Authorities analyzing nihilistic writings of suspect in California
fertility clinic bombing
[May 20, 2025]
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER and JAIMIE DING
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Investigators on Monday were combing through the
writings of a 25-year-old man believed responsible for an explosion that
ripped through a Southern California fertility clinic over the weekend.
The FBI identified Guy Edward Bartkus as the suspect in the apparent car
bomb detonation Saturday that damaged the American Reproductive Centers
building in Palm Springs, east of Los Angeles. Bartkus died in the
explosion. None of the facility's embryos were damaged.
Authorities called the attack terrorism and said Bartkus left behind
nihilistic writings that indicated views against procreation, an idea
known as anti-natalism.
Here's what to know about the case.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene
The blast gutted the clinic and shattered the windows of nearby
buildings along a palm tree-lined street. Passersby described a loud
boom, with people screaming in terror and glass strewn along sidewalks
of the upscale desert city.
Bartkus' body was found near a charred vehicle.
Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles
field office, called it possibly the “largest bombing scene that we’ve
had in Southern California.”
The facility was closed for the day.
“This was a targeted attack against the IVF facility,” Davis said
Sunday. “Make no mistake: We are treating this, as I said yesterday, as
an intentional act of terrorism.”
The investigation is ongoing
Authorities executed a search warrant in Bartkus' hometown of Twentynine
Palms, a city of 28,000 residents northeast of Palm Springs with a large
U.S. Marine Corps base.
Bartkus tried to livestream the explosion, but the attempt failed, the
FBI said.
Authorities haven't shared specifics about the explosives used to make
the bomb and where Bartkus may have obtained them.
Scott Sweetow, a retired ATF explosives expert, said the amount of
damage caused indicated that the suspect used a “high explosive” similar
to dynamite and TNT rather than a “low explosive” like gun powder.
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Investigators place a tarp over an item on a road near the site of
an explosion in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday, May 17, 2025. (AP
Photo/Eric Thayer)
Those types of explosives are normally difficult for civilians to
access, but increasingly people are finding ways to concoct
explosives at home, he said.
“Once you know the chemistry involved, it’s pretty easy to get
stuff,” Sweetow said. “The ingredients you could get at a grocery
store.”
The images of the aftermath also showed that the explosion appeared
to blow from the street straight through the building and to the
parking lot on the other side, something that could have been
intentional or pure luck, Sweetow said. A part of the car was also
blown through the building and landed in the back by a dumpster.
What were the suspect's views?
Authorities are working to learn more about Bartkus’ motives. They
haven’t said if he intended to kill himself in the attack or why he
chose the specific facility.
His writings communicated “nihilistic ideations” that were still
being examined to determine his state of mind, said U.S. Attorney
Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in the area. In general,
nihilism suggests that life is meaningless.
He appeared to hold anti-natalist views, which include a belief that
it is morally wrong for people to bring children into the world. The
clinic he attacked provides services to help people get pregnant,
including in vitro fertilization and fertility evaluations.
Some people with extreme anti-procreation views have a lack of
purpose and a bleak feeling about their own lives “and they diagnose
society as suffering in a similar way that they are,” said Adam
Lankford, a criminology professor at the University of Alabama.
“Essentially, they feel like we're all doomed, that it's all
hopeless.”
That hopelessness is a way for attackers to rationalize their
violent actions, Lankford said Monday.
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