January 31, 1995
The explosion which engulfed John Hauser as he was opening a benign looking box left in a computer room at the University of California, Berkeley 10 years ago changed his life.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the same person responsible for the loss of every fiinger on Hauser's right hand and partial vision in his left eye drew SF State into an unsolved mystery when a mail bomb with a SF State return address exploded and killed a New Jersey man Dec. 10, 1994.
The FBI said the Unabomber, a bomber terrorizing academia and individuals in the computer and airline industries for the past 16 years, sent the package which killed advertising executive Thomas Mosser. The parcel bore a return address of H.C. Wickel, Department of Economics at SF State.
"We found no actual or real connection to San Francisco State," FBI Special Agent Rick Smith said about the fictitious Wickel. He added the FBI has no evidence that the lethal parcel was mailed from campus.
Despite the FBI's assertions that there are no connections between the Unabomber and SF State, SF State President Robert A. Corrigan approved funding for a high-tech mail screening device that is now being used.
The University Police Department said it would not comment on specific details of the device because information released could potentially be used by the Unabomber.
With almost half of the 15 Unabom explosives being sent from, or planted in, Northern California, Smith advised mail handlers, faculty and students to be cautious. He said, however, he didn't want to establish paranoia.
An information bulletin sent out by the UPD instructs people not to touch or move packages they are unsure of and not to open unexpected packages.
The bulletin said to be alert to mail marked "confidential," "personal" or "to be opened only by the addressee."
If a package, letter or device is suspect, contact the UPD immediately at extension 2222.
Three reports of suspicious packages have been called in to UPD in January. One incident involved an unmarked package on an office floor in the old science building. The San Francisco police bomb squad responded and after x-raying the package concluded that it contained marketing materials.
Hauser, now an electrical engeneering professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said he is sickened when another victim falls to the Unabomber.
"I feel bad for whoever was hurt. I can empathize with family and victim," he said.
Hauser said because of his work he must remain accessible to the public and colleagues--an unsettling position to be in considering the Unabomber is still at large. Since he hasn't hidden his identity, Hauser said he may as well try to impart his experience to others.
"Look, this kind of thing happens, be careful," Hauser said. "By helping somebody else, by keeping this from happening, to help make this known, that is my purpose."
Another explosion occurred at UC Berkeley three years prior to Hauser's ordeal, severely injuring a professor. And just a week before Hauser's encounter with one of the Unabomber's meticulously constructed devices, a pipe bomb was mailed to the Boeing aircraft company in Washington with a return address of San Francisco.
There have been 11 other Unabomb incidents, including ones in Tiburon and Sacramento.