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Pipe Bomber Wanted to Make 'Smiley Face' Pattern on Map NewsMax.com WiresRENO, Nev. – The college student who has admitted putting pipe bombs in mailboxes told authorities he was trying to make a "smiley face" pattern on the map, a sheriff said Thursday. The first 16 bombs were arranged in two circles, one in Illinois and Iowa and the other in Nebraska. The final two bombs, in Colorado and Texas, form an arc that could be the beginning of a smile, the Associated Press noted. "There was a comment made to one of my officers about his hope to make a smiley face when he was all finished," Pershing County Sheriff Ron Skinner said. Skinner said Luke Helder made the comments to an undercover county officer shortly after his arrest outside Reno on Tuesday. He Thinks He's Cute "His demeanor was very jovial. He didn't seem to be taking anything seriously at the time," the sheriff said. Helder's parents held a tearful 30-minute meeting with their son at a jail in Reno Thursday as doubts about the accused mailbox bomber's mental stability continued to grow. A family spokesman said Helder asked his mother during the meeting if she thought he might wind up in prison for the short-lived crime spree that left six people injured and rattled the nerves of countless rural residents in the Midwest and West. "His mother has just been so worried," said Father Dennis Kamps of St. Michael's Church in Helder's hometown of Pine Island, Minn. "She said the first thing he said to her was, 'Do you think I'm going to jail for this?'" "It has been very emotional and very difficult for them," Kamps added. Helder was being held without bail at Washoe County Jail after appearing late Wednesday before a magistrate who declared that the youthful defendant standing before him in an orange prison jumpsuit "suffers from some apparent mental health problems." Helder was arrested Tuesday along Interstate 80 in northern Nevada just hours after the FBI issued an all-points bulletin for the Minnesotan sought for the 18 pipe bombs in mailboxes along country roads in five states. He waited Thursday for federal marshals to transfer him to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he will face two charges in the May 3 blast that left a Tipton, Iowa woman hospitalized. In all, six of the devices exploded, injuring four letter carriers and two people who had been picking up their daily mail. Anti-government, anti-capitalism letters found with the devices led the FBI to treat the bombings as acts of domestic terrorism. "We were here to see our son in his hour of need," said Helder's father, Cameron Helder. "This will be a long process," he said. ""It has been very hard on us. Our heart goes out to the families" of the injured. Helder appeared upbeat on Wednesday as he made his first court appearance. He grinned at reporters as he left Washoe County Jail on his way to the courthouse. But the gravity of his predicament reportedly has been sinking in. "He was smiling and very cordial," said Washoe County Sheriff Dennis Balaam. "I think he understands that he is in trouble, but maybe not to the degree that he should." Copyright 2002 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
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