Mystery Shrouds Blow Poke

TOM GASPAROLI
Herald-Sun
Thursday, September 25, 2003


There are many mysteries about the mysterious, newly exhibited blow poke in the Michael Peterson murder trial. One involves when whoever may have seen the poker in the Peterson garage actually may have first seen it there.

On Court TV yesterday, defense attorney David Rudolf provided, in a vague but proud way, much more insight about the reported discovery, and how it came to play out in his defense strategy.

The impression left on me from the Rudolf interview is that he's possibly known about a mystery blow poke for several months, possibly right as the trial was getting under way long ago.

The local attorney's expected pronouncements had the TV anchors all aflutter.

Anchor Rikki Klieman, as Rudolf was about to be introduced, excitedly said: "It's stunning. It's absolutely stunning. And of course you've got that great dramatist in David Rudolf, and you know that for all these months, he has just been waiting for this moment."

Co-anchor Roger Cossack asked Rudolf: "How was it sitting on this piece of evidence all this time ... ?"

From that preamble, it seems the anchors already knew some of what Rudolf was about to say. And he answered, "Keep in mind, Roger, that obviously what I learn from my client is confidential and I'm under an obligation not to reveal that."

That was additional evidence seemingly confirming Rudolf learned of the blow poke in the garage from Peterson himself. Then Rudolf went on to say, "So, we left it there where it was found. We brought the judge over, you know, the day before we thought we might use it."

He continued a few moments later, "The spider webs, and the bugs and the dirt and dust, were obviously important in terms of authenticating that it had been there for quite some time."

Interestingly, the referenced photographs depicting the bugs and dirt, etc., were taken Sunday, apparently well after the blow poke had been located. I wonder whether any pictures were taken weeks or months earlier, and whether they would depict the same level of detritus. Would they help the jury, and the rest of us, determine the blow poke's exact, earlier condition?

I'm not sure why the timing of the discovery would need to be confidential now. Peterson knows, doesn't he? The court order allowing the transfer of the blow poke from garage to courtroom said it was "in fact located in the garage/basement of defendant's residence." Why couldn't the original month, day and time be shown?

Back to Wednesday's Court TV. Rudolf talked about his decision to display and discuss the blow poke in court when he did. "There's lots of choices to be made at any trial, and obviously the more the prosecution committed itself to this particular theory and this particular weapon, the more important it became over the course of the last four months," he said.

He went on, "But ultimately what you do is try to pick a witness that's going to maximize the impact it's going to have on the jury, and you try to pick a moment that's going to maximize the impact ... ."

We don't know how the jury will consider the still-mysterious blow poke. As I see it, neither the jury, nor prosecutors, nor the judge, nor the public yet know for sure if this item is indeed the "missing" blow poke. It may be; it may not be.

All we really know clearly is that the poker was sitting in the Peterson garage last Sunday. How, when and why did it arrive there? Who's going to reveal that?



Violent deaths link friends
Durham tragedies strike town in Pa
News and Observer
Dec 3, 2004


Dennis Rowe

Residents of Lancaster, Pa., would open the newspaper and their hearts would sink one more time.

First Kathleen Peterson. Now Dennis Rowe, a second child from a single city block in this southeastern Pennsylvania town. Both met their end in Durham.

It was in the 1970s, on tree-lined Clay Street in the heart of Lancaster, that Dennis Rowe and his three brothers would cajole the children of the neighborhood into a game of hide-and-seek.

Their home at 139 E. Clay St. was where the four well-behaved Rowe boys would host the other children from the block, including the Hunt sisters, Kathleen, Candace and Lori, three girls who lived four doors down. The group would talk and play cards, and the sessions on the Rowes' porch during the summers would stretch late into the night.

"As they got older, they each sort of went their own way," said Naomi Nagy, who has lived at 140 E. Clay St. almost 40 years and raised two children alongside the Rowes and Hunts.

Kathleen Hunt, later Peterson, was one of the first to leave the community of 50,000, going to Duke University. She would be the first woman accepted into Duke's School of Engineering, graduating in 1975.

A few years later, Rowe would take a similar path, pursuing English at Duke and graduating in 1982.

Hunt would marry Mike Peterson, a novelist. She would become a member of the Durham Arts Council and help nurture the city's creative niche.

Rowe, an artist, would establish himself as a designer of gossamer formal gowns, making a name among other creators in the community.

Together, they were tied to that block in Lancaster, that street of nearly identical three-story homes.

"It's so peculiar," said Susan Bordy, 43, who grew up with the Rowes and Hunts and now lives in East Petersburg, Pa.

The families kept in touch. As teenagers, Rowe and Kathleen's youngest sister, Lori, now Lori Campell, became close friends. Their friendship endured, even as they left Lancaster and moved to different states, Bordy said.

And Rowe was nearly called to testify against Mike Peterson when Peterson went to trial for killing his wife, according to court records.

But just as a photo of smiling Kathleen Peterson would appear in Lancaster newspapers at the time she was killed, so would Rowe's. Both would be beaten to death in their own homes.



Peterson's Credibility
By RONNIE GLASSBERG
Herald-Sun
Tuesday, September 28, 1999

. . . Peterson also faced criticism for failing to mention the incident in a column about drunk driving that he had been charged with the offense in 1993.

According to records, Peterson was weaving on Chapel Hill Boulevard and driving 25 mph in a 35 mph zone. He registered an alcohol level of 0.11.

At the time, the legal limit was 0.10. Since then, it has been reduced to .08.

He pleaded guilty to careless and reckless driving, paid $560 in fines and court costs, and had his license suspended for 30 days.

In an Oct. 9, 1998, column he wrote about a man killed by a drunken driver but didn't mention his own record.

"Drunks are on the road, and they're going to kill innocent people and ruin countless lives," he wrote. "The message must be: zero tolerance."

Peterson said it never occurred to him to include his own transgression.

"I wasn't writing about myself," he said. "It was just a tragic case. I wept like a baby."

Bill Brian, chairman of the Friends of Durham, said he's disturbed by what he sees as a pattern in Peterson's writings.

"It appears to be a situation where his lapses in credibility seem to happen when it's in his interest for them to happen," said Brian, who supports incumbent Mayor Nick Tennyson.

William E. N. Hawkins, The Herald-Sun's vice president and executive editor, who once called Peterson "the hottest columnist in the Triangle," said Peterson won't be allowed to return as a columnist.

"Once you become a candidate for public office, is it realistic that you can come back and play critic of government and have your full credibility? I doubt it," Hawkins said. "If you tack on top of that further issues of credibility, then I'm very uncomfortable as an editor."

Despite the recent setbacks, Peterson's campaign workers insist that they're back on track and have lost few backers over the reports.

"He still has a lot of grassroots support. I know we've been getting a lot of money into the campaign. They see Mike as a leader," said Peterson's new treasurer, Maureen Berry, the candidate's neighbor and a former treasurer of the Forest Hills Neighborhood Association.

So far, Peterson's campaign has raised $35,000, Berry said.

"I think right now we have a status quo," she said. "I think Durham can do a lot better. I think he'll have better ideas for some of the changes that need to happen in Durham."








Unexploded bomb blew a life apart
'Duke bomber' regrets rash act that
cost him his freedom

ALAN SCHER ZAGIER

31 March 1997
News & Observer


PETERSBURG, Va. -- Surrounded by endless coils of barbed wire and armed prison guards, the Federal Correctional Institution in southeastern Virginia is a world away from the Gothic beauty of Duke University.

But for inmate number 153-67057, former Duke student Clayton Peterson, the federal penitentiary 200 miles north of Durham is home.

At a time when his college buddies are preparing to graduate, Peterson is serving a four-year, one-month sentence for planting a homemade pipe bomb in Duke's administration building. He spends his days working for 12 cents an hour and sleeping in a cubicle the size of a walk-in closet.

"Prison is not a horrible pit that they throw you into," Peterson said during an interview at the federal facility. "It's what they take you from - your family, your home, where you grew up as a boy, things that you used to be able to do. You're just away from everything you love."

Almost three years have passed since a Duke registrar found the bomb, which failed to detonate, in the school's Allen Building. What the explosive device did destroy, though, was a life of privilege and a college freshman's sense of invincibility.

"I lost so much and fell so far," Peterson said in his first extensive public comment about the case. "A lot of the innocence and naivete is gone, a lot of trust. I'm just harder."

He's become known as "the Duke bomber," arrested and imprisoned for a crime he says was inspired by the pursuit of the underage college student's most prized possession: a fake ID card. Stripped of his freedom, Peterson looks now with longing at the life he took for granted: successful and supportive parents, a top-notch education and financial comfort.

"I just want to be normal again. I'm no different. I'm just Joe College guy," he said.

His father, novelist Michael Peterson, said prison hast taken away not only his son's freedom, but also the 6-foot, blond-haired man's youth.

"You can't have that in a pen and survive," the elder Peterson said.

Scheduled for release in April 1998, Clayton Peterson had hoped to be transferred to a boot camp or facility closer to home, like the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, a 15-minute ride from Durham.

But the federal Bureau of Prisons nixed that idea, saying Peterson poses too great a risk to be moved to a less secure facility. The names of other, more notorious bombers are often invoked by prison officials, his father says.

By the measure of federal authorities, Clayton Peterson's "public safety factor is the same as Tim McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski," the elder Peterson said, referring to the suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing and Unabomber cases, respectively. "Clayton is identical to Tim McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski. Part of it I understand, but it seems ludicrous."

Despite his entreaties, Michael Peterson readily admits his son's mistake.

"It wasn't a good career move, but he probably needed a reality check," he said. "When you do something wrong you need to be called up on it. I'd rather he get his reality check now rather than 10 or 15 years down the road."

That reality check was long in the making. Raised in Germany, where his mother taught military dependents at a Department of Defense school near Frankfurt, Clayton Peterson remembers an early fascination with explosives.

"Ever since I was a child I liked fireworks - the lights, the flash, the noise, the smoke," he said.

###

Bomb-building hobby:

The child amused by Wile E. Coyote's antics with dynamite on Saturday morning cartoons grew into a high school student who sneaked materials from chemistry class for home experiments.

His introduction to bombs came courtesy of "The Anarchist's Cookbook," a do-it-yourself handbook to explosives passed on by a high school friend in Germany.

The recipe was simple, the ingredients easy to obtain: crushed black powder from model rocket engines; a whipped cream cartridge to store the powder; and a fuse, available at any hobby store.

Peterson never lit that first bomb. Later, he would blow up a telephone booth and set off another device in a lake.

As an American military brat overseas, Peterson and his friends "were pretty much untouchable," he said. He had access to all the benefits of a military base without the restrictions of a military family. And in Germany, where teen drinking is legal, Peterson had ready access to alcohol.

"We had the best of both worlds," he said.

After graduating from high school in 1993, he moved into his father's home in Durham's exclusive Forest Hills neighborhood. Peterson planned to go to Duke, as his father had.

The transition from Europe, where Clayton Peterson had lived with his mother after his parents split up, to Durham was not smooth, Michael Peterson said.

###

Culture shock:

"He was used to going to clubs and drinking - it was socially accepted," said Peterson, a 1965 Duke graduate and former editor of The Chronicle, the campus newspaper.

"He was back in America and suddenly he didn't go anywhere. He didn't drink, he didn't go to clubs. I think that was one of the draws of that fake ID."

Just before the start of the fall semester at Duke, Clayton Peterson was arrested in Cary for drunken driving and resisting arrest - his second DWI charge in six months. As a penalty, Duke deferred his enrollment until the spring semester, so Clayton went to N.C. State University for a semester, commuting from his father's home.

While there, his experiments with explosives continued. Once again using common hardware parts, he built a two-inch pipe bomb and stored it in an attic at his father's home.

Once at Duke, Peterson got his first fake ID from a shop near campus that specialized in supplying students with bogus drivers' licenses, he said. But when his wallet was later stolen from his dorm room, Peterson had to start from scratch. The phony ID store had been shut down by police in the meantime.

He felt lost without the fake ID, Peterson later wrote in an essay to a prison official detailing his experiences .

"I had used it to get into fraternity parties, mixers and other college gatherings where beer was served," he wrote. "I felt these social events were important to me and my personal happiness."

With an end-of-year trip to Myrtle Beach fast approaching, the loss was even more acute for Peterson.

"I had envisioned myself being all alone in my hotel room because I didn't have a fake ID," he said.

The solution: break into the registrar's office in the Allen Building and steal a laminating machine and photographic equipment.

###

Covering his tracks:

But even as he mapped out his approach, Peterson worried that the break-in would be connected to his pursuit of an ID, which he had discussed with friends.

So to divert the attention of investigators, he decided to plant a bomb.

On the night of April 23, 1994, a Saturday, Peterson gathered the pipe bomb stored in his attic and a Gatorade bottle filled with gasoline, put it in his backpack and went to campus to finish writing an essay for a religion class.

At 2 a.m. Sunday, he broke through a window in the basement of the Allen Building, which houses the offices of Duke's president and other high-level administrators. He took a laminating machine, some blank Duke ID cards, a camera, a picture cutter, film, a microcassette recorder, a checkbook and a word checker.

Peterson left behind the pipe bomb, immersed in the gas-filled bottle, in a closet. He also left a note criticizing the university's recent decision to ban beer kegs on campus and to prohibit bonfires after basketball games - measures taken to combat student drinking.

"Of course you realize that this means war," the note declared.

"I wanted it to look real," he said. "It had to be convincing for me to get away with it."

Still, Peterson said he never intended for the bomb to detonate. In fact, he purposely cut the fuse in half and wrapped electrical tape around the two frayed ends to prevent it from igniting.

"They had to make me out to be this horrible terrorist, trying to destroy buildings and take human life," he said of the subsequent trial. "When I tried to make it look convincing, that's where it came back to haunt me."

Marion Shepard, a Duke engineering professor and associate dean, offered a similar assessment of his former pupil's intentions.

"If Clayton Peterson had wanted the bomb to explode, it would have exploded," Shepard said. "It was intended to divert people's attention."

That explanation doesn't satisfy Rick Glaser, the federal prosecutor who handled Peterson's case. Glaser, himself a 1976 graduate of Duke, calls it "revisionist thinking."

"That, to me, is rationalization in its worst form," said Glaser, an assistant U.S. attorney who heads the criminal division in Greensboro. "The situation that he created was extremely dangerous. He created a bomb that was meant to go off. And he was just damn lucky that it didn't. What he did was wrong, dangerous and deadly."

William Osteen, the federal judge who presided over Peterson's trial, likened the young man's explanation to a "bank robber pointing a gun at a bank teller and after it's over saying, 'I'm kidding.' "

After Peterson's arrest for the Duke bomb, federal investigators searched his Durham home and found six other bombs and material to make 13 more. Two of the bombs were rigged to arrows that could be fired from crossbows.

###

Prison life:

Now, Peterson's days in the low-security facility are defined by routine. Awake every morning by 7, he reports to work 30 minutes later in the prison's mechanical services division. He earns less than $1 a day - typical prison wages - for seven hours of landscaping, plumbing and electrical work. The money is used to buy toiletries, snacks and other small comforts at the prison canteen.

He knocks off work at 3:45 p.m. and rests until dinner at 5. The evening is set aside for free time. Peterson usually lifts weights, watches television with other inmates or reads the magazines he subscribes to (Popular Science, Electronics News) or those sent by his father (Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated). Lights are out after the 9 p.m. head count.

Every weekend, sometimes more often, Peterson is visited by his girlfriend, a Duke senior, and his father, younger brother and two sisters.

It's not a horrible life, Peterson concedes. Most of the inmates he encounters are not violent but were convicted of drug-related crimes, many of which now carry mandatory federal sentences without parole.

But it is still a rude awakening for a 22-year-old used to material comforts.

The young man who used to dream of being a scientist or an engineer now says he wants to be an architect - a creator, not a destroyer.

"I know that it sounds crazy, a bomb builder wanting to make buildings," he said.

"I don't want to be remembered as the Duke bomber," he said. "It was one day. If I could take it back I would. I just want to be given a fair chance when I get out."




SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR
LIVES THE QUIET LIFE IN DURHAM

BLAKE DICKINSON

 20 October 1996
Greensboro News and Record


Despite his success, author Michael Peterson avoids the literary life. He says he prefers the real world.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Author Michael Peterson has all the trappings of fame - except the celebrity.

He lives in a six-bedroom house on nearly four acres in one of Durham's upper-crust neighborhoods. A pool sits in back; a Porsche stands in the circular driveway.

Peterson has written three novels, the last two released by prestigious publisher Simon & Schuster.

His second book, an in-the-trenches and behind-the-political-scenes look at the Vietnam War titled "A Time of War," got positive reviews, was translated into eight languages and optioned by NBC for a possible miniseries.

His latest, "A Bitter Peace," has earned praise from The New York Times Book Review and Publisher's Weekly.

The 405-page sequel to his 1990 work tosses together an American diplomat, his former lover (a defrocked nun), a long-dead soldier son who may actually be a prisoner of war, a gay son, an anti-establishment daughter and a Central Intelligence Agency spy who wants the ambassador dead.

The political thriller breezes from Vietnam battlefields to Paris bargaining tables.

"Sound formulaic?" asked New York Times book critic Keith Dixon in a review. "It is. But Mr. Peterson has mastered the formula."

Despite his success, the former Marine and Vietnam veteran is hardly known in an area that glories in its literary tradition.

Peterson isn't a regular participant in writing workshops peopled by the local literati. He doesn't do reading tours. His works don't get set aside by booksellers for special attention. He's not even listed by the N.C. Writers' Network, a nonprofit support group in Chapel Hill that includes more than 1,650 Tar Heel writers.

But that doesn't really bother Peterson, a 1965 Duke University graduate and former editor of the student-run campus paper, The Chronicle. He even jokes about his lack of recognition.

"Most writers, they live that literary life. They're not out in the world. And it shows in their writing," Peterson, 52, said in a recent interview at his Cedar Street home. "I don't know a one."

Instead of spending time with the local literary coterie, Peterson lifts weights at the YMCA, swims laps in his pool, spends time with his children, listens to music and writes in his rosewood paneled study.

If local people have noticed Peterson, it's probably for the actions of his oldest son, Clayton.

A federal judge sentenced the 21-year-old in 1994 to a four-year prison term for planting a pipe bomb inside Duke's main administration building.

Clayton Peterson, his attorney and his father said the young man never intended for the Allen Building bomb to go off. Instead, it was meant as a diversion while he stole equipment needed to make a fake ID for a Myrtle Beach trip.

"I think that was the most painful thing that happened to me," the elder Peterson said. "This is not how I planned to spend my 50s - going to visit my son in the pen."

Memories of how his son was treated by Duke and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms won't soon fade, Peterson said.

"I'll never get over that," he said. "They hammered him. ... He did something wrong. There's no question. He should have been punished. But it was pretty excessive. ... My feelings for Duke have changed."

Peterson's serious tone lifts as he talks about his children still living at home: Martha, 13, a student at Immaculata Catholic School; Margaret, 14, at Jordan High School; Caitlin, 14, who attends Durham Academy; and Todd, 20, in school at N.C. State University.

Peterson cheerfully points out his 50-year-old home's curving staircase, antiques picked up during years abroad and landscaping that blocks out sounds of nearby Bull City bustle.

Peterson said he grew up a military brat with the goal of being a writer. He read Hemingway and idolized the hard-drinking, hard-living writer as a youngster.

After majoring in political science at Duke, and a brief stint in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law school, Peterson turned to his life's calling.

"But I don't have anything to write about," he said. "I was caught up in that Hemingway mystique. You had to really live, be caught up in it. And, if there was a war, you had to be in it."

So Peterson went to Vietnam - twice. "I went to see what war was like. And I did," he said.

Peterson saw extensive action. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and earned two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. After several injuries, he was medically discharged as 50 percent disabled.

Offered vocational training by the military, Peterson returned to Duke. "I just wanted to learn."

His first novel, a look at 19th century Vietnam titled "The Immortal Dragon," was published in 1984.

After "A Time of War" six years later. Peterson became a full-time writer.

"It was the hardest thing to be," Peterson said. "I really, really wanted to be a writer. And when I became one, I was thrilled - still am."

Whether his next book - or the one after that - garners him a spot in the Triangle literary pantheon, Peterson said he'll keep doing things the same way.

"Fame is something that can ruin your life. You become that persona, playing that role. You can't get away. You're trapped by that. ... You're far better being who you are. I think it's far better to go out and experience things."







Duke bomb suspect arrested

 SUSAN GRAY

6 May 1994
News & Observer

 DURHAM -- A Duke University freshman was charged Thursday with attempting to firebomb the university's main administration building 10 days ago, and authorities said they found six more bombs in his father's home.

As students prepared to pack up and leave for the summer, Clayton Sumner Peterson, 19, was at Durham Regional Hospital under police order to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. He is charged with breaking into the Allen Building and possessing an unregistered destructive device. Peterson, a tall, blond engineering student with an athletic build whose family lives in Durham, was described by arresting officers as calm.

On Tuesday, federal ATF agents searched the home of Peterson's father on Cedar Street. They found six more assembled explosive devices hidden in the attic, along with a stock of chemicals and equipment that could be used to make more bombs. They also found a college ID camera and laminating machine that had been stolen from the Duke office the same day the bomb was found.

Peterson's father, Michael Peterson, had no idea the bomb paraphernalia and stolen property were in his home, officials said.

On April 24, a Duke employee found the undetonated firebomb -- consisting of a gasoline-filled Gatorade bottle armed with a pipe-bomb detonator -- in a closet in the registrar's office on Duke's West Campus. The 4-foot fuse had been lit, but went out 6 inches before it reached the fuel.

"With that kind of explosive, and being that it was contained {in the closet}, it would have been an intense fire that would have spread rapidly," said Thomas Ferguson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The portrait of Clayton Peterson that emerged Thursday from his family and college friends was blurry and confusing. On the one hand, Peterson's parents were worried about his mental health, said Durham police Capt. E.E. Sarvis.

"We had some information that he should be evaluated," Sarvis said. It is not standard police procedure to evaluate suspects before booking them.

On the other hand, students who lived next to Peterson in Aycock Dorm and who saw him relaxing Wednesday at the beach with other classmates described him as a normal freshman.

"It's shocking," Leveen Rao, 18, said as he stood in Aycock surrounded by the boxes and litter of departing students. "He was such a normal guy. He was a little mischievous, maybe. But he fit in just like everyone else around here."

Rao and Parag Pande, 19, skied with Peterson last month. Pande laughed in disbelief when he heard the news about his friend's arrest.

"I wouldn't expect him to do that at all," said Pande. "He seemed like a perfectly normal person to me."

Duke campus police found a note outside the Allen Building the day the bomb was discovered. The unsigned note protested recent crackdowns on student drinking and efforts to stop the ritual bonfires that follow major basketball victories.

Police said Thursday they think Peterson wrote the note.

His classmates were incredulous. "He had his opinion about {the crackdown} -- he didn't like it," Pande said. "But we all did."

But Rao and Pande said they never dreamed he would take any drastic action.

On Thursday, officials withheld many details about the investigation, which involved campus and city police, State Bureau of Investigation agents, ATF agents and fire investigators. They wouldn't release the text of the note or say what led them to Peterson's home.

They did say attempted arson and other possible charges against Peterson are pending further "technical" investigation.

Authorities are still uncertain whether the intruder really intended to blow up the Allen Building with the device. ATF agents have not concluded that the fuse was designed to ignite the firebomb.





The Duke bomber

Duke bombing suspect sought ID-making gear

SUSAN GRAY

12 May 1994
News & Observer Raleigh, NC

DURHAM -- The defenders of the Duke University freshman accused of planting a firebomb in the school's main administration building say he never intended for the rudimentary device to explode.

Clayton Sumner Peterson, a 19-year-old freshman and Durham native who entered Duke in January, was arrested May 5.

On Wednesday, Peterson's father and his attorney said the engineering student designed a flawed bomb as an elaborate smoke screen for his real motive: stealing equipment to make Duke ID cards.

Along with the bomb -- a Gatorade bottle filled with gasoline and armed with a pipe bomb detonator -- authorities found a typed note declaring "war" against Duke because of a recent crackdown on student drinking and efforts to stop the ritual burning of campus benches after basketball victories.

An ID camera and laminating machine were taken from the registrar's office in the Allen Building the day the bomb was found, police said.

When investigators searched Peterson's father's home before making the arrest, they found the ID equipment along with six more assembled explosives.

"It's an amazing story and none of it makes sense," said Michael Peterson, the student's father. "It's all bizarre. It all had to do with the fake ID card."

Investigators and Duke officials are not calling the firebombing a prank. They say that even if the bomb was never intended to detonate, a lit fuse in the vicinity of a destructive device inside a campus building is a very serious offense. The building could have burned down, they say.

Clayton Peterson is charged with breaking into the registrar's office, a state offense, and possessing an unregistered destructive device, a federal charge. He is being held in the Orange County Jail. The student, who spent part of his teen years in Germany with his mother, was sent there after spending several days in solitary confinement under an emergency suicide watch.

Peterson will probably be evaluated at the federal prison in Butner, according to his attorney, Thomas Eagen.

Before leaving with classmates for an end-of-the-semester beach trip, Clayton Peterson lost his fake ID card, his father said.

"Now any sane student would say, 'Well, maybe someone can buy me some beer or lend me their ID card,'" he said. "But, well, what does he think? Well, who has laminating machines?

Well, Duke does. But if they found out it was stolen, friends would know. So basically to hide that, he comes up with a stupid, elaborate and without question dangerous hoax -- a diversionary tactic if you will -- without any idea that he's getting himself involved with" the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The straight-A high school student, whom his father and others describe as "brilliant," has a pattern of heavy drinking, elaborate scheming and stirring up trouble.

The elder Peterson said his son was suspended three times from high school and arrested in 1993 for driving while impaired -- which led Duke to delay his admission until January. An ATF agent said Interpol reports indicate the teenager got into trouble in Germany for a "firearms-related" incident.

"What's the underlying root problem?" asked Michael Peterson, who has written two novels about Vietnam. "I don't know. His mother and I went through that and we don't know. It's something more profoundly disturbing" than a drinking problem.

"We're worried because he had done things in high school -- enough things that we thought there was something bothering him, whether it was because my wife and I were having troubles with our marriage or what. It made us wonder."

The question remains: Did Peterson deliberately design a flawed bomb? His attorney says the engineering student knew exactly what he was doing -- he cut the fuse and attached electrical tape, which can't burn, to separate the burning fuse from the bomb.

But ATF agents aren't sure. They wonder whether Peterson was concerned he had designed the bomb with a fuse that was too short to give him time to escape and, at the last minute, clumsily taped on more fuse.





49-MONTH SENTENCE/ BOMB,
THEFT AT DUKE SEND EX-STUDENT TO JAIL

 STUART MCKEEL

30 December 1994
Greensboro News and Record

A former Duke University student receives a prison term for planting a fire bomb in the school's administration building.

Clayton Peterson always had a knack for making mechanical things work. As a boy, he would assemble or fix broken parts on his sister's Christmas presents.

But that talent led him to a notoriety far different than the one his family or friends expected. The latest chapter in his story ended Thursday when a federal judge in Greensboro sentenced the 20-year-old former Duke University freshman to four years and one month in prison.

His crime: breaking into the Duke University administration building, stealing $1,700 in equipment used to make school identification cards and placing a fire bomb in a first-floor closet to distract attention from the theft.

The bomb did not explode - Peterson said he rigged it not to - but its discovery rattled the prestigious university. And it left many wondering why this promising Duke student had done such a thing.

At Thursday's five-hour sentencing hearing, family and friends described a young man deeply troubled by his parents' separation and anxious for acceptance by his peers.

Peterson, who has received psychiatric counseling for several years, started as a Duke freshman in the winter. The university postponed his entry following a drunken driving charge.

He enjoyed partying at school. And when his false identification was stolen, he said he needed another to continue buying alcohol and fit in with his new friends.

Family members said he decided to steal special photography and lamination equipment from the school to make another driver's license with a false date of birth. As he left the administration building, he lit the fuse to a small pipe bomb submerged in a quart jar of gasoline.

Peterson said the fuse was cut so that it would not detonate the bomb, though federal authorities doubt his claim.

He also left a note in the building's basement that condemned administrators for prohibiting kegs of beer at campus parties.




EXIT