Skinhead Sought In Explosives Theft Neo-Nazi Arrested At Ruby Ridge Wanted For Questioning In Georgia
A neo-Nazi skinhead arrested in North Idaho during the Randy Weaver siege is being sought for questioning in the theft of a quarterton of explosives in Georgia.
Authorities in the Northwest are being asked for information about Samuel M. Dowling, 23, who has ties with skinheads in Portland. His current whereabouts are unknown.
He was arrested in Naples, Idaho, with four other skinheads in August 1992 when they tried to break through police roadblocks and take an arsenal of weapons to the Weaver cabin.
The weapons were legal, and the charges later were dropped.
Dowling was the leader of a Marietta, Ga., skinhead group, SS of America, which had ties with the Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan based in North Carolina.
Bobbie Browning, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Atlanta, wouldn’t confirm Friday that Dowling is being sought for questioning.
“I cannot comment on that,” Browning said.
However, other sources in the Northwest confirmed that they were being asked for information about Dowling.
Dowling is a friend of a former employee at Controlled Blasting Inc., an Atlanta explosives company, sources said.
Last weekend, thieves cut through two fences at the company and stole 550 pounds of ammonium nitrate and 1,000 blasting caps.
No arrest warrants have been issued in the Georgia theft, and none of the explosive material has been recovered.
ATF agents are working through the weekend because of the importance of the investigation.
The stolen explosives are commercially mixed with diesel fuel oil, making a volatile mixture that is used in road construction and mining.
It is similar to the homemade bomb believed used to blow up the federal building April 19 in Oklahoma City. That bombing killed 169 people.
About a week after the Oklahoma bombing, federal agents learned of a reported plot to blow up the federal building in Spokane, also with a fertilizer bomb.
Federal authorities have identified Darwin Michael Gray, 27, as the focus of that investigation.
No arrests have been made in the case.
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