A man accused of assisting in the bombing of a fertility clinic in California has died while in custody, officials confirmed on Tuesday.
Daniel Park, 32, was charged with supplying bomb-making materials to Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, who was killed when a car exploded outside the Palm Springs clinic on 17 May. The blast, which occurred in the desert city east of Los Angeles, left four others injured and caused extensive damage to the clinic.
No details regarding Park’s cause of death have been released.
According to investigators, Park and Bartkus connected online and shared extremist “pro-mortalist” and “anti-natalist” ideologies. The US Justice Department previously stated that Bartkus believed “individuals should not be born without their consent and that non-existence is preferable,” an ideology Park also reportedly embraced.
Following the attack, Park fled to Europe but was later arrested in Poland at the request of US authorities. He was extradited to the United States to face terrorism-related charges.
Since his recent arrest, Park had been held in federal custody in Los Angeles. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that he was found unresponsive in his cell on Tuesday. Despite attempts to resuscitate him, he was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Park, a Seattle resident, was accused of shipping around 180 pounds (approximately 80 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate—a key component for homemade explosives—to Bartkus. Investigators also revealed that the pair had conducted bomb-making experiments together earlier this year in Bartkus’s hometown of Twentynine Palms, California.
