With verbal skills somewhat lacking, each of the men appeared to contradict the other as to the events of September 5, 1931. Purdy testified that Metesky was working at the plant on the day in question but recalled only that he did not feel well. Cavanaugh merely stated that Metesky had suffered a nosebleed, and Lawson swore that Metesky was not even working on the day in question. To the claimant’s delight, Referee Senior became completely exasperated with the differing accounts rendered by the men, and threatened to discount the entirety of their testimony. “The referee was going to make an award in my favor . . . ,” Metesky later recalled. It appeared that his claim would finally be allowed.
At that moment, however, counsel for Con Ed and their insurance carrier, Hamlin and Company, rose with an air of smug confidence and once again asserted their rights under section 28 of the Compensation Act. Metesky visibly faltered as the referee listened intently to the arguments and reluctantly acceded. The undeniable fact remained that the written claim for benefits had been made beyond one year from the date of his accident. Senior had no choice but to once again deny Metesky’s request.
An administrative appeal of the decision failed to yield better results. On September 28, 1936, the New York Workmen’s Compensation Board conclusively denied George Metesky’s final claim for benefits. Barring judicial appeals, which Metesky was in no position to finance, the ruling would stay undisturbed. Officially, it would remain so for twenty-one years. Later circumstances, however, would demand another look.
With the final appeal of the compensation case decided, George Metesky spent most of his time confined to home and bed, lamenting his misfortunes. Ever persistent, he again began writing a series of letters to Commissioner Andrews informing him of the great injustice performed at the Workmen’s Compensation Board and imploring him to intercede in the matter. Andrews’s failure to provide the desired results served only to frustrate the ailing Metesky and further provoked him to again escalate the use of his only available weapon—the written word.
A barrage of mail began arriving at the State Industrial Commission, the governor’s office, and, of course, Con Ed. In droves, Metesky’s letters, which by then had taken on an angry and ominous tone, poured into New York media outlets and public institutions, calling the world’s attention to the “injustices” and “dastardly deeds” of the corrupt power company and the system that failed him—all without invoking so much as a flicker of interest or a furrowed brow of suspicion. “I had written thousands of letters to every newspaper, every radio station, every commentator of importance and just about every church. I even tried to purchase space in the press, even the papers rejected my offers,” Metesky would later state. He estimated that he had written nearly 800,000 words during this period— enough to fill a 3,000-page book. (Tolstoy’s War and Peace contains about 560,000 words). “I never received so much as one single penny postal card in reply.”
His letters were long—some as many as nine hundred words—and filled with vitriolic ire. In one such letter to Con Ed, Metesky wrote:
You know, I just refuse to be robbed by the law, or a Power Trust, of my health, my ability to earn a living, the best years of my life, my advancement in the world . . . You are paying me what is due me, or you are telling me why not. Said reason better be AIR TIGHT. If there is any TREACHERY, or DOUBLE-CROSSING, I may assume the role of JUDGE JURY AND EXECUTIONER, and straighten matters out. I am done fooling around with SCUM.
With the failure of his communications to induce any response whatsoever, Metesky’s hostility and bitterness only escalated, and gradually his thinking became more illogical and his behavior increasingly irrational. Convinced that the failure of the newspapers to take notice of his sad chronicle was due to their incestuous relations with the influential Con Ed, he soon developed a broad mistrust that extended to people and institutions in general—all of whom, according to Metesky, seemed to be conspiratorially connected in some way to the sinister power company. With his prodigious letter-writing campaign in full tilt, his life seemed to be driven by the singular purpose of enlightening the world to the horrible injustices perpetrated by Con Ed against himself and thousands of its other employees.
And yet at the very time that George Metesky’s mind had begun its decent into the vortex of fury that would dominate his every thought, a creative and intellectual side also began to take shape. He invented an electric snow shovel that he demonstrated for one of his Waterbury tenants, who delightedly observed, “It worked great too. It’d pick up the snow and threw it to the left.” Later, Metesky rigged a hand-pushed lawnmower with a small electric motor and an extended durable cord that was featured in an article published in Popular Science. And in July 1938, he applied for and was ultimately granted a United States patent on a piston-driven circuit breaker for connecting and interrupting the electrical circuit of a solenoid pump. Ironically, this circuit completion technology would later prove to have broad application to a more devious and destructive venture engaged in by its inventor.
Though Metesky’s technical nature occasionally distracted him from the anger and bitterness that permeated his thoughts, he would later confess, “I had a mission to perform,” and his focus would invariably return to the injustices committed by Con Ed and its personnel. It was, however, this very ability to portray himself with an air of normalcy—even excellence— that permitted his increasingly impaired judgment and perception to remain undetected for much of his adult life.
Notwithstanding outward appearances, Metesky’s mind was slowly descending into flights of twisted imagination and distorted perceptions. He reserved his most vituperative bouts of fantasy for the three Con Ed employees—Cavanaugh, Purdy, and Lawson—who, in Metesky’s mind, had purposely provided false and slanderous testimony against him at the compensation hearing (this, despite the fact that the referee had clearly discounted their statements as unreliably inconsistent).
During the periods when his health permitted, Metesky would travel in and around Manhattan via the subway system. On one such occasion, as he sat holding the steel balance rail and peering silently out the window, Cavanaugh, Purdy, and Lawson boarded the car at one of its stops. Nothing could have persuaded him that he was mistaken as to their identities—though perhaps, and in all likelihood, he was. The three took seats directly across from him, and though he glared at them with confrontational eyes, they pretended, Metesky insisted, not to notice. As they sat in quiet conversation he was absolutely convinced that he was the topic of their exchange. Their smiles were derisive and their laughter, mocking—and it was all directed at him. He was sure of it. From that moment and for years to come, George Metesky’s disordered thinking became accompanied by a new and dangerous component: violence. In his mind’s eye, he saw, as clear as the perjurers’ deceitful lips, an explosion that ripped off the right arms of all three of these men—the arms that rose in a solemn vow to tell nothing but the truth. He saw a bullet enter the chest of the president of Con Ed, the shameful and blameworthy source of the world’s evils, and explode in his heart. And as for the elite power centers of New York City itself, he saw a plan of sabotage that would bring the metropolis to its knees—and at long last call attention to the condemnable acts of Con Ed.
As the scourge of fascism spread across Europe, the violent impulse that now inculcated George Metesky’s ailing mind searched for expression. The decade that gave birth to radio and radar, Art Deco and swing, The Grapes of Wrath and The Wizard of Oz; that saw Olympic triumph in Berlin and Hindenburg disaster in New Jersey; that began with the hardship of depression and the repeal of Prohibition, would end with America edging ever closer to world conflict. And for an unpretentious man from Waterbury, Connecticut, ravaged with mental illness, the decade of the 1930s would end with a simple decision to use bombs to settle a personal score.
IV
“SELECTED BY DESTINY”
WITH THE GREAT MISSION OF HIS LIFE HELD IN ABEYANCE IN FAVOR OF HIS patriotic feelings following the attack on
Pearl Harbor, Metesky withdrew deeper into his quirky and enigmatic world. His initial assaults against Con Ed had proven feeble at best, but the postponement of his objectives would allow him time and opportunity to prepare for the ultimate conflagration envisaged by his steadfast mind-set. Though his two spinster sisters, Anna and Mae, happily labored and sacrificed for the benefit of their younger brother, whom they still viewed as sickly and vulnerable, Metesky rarely conversed with them or shared any of his inner thoughts. His aging father, though still residing on the property, exerted minimal influence on George’s life and contributed meagerly to the household. His sisters provided him with clothing, money, and all the necessities of life. “We would deprive ourselves for him,” Anna would later recall. “We were sorry for him.” It was a “classic study in over-protection,” wrote one observer.
His daily routine began at eight o’clock each morning, after his sisters left for work, at which time he arose, tidied his bedroom, and prepared a light breakfast. Other than an afternoon nap of several hours and a short walk along Fourth Street, he would busy himself with his automobile, which he always serviced on his own, and would study electrical engineering from a series of books that he had accumulated through the years. By four-thirty in the afternoon, Metesky’s day was typically over. He would prepare an evening meal, dine alone, and immediately go to bed. His reclusive lifestyle would later be described as “timid and dull.” Not a soul—his sisters included—had the slightest inkling of the rage and insanity that brewed within.
Metesky was true to his promise to forego bomb-planting activities during the war, but he used the hiatus to study the craft and hone his skills, confident that in time they would be put to good and productive use. Alone in his garage, he extended his knowledge of electrical properties and experimented with different kinds of galvanized metal and fusing mechanisms. He began to stockpile the essential elements of his later units, which would have greater power and more efficient mechanics than his early ones. While the war raged through Western Europe and the Pacific, Metesky essentially lay in wait. The distorted reality that preyed upon his paranoid mind, however, continued in earnest. The passage of time did not dissuade his seething hatred of Con Ed or the list of its co-conspirators, which, to his unhinged way of thinking, expanded by the day.
Shortly after the start of the war, Metesky, then thirty-nine years of age, received his draft notice. To add to his feelings of alienation, he was rejected for military service on the basis of his medical history. Several months later he attempted to enlist but, upon examination by the Waterbury draft board, was again rejected based on the results of a chest X-ray that evidenced prior lung disease. Sensing a scheme—a pervasive and surreptitious fraud—Metesky immediately lashed out against one of the draft board members, Miles Kelly, whom he suspected of being complicit. Kelly was a former tenant in Metesky’s home, and the relationship was strained from the outset. Following his enlistment rejection, Metesky sent letters to the company where the man worked denouncing his actions and berating his character. At the same time, he wrote to the local draft board and even President Roosevelt, complaining of the man’s improprieties and cynically suggesting that Kelly himself be drafted for service. The carefully constructed logic of Metesky’s arguments was twisted to everyone but himself. “He was a person who always was ready to fight authority . . . ,” said one Waterbury citizen.
In December 1942 Metesky cajoled the owners of the Waterbury Tool Company to give him a job. At first, the owner was hesitant to offer the position because of his prior health problems, but “after much discussion and medical examinations” Metesky was able to persuade him that his mechanical expertise would be a valuable asset to the company and he was hired.
During the next year, he maintained the appearance of a productive and functioning employee. Ironically, however, Metesky found himself working side by side with Miles Kelly, who was also employed at the tool company, and the personal rancor between the two stemming from the draft board incident continued. Metesky repeatedly complained about Kelly’s work and often petitioned his employer to fire him. Despite this discord, Metesky eagerly worked with both the public and other company personnel, sorting, shelving, and selling tools and other mechanical equipment and earning a very respectable wage of between $60 and $70 per week. As time went on, however, his chronic lung disease had begun to resurface and his absences from work started to increase. Finally, in December 1943, Metesky suffered another pulmonary hemorrhage and was diagnosed with an advanced case of bilateral tuberculosis.
With the assistance of his doctor, Max Ruby, he was able to gain admittance to the Undercliff Sanitarium in Meriden, Connecticut, a state-run facility exclusively dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis, where he would remain for the next fourteen months. Though examined and treated on many occasions by facility personnel, Metesky’s condition did not materially improve. By his own account, he was “miserable and lonely,” and on February 25, 1945, he left the sanitarium against the advice of his doctors and returned home. A few months later he was re-examined and found to have “further progression” of the disease, but because of “the patient’s lack of cooperation” further treatment became impossible. Spending most of each day at home and in bed, Metesky gave up all thought of employment, electing rather to independently follow the routines of the sanitarium and live off the hard work and good intentions of his father and doting sisters.
Predictably, Metesky lay blame for his troubles squarely at the feet of Con Ed. The persistent grudge that he bore against the company continued to advance, and on various occasions between 1941 and 1946 he again launched volleys of letters to concerns around New York, all containing the familiar vitriol, and all closing with the characteristic “F.P.” sign-off. For all practical purposes, however, through World War II and for several years beyond, George Metesky dropped from sight.
The record is practically void of specific detail regarding Metesky’s life for much of the 1940s. His health remained in various states of advance and decline during those years, and perhaps his total focus was centered on the pursuit of physical well-being. By his own words, the period was marked by feelings of disillusionment, and even his letter-writing campaign had begun to subside. None of his actions had succeeded in drawing attention to Con Ed’s evil conduct, and the ideal of the “unknown man battling for justice,” as he preferred to view himself, had seemed a distant and faltering aspiration.
Disillusionment notwithstanding, there is also evidence that, during this reclusive period after the war, Metesky resumed his bomb-making endeavors. He would later admit to planting up to twenty-four units that would remain unexploded and undiscovered—several at locations in and around the offices of Con Ed in the late 1940s. Neither the police nor the public had taken any notice of these devices, but Metesky’s later declarations against his own interest would suggest that the statements were reliable and consistent with the underlying resentment that continued to brew within him.
With the war behind her, America had entered a new era of optimism and prosperity. Families would be reunited and the national ethos would turn from the horrors of war to the solace of social and economic renewal. For George Metesky, however, the war against tyranny had just begun. To him, the advent of the 1950s would herald a rebirth of fury and a resurgence of fixated obsession.
As the 1940s drew to a close, the inherent and unmistakable traits of paranoia, though not fundamentally changed, had begun to broaden and steadily intensify, leaving him unrelentingly persecutory and pathologically self-absorbed. The focus of his anger, though still emanating from the deeds of his former employer, had generalized through the years, leaving him with the paranoiac view that “the world had done him wrong.” The failure of newspapers, retail stores, theaters, dance clubs, hotels, and other New York institutions to respond to his letters and render aid to his cause was viewed not merely as indifference or confusion to his myriad claims, but as active and malevolent collusion w
ith Con Ed to deny him justice. Alone against a vast conspiratorial network that penetrated into every crevice of society and threatened not only his own interests but those of countless others, he regarded himself as “the instrument selected by destiny to overcome this conspiracy.” “[H]is fury of hatred so enveloped his mental faculties and impaired his judgment to such a degree that it excluded all conscious, rational behavior and thinking.” With the advent of a new era and the apparent resurgence of his health, he had become convinced that the “great mission” of his life, his “messianic role,” his “crusade” to provide society with a “great service” was now at hand.
Deep within the throes of a progressive and severely incapacitating schizophrenia, George Metesky once again declared war on the Consolidated Edison Company.
V
“A MAN WITH A HAMMER”
ROWS OF CASKETS BEARING THE BODIES OF FALLEN AMERICAN SOLDIERS had become an all too familiar sight beneath the high vaulted ceilings of the Forty-third Street entrance to New York’s Grand Central Terminal during World War II. The terminal had been used by the military as a stop-over point from which grieving families could retrieve their loved ones and then continue the final journey home. At the arched entrance of the terminal, the statuary metaphor of Progress rising from the American Eagle, with Physical Force and Mental Force at its feet, seemed burdened once again by the strains of war.
The celebrated story of Grand Central, steeped in triumph and tragedy, began with its 1913 opening. It quickly transformed the culture and economy of surrounding Manhattan. Covering seventy-nine acres and bragging a capacity of 30,000 people without crowding, the station, at various times, was home to movie theaters, art galleries, museums, schools, and a wide variety of exhibitions. Considered by some at its opening the “greatest railway terminal in the world,” Grand Central would host, through the years, such famous long-distance trains as the Fast Mail, the Water-Level Limited, the Wolverine, and the Twentieth Century Limited.
The Mad Bomber of New York Page 5