Man charged with supplying chemicals to Palm Springs fertility clinic bomber dies in custody

Sheriff's deputies walk near the scene of an explosion Saturday, May 17, 2025, in Palm Springs, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer, File)

LOS ANGELES — A Washington state man who was charged with aiding the bomber of a fertility clinic in Southern California died Tuesday in federal custody, just weeks after his arrest, prison officials said.

Daniel Park, 32, was accused of supplying chemicals to Guy Edward Bartkus of California, the bomber, who died in the May 17 explosion.

Park, of suburban Seattle, was found unresponsive at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles Tuesday morning and was pronounced dead at a hospital, the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. No cause of death was provided.

The two men connected in fringe online forums over their shared beliefs against human procreation, investigators said. The blast gutted the clinic in Palm Springs, east of Los Angeles, and shattered the windows of nearby buildings, with officials calling the attack terrorism. The facility was closed, and no embryos were damaged.

Park shipped 180 pounds (about 82 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus in January and bought another 90 pounds (about 41 kilograms) and had it shipped to him days before the explosion, investigators said. Park purchased ammonium nitrate online in several transactions between October 2022 and May 2025, according to a federal complaint.

Authorities said Park traveled to Twentynine Palms, California, near Palm Springs, to experiment with explosives in Bartkus’ garage months before the attack.

Three days before Park visited him in January, Bartkus asked an AI chat application about explosives, detonation velocity, diesel and gasoline mixtures, the complaint said. The discussion centered on how to create the most powerful blast.

Park was taken into custody at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on June 3, after he was extradited from Poland, where he fled four days after the attack. Park had been charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. He had been at Metropolitan Detention Center since June 13, federal prison officials said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, which is prosecuting the case, referred questions about Park’s death to the Bureau of Prisons.

Park and Bartkus bonded over a “shared belief that people shouldn’t exist,” Akil Davis, the FBI’s assistant director in charge, said earlier this month.

They believed in anti-natalism, a fringe theory that opposes childbirth and population growth and contends that people should not continue to procreate. Officials said Bartkus intentionally targeted the American Reproductive Centers, a clinic that provides services to help people get pregnant, including in vitro fertilization and fertility evaluations.

Park appeared to be a frequent poster in an anti-natalist Reddit forum going back nearly a decade, according to court papers. In 2016, he spoke of recruiting others to the movement, which he described as hopeful.

According to court papers, he wrote: “When people are lost and distraught, death is always an option.”

Relatives told federal investigators that Park had made “pro-mortalist” statements since high school, according to the complaint.

More recently, in March, he posted in the forum to say he was seeking to find fellow anti-natalists in and around Washington state to “start some protests or just any in-person events,” according to court papers. The post did not receive any public comments.

The Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles is also used to detain people arrested for immigration violations. It’s been the site of many recent protests over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, and Trump has deployed the National Guard to stand guard outside the facility.

Durkin Richer reported from Washington, D.C.

Christopher Weber And Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press