OIL CITY, Pa. — Befriending the homeless, traveling an estimated 100,000 miles and fashioning hundreds of fake ID cards from a $300 printer helped Clayton Lee Waagner stay ahead of authorities.

        The anti-abortion activist who eluded federal authorities for 10 months during the height of last fall's anthrax scare believes he had the help of a higher power when he escaped from an Illinois jail in February 2001.

        “From the minute the handcuffs were put on me the first time until I was out the door, I knew it was going to happen ... God put it in my heart,” Waagner told The Derrick newspaper in Oil City in a series of phone calls from his jail cell in Cincinnati.

        Waagner, of Kennerdell, about 60 miles north of Pittsburgh, will represent himself at his trial starting Monday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati. He is charged with possessing stolen guns and a stolen car when he was captured Dec. 5 in a suburban copy store.

        Waagner also has claimed responsibility for sending more than 550 anthrax threat letters to about 280 women's reproductive health clinics in October and November.

        Waagner also is charged with bank robberies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, a car theft in Mississippi and possession of a pipe bomb in Tennessee.

        He is planning to write a book and use his trial as a forum to promote his ideas. Waagner, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, said he feels justified in his actions because he equates abortion with murder.

        “I was thinking how wrong it would be to not speak up,” he said. “I spoke up in the most effective way I could.”

        In the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Waagner said he was handed a prime opportunity to draw attention to his crusade against abortion by mailing hoax anthrax letters. He said the terrorist attacks convinced him not to hurt anyone.

        “I made a conscious decision, that I would not and could not kill anyone,” he said. “I started with the full intent of doing violence. ... I felt it would be justified.”

        While the rest of the nation recoiled in dread from reports of deadly anthrax mailings in Florida and New York, Waagner gleaned inspiration.

        “I thought, 'I hope this doesn't die down. This will be effective,”' he said.

        In his first batch of fake mailings in October, he posted threatening letters filled with white flour and mailed about 500 to abortion clinics. He claimed many clinics closed for more than a day.

        In November, he got a tip from a news report and bought herbicides that tested positive for anthrax for $3.66 a pound at a rural South Carolina feed store. He sent letters by Federal Express and sent the bill to Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation.

        “It definitely disrupted their lives,” he said. “I know that people had to think about what they were doing that day.”

        Waagner's capture on Dec. 5 at a copy shop near Cincinnati concluded one of federal authorities' most elusive chases, running up a nearly $1 million tab.

        “He's probably the most elusive fugitive we have pursued,” U.S. Marshal Bruce Harmening said. “I would like to sit down and see just how he did it.”

        During his time on the lam, Waagner said he was constantly on the move. He paid a bartender $200 for a book that showed hundreds of ID cards and dug up receipts from car dumps that showed drivers' information.

        “I used a different name almost every day,” he said.

        He also picked up homeless alcoholics and used them to buy food and book hotel rooms.

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