Austin Bombing Victims Included a Father and a 17-Year-Old Musician

Two people were killed and five others wounded in a series of bombings centered on Austin, Texas, this month. Police have said the attacks are linked, and on Wednesday a man suspected of being the bomber, Mark Conditt, 23, blew himself up as officers approached him.

Both people killed by the bombings were black and belonged to prominent African-American families in the city, raising the specter that the violence was racially motivated.

Brian Manley, Austin’s police chief, said investigators had not yet determined a motive for the attacks, in which homemade bombs were used to kill and maim people.

Manley said Wednesday that it was not clear whether more than one bomber may have been responsible for the explosions, which spread fear across the capital of Texas for nearly three weeks.

Here are the stories of the victims of the Austin bombings.

The first bomb, on March 2, killed Anthony Stephan House, a 39-year-old finance professional, as he was helping his 8-year-old daughter get ready for school.

House told his daughter to go brush her teeth before he picked up a package left on his front porch, his brother, Norrell Waynewood, said in an interview with The Daily Beast. The package had not arrived there through the mail, police said.

The box exploded, killing him. Police initially treated his death as an isolated attack, and some of his family members have been publicly critical of the law enforcement response.

“He was an athlete, started his own hedge fund account from scratch,” Waynewood said. “He was an academic, the type of guy who just wants to push.”

House graduated in 2008 from Texas State University, where he studied business administration, finance and financial management services, according to The Austin American-Statesman. He started a money management firm, House Capital Management, and later worked for Texas Quarries and Acme Brick.

“His whole life was for his daughter, for making her life better. For her to be a leader, for her to be educated,” Waynewood said. “That was it.”

House’s mother, Melonie House, created a GoFundMe page to raise money for his daughter.

“This unforeseen tragedy has left his dreams for his wife, who is a local schoolteacher, and his 8-year-old baby girl shattered, replaced only with heartbreaking uncertainty,” Melonie House wrote.

The second bomb killed Draylen Mason, 17, on March 12. He was a promising classical musician who planned to enroll in the University of Texas’ competitive Butler School of Music in the fall.

The bomb was left in a package on his family’s doorstep overnight and had not arrived there through the mail, police said. Mason woke up early to go to the gym with his mother and was killed when the bomb exploded in their kitchen.

His mother opened the package with a knife, but Mason “kind of shielded her and it killed him instantly,” said his cousin, Mark Glover. His mother, who has not been publicly identified, was also injured in the blast.

Mason’s grandmother heard the explosion from her bedroom and rushed to the kitchen, where she found them sprawled on the floor, Glover said. He said Mason’s mother was in the hospital “going through the pain of surgery and the pain of losing a son that way.”

Doug Dempster, dean of the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts, who serves on the board of the music program, said that Mason was “a remarkably and precociously talented bass player.”

A double bassist, Mason planned to study music performance. He had been a member of the Austin Soundwaves, a youth orchestra program, since age 11. He also played in the orchestra at his high school, East Austin College Prep, and during Sunday church services.

“He was every inch a musician,” Dempster said. “His gentle confidence seemed to come from a conviction that hard work and talent was going to work for him. It did.”

Glover agreed. “Draylen was smarter on accident than most of us are on purpose,” he said.

The third bomb exploded on the same day that Mason was killed in his kitchen. It was left at the home of Maria Moreno and injured her daughter, Esperanza Herrera, 75.

Like the other two bombs, police said, it had not arrived at Moreno’s house through the mail. Investigators said they were exploring the possibility that it was left there by accident.

A woman named Erica Mason, who is not related to Draylen Mason’s family, lives two doors down from Moreno. Erica Mason told The Austin American-Statesman that she had spoken with investigators.

“If I was associated with the family, it could have been that they were trying to come after me,” Mason told The American-Statesman.

The fourth bomb, which exploded Sunday evening, was more haphazard, and very different, from the first three.

Instead of being left at the home of a victim, it was placed near the street and connected to a tripwire that was triggered by two men in their 20s, who have not been publicly named. Both were seriously injured.

It is not known how much time elapsed between the planting of the bomb and its detonation Sunday night. After the blast, police asked residents within a half-mile radius of the bombing to stay indoors while they searched the area for more explosives.

The fifth bomb injured one person when it exploded shortly after midnight Tuesday at a FedEx distribution center in Schertz, Texas, which is near San Antonio. The victim, an employee of the facility, complained of ringing in the ear after the blast.

Police said the package bomb was shipped from a FedEx store in Sunset Valley, a small city within Austin, and was being mailed to an address in Austin. The distribution center is about 60 miles from Austin.

Another bomb was discovered before it exploded at a FedEx facility near Austin’s airport, forcing the facility to shut down Tuesday while investigators searched for clues. It was the first time law enforcement had gotten its hands on one of the bomber’s unexploded devices.

Police said it was also mailed from a FedEx facility in Sun Valley and was headed to an address in Austin.