Green fist graphicThe Judi Bari Web Site


(posted 9/17/01)

New DNA Evidence in Bari Bombing Case

Mendocino Sheriffs Investigating

Civil Rights Trial Against FBI & OPD Postponed to April 8, 2002

Press Conference: Tuesday, 1pm, Sept. 18, Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street

Evidence withheld by the FBI for years providing valuable clues as to who may have bombed Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in 1990  is being released at a Sept. 18 press conference following the testing for genetic material found on envelopes of three key documents. The Bari-Cherney legal team has also announced that their civil rights lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland Police has been delayed until April 8, 2002 due to the tragic attacks on New York and Washington. 

Bari and Cherney's attorneys, including William Simpich, retained Forensic Science Associates of Richmond, CA to test "the big three" documents relating to the May 24, 1990 car-bombing of Bari and Cherney. The FBI and OPD had blamed the victims of the bombing rather than search for the perpetrator(s).  Bari and Cherney were on their way to perform at UC Santa Cruz as part of an ongoing Redwood Summer roadshow, designed to attract college students to participate in summer-long protests calling for sustainable logging and a timber worker-environmentalist alliance.  Bari and Cherney survived the bombing, though Bari was critically injured and later died of cancer in 1997.

The documents submitted to Forensic Sciences include the following:

  1.  The envelope sent by "Argus," an informant to the Ukiah Police who falsely claimed Earth First! had begun automatic weapons training and offered to set up Bari for a marijuana arrest. Also included with the letter was a joke photograph of Bari holding an uzi, which had been taken for a spoof music album cover and never used.  The letter was sent 6 weeks after the photo was taken.

  2.  The envelope which contained the first death threat that Bari received, stating "judi bari get out and go back where you come from/we know everything/you won't get a second warning."  The envelope of this and the Argus letter matched precisely both in typeface, typing style and postmark, which led the Bari/Cherney investigation to conclude that whomever had access to the photograph and information contained in the "Argus Letter" also sent this April 10, 1990 death threat.

  3. The Lord's Avenger Letter which took credit for the Bari bombing and described both the bomb in Bari's car and a second bomb which failed to ignite properly at a Louisiana Pacific sawmill in Cloverdale, California.  The letter is a pseudo-Christian rant, blasting Bari for her alliance-building with timber workers and her defense of a "baby-killing clinic."

  4. Envelopes believed to contain the DNA of someone who had access to the "Uzi Photo" of Bari.

The results were conclusive enough to convince the Mendocino County Sheriffs, who had possession of the "Argus Letter" and served the area where Bari lived and received the threats, to open a preliminary investigation.  

The  DNA results are as follows:

An FBI document shows that San Francisco agents had recommended DNA testing by the crime lab in Washington DC, and comparison of fingerprints found on key evidence as early as May 31, 1990. The FBI pursued neither of these leads, which could have been exonerating. They even claimed, astoundingly, that they did not have Bari and Cherney's fingerprints, even though both had been  arrested and fingerprinted. The Bari-Cherney legal team contends that it has been advised that the technology at the time was developed sufficiently to have ruled out the two as authors of any of the letters and led authorities to another suspect. 

  The woman who sealed the letter could not have been Bari, because information contained within the letter was only available after the bombing, and Bari was under arrest, helpless, and under 24-hour surveillance during the time in question. 

Documents available online:  ( Adobe Acrobat files, about 330KB each)

DNA expert's report (PDF)

Letter and envelope facsimile images (PDF)


To be placed on the U.S. Mail list for updates on Judi Bari's lawsuit against the FBI, or to make a tax deductible contribution to help fund the lawsuit, please contact:

REDWOOD SUMMER JUSTICE PROJECT
P.O. Box 14720, Santa Rosa, CA 95402
Phone (707) 887-0262 or FAX (707) 887-0865
Email RJF at judibari.org