STANWOOD – A cryptic note next to his senior portrait may come back to haunt a 2004 Stanwood High School graduate.
Mark Robert Walker was arrested earlier this week, accused of trying to send night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests to Islamic militants in Somalia.
Walker, 19, was arrested last Saturday in El Paso, Texas, as he was crossing the border back into Texas after attempting to meet an Islamic extremist in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, according to charging papers.
The FBI’s El Paso office told the El Paso Times on Wednesday that Walker may be only a confused young man.
“He’s not a major terrorist or a threat to us. What he did is wrong, and we were concerned enough to arrest him. In the end, he’s probably better off in a U.S. prison than fighting jihad in a foreign country,” FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said.
Walker has no criminal record in Snohomish County.
But he created a stir just before graduation in June with his Senior Square in the yearbook. In a space next to his senior portrait, where seniors normally send farewell messages and thanks to their classmates, Walker’s message left students and administrators concerned.
“I am grateful to God for not killing em (sic) yet, though it probably would be better for the world. My plans for world supremacy are in order. They entail taking over Somalia and working outward, but I should not divulge the exact details of my cunning strategy. In case the reader is not present to witness my future heroic death, here is my death poem: ephemeral flash/ of grenade exploding/ all shall pass this world.”
It ends by telling one classmate to shut up, and wishing another two “many years of marital bliss.”
Stanwood-Camano School District officials on June 11 started to investigate, but stopped when they realized Walker and his family had moved to Rochester, N.Y.
Superintendent Jean Shumate told the FBI about Walker’s Senior Square after she learned of his arrest.
A member of the high school chess team, Walker enrolled in the district in 1996. In 2000, he was a regional winner of the National Geographic Geography Bee.
Students who knew him said Walker was extremely smart, with a rich vocabulary.
“He was definitely one of the smartest people I knew,” said Jake Roberts, 17. “Nobody knew Mark, really.”
Students also believed that he was fluent in at least three languages, English, Spanish and Hebrew.
“He’d spend an extra hour every night doing his assignment in Hebrew,” said Tyler Cutforth, 15.
Walker went to Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, to meet someone who described himself as an Islamic extremist named Khalid, according to court documents.
Walker had communicated with Khalid in Internet jihad forums, according to documents. The documents do not say whether Khalid exists.
Walker was arrested on Nov. 6 at the Paso Del Norte Bridge and charged with attempting to make a contribution of goods and services to Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya, a designated terrorist organization, according to federal officials. The offense is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.
A detention hearing for Walker is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Monday in federal court in El Paso.
Walker apparently fled to the border after his roommate in Laramie, Wyo., where Walker attended Wyoming Technical College, reported him to local police, court documents state.
Walker’s family could not be reached for comment.
Don Milton, a neighbor of Walker’s family since they moved to New York in June, said the teen’s situation “didn’t seem to fit the family.”
“They seem like very nice people and very nice family,” he said, based on a few over-the-fence conversations. “I don’t know what happened to the boy or what influenced him.”
Milton said he had only talked with the family briefly since their son had been charged.
“It’s a very difficult time for them,” he said.
Contributors to this story were El Paso Times writers Tammy Fonce-Olivas and Louis Gilot, and Herald writers Robert Frank, Eric Stevick and Sharon Salyer.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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