The man suspected of being behind a series of deadly package bombs in Austin, Texas, was a Christian who was homeschooled and advocated for socially conservative views.
Mark Anthony Conditt, 23, an unemployed resident of Pflugerville, is believed to have been behind the bombings. He killed himself with an explosive device in his car Wednesday as a SWAT team closed in after police pulled him over on Interstate 35.
A friend of Conditt who was close to him in 2012 and 2013, told the Austin American-Statesman that the suspected bomber regularly attended worship services and Bible study at Austin Stone Community Church.
“I know faith was a serious thing for him,” recalled the friend to the Statesman. “I don’t know if he held onto his faith or not. … The kind of anger that he expressed and the kind of hate that he succumbed to — that’s not what he believed in in high school. I don’t know what happened along the way. This wasn’t him.”
Conditt, was homeschooled before he enrolled at Austin Community College from 2010–2012, but did not graduate from the academic institution.
The Statesman also found that while he was enrolled at the college, Conditt wrote a series of political blog posts for a government course in which he expressed socially conservative views, including opposition to abortion and gay marriage.