Mail Bomb Suspect Tells Court He Has Alibi; His Testimony Rambles

ST. PAUL, Minn. —  The Georgia man accused in two 1989 mail-bomb murders suggested to jurors Thursday that his location at the time the deadly packages were mailed gives him an alibi.

Walter Leroy Moody Jr., 57, who ignored his attorney’s advice and decided to testify in his own defense, continued a rambling narrative that made no direct declarations of innocence but touched on moving gun caches, sex tapes and numerous trips to restaurants and K marts.

Moody said that he was in Florida on the days that the mail bombs were postmarked in Georgia. “The significance is, that when the packages were mailed Dec. 14 through 16 (1989), I was in Titusville, Fla.,” Moody told jurors.

Moody, is charged in the December, 1989, mail-bomb deaths of 11th Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance of Mountain Brook, Ala., and civil rights lawyer Robert E. Robinson of Savannah, Ga.

A 72-count indictment also accuses Moody of sending death threats to 17 appellate court judges, mailing a tear gas bomb that exploded in the Atlanta office of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, and illegal interstate transportation of firearms.

The prosecution is trying to show that Moody declared war on the judicial system because his 1972 conviction on a bomb possession charge destroyed his dream of practicing law.

Addressing the charge of interstate transport of guns, Moody testified that he moved a footlocker containing six guns from Georgia to Florida by accident, thinking it contained some books he wanted to sell. The footlocker also contained a videotape of Moody and his ex-wife having sex, he said.

U.S. District Judge Edward Devitt called a longer-than-usual midday recess because of Moody’s apparent fatigue.