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[Music] up next an explosion rips through an illinois church the town was terrified evidence was
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everywhere we found evidence on top of buildings the debris field was huge two teenagers implicate one another
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dungeons and dragons looks like the cause i thought that was an incredibly stupid thing to do
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but a thin blue wire tells a different story [Music] oakwood illinois is a quiet small town
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of less than a thousand residents and little if any violent crime at the oakwood methodist church as
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volunteers prepared for their christmas celebration church member brian plower walked
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outside where something caught his attention [Music] some of us thought that maybe a vehicle
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had driven into the church we got there right after the first responders did and
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their first reaction was that it was a gas explosion 46 year old brian plower was killed
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instantly he left behind a wife and three children very charismatic gregarious uh
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brian never met anybody he didn't like bill adams's daughter walked out just moments before the explosion
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it is by pure chance that it could have been my daughter you know i've often thought that brian
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took what could have happened to my daughter agents from the bureau of alcohol tobacco firearms and explosives
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were called in to investigate we found metal fragmentation we found pieces of pipe nipple we picked up any pieces of
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wire we found batteries we did find some nine volt batteries we picked up everything this clearly eliminated a gas
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line explosion these were the ingredients of a pipe bomb a homemade device in which
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gunpowder is packed into a steel pipe closed with metal end caps in this case fragments of red painted
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end caps were found in the rubble along with 30 gauge blue insulated silver coated copper wire this was not very
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common wire it could be a particular signature of the bomber a signature is something
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unusual or unique left by the bomber often without knowing it we actually found a piece of green plastic that had
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a label on it that said igloo legend 12 which is a cooler this meant the pipe bomb was inside the
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cooler activated with the trip wire investigators did not believe that the victim
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was the intended target it was very apparent to us that this was very random there was nothing in mr plower's
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background to indicate him being the target of a crime after some digging investigators learned
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two important pieces of information first the only store within 25 miles that sold 30 gauge blue insulated silver
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coated copper wire was the local radio shack electronics store since only one merchandiser sold that
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wire if they kept records of their transactions that that could prove helpful in getting a lead and
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there was only one store that sold the igloo brand legend 12 cooler we found out that
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that color scheme was only sold at walmart so that narrowed our focus then on where
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that cooler could have been purchased then investigators got an anonymous tip that two students at oakwood high school
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might have been involved one of them had a past criminal history with one of the offenses being arson one
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of the subjects had been seen in possession of a notebook that had handwritten on the
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front of it bomb recipes the teenagers 18 year old jimmy morris and 16 year old phil ryan had no alibis
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for the time of the bombing at first they said that they were driving past the scene when the
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explosion happened then they said that they were there within moments and saw brian plower in
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the moments just before the explosion from a photo lineup employees at the local radio shack store identified
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jimmy morris as having been in their store but couldn't recall what he purchased
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everything that the investigation showed about the teenagers indicated that they could be involved in
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this investigators also learned that the boys were heavily involved in the game dungeons and dragons a fantasy-oriented
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game played by more than 20 million people worldwide it allows participants to assume
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imaginary often violent identities there had been across the country instances where the role playing
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within the game of dungeons and dragons had turned violent in real life teenagers denied
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involvement in the bombing and were given polygraphs the polygraph indicated that they
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were giving some deceptive answers uh when questioned about bombs and bomb making eventually
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they each implicated the other both subjects stated that they saw the other subject
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in possession of a green cooler it looked like investigators had solved the case
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until there was another bombing just five miles away [Music] the first assembly of god church in
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danville illinois was located five miles away from the location of the first bombing
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[Music] the blast injured 33 people most of them teenagers injured in the church bombing may never
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recover emotionally this second bombing was more powerful than the first when we first arrived on the scene we
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were in shock there was a hole in the west wall that was big enough to drive a truck through
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it was unbelievable the explosion happened next to the pews where a church youth group was sitting
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33 people were injured they had shrapnel that had been embedded in their face some in their ears this was
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just an explosion of such a powerful magnitude that debris rained down on them which is
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something that you don't see every day involved two churches you don't see a
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lot of crime against churches the atf looked everywhere for pieces of the explosive device
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we found evidence on top of buildings everywhere it was just the debris field was huge
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eventually atf investigators found more than 20 different bomb components which enabled them to build a replica
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this one was triggered with a timer and was clearly larger and more powerful than the first
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there were a lot of differences there which leaves you with two alternatives either is experimenting graduating up to
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bigger and better things the other alternative is it was two separate people that made
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these devices to find out forensic examiners looked at the wire from the second bomb site
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was this the same signature wire used in the first bond it was a silver coated single strand copper wire
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with blue insulation it's 30 gauge it's very very small wire but was it the same wire atf examiner greg cleese
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examined the extrusion marks made on the plastic insulation as it squeezed through the die
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during the manufacturing process this process makes the wire its uniform size those marks will be
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imported on the on that plastic insulation for a number of feet before it changes
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dramatically lined up on a comparison microscope there was no doubt the wire from both bomb sites came
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from the same source in fact that these were produced on the same forming die at the same
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plant they also discovered both bombs used the same glue and the same cotton string
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[Music] since both bombs appeared to be made by the same individual this eliminated jimmy morris and phil
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ryan they both had solid alibis for the second bombing but why did these boys implicate
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themselves in the first place they offered an explanation that they were doing this because they
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were playing this dungeons and dragons game they really spent a lot of time wasting
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the time of investigators i thought that was an incredibly stupid thing to do then a witness came forward saying she'd
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seen a white male walking a german shepherd dog near the church parking lot a few hours
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before the first bombing she remembered the dog had a brown leather collar with a brass name tag on
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it but she couldn't provide a description of the man was this the break investigators needed
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after two high school students were eliminated as suspects the atf continued to search for leads
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they suspected that the blue copper wire was purchased at the local radio shack store
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unfortunately most customers who bought this wire paid cash so this was a dead end
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the pipe had been inside a plastic cooler sold only in walmart stores of the hundreds sold
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only three were purchased with a credit card or check those individuals were interviewed and
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cleared it was a dead end we were unable to associate that cooler with anyone that
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could be considered a person of interest all of the other bomb components were common and could have
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been purchased anywhere but investigators needed to find the bomber before he could strike
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again since his devices were getting more sophisticated we did feel that this was an escalation
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it was a bigger device it happened when more people were present then a tipster came forward a member of
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the church where the second bombing took place the member of the church come up said i don't know if this means much but
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there was this gentleman by the name of mr white that i know and that he had actually
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attended this church approximately five to six years prior and it seeked actually getting into the
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church as a member and had been turned down forty-year-old richard white lived just 12 miles away from the church
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with his mother and his teenage daughter we also start interviewing everyone that
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knows mr white friends family everyone we were told by a lot of the neighbors that richard dean white was somebody
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that you didn't want to mess with a background check revealed a troubled past
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white was a high school dropout and spent time in the u.s army but was discharged after only six
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weeks later he spent time in four different psychiatric hospitals where he was diagnosed
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as a paranoid schizophrenic i believe that he was completely confused at one time he felt that there was
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demons underneath the floor in the bathroom and he cut the bathroom floor out to get
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the demons out of there eventually white got married and landed a job with general motors
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his marriage ended after just six months and he was laid off from his job in 1987.
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he had such a hard time becoming involved back in the community he lost his job he wasn't able to retain friends or any
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relationships and really was forced to move back home with his mother white's psychiatric problems may have
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been the reason why the danville church rejected his application for membership there has to be an agreement between the
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board and because of some of the things that happened that was contributed to him
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we didn't think that that would be quite what we wanted at that particular time
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investigators also learned that rick's ex-wife was a member of the oakwood united methodist
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church where the first bombing took place i felt like that that was what he was trying to strike out against her and get
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even with her at the time that that happened that was purely speculation on my part i have no
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idea then four days after the second church bombing before investigators could interview
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rick white there was another bombing this time in a residential neighborhood several miles away bomb number three
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what are we gonna do now [Music] after two bombings and five months of investigation
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the atf finally had a potential suspect in rick white a background check revealed
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white had a history of psychiatric problems i don't know that he had problems making
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friends i just don't think rick wanted friends his dog was his friend and so that
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satisfied rick [Music] so investigators decided to pay white a visit they asked rick white's mother
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investigators found the garage behind the white's home in ruins i could see steam
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smoke when the explosion went off and actually pushed the walls out like actually see into the building itself
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and there was one victim inside the building along with a dog a large dog the victim had been
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decapitated a driver's license found on the workbench identified him as richard white
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we did not know if we had a victim or a suspect but that question was answered as
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investigators sifted through the rubble there were parts of bombs in there in the process of being made
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and tools wiring all kinds of things that you could use to make pipe bombs circumstantial evidence would indicate
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that he intended to kill himself to avoid having to talk to the police next to white's body was his german
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shepherd dog it matched the description of the dog given by the witness near the first bomb site he was obviously
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clutching the bomb close to his body and he had his one friend in the world there
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with him his other arm around his dog also in the garage investigators found blue silver coated wire
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the kind used in the two church bombings they also found a pair of wire cutters scientists compared the tool marks from
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white's wire cutters to the tool marks on the copper wire found at the danville bomb site
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from that comparison i was able to conclude that this diagonal cutter that they've
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recovered in richard white's garage was in fact the dial cutter that cut that wire end that was found on the
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dandel device this was forensic proof that white was the bomber we found an area of
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the garage that had red spray paint on it and contained on that red spray paint were
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perfectly round circles the reason that was important was the device that killed mr plower which was a pipe
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bomb with end caps on it those end caps were painted red with a gold coating but questions remained why
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did rick white target churches investigators believe white was angry at the first assembly of god church for
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turning down his membership application but he couldn't bomb that church at least
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not right away it would have been too obvious so he chose the oakwood united methodist
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church as his first target possibly because his ex-wife was a member he was experimenting
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he was trying to get different things to work different initiators for the device different
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triggering systems the forensic evidence shows that white placed the pipe bomb in a green cooler not caring who
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would pick it up church member brian plower was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time
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[Music] in the first assembly of god church bombing white used a stronger bomb since this was his
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primary target he placed the bomb on top of an outdoor air conditioner this one had a timer designed to explode
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during the sunday service 33 people were injured we were in absolute shock just like the
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people in the community that no one had been killed in october of 1998 a grand jury
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concluded richard white built both bombs and murdered brian plower the forensic evidence left no doubt
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these investigations did not result in the prosecution it was closure for the victim's family
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richard white did this we know that he did it it doesn't really you know answer those questions
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why it doesn't uh make the hurt less you know there's still pain there's
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still you know anger there's still hurt and and loss and grief that continues
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and continues and continues with the bombing the misconception is the blast destroys the evidence the
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blast disperses the evidence where it makes it harder for us to find it but we'll find it