Man charged with supplying chemicals to Palm Springs fertility clinic
bomber dies in custody
[June 25, 2025]
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Washington state man who was charged with aiding
the bomber of a fertility clinic in Southern California died Tuesday in
federal custody, just weeks after his arrest, prison officials said.
Daniel Park, 32, was accused of supplying chemicals to Guy Edward
Bartkus of California, the bomber, who died in the May 17 explosion.
Park, of suburban Seattle, was found unresponsive at the Metropolitan
Detention Center in Los Angeles Tuesday morning and was pronounced dead
at a hospital, the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. No cause of
death was provided.
The two men connected in fringe online forums over their shared beliefs
against human procreation, investigators said. The blast gutted the
clinic in Palm Springs, east of Los Angeles, and shattered the windows
of nearby buildings, with officials calling the attack terrorism. The
facility was closed, and no embryos were damaged.
Park shipped 180 pounds (about 82 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate to
Bartkus in January and bought another 90 pounds (about 41 kilograms) and
had it shipped to him days before the explosion, investigators said.
Park purchased ammonium nitrate online in several transactions between
October 2022 and May 2025, according to a federal complaint.
Authorities said Park traveled to Twentynine Palms, California, near
Palm Springs, to experiment with explosives in Bartkus’ garage months
before the attack.
Three days before Park visited him in January, Bartkus asked an AI chat
application about explosives, detonation velocity, diesel and gasoline
mixtures, the complaint said. The discussion centered on how to create
the most powerful blast.
Park was taken into custody at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on
June 3, after he was extradited from Poland, where he fled four days
after the attack. Park had been charged with providing and attempting to
provide material support to terrorists. He had been at Metropolitan
Detention Center since June 13, federal prison officials said.
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Debris covers the ground after an explosion on Saturday, May 17,
2025, in Palm Springs, Calif. (ABC7 Los Angeles via AP, File)
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California,
which is prosecuting the case, referred questions about Park’s death
to the Bureau of Prisons.
Park and Bartkus bonded over a “shared belief that people shouldn’t
exist,” Akil Davis, the FBI’s assistant director in charge, said
earlier this month.
They believed in anti-natalism, a fringe theory that opposes
childbirth and population growth and contends that people should not
continue to procreate. Officials said Bartkus intentionally targeted
the American Reproductive Centers, a clinic that provides services
to help people get pregnant, including in vitro fertilization and
fertility evaluations.
Park appeared to be a frequent poster in an anti-natalist Reddit
forum going back nearly a decade, according to court papers. In
2016, he spoke of recruiting others to the movement, which he
described as hopeful.
According to court papers, he wrote: “When people are lost and
distraught, death is always an option.”
Relatives told federal investigators that Park had made
“pro-mortalist” statements since high school, according to the
complaint.
More recently, in March, he posted in the forum to say he was
seeking to find fellow anti-natalists in and around Washington state
to “start some protests or just any in-person events,” according to
court papers. The post did not receive any public comments.
The Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles is also
used to detain people arrested for immigration violations. It's been
the site of many recent protests over President Donald Trump's
immigration crackdown, and Trump has deployed the National Guard to
stand guard outside the facility.
___
Durkin Richer reported from Washington, D.C.
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