Advertising Executive Killed by Mail Bomb at N.J. Home
Mysterious Package Explodes on Opening

A top Madison Avenue advertising executive was killed in his New Jersey home yesterday when a booby-trapped package exploded as he opened it.

Thomas Mosser, 50, was recently named executive vice president and general manager of Young & Rubicam Inc. Worldwide, one of the largest ad agencies in the world.

Authorities could not immediately determine a motive for the death, Essex County Prosecutor Clifford Minor said last night. There was no indication the executive was involved in any criminal activities, or that any threats had been made against him or his family, Minor said.

Police said that when the explosion occurred at about 10:45 a.m., Mosser was in the kitchen of his two-story hilltop home in North Caldwell in a heavily wooded, Essex County community.

Mosser’s wife, Susan, and his two children, ages 13 years and 15 months, were also in the house but were not injured, police said. The kitchen was heavily damaged.

Sources said the distraught Susan Mosser was concerned that the attack could be related to her husband’s business, particularly to his recent promotion.

Officials were checking for possible links to other unsolved bombings, including a series of attacks targeting college professors and scientists mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, sources said. Earlier this year, ABC President Robert Iger was the target of two attempted letter-bomb attacks.

One investigator said Mosser’s 13-year-old described the package that exploded as being “about the size of a compact disc.”

Postal inspectors said an attempt had been made to deliver the parcel two days earlier, but delivery could not be made because it would not fit through the mail slot. Minor said the explosion occurred when Mosser opened the package. Investigators did not describe the type of explosive used.

Neighbors said Mosser had returned home late Friday night after a business trip.

The search for clues involved agents of the FBI, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Essex County sheriff’s bomb squad, local police and an explosive-sniffing dog that New York police used to search the Manhattan headquarters of Young & Rubicam.

In North Caldwell, neighbors described the Mossers as quiet people. “They’re just very nice people,” said Arlene Hayward, who lives nearby. “We see them go to work every morning and come back every night.”

“Nationwide, this kind of incident is extremely rare,” said Postal Inspector John Johnson.

Richard McGowan, spokesman for Young & Rubicam, said Mosser had spent “many years” with the company, most of them in Burson Marsteller, a subsidiary that is one of the world’s largest public relations firms.

Young & Rubicam’s client list includes many familiar brand names, including Philip Morris, American Express and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“He just took this job as general manager and executive vice president two weeks ago,” McGowan said. “He was a member of the agency’s most senior operating committee, responsible for corporate duties.

“He was one of our very finest communications executives,” said McGowan. “We’re obviously devastated by the news.”

Of the explosion, McGowan said agency officials “have absolutely no signs at all and no clue to what it was all about — it came totally out of the blue.”