Odeh was serving as West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) when he was assassinated in a bombing in Santa Ana, California.

Born into a Palestinian Catholic family in Jifna, Mandatory Palestine, Alex Odeh immigrated to the United States in 1972 at the age of 28.

A father of three young daughters at the time of his death, Odeh was the West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).

[5] The night before his death Odeh explained to the media that the Palestine Liberation Organization was not involved in the hijacking and Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat was ready to make peace.

[1] The day of his murder, October 11, Odeh had been scheduled to speak at Friday prayer services at a synagogue in Fountain Valley, California.

[8][12] Immediately after the 1985 assassination the FBI identified three suspects—all of whom were believed to be affiliated with the JDL—who fled to Israel soon after the incident: Robert Manning, Keith Fuchs and Andy Green.

Floyd Clarke, then assistant director of the FBI, claimed in an internal memo that key suspects had fled to Israel and were living in Kiryat Arba, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

In 1989, American journalist Chris Hedges discovered Robert Manning's residency in Kiryat Arba due to his use of a compromised alias.

[5][17] Robert Manning was charged with the bombing attack that killed Wilkerson and convicted; in February 1994, Judge Dickran Tevrizian sentenced him to life imprisonment with a minimum of 30 years before parole.

[18][19][20] After some years imprisoned at USP Lompoc, Manning was transferred to the medium security federal prison in Phoenix, Arizona.

[23] In April 1994, the Alex Odeh Memorial Statue, created by Algerian-American sculptor Khalil Bendib, was erected in front of the Santa Ana Central Library[24][25] over protests by the JDL.

The bombers are believed to be Manning and two other JDL activists, Keith Fuchs and Andy Green, all of whom fled to Israel where they have avoided prosecution and extradition.