LOS ANGELES — A man from Washington state, Daniel Park, aged 32, has died in federal custody just weeks after facing charges connected to the bombing of a fertility clinic in Southern California that occurred in May.
Park was accused of aiding Guy Edward Bartkus, the bomber who perished in the explosion on May 17.
Prison officials confirmed that Park was found unresponsive at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday morning and was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly thereafter. The Bureau of Prisons has stated that no cause of death has been provided at this time.
According to investigators, Park and Bartkus connected through fringe online forums due to their shared anti-procreation beliefs. The blast completely destroyed the fertility clinic located in Palm Springs, east of Los Angeles, and shattered the windows of nearby buildings. Authorities have labeled this act as terrorism. Thankfully, no embryos were reported damaged in the attack.
Park was alleged to have shipped 180 pounds (approximately 82 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus back in January and was involved in another shipment of 90 pounds (around 41 kilograms) just days before the explosion occurred. Federal complaints indicate that Park made multiple online transactions for ammonium nitrate between October 2022 and May 2025.
Furthermore, it was reported that Park traveled to Twentynine Palms, California, near Palm Springs, to experiment with explosives in the garage of Bartkus several months prior to the attack.
In a chilling connection, just three days before Park’s visit in January, Bartkus was recorded asking an AI chat application about explosives, discussing the ideal mixtures for creating powerful blasts.
Park was arrested on June 3 after being chased down at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, having fled to Poland shortly after the bombing incident. Following his extradition, he was charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Park had been detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center since June 13.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, which is currently leading Park’s prosecution, has chosen to refer questions regarding his death to the Bureau of Prisons.
Both Park and Bartkus were driven by a radical belief system that advocates against human existence, as previously detailed by Akil Davis, the FBI’s assistant director in charge. They were adherents of anti-natalism, a fringe ideology that opposes childbirth and contends that humanity should not continue to procreate. This belief motivated Bartkus to specifically target the American Reproductive Centers, which provide various reproductive services, including in vitro fertilization.
Park had been actively participating on anti-natalist forums, including Reddit, for almost a decade. In a 2016 post, he expressed intentions to recruit more followers for this movement, branding it as hopeful.
His writings have raised concerns, with relatives revealing to federal investigators that he had made pro-mortalist statements since high school. Most recently, in March, he expressed a desire to organize protests and in-person events for anti-natalists in Washington state, highlighting his commitment to the ideology, although this particular post did not provoke any public responses.
The Metropolitan Detention Center, known for detaining individuals arrested for immigration violations, has been a site of numerous protests, particularly during the immigration policies of President Donald Trump, including the deployment of the National Guard outside its facility.
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