Do you perchance know if they ever caught the perpetrators or discovered their motives? A quick Google doesn't seem to show much and the article didn't seem to have details either
Given how universities deal with lab security, I would not be suprised if the dynamite was stolen SLAC dynamite to be used on some fishing trip being hidden somewhere that got hot ...
https://www.slac.stanford.edu/vault/pubvault/news19701971/sl...