Photos: Austin bomber buying items at Fry’s Electronics
AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) — Long before bomber Mark Anthony Conditt was captured on a FedEx store surveillance camera Sunday night, federal agents already had video of Conditt as part of the existing bombing investigation that started March 2.
Investigators with KXAN, WISH-TV’s sister station, uncovered surveillance video from an electronics store in Austin on Wednesday and learned the ATF had already obtained the video with a subpoena nearly two weeks ago. That’s according to Jen Meyer, the manager of Fry’s Electronics, located in north Austin at 12707 N. MoPac Expressway.
“They were looking for any invoices that we may have or surveillance video that we may have on him,” Meyers told KXAN Investigator Jody Barr.
That “him” was Mark Conditt, Meyer confirmed.
Agents wanted to see all the receipts and surveillance video for every person who’d purchased similar items to parts found in exploded package bombs, Meyer said.
Meyer’s company went through hours of video and receipts to match dates and times of purchases to the dates and time of surveillance video from inside the store.
Meyer said agents had told her the subpoena was related to the Austin serial bomber when agents delivered the subpoena “about a week and a half ago,” Meyer told KXAN. Agents we back at the store “almost daily since,” Meyer said.
Fry’s Electronics invoices show a single purchase with a credit card belonging to Conditt on Feb. 27, Meyer said. That was three days before the first bombing that killed Anthony Stephan House in northeast Austin.
The receipt shows Conditt purchased: 10 resistors, 5 battery cases, and additional “electrical components,” Fry’s Electronics confirmed to KXAN. Those parts are consistent with pieces used in bomb making, Meyers said the ATF relayed to her.
In the store surveillance video, Conditt spends around 20 minutes inside, shopping on both ends of an aisle in the section marked “Electrical Components” before walking to the register to pay for his purchase. The video shows Conditt being stopped by a Fry’s Electronics worker at the door to check his receipt.
The video ends with Conditt walking out the exit doors.
“He looked like several customers we have in the store every day. So, it just made me think it could have been anybody that shops in our store on a daily basis and it made me want to help them [ATF] in any way we could,” Meyer said.
Meyer told KXAN the ATF was back at the electronics store Tuesday a short time after agents found surveillance video of Conditt inside a Brodie Lane FedEx Office store, delivering two package bombs to be delivered to Austin addresses.
