The bombings started near Mount Hood in the early fall of 1974. The huge explosions made the ground jump even miles away -- and caused three Bonneville Power Administration transmission towers to topple.

More bombings soon followed, sending three additional massive towers crashing to earth. No one was injured by the explosions, but the big bangs spread fear through the region.

On Oct. 19, the Bonneville Power Administration released a letter from “J. Hawker, Liaison, R.V.O.V.N. (Reorganized Veterans of Viet Nam).” The letter demanded $1 million.

In correspondence with BPA and the FBI, J. Hawker said the R.V.O.V.N. had “the men and equipment to keep as many towers down as is necessary to force compliance with our demands.”

One letter stated that they would cause an enduring blackout in Portland and set fire to the Bull Run watershed if authorities attempted to capture the men the group planned to send to pick up the ransom. The letter called the bombings so far a “demonstration project.”

The letter writer insisted that R.V.O.V.N. was not a criminal organization but simply “demanding just compensation from the government.”

The Oregonian

This was an era of politically motivated bombings in the U.S. There were more than 2,500 of them during an 18-month period in 1971-72. Now, it seemed, the Revolution had arrived in Oregon.

J. Hawker -- the pseudonym was a nod to the Jayhawkers, the determined anti-slavery guerrillas in Kansas and Missouri during the Civil War period -- sent off another “impeccably typed” letter on Tuesday, Oct. 29. This one, to reporter Jim Kadera at The Oregonian, stated that the group was temporarily suspending the threat against the “U.S. Government” because of poor weather conditions.

A follow-up letter, which stated the plan was back on, was delivered to the wrong address, landing in the mailbox of a Portland teacher.

Seeing as the U.S. Postal Service wasn’t getting the job done, J. Hawker began communicating with the FBI through citizen’s band (CB) radio. The bomber used a duck call and Morse code to maintain anonymity.

This was clever, but it ultimately proved to be the “BPA Bomber’s” undoing.

Forty-five years ago this month, FBI agents used mobile “direction finders” to zero in on the CB radio signal. They found their suspect, 34-year-old Beavercreek truckdriver David W. Heesch, and his wife Sheila, also 34, driving through Southeast Portland.

When Sheila turned around in her seat and noticed an official-looking car carrying official-looking men right behind them, her eyes popped.

The agents pulled over the car and searched it, finding a CB radio and a duck call that the agents determined “sounded like the transmissions we had been receiving.”

FBI agent-in-charge Julius L. Mattson added in a statement to the press: “We also found in Mrs. Heech’s purse a 22‐caliber derringer pistol, and it was loaded.”

The Oregonian

David Heesch immediately confessed to the bombings, and he admitted his actions had nothing to do with revolutionary politics. He explained he had recently lost his long-haul driving job and was desperate. He and Sheila had two young children.

In December of 1974, David was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. He would spend nearly five years behind bars before being paroled. Sheila, arrested as an accomplice, ended up serving 11 months in prison after originally receiving a 10-year sentence.

The couple remained married -- and very much in love.

David, who became a TriMet bus driver after serving his time, died in 2006. Eight years later, Sheila told Sandy Post columnist Paul Keller that she and their children still missed him “very much.” And she expressed admiration for her husband, including his ability to teach himself how to handle explosives for that long-ago criminal sojourn.

“He knew what he was doing with that dynamite,” she said. “He knew which direction he wanted those towers to fall -- and they did.”

She added that, while the whole extortion plot was wrong, David’s heart was in the right place.

“David thought that if he could get that money, he would be able to spend more time with his kids,” she said of the $1 million ransom demand.

Sheila told Keller that she and her husband had been very “young” when they tried to pull off their audacious extortion plot, and that their criminal actions were an aberration. She claimed the reason both she and her husband had their sentences cut was because judges recognized the kind of people they really were.

“We certainly weren’t terrorists,” she said. “We were very patriotic.”

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

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