GEORGE METESKY: NEW YORK's MAD BOMBER

The neighbors didn't know what to make of George Metesky. The dapper, slavic man who lived at Number 17 Fourth Street in Waterbury, Connecticut with his two unmarried sisters didn't appear to work for a living. Although he was always polite, he was distant and nobody in the neighborhood knew anything about him.

Local children feared Metesky and called his house "The Crazy House" despite there being little or no evidence of madness or foul play at the house. A couple of neighbors wondered what Mr. Metesky did on his frequent excursions into New York City. Some knew he attended mass at St. Patrick's regularly, but that didn't explain the other trips. Still others wondered what he made in his workshop at all hours of the day and night.

Around the same time as the newspapers began to publicize the Dr. Brussel's profile of the mad bomber, the neighbors noticed a change in Metesky. He seemed friendlier even talkative at times. He helped a local boy fix his model airplane, and the neighborhood children were no longer afraid of him. People in the neighborhood remarked to one another that they might have misjudged the eccentric Metesky.

Had they known that George Metesky had once worked for Con Edison they might have made the connection between him and the bomber. They might have been suspicious as the police stopped by Number 17 "on a routine house-to-house check" regarding an automobile accident and did not stop at any other houses.

A few nights later, the neighbors were shocked when the police came and arrested Metesky. Dressed in his bathrobe, he pleasantly and politely confessed to being the bomber. He revealed that F.P. stood for "Fair Play."

The police requested that Metesky change clothes before they arrested him. He obliged, and when they took him away he was wearing a double-breasted suit buttoned.