Using the handle “austinbomber,” the anonymous poster took to Reddit on Tuesday to claim responsibility for the wave of bombings that saw two killed and at least five injured.
Hours before a suspect in the Austin bombings killed himself with an explosive device, a social media user claiming to be behind the attacks said they wouldn’t stop until they became “as prolific as the Zodiac Killer.”
Using the handle “austinbomber,” the anonymous poster took to Reddit on Tuesday to claim responsibility for the wave of explosions that saw two killed and at least five injured.
"My intention is not to kill people. I am doing this simply because I want to watch the world burn," the unknown person wrote.
The anonymous user also compared themselves to the Zodiac, who killed at least five people in California in the 1960s and 1970s and was never caught.
The poster claimed the attacks were not racially motivated and said they “enjoy laughing at the massive police presence that just simply cannot find or deanonymize[sic] me."
They went on to describe themselves as being a man between 30 and 50 years old before their account was suspended by Reddit and their comments removed from the site.
Many Reddit users were immediately suspicious of the comments and have since written them off as posts from a "troll."
But the messages caught the attention of the Austin Police Department, which confirmed authorities are aware and investigating the posts, the New York Daily News reported.
Unnamed sources speaking on the condition of anonymity to the Associated Press and Austin Statesman-American have identified the bomber as Mark Anthony Conditt.
Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said the bomber was a 24-year-old white man who authorities reclassified from a "person of interest" to suspect hours before he killed himself, USA Today reported.
RELATED STORIES
