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The long-frigid case of Leo Burt, accused of helping to mastermind the 1970 bombing of UW-Madison’s Sterling Hall, has gotten a little warmer in recent weeks. Many say he’s already dead. If still alive, he would be 62 years old and the longest-running fugitive to ever make the FBI’s top ten most wanted list. But with the passing of the bombing’s 40th anniversary in August, people not just in Wisconsin but around the world are seeing Burt everywhere – and the search continues.

the aftermath of the sterling hall bombing

Last month, the FBI updated its profile of the case on its website. “Where is Leo Burt?” the site asked. “You can earn up to $150,000 by helping us find him.”

Burt was just 22 when a van filled with explosives went off on the university campus. The bomb largely missed its target, an Army research center that sustained only minor damage, but killed a scientist and prompted a damaging backlash against the anti-war movement in the United States. The attack was one of the first of its kind and would later be replicated in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Until them, the attack by Burt and three accomplices (supposedly members of the left-wing “New Year’s Gang”) stood as the most costly act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

All three of the bombing’s other plotters were captured in the years-long manhunt that followed the bombing, one that still continues for Burt but on a much smaller scale. Michael Zaleski, the attorney who successfully prosecuted Karleton Armstrong, one of the conspirators, on second degree murder charges for the Wisconsin Department of Justice has dubbed Burt “the Wisconsin state ghost.” Zaleski really means it. “In all likelihood, he’s deceased,” he says of Burt. Another one of the conspirators, Dwight Armstrong, Karleton’s younger brother, died in June from lung cancer.

The case has cooled but never frozen altogether. Investigators dutifully track down leads in such far-flung locales as a resort in Costa Rica where tipsters said he was working. Chris Cole, supervisory special agent for the FBI field office in Madison, says the case has generated hundreds of leads over the years. The anniversary has elicited more sightings. The FBI released a pair of time-lapse photos (one with a beard and one without) in August depicting Burt as he might look today. It turns out a lot of people know someone who looks like the photos. “Believe me, we’ve spoken to all of them,” Cole says.

Several years ago, the FBI distributed copies of Burt’s fingerprints to coroner’s offices around the country. Cole says the office operates on the assumption that Burt is still alive. So far, nobody’s provided definitive evidence that he isn’t. Family member tell investigators they’ve had no contact with him nor received any word of his death. If alive, Burt missed both of his parents’ funerals. The last contact between authorities and Burt was 40 years ago when he evaded the Royal Canadian Mounted Police by running out the back of a Canadian boarding house.

leo burt: young, older and older with beard

He’s been “in the wind” ever since. Over the years, theories have sought to explain Burt’s apparent immunity to capture. One of the more popular pegs him as a government operative hired to discredit the anti-war movement. If so, the “black op” was extremely effective. The bombing knocked the wind out of the movement not just in Madison but around the country.

“Madison was always at the center of the news at the time with riots and burnings going on,” recalls Zaleski. “After this, nothing. You can always make arguments. The Nixon White House was full of dirty tricks at the time. I certainly don’t believe it.”

Burt’s background feeds much of the speculation. He started his student career at UW-Madison as an ROTC student. He was an athletic rower and described as an all-American type. He had even briefly attended officer’s school at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia. But Madison apparently radicalized him. He was a sportswriter for the Daily Cardinal student newspaper, which was closely involved in war protests at the time.

The supposed transition was complete (and the New Year’s Gang got its name) when on Dec. 31, 1969, members tried (and failed) to drop Molotov cocktails on the Badger Army Ammunition Plant in Sauk County from a small stolen airplane. The small fire-starting devices were snuffed out in the fall from the plane.

Wisconsin authorities, who would prosecute Burt on murder charges in addition to the federal explosives charges if given the chance, have long suspected that Burt was assisted by a network of left-wing radicals in the early days of the manhunt. But who could be left after 40 years?

A website, LeoBurt.com, run by an anonymous webmaster asks Burt to come forward. “Leo, contact me. I can probably cut you a deal if you want to surrender,” the website says. But it’s not clear what pull (if any) the author has with state and federal authorities, or if the offer of help is just a ruse.

Adds the webmaster, “You should consider coming out of the cold. I’d be happy to help facilitate the process.”

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