieu of taking her own life, documents indicated.
Bizarre views
The Los Angeles Times story indicated that Bartkus believed he could not go on after Tinney’s death.
“If one of us died, the other would probably soon follow,” the author wrote. “It’s just too much of a loss when there’s nobody else you really relate to significantly.”
Published reports attribute a variety of bizarre political views to Bartkus, including that he was “anti-natalist” — a belief that people should not procreate. Those views likely influenced his choice of target.
“Basically I’m anti-life. And IVF is like kind of the epitome of pro-life ideology,” Bartkus said in his audio recording, according to the New York Post.