Spokane Bomb Suspects Investigated in Olympic Blast

SPOKANE, Wash.: The circumstantial evidence linking three prisoners in Spokane to the Olympic Park bombing may be growing. Telephone records reportedly show that someone in the Atlanta area phoned one of the suspects at his Idaho home at approximately the time the bomb exploded six months ago today. The Spokesman-Review of Spokane reports that the Justice Department and the FBI are investigating three men accused of bombing a bank, an abortion clinic and a newspaper office in the Pacific Northwest. The men, also charged with robbing two banks in the Spokane area, are currently in jail awaiting trial. The paper reports being told by a Justice Department official: “At this point, they are our strongest lead in the Olympics bombing.” Another intriguing circumstantial detail concerns 42-year-old Charles Barbee, one of the three: he worked for AT&T in Georgia, Florida and Idaho, and may have held a grudge against the company. In an interview with the Spokane paper in 1995, Barbee claimed AT&T was an immoral company that mistreated Christian white men. The Atlanta bomb went off in the AT&T Global Village. Understandably cautious after the Richard Jewell fiasco, an FBI spokesman cautioned today that it is “entirely premature to link the Spokane bombings to the Olympic Park bombing.”