“The War Within” Bomb, Notes Make Clinic Operators Wary

At first, Planned Parenthood workers thought they were a diversion.

The men who had bombed their Spokane Valley clinic on July 12 simply wanted to draw attention away from the bank robbery they staged three minutes later.

Administrators quickly opened a trailer in the parking lot of the damaged clinic, dispensing birth control and talking to clients again.

The landlord of the leased office repaired the building. A new lease was about to be signed. The clinic, thought to be the safest Planned Parenthood office in the area because it doesn’t provide abortions, was going to reopen.

An expert from New Hampshire flew in to evaluate security. A board meeting was scheduled for Sept. 12 to discuss options.

Then the letter arrived. It had a Sept. 6 postmark and the wrong ZIP code. The return address said “Phinehas.” The woman who opened it was working alone in the trailer that day, Sept. 11.

The message was brief: “So sorry to have missed you July 12, and you missed the note about Psalm 139. Will do better next time. Halleluyah! (Praise ye Yah.)”

The worker called Planned Parenthood administrators in tears.

“The note was so chilling, my blood ran cold,” says Susan Edgar, Planned Parenthood’s interim director.

“I can’t even begin to tell the impact it had,” says Gail Ekins, board president. “I wanted to go in the bathroom and throw up.”

The return address of Phinehas apparently refers to the Phineas priesthood, a shadowy sect of white supremacists.

The trailer was closed and yanked off the lot. The three Valley workers were pulled into the main office. Nobody in the community, none of the patients, was told why.

Law enforcement officers advised Ekins not to sit in her home without closing the blinds and not to walk across dark parking lots alone. Her husband insisted she buy a cellular phone and carry it with her.

Then, clinic operators found out about the first note, scrawled on a matchbook and left at the bombing. Technicians sifting through evidence had found it.

The note was based on Psalm 139, which refers to the mother’s womb and asks God to slay the wicked.

Planned Parenthood expects to decide in January where a new Valley clinic will be. The women who staffed the clinic can’t wait to re-open.

The nurse practitioner says she’s not afraid. “They’re not going to win. If I was afraid, that would mean that they did win.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo