FBI Still Searching For One Suspect In 1970 UW Bombing
http://www.wisn.com/12newsinvestigates/25803520/detail.html
David Schuster Shares His Survival Story
November 15, 2010
Forty years after a bombing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
the FBI is still getting new leads about the one suspect who was never caught.
In his first television interview in 40 years, a survivor of the
blast tells his story, exclusively to 12 News Kent Wainscott.
For survivor David Schuster, and for a nation gripped by anti-war
sentiment, everything changed on that August morning -- in a flash.
"It's not clear why I survived. I was about as close as I could be,"
Schuster said.
Schuster was a University of Wisconsin graduate student in 1970,
working the graveyard shift in a physics lab.
Several floors above him was the Army Mathematics Research Center,
which had been a focus of the anti-war movement that had consumed the
UW-Madison campus.
At 3:40 a.m., Schuster was returning to his lab on the ground floor
of Sterling Hall. Seconds later, the blast of a massive truck bomb,
parked just outside the wall of Schuster's office, tore through the building.
"The next thing I remember is waking up in the dark and the cold with
a loud ringing in my ears, completely buried under something or
other," Schuster said.
The blast killed fellow researcher Robert Fassnacht, and just 15-feet
away, it sent much of Sterling Hall crashing down on top of Schuster.
In the interview, he described being pinned under the rubble.
"I must have been shielded from a direct blast by a building support
pillar I was behind, and then, the rubble itself, which all
collapsed. Apparently, there was a twisted door frame, which held it
off my head. The rest of me was buried," Schuster said.
He was scarred by shrapnel. His shoulder was broken, and his kidney
injured. His hearing was permanently damaged, and when he regained
consciousness, he found himself trapped beneath the debris as
firefighters worked to rescue him.
"It was extreme, most of us were horrified that someone had been
killed. Most of us were horrified that a building had been blown up,"
UW-Madison professor Joe Elder said.
Elder was an active member of a group of faculty anti-war protesters.
He said the bombers were unknown to most in the campus peace movement.
"And the one thing we were puzzled about was: 'Who on earth did we
know who might have done that?'" Elder said.
Within days, four bombing suspects were identified, but all four
escaped Madison.
At the time, the UW Board of Regents issued a $100,000 reward for
information leading to the capture of those involved with the bombing.
Over the next several years, brothers Karl and Dwight Armstrong and
David Fine were all captured and served time. But one bomber, Leo
Burt, has never been found.
"The last really hard location that Leo Burt was at was in September
of 1970 -- two weeks after the bombing in Petersborough, Ontario,
Canada, outside of Toronto," FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Cole said.
Cole said Burt has remained one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives
since the moment J. Edgar Hoover personally initiated the manhunt.
At the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., bureau officials told
Wainscott there may be signs of progress in the search for Burt.
New attention to the case on the 40th anniversary, and a $150,000
reward, have led to a series of new tips to the FBI as to Burt's whereabouts.
"We've issued age enhanced photos of Leo Burt. Most of the leads we
get in pertain to individuals that people feel resemble that
age-enhanced photograph," Cole said.
Agents are investigating every new lead, but for now, the mystery
remains. There's still no trace of Burt.
Elder, the peace activist professor who still passes by Sterling Hall
every day, is not convinced that closure will ever come.
"How on earth did a person elude the cleverest, most sophisticated
investigating team in the world for this long?" Elder asked.
"Personally, what does your gut tell you?" Wainscott asked.
"He's out there somewhere," Cole said.
As for Schuster, he returned to his native South Africa for several
years after the bombing. Today he's a professor at Western Michigan
University, and said these days, he thinks more about the victim than
the bombers, but he does hope Burt is eventually caught.
"I think about Robert Fassnacht and his family because he lost his
life, and it could have been mine.... things like that," Schuster
said. "I think it would bring good closure to find Leo Burt and bring
him to trial."
Two others were also injured in that bombing, which it's said could
be heard 30 miles away.
The fertilizer bomb was in a large passenger van, making it the first
truck bomb attack of its kind in the United States. Until the
Oklahoma City bombing, it was considered the nation's largest act of
domestic terrorism.
After prison, Fine moved to the West Coast to work as a paralegal.
The Armstrong brothers returned to Madison. Karl is still living
there. Dwight died earlier this year.
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Videos:
UW Bombing Survivor David Schuster Talks About Hearing Being Trapped In Rubble
http://www.wisn.com/video/25797786/detail.html
FBI Special Agent Christopher Cole Talks About Manhunt For Leo Burt
http://www.wisn.com/video/25797854/detail.html
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