The Very Mad Bomber

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

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          On the list of American domestic terrorists who resorted to explosives, the first two who usually come to mind are Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber. Often overlooked is George Peter Metesky. It was 72 years ago this week that the man dubbed the “Mad Bomber” resumed his campaign against New York City after a self-imposed hiatus for World War II.

          Born in Connecticut in 1903, after World War I Metesky joined the Marines and served as a specialist electrician at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai. Back in the States, he went to work as a mechanic at Con Edison and lived with his two unmarried sisters in Waterbury, Connecticut. During one day at work, hot gas from a boiler backfire knocked Metesky down and choked him. The accident left him disabled and, after collecting 26 weeks of sick pay, he lost his job. He contracted to pneumonia that in turn developed into tuberculosis. A claim for workers’ compensation was denied and three appeals of the denial were also rejected, the last in 1936. This spawned a hatred for Con Edison and its attorneys.

He planted his first bomb on November 16, 1940, leaving it on a window sill at the Con Ed power plant on West 64^th Street in Manhattan. A note with it read, “Con Edisison crooks: This is for you.” His first two bombs drew little attention, but the string of random bombings that began in March 1951 frayed the city's nerves and taxed the resources New York Police Department. Metesky often placed warning calls to the buildings where he had planted bombs but would not specify the bomb's exact location. He wrote to newspapers warning that he planned to plant more. Some bombs came with notes but they never revealed a motive or a reason for choosing that particular location.

Metesky's bombs were gunpowder-filled pipe bombs ranging in size from 4 to 10 inches long and from 0.5 to 2 inches in diameter. Most of the bombs used timers constructed from flashlight batteries and cheap pocket watches. Investigators at bomb sites learned to look for a wool sock – Metesky used these to transport the bombs and sometimes to hang them from a rail or projection. Between 1940 and 1956, Metesky planted at least 33 bombs, of which 22 exploded, injuring 15 people.

Citing his “patriotic feelings,” Metesky vowed not to plant any bombs during World War II. This hiatus actually lasted until 1951. Then, for his new wave of bombings, he mainly chose public buildings as targets, bombing several of them multiple times. Bombs were left in phone booths, storage lockers, and restrooms in public buildings including Grand Central Station, Penn Station, Radio City Music Hall, and the New York Public Library. Metesky also bombed movie theaters, where he cut into seat upholstery and slipped his explosive devices inside. During this reign of terror the police asked the newspapers not to print any of the bomber's letters and to play down earlier bombings, but by now the public was well aware that a "Mad Bomber" was on the loose.

Throughout the intensifying investigation, the prevailing theory was that the bomber was a former Con Edison employee with a grudge against the company. Con Edison employment records were reviewed, but there were hundreds of other leads, tips, and crank letters to be followed up on. Detectives ranged far and wide, checking lawsuit records, mental hospital admissions, and vocational schools where bomb parts might be made. Citizens turned in neighbors who behaved oddly and co-workers who seemed to know too much about bombs. A new group, the Bomb Investigation Unit, was formed to work on nothing but “Mad Bomber” leads.

In April 1956, the unit issued a multi-state alert for a person described as a skilled mechanic, with access to a drill press or lathe, who posted mail from White Plains, was over 40, and had a "deep-seated hatred of the Consolidated Edison Company.” A warning circular picturing a homemade pipe bomb similar to the bomber's was distributed. Police distributed samples of the bomber's distinctive printing in his notes and asked anyone who might recognize it to notify them. 

That December, the bombing of the Brooklyn Paramount movie theater drew tremendous news coverage and editorial attention. The following day, Police Commissioner Stephen P. Kennedy met with commanders of every NYPD division and ordered what he called the "greatest manhunt in the history of the Police Department.” Calling the bomber's activities "an outrage that cannot be tolerated,” he promised "an immediate good promotion" to whoever arrested the bomber and directed commanders to alert every member of the force to the absolute necessity of a capture. And two days after Christmas, $26,000 in rewards were offered for the bomber's arrest.

When the police continued to be stymied, the department turned to James Brussel, a psychiatrist and criminologist and assistant commissioner of the New York State Commission for Mental Hygiene. Brussel examined the crime-scene photos and letters and discussed the bomber's metal-working and electrical skills. As he talked with the police, Brussel developed what he called a kind of "portrait" of the bomber. In addition to Con Ed dominating his thoughts, the bomber was suffering from a condition described as "a chronic disorder of insidious development, characterized by persistent, unalterable, systematized, logically constructed delusions."

Based on the evidence and his own experience dealing with psychotic criminals, Brussel pointed out that historically most bombers were male, well-proportioned, of average build, 40 to 50 years old, and were precise, neat, and tidy, based on his letters and the workmanship of his bombs. He has a good education but probably not college. Foreign-born or living in a community of the foreign-born – the formal tone and old-fashioned phrasing of the letters sounded to Brussel as if they had been written or thought out in a foreign language and then translated into English. Based on the rounded letter "w's" of the handwriting, believed to represent breasts, and the slashing and stuffing of theater seats, Brussel thought something about sex was troubling the bomber. He was a loner, no friends, little interest in women, possibly a virgin. He was unmarried, perhaps living with an older female relative. Brussel additionally predicted that when the bomber was caught, he would be wearing a double-breasted suit, buttoned.

At this time, a Con Edison clerk named Alice Kelly had been searching the company’s workers’ compensation files for employees with serious health problems. On January 18, 1957, she found a file marked in red with the words "injustice" and "permanent disability,” words that had appeared often in the bomber’s notes. The file indicated that one George Metesky, an employee from 1929 to 1931, had been injured in a plant accident on September 5, 1931. The police were notified shortly before 5 that evening. They initially treated the notification as just "one of a number" of leads they were working on but asked Waterbury police to do a "discreet check" on George Metesky and the house at 17 Fourth Street. They did and suspicions were aroused.

On January 21, shortly before midnight, accompanied by Waterbury police, four NYPD detectives arrived at Metesky's home with a search warrant. They asked him for a handwriting sample, and to make a letter G. He made the G, looked up and said, "I know why you fellows are here. You think I'm the Mad Bomber." Metesky led them to the garage workshop, where the cops found his lathe. Back in the house they found pipes and connectors suitable for bombs hidden in the pantry as well as three cheap pocket watches, flashlight batteries, brass terminal knobs, and unmatched wool socks of the type used to transport the bombs. Metesky had answered the door in pajamas; after he was ordered to get dressed for the trip to Waterbury Police Headquarters, he reappeared wearing a double-breasted suit, buttoned.

To police, he admitted to placing 32 bombs. He was subsequently indicted on 47 charges including attempted murder, maliciously endangering life, and violation of New York State's Sullivan Law by carrying concealed weapons. Metesky never stood trial because after hearing from psychiatric experts, Judge Samuel Liebowitz declared the tubercular defendant to be a paranoid schizophrenic who was "hopeless and incurable both mentally and physically.” He was committed to the Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Beacon, New York.

Expected to live only a few weeks due to his advanced tuberculosis, Metesky had to be carried into the hospital. After a year and a half of treatment, his health had improved, and a newspaper article written fourteen years later described Metesky as "vigorous and healthy looking.” He was a model inmate and caused no trouble. He was visited regularly by his sisters and occasionally by Brussel, to whom he would point out that he had deliberately built his bombs not to kill anyone.

In 1973, he was transferred to the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center. Doctors there determined that he was harmless, and because he had already served two-thirds of the 25-year maximum sentence he would have received at trial, he was released that December. George Metesky returned to his home in Waterbury. He died there in 1994 in his 91^st year.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including The Last Hill, with Bob Drury. To purchase a copy or to pre-order Follow Me to Hell (to be published next Tuesday), please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com.