Priority Mail: The Investigation and Trial of a Mail Bomber Obsessed with Destroying Our Justice System

Shortly before Christmas 1989 four bombs were mailed to addresses in four Southern cities. One killed a judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in his Birmingham, Ala., home; another killed a Savannah, Ga., lawyer who had done work for the NAACP. Two others, addressed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and the NAACP office in Jacksonville, Fla., were intercepted unopened, providing a look at the bomber's technique. A Treasury Department employee remembered a similar bomb from 1972, constructed by one Roy Moody, a brilliant and exceptionally litigious individual who had gone to prison for five years. Convinced the American judicial system was worthless because it had convicted him but gave too many favorable decisions to the NAACP, Moody set out to destroy that system. Eventually he was arrested for mailing the bombs, convicted after his wife testified against him and sentenced to seven life terms plus 400 years; he still faces a murder trial in Alabama for killing the judge. Atlanta TV reporter Winne's account is noteworthy for its picture of interagency squabbling among investigators that complicated a relatively simple case. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Mar.)