Jury Finds Georgia Man Guilty in Mail-Bomb Deaths

ST. PAUL, Minn. —  A jury convicted Walter Leroy Moody Jr. of first-degree murder Friday in the 1989 mail-bomb deaths of a federal appeals court judge and a civil rights attorney in the South.

In all, Moody, 57, of Rex., Ga., was found guilty on all 71 counts related to the bombings.

Moody sat expressionless, turning the pages of charges as the guilty verdicts were read one by one.

Jurors deliberated a day and a half before agreeing with prosecutors that Moody designed and mailed the pipe bombs to U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Vance of Mountain Brook, Ala., and civil rights lawyer Robert E. Robinson of Savannah, Ga.

Two of the four counts relating to Vance’s death carry mandatory life sentences without parole, and two carry a possible life sentence without parole.

Vance and Robinson were killed in December, 1989, explosions that set off a massive criminal investigation in the Southeast. The investigation triggered such extensive publicity that the trial was moved to St. Paul.

Moody mailed the bombs because he was at war with the judicial system, Louis Freeh, special assistant U.S. attorney, told the jury in closing arguments Wednesday. Prosecutors said that Moody was obsessed with his failure to get his 1972 conviction for possessing a bomb overturned, leaving a criminal record that prevented him from attaining his dream of practicing law.

Moody blamed the Ku Klux Klan for the bombings.

Edward Tolley, one of Moody’s lawyers, said that Moody expected the guilty verdict. “He was very resolute. I think he anticipated it,” Tolley said.

“The most damaging testimony was the witness himself,” Tolley said of Moody, who put on his own narrative testimony against his advice of his lawyers. “If he hadn’t gotten up on the stand and verified 90% of the prosecution’s case, the jury would have had a little bit more to think about.”

Tolley said that an appeal will be filed.

Moody now may face state murder trials in Alabama and Georgia and possible death sentences if convicted in those states.

Helen Vance, who was injured in the explosion that killed her husband, beamed as the verdicts were read.

“The first count was the one I was most concerned with,” Vance said later in front of the courthouse, referring to the first-degree murder charge for her husband’s death. “Everything after the first count was just gravy.”

The jury also convicted Moody of mailing similar bombs that were intercepted at the offices of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and the Jacksonville, Fla., office of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Moody was found guilty of mailing a tear gas bomb that exploded in an Atlanta NAACP office, mailing death threats to 17 judges and sending letters to broadcast stations in which he threatened to wage chemical warfare.

In Washington, Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said that the conviction “represents the successful culmination of one of the most intensive investigations and manhunts ever carried out by the Justice Department.”

He said that a special interagency task force conducted an 18-month investigation using agents from seven federal, state and local police agencies. The FBI alone devoted more than 140,000 hours and 11 months to the case, Thornburgh said.