“I just don’t get why it took so long for you to turn it over to the FBI,” said a UW-Madison political science student as he peered over the pages of Wednesday’s Badger Herald, which announced the Herald had received a manifesto signed by Lucas Helder.
The FBI picked the letter up from the Herald office on Gorham Street Tuesday afternoon, and Helder was apprehended shortly after, though the events had no real connection (as hard as Reuters wire service tried to draw a connection).
Now, Helder’s letter is an extraordinary piece of evidence; before he became an FBI suspect, it was just another press release — junk mail, even. With no return address and no business letterhead, Helder’s eight-page anti-government essay was untraceable and completely un-newsworthy.
Although the Herald only gets roughly two dozen personally addressed letters every day, news organizations are all but flooded by messages similar to Helder’s. Printed government press releases may be diminishing as electronic news alerts gain frequency, but private letters have only become more prevalent since October’s anthrax scares.
The FBI would probably get sick of newsrooms if every sketchy piece of mail, offbeat news tip or unmarked videocassette was turned over to it. One of the most quality specimens the Herald has received this semester is an audiocassette the FBI certainly would not want. Encased in just cardboard and Scotch Tape, the cassette has a little typewritten note on it.
“Dear News Staff,” is written in blue ballpoint pen, followed by typewritten, “The tape has predicted nuclear terrorism coming to America and it names some cities targeted. Please get this message out soon.”
It contains a famous sermon by the Rev. Billy Graham.
Has the media become more wary or conscious of unwanted press releases? “One in four Americans are leery of opening junk mail since the anthrax scare began,” the Denver Post reported in November. Almost six months later, the fad of white gloves in the mailroom may be waning.
However well-constructed — it contains watermarks and bolded text and appears to be very consciously formatted — Helder’s letter bears striking resemblance to . . . um . . . any other sketchy letter a news organization gets every day.
No sources can say why Helder chose to send his letter to the Herald, but an Omaha hotel clerk said the UW-Stout junior sent out a stack of similar letters, casting doubt on the sentiment that the Herald was alone.
“This is someone who thought he had a deep message and thought he could contribute in some way if only he had a vehicle,” Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino, told The New York Times.
Putting out an unappealing letter to media may not have been the best vehicle for Helder’s message, especially in the fading wake of America’s anthrax mail scare.
“He wanted to get caught,” said Levin.
FBI tracking of Helder’s cell phone led to his arrest, not a letter to The Badger Herald. Poor planning or too many press releases? It only took one day for the Herald to realize the letter’s significance, but no one here would have thought the letter significant at all if Helder’s name weren’t signed and the letter the mail bomber included in several rural mailboxes were not enclosed. At least he did that right.
