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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always he's the one who likes all the
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pretty songs and he likes to sing along he is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen and good
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to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] this week we are very happy to be
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featuring birthday Bomb by the amazing Artisans over at Prairie Artisan ales this is a deliciously complex Imperial
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style aged with coffee cacao nibs vanilla beans and chili peppers then the icing on the cake it's finished with
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caramel sauce garage grade five out of five bottle caps and this week I picked birthday bomb because it is a city-wide
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holiday here in Parts Unknown that's right it is the captain's birthday so happy birthday to you old wise one and
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cheers to the captain yeah cheers to that guy wherever he is and cheers to all of you for helping us fill up the
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fridge let's give out some praise and thanks right here right now Captain first up a big cheers to Maggie formerly
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of Columbus currently residing in Scottsdale Arizona and a big we like your jib to Ashley in Phoenixville
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Pennsylvania next we have a cheers going out to Kim and Crystal Lake Illinois and
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a big cheers to Christina in San Antonio Texas and here's a little cheers to Jeff
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in Santa Barbara California and last but certainly not least we have a big thank
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you going out to Devin and Angela in Denver Colorado everyone we just mentioned went to True Crime garage.com
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and they helped us out with this week's beer fun for the beer run yeah a little birthday bwe Double R U Win beer run for
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all of our old episodes you can check them out guess what everywhere that you listen to podcasts and also check out
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our bonus show called off the Record OTR if you're nasty and that is enough of the business all right everybody
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gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] thank you
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[Music] thank you murder is a broad and fascinating crime people murder for love and for hate
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some murder for money others for want of money some people murder in a cold insane rage
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and some people murder with the calculating skill of a butcher some people use guns or knives or their
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hands some people murder children exclusively or women and some people plant bombs and high
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traffic locales and some mail them to specific targets New York City's mad bomber a case
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featured here in the garage was about an angry and yes very much a Madman who terrorized New York City for
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16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he planted in public places bombs were left in phone
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booths storage lockers and restrooms and public buildings including the Grand Central Terminal Pennsylvania station
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Radio City Music Hall the subway and the New York Public Library for 16 years a period stretching back to 1940 the
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largest most formidable police force in the nation had failed to hustle up any worthy leads by 1956 the bomber's
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handiwork showed a lethal new proficiency he declared his deadly intent and letters sent to newspaper editors each
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rambling raging letter was cryptically signed FP desperation drove the police to pursue a
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course they never before considered in the Department's 111 year history NYPD was going to consult with James a
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brussel a psychiatrist with the expertise in the workings of the Criminal Mind if physical evidence could not lead the
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police to FP maybe emotional insights could since a physical description of the bomber was unattainable New York
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police believe maybe Dr Brussel could use the evidence to draw a profile of the bomber's inner self an emotional
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portrait that would illuminate his background and disorder Brussel told them that the
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bomber was a textbook paranoid schizophrenic people suffering from this disorder he explained May believe other
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people are controlling them or plotting against them they are typically reclusive anti-social and consumed with
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hatred for their imagined enemies for all their derangement they're capable of acting quite normal until
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inevitably some aspect of their delusions enter into their conversation the paranoia is the world's champion
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Grudge holder bressel would explain we all get mad at other people and organizations sometimes but with most of
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us the anger evaporates eventually the Mad bombers anger does not once he gets the idea that somebody has
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wronged him or is out to hurt him the idea stays in his mind the bomber Brussel continued almost
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surely operated as a lone wolf paranoids quote have confidence only in themselves
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they are overwhelmingly egocentric they distrust everyone an accomplice would be a potential bungler or double
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Crosser ultimately Dr Brussel was correct and his assessment of the evidence which was
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simply the bomber's actions words and intent this specifically helped NYPD identify
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locate and apprehend a domestic terrorist that eluded them for 16 years the mad bomber later identified as
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George mateski was angry and resentful about events surrounding a workplace injury he suffered years earlier
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Brussel called his approach Reverse Psychology today we call it criminal profiling
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decades later in 1980 after four attacks the FBI created the unibom task force during the 80s they failed to identify
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the Unabomber and then he went dormant the FED suspected the terrorists could be dead but then the attack started up
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again and in 1993 things that the task force were ramping up and a new wave of Agents with differing array of expertise
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were brought in to work the case it would be assigned task force agents all received a rather large memo titled
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major case number 75 Dash uni bomb for well over a decade the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the U.S
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investigated the case they dubbed uni-bomb by the mid 90s the perpetrator was the
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most Wanted serial killer in the United States and he was one that none of his victims
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had ever laid eyes on an individual so mysterious and elusive that he was known only by the case code
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name the FBI had given him Unabomber since his early bombings were directed at universities and Airlines
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unlike the one big crude blast of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and his cohorts the Unabomber's attacks were
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more like that of the Mad bombers but unfortunately more destructive and deadly these bombings were spaced apart
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this perpetrator could wait and act over time he was more specifically directed he was clever
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he was diabolical and his motive was wrapped in layers of Mystery this is true crime garage and this is
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the case of the Unabomber [Music] on Thursday May 25th 1978 Mary Gutierrez was walking through a parking lot this
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is in Chicago at the University of Illinois Chicago she's walking minding her own business when she sees a package
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on the ground being the nice helpful person that she is she picks it up obviously wondering what the package is
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doing just chilling there on the ground she's looking at it and she sees that the package is complete with shipping
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address return address and postage in the form of several stamps but has not been technically mailed yet because the
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postage has not been stamped indicating that the postage parcel has been processed so not processed not mailed so
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what should she do well she takes this parcel to a mailbox to drop it in and send it along its way but the Box
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doesn't fit so seeing the return address she thought I'll notify the sender so she took the package back to her home
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the return address indicated that the package was sent from a professor Buckley Crist Jr at Northwestern
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University in Evanston she tracked down a phone number for the professor and she calls him they make
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arrangements for someone to come by and collect the package now a messenger takes the box from The
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Good Samaritans home to the professor at his office at the University Professor Christ receives the package sees his
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name and work address listed as the sender or the return address and the package was to be shipped to another
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professor this is at the Rensselaer Polytechnic School of Engineering in Troy New York now of course Professor
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Christ knows that he has not sent this package to anyone recently he does not recognize the package nor does he know
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the professor on the other end in New York where the box is to be sent yeah which would spike your curiosity yes so
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alarm bells are going off so Northwestern University Professor Buckley Chris Jr said that the package
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seems strange he did not have any reason by the appearance of this package to believe that he was in any type of
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danger but again he said the package seems strange and he suspected maybe something illegal was going on
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so he calls the university public safety officer so unfortunately the officer made the determination to open the
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package and the Box exploded upon opening and injured the security officer no one had any idea of where this
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package came from or who was responsible for making the bomb and setting this trap
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so if you haven't already figured it out this is going to be the very first attack of many but law enforcement will
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not know this at this time they would not have any evidence that this is the first of many to come or even the last
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of several before what they do know is someone targeted someone else and attempted VIA mail bomb
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to injure and likely kill someone as well as those around them your very first objective is to identify the
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Target and maybe you can trace this thing back to the sender find out who would want to harm the Target or kill
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the Target and that could be the person responsible yeah but here it's a little different because you actually have two
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Clues because you have a person that they're using as the sender and the victim that's exactly right Captain you
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have to wonder just exactly who is the actual Target here first guess it would be
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the person who was supposed to receive the package this being the professor at the Polytechnic School of Engineering in
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Troy New York right but one does not go to all of the trouble of making a bomb putting
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together the package and risk of getting caught not to mention risk of blowing oneself up
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building and packing this bomb without a super strong desire to quote hit your target so why not just mail the damn
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thing why even both with a return address unless you intend this to mislead the police or did the bomber hope that if he
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dropped it somewhere someone would return to the sender and then the sender is the actual Target right or was the
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bomber worried about being seen and possibly identified so they just left it out in the open at some random spot so
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that some good Samaritan would find it and mail it for them or like the Good Samaritan they try to put in the mailbox
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and didn't fit then one has to Wonder Could the bomber not really care who the bomb injures or kills as long as it is
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someone near the University of Illinois Chicago and both addresses are simply meant to throw the cops off of the trail
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so ultimately what we have here is an ineffective attack but a very confusing one at least
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from an investigative standpoint one the materials used in this bomb and in this
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package they're they're not unique enough to give any clues to law enforcement this is going to take us to
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May 9 1979. a graduate student John Harris at Northwestern University is injured when
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he opened a box that looked like a present it had been left in a room used by graduate students so this seems like
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a bit of a repeat in a way doesn't it kind of an oddly placed bomb just sort of Left for someone anyone to snag it
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and open it up so possibly completely random Target or is it again we have the question of are these random targets or
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are they actually targeted victims because again we see Northwestern University as part of this
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whole attack right remember in the first attack the package was addressed to be sent from Northwestern University here
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it's actually left at Northwestern University to harm someone there yeah and starts making you wonder if it's a
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disgruntled employee or maybe a disgruntled former student or current student and as you pointed out Captain
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there's no real way to identify the attacker based off of the bomb and how it's constructed itself we're assuming
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that the bomber putting these together was wearing gloves because there's no fingerprints left on any of the material
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yeah they're not able to pull anything as far as forensic evidence off of these first two bombs and in fact because the
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first one was going to be mailed you know it had the postage and all that already on it
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the investigative lead on that particular attack was actually the United States Postal Service of course
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they had local authorities working on both of these cases as well but they have the lead and it sounds to me that
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even though they're not able to identify the attacker or the bomb maker based off of the construction of these
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two bombs themselves it sounds to me like they were able to figure out that they were in fact
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connected to one another they were linked and I will get into that later on the suspicions of why maybe it is the actual
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construction of the bomb itself but the nickname that they were giving the bomber at the postal service was the
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junkyard bomber because most of these items that were used to construct both of these two bombs were just
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I mean they were crude unsophisticated bombs basically and these were items that somebody could
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find at your local junkyard yeah or items that they were also suspecting somebody could actually if they were
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handy at all they might have some of these items just laying around their house and some of the pieces and and
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devices that were inside of these two bombs were handmade were were constructed themselves so yeah I think
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there was probably something similar between the first one and the second one and where they go okay this we're
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dealing with the same individual on Thursday November 15 1979 we have an attack on a large
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passenger commercial airplane this is some scary [ __ ] right here American Airlines flight 444
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flying from Chicago to Washington D.C this is a 727 jet with 78 people on this plane 72 passengers and six crew members
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the plane left Chicago at 8 25 a.m going to DC and as they approached the capital
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these 78 people they hear a muffled explosion on the airplane so we are still mid-flight up in the air
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when a small bomb explodes now it looks like this explosive device thank God did not do what it may have
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been intended to do right however the passenger cabin fills with smoke after this bomb detonates in the luggage
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compartment the pilot brought the plane down early at Dulles International Airport
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several passengers suffered smoke inhalation now this is super fascinating though to me Captain a few hours after
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the attack a caller and I'm assuming here captain that it was all the same caller but a caller phoned four Chicago
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News organizations one of them being the Chicago Tribune and in the Tribune it was reported that the caller claimed to
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be a representative of an Iranian student group so this so-called group is claiming responsibility for this attack
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and threatening additional attacks the caller states that other bombs might be placed in shopping areas and on the CTA
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that's the Chicago's train line the subway system okay so this so-called Iranian student group they're
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making these threats because they're upset that America is making efforts to try to deport Iranian
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students which this makes a lot of sense because look it's no secret that relations between Iran and
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America seldom have been good at times in they've been downright disgusting in fact all of the 70s was practically a
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nightmare between the two and at times most of the world versus the Middle East were were just bad there was Black
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September the 72 Olympics and just before this airplane bomb then there was the threat from this group Iran took
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over the U.S embassy in Tehran and took U.S diplomats hostage and then the U.S froze Iran's assets so it's already this
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is all very big news at the time so it's a big mess of what's going on between the relations between the two countries
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so this threat is easily believable however you heard that that amazing guy in today's trailer leading into the case
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this is about the Unabomber so we know that that's the direction we're going here right that trailer by the way was a
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combo of some of my own writing mix with the writings from the book incendiary by
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Michael canal and the anatomy of motive by John Douglas and Mark allshaker two books featured on our show before and
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two must own books for hardcore True Crime garages now to be perfectly clear here Captain even though the explosive
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device did not do what it was supposed to do this was really a very dramatic event I
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mean imagine you hear an explosion the cabin fills with smoke the oxygen mask dropped down
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the passengers are leaving their seats and running to the back of the plane well let me remind everybody fix your
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mask before you try to help your children with their mask the crew is forced to make an emergency landing they
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Evacuate the plan plane from the rear firefighters and fire trucks are there to greet the plane upon Landing they
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have to cut away a small section of the plane and spray everything down with foam to put out the fire There's an
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actual fire on this plane right so I mean some truly heavy heavy stuff here now it was determined that the bomb was
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from a small package that was being mailed to the greater Washington area so the plane is transferring not only
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passengers but mail as well on this trip everybody's seen Tom Hanks and Cast Away
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it was a fairly small explosive device with a battery and an altimer which is an instrument that measures altitude so
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this instrument could trigger the bomb as the plane was climbing an altitude okay so the the previous attacks are
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investigated at the local level and with USPS right however an airliner bombing is a federal crime
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so here we go bring in the feds and as Nick Cage would say this whole place is a crime scene well he said there's
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roughly about 80 passengers or so I don't know if that's full capacity but they believe that if this bomb would
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have worked correctly it would have killed every single passenger on that plane that's correct I mean we're
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talking about a huge death toll and just a a security nightmare too at the end of
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the day for the entire country well this really UPS the ante but I don't think right away do they know that these
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University of Northwestern bombs are connected to flight 444 right that's going to take some investigating and the
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short of it for this attack is that someone mailed an altitude-sensitive bomb to be on this airplane on a flight from
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Chicago to Washington DC and again 78 people who got lucky that the manufacturer of this bomb was unable
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to get it to be quote successful yeah and now we got the feds on the case and and have hopefully we get Julius
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Pepperwood on the case [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] we're back cheers mates cheers to you
00:24:46
Colonel cheers to you Captain happy birthday all right I'm 21. he's 21 but been drinking on the show for five years
00:24:54
and a half 21 and a half all right El Capitan we have another attack this one is on June 10th 1980 this is a targeted
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attack on United Airlines president Percy wood who was injured when he opened a package
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containing a bomb the bomb was disguised even inside of the shipping box the explosive device was encased in a
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book called The Ice brothers by Sloane Wilson so the book was hollowed out with the
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bomb inside you open up the book and the bomb goes off the package was addressed
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and shipped to Percy wood at his home and that is in fact where he opened the box as said Percy was injured on his
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hands face and thighs when the package exploded but thankfully he was not killed during this attack so we have two
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bombs that are connected to universities and two bombs they're connected to Airlines this is the fourth bomb in our
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series now of course we know that the FBI they're already on the job but with this new attack they are going to bring
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in John Douglas who ultimately would be just one of many FBI profilers who work the unabom case I think captain at one
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point in this investigation the FBI had about 150 agents actively working the case all at the same time this does not
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include all of the local law enforcement agents he's working the case throughout
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the years as well now the agents working this attack they're going to need to clue Douglas in on their assessment of
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the situation that is as follows one the United Airlines has not received any threatening letters or phone calls and
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neither has Percy wood or his family so there was no indication beforehand that this attack was going to happen
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there was no request for money or any type of extortion going on with the airline or with the Wood family
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themselves I mean this guy's pretty well to do two the airline has not received any
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Ransom demand three there was no obvious motive in this case or now the other three
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cases as well and four the agents in charge do not believe that this is the first bomb that
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this attacker has mailed or placed okay Captain so no threats and no Ransom that's pretty self-explanatory stuff
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right so anything you want to explore there captain or should we continue because I
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really want to get into numbers three and four no apparent motive and not the first attack or question mark first
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attack well it's interesting because when you don't have a ransom there's less evidence and like we said before
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with these bombs in particular there's just no evidence Left Behind fingerprints or or DNA that we know of
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or any markings to to even suggest that it's even the same bomber other than it seems like random items found around
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somebody's house or tool shed or junkyard and these are extremely handmade bombs and what I mean by that
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is even the mechanisms and devices the workings inside of the bomb itself a lot of those are handmade as well and so
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this is someone who is very meticulous to be able to construct all of these items construct these bombs
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and not leave any type of fingerprints or forensic evidence on the bomb itself Plus
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you then have to package this baby up and ship it off and you've not left any forensic evidence on the packaging as
00:28:42
well now I think this is a good opportunity to take a deep dive into a little analysis of violent crime study
00:28:49
from the crime classification manual this will be good because it very likely ties into our case from last week as
00:28:57
well the timers or the Tylenol murders where we asked the question was the motive a form of public terrorism or
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extortion or both or simply just a motive to kill so the classification here would be non-specific motive
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killing a non-specific mode of killing pertains to a homicide that appears irrational and is committed for a reason
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known only to the offender is subsequently may be defined and categorized after more extensive
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investigation into the offender's background here are the defining characteristics of such a homicide first
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we have the victimology the victims of a non-specific homicide are random with no
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direct relationship between victim and offender victims can be male female adults or children and demonstrate a
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disparity of characteristics and lifestyle here as you pointed out Captain the interesting thing with our with our bomb
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attacks right is while the individuals who are opening these packages and being injured
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by the result of these bombs while they might be fairly random you've already put together that in the first two we're
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seeing a link to universities specifically Northwestern University and both of them and then the second the
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third and fourth attack I'm sorry airlines American Airlines and United Airlines so what what I think you're
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seeing here is less about the individual and maybe more about the overall organization themselves yeah there is
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some some kind of connection there and it's not just like we see in other cases where they're random victims or if you
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look at the timers that you just put bottles on the shelf and whoever gets them gets them so it's not it
00:30:56
so it's tough because we we're not seeing the direct link from this a terrorist to the victims but
00:31:06
there is a link there and so far there's no communication there's no one claiming responsibility
00:31:12
there's no one asking for money or demands and again it makes it just extremely difficult
00:31:20
now the frequent crime scene indicators of such a crime would be that it's usually a public place okay of
00:31:29
course we've seen that in three of these four attacks so this poses a high risk to the
00:31:35
offender there is nothing missing from the crime scene itself it is disorganized with no effort having
00:31:44
been made to conceal the victims so obvious thing here you send a bomb place a bomb whoever it affects or kills
00:31:54
that's the result you're not hiding the victims afterwards a firearm the weapon of choice is is
00:32:03
typical with this type of offender this is what we're talking about here Captain
00:32:08
is just like in the Tylenol murders totally random victims just like with a lot of these bombs
00:32:16
totally random victims with the exception of Percy wood but this also would talk and cover about the
00:32:27
like a public shooter a a school shooter or unfortunately what we've been seeing
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in the news too often lately people shooting at workplaces or out in public places
00:32:39
the firearm as Douglas indicates would be the choice of weapon for this type of Fender is brought to the crimes now the
00:32:48
crime often becomes a massacre because it is the offender's goal to kill as many people as possible I think that's
00:32:55
what we saw with the possible successful attack on the American Airlines flight 444 yeah this
00:33:04
is reflected by the use of weapons that the uh that offer optimal lethality by multiple weapons and by an abundance
00:33:13
of ammunition now the crime scene staging is not present because it's not necessary there's no reason for the
00:33:20
offender to Stage the crime scene as pointed out most of the time these are totally random victims and typically
00:33:27
this type of crime is almost exclusively committed during daylight in public places
00:33:32
which we had in the first three of these four attacks because the offender wants
00:33:37
the highest death toll possible one the witnesses often are available to identify the offender as he is
00:33:44
unconcerned with being identified this is interesting because in the first two attacks
00:33:53
these bombs weren't really even mailed they were placed somewhere right somebody anyone could have spotted
00:34:00
someone placing this bomb in the parking lot where the first bomb was found or in
00:34:06
the um University where the second bomb was but it's pretty easy to just drop off the package as you're
00:34:15
walking and not be seen oh yeah yeah I would agree with that I think that the thing that would be
00:34:23
alarming is that it looks like a package with intent it looks like a package that
00:34:29
is that has a purpose and to see somebody randomly just place it on the ground in a parking lot I think would be
00:34:35
something that would be abnormal you'd think that the bomber would you know you have to worry about a couple things one
00:34:42
bending down and placing the the bomb on the ground uh the bomb going off but really you know these are a big enough
00:34:52
box that you would then have eyewitnesses that just saw an individual carrying a box and it might not be the
00:34:58
bomb but that could be a lead to the bomber basically in this type of crime the offender really has no escape plan
00:35:08
because they are fine with either committing suicide or being shot at the scene by police
00:35:15
now Douglas will go on to say that the offender usually has a disheveled appearance is withdrawn demonstrates an
00:35:22
isolated effect and possibly exhibits erratic Behavior and the search warrant suggestions should one get that far in
00:35:30
their investigation are as follows search the home of the suspect for weapons receipts and Records remember we
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are hand picking these particular items in the search warrant itself if it's not
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written in the warrant it's not seizable evidence so he's suggesting you want to
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include weapons receipts and Records this is because you are looking four especially in this case this week
00:36:00
right bomb making materials and then last week's case poisoning bottles of pain reliever you're looking for
00:36:07
evidence obvious or a paper trail because in both cases we have someone manufacturing the death instrument the
00:36:15
bomb the poison bottles somewhere before the attack well and the fact that all these bombs are a little different it's
00:36:21
not the same exact bomb and like they're telling us I mean we we don't have pictures of each of the inner workings
00:36:28
of all these bombs but they're telling us these items could be found around your house they could be found in a
00:36:34
junkyard so you'd almost think that the individual would have to write out their
00:36:39
idea of how to create this bomb and so there'd be some kind of diagram or some blueprint for the bombs because they're
00:36:47
all different and and if they don't take it that serious they could blow themselves up right and often that's
00:36:54
what happens in these cases and I can't remember if we talked about the this last week or not but in poisoning cases
00:36:59
especially when you're trying to poison the masses like with with timers and with bomb cases especially when you're
00:37:06
trying to bomb the masses like we're seeing here they often either poison themselves
00:37:12
injure themselves or blow themselves up one could only hope to be so lucky when you have a case like this that's going
00:37:19
to span the course of years so of course as you pointed out the the bombs are different well why are the
00:37:26
bombs different because the bomb maker is learning and you're exactly right Captain you would anticipate finding not
00:37:33
only diagrams and notes of how one constructed the last bomb but also thoughts and ideas on how to better
00:37:42
construct the next bomb this is kind of a work in progress for this bomb maker yeah I agree and you pointed out the
00:37:49
home items found around the home or or junkyard or what have you inside of these bombs we're talking about things
00:37:56
like You're gonna find like pipes Springs wires a lot of wood was used in the construction of these bombs which I
00:38:04
don't know if that's super typical in these types of situations but you're also finding batteries a lot of these
00:38:12
bombs were powered with with everyday batteries Duracell Energizer stuff that you would find at most people's homes so
00:38:19
of course you're hoping to find physical evidence of such if you get a guy that you like as a suspect when you go to
00:38:27
search his home or his place of work because in the poisoning and in the bomb making
00:38:34
especially with the bomb making this is time consuming Activity one would need a
00:38:39
decent level of privacy to be constructing these bombs if not he could be turned in very fairly
00:38:47
quickly by anyone who is aware of what this guy is up to so what we do know is like what you're saying this guy needs
00:38:54
privacy he needs a workshop he needs maybe he's a mechanic and he can do it at his job
00:39:01
but then you go but he doesn't need a lot of money because the materials don't cost a lot but he has to be somewhat
00:39:09
intelligent or at least mechanically inclined because we don't hear of anybody accidentally blowing themselves
00:39:15
up and like you said we see uh the sophistication level of the bombs growing by by each turn now this is not
00:39:25
the first attack obviously and it sounds like they being law enforcement were able to link these attacks together
00:39:31
mostly based off of what kind of bombs they were seeing which again was mostly crude pretty unsophisticated handmade
00:39:40
bombs but you're going to recognize that the construction is somewhat similar and
00:39:46
materials are somewhat similar even though as the captain pointed out the bomb maker is getting better at
00:39:51
constructing these bombs but each one in the series each one of these bombs in the series they're getting a little more
00:40:00
advanced than the last and the bomb maker is putting FC FC on the bombs football club that's
00:40:09
right the Washington football club no the uh whoever was making these bombs was going
00:40:17
out of their way to stamp into a piece of metal inside the bomb or on the bomb itself the letters FC well there's your
00:40:27
sign right I mean so even if you even a layperson can look at four bombs and go well somebody stamped FC in these that
00:40:35
must mean something yeah yeah I even I could figure that out you got to get up pretty early in the morning yeah we
00:40:41
didn't even have to turn on the computer to figure that one out now the interesting thing here though is
00:40:48
nobody seems to know what FC stands for and of course you know that they're linked because they've not publicly
00:40:55
announced that hey the bomb maker is putting FC on these bombs so if there's a copycat out there it's not
00:41:03
in these four situations because the copycat wouldn't know to put FC on the bombs right so the FBI was holding
00:41:11
brainstorming sessions trying to dream up what FC could stand for did they have any guesses of what they thought it was
00:41:19
oh the the list was incredibly long I thought about including some of them here but I don't know I'll just be
00:41:25
interested some of them were really far-fetched um like obviously they thought maybe it
00:41:31
could be somebody's name so you know France is you know uh cockburn or something well and not only
00:41:40
someone's initials but then like some kind of organization some kind of group right because usually one thing that we
00:41:48
didn't include in that that classification and that that profile of this type of crime but when you're going
00:41:54
to profile this type of offender and you would have the same thing with the Tylenol murders case
00:42:00
even when these individuals are acting alone often they want to present the idea that
00:42:07
they are a group a a gang an organization they want to see an infection they want to seem bigger
00:42:13
larger more threatening than what they actually are on October 8 1981 a bomb wrapped in
00:42:22
brown paper and tied with a string is discovered in the hallway of a building at the University of Utah in Salt Lake
00:42:30
City the bomb is safely detonated without causing any type of injury now this is
00:42:36
interesting captain and I don't know the exact details here but I'm not sure if this bomb was simply
00:42:42
just lying on the floor tied together with a string or if the bomb was actually tied to something because the
00:42:50
description I found didn't State either way and what I mean by that is remember the mad bomber case he would put his
00:42:58
pipe bombs inside of a wool sock because the sock you could tie it to something or hang it from something because you
00:43:07
want the bomb up off of the ground right you know you want to hang that thing so up to like shoulder level eye level
00:43:18
maybe even higher because if it's lying on the ground you are practically shielding half of the bomb if that's if
00:43:25
that thing is off of the ground you can pretty much spray shrapnel 360 Degrees causing as much damage as
00:43:33
possible and often it is the shrapnel that kills rather than the actual blast so this being the fifth attack again
00:43:41
like we said we thought he was getting more sophisticated but we have no injuries of
00:43:47
this one so I mean good for the public but bad that he's continuing to continue on this bombing campaign right on the
00:43:56
the bomb itself while it may have been more advanced than the previous bombs it may just have been detected and somebody
00:44:03
was smart enough to identify it for what it was now on May 5th 1982 a bomb was sent to
00:44:12
the head of the computer science department at Vanderbilt University this was not opened by the department
00:44:18
head but by their assistant the bomb was sent to Patrick C Fisher but Fisher was
00:44:25
on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time and his secretary Janet Smith she ends up suffering several injuries to her
00:44:32
hands and face after she opened the package in his office on July 2nd of the same year 1982 a package bomb is left in
00:44:42
the break room of Corey Hall at the University of California Berkeley this package explodes and injures an
00:44:50
engineering professor I think this bomb Captain was just a small simple bomb right this one actually looks like it
00:44:58
was a bit of a step back as far as being you know more advanced than the others this one was a small simple bomb that
00:45:06
was made out of a like a little cigar box well then we have nothing so then we wonder does this guy like to smoke the
00:45:13
cigar well then we have nothing almost for almost three years then in May of 1985 another bomb was placed again in
00:45:24
Corey Hall at the University of California Berkeley this injures another engineering student and I'm guessing
00:45:30
that there's again items that that look familiar or the style which these bombs are made
00:45:38
look familiar but I'm also guessing that all these bombs were finding the tag FC
00:45:44
on yes the bomb maker is stamping little pieces of metal with FC and placing them
00:45:49
in the bombs it's the bomb maker essentially putting his signature his calling card on an indestructible piece
00:45:57
a piece that he knows is going to survive the blast fire crotch in or on the bomb he wants
00:46:05
the FBI and everyone else for that fact to know look this is me I am still here I am not dead I am not in prison and I
00:46:14
am not going away first we're seeing attacks on universities and then to Airlines and now we're back to attacks
00:46:22
on universities and two in a row at California Berkeley yes so whoever's doing this is
00:46:29
comfortable in that setting getting close and just placing these bombs in that area well again this is kind of a
00:46:37
tell here because we have we do have like we said before multiple people that they're sending to in the
00:46:47
University of Northwestern which is in Illinois and now we're all the way in California so does this
00:46:57
um terrorist does the bomber have connections to Chicago and to Berkeley right and the thing here too is
00:47:08
with these last two bombs they're placed or believed to have been placed in this
00:47:12
Quarry Hall which I I'm not familiar with the campus itself but I'm assuming that this is a
00:47:19
relatively open accessible building I mean I can't believe that it's a student or faculty member that is
00:47:29
placing these bombs there right this is going to take us to June 13 1985 and what I think we're seeing here Captain
00:47:37
is the start of maybe a busy year for our attacker so this is when a suspicious package was
00:47:46
sent to Boeing fabrication to their fabrication division in Washington this sounds to me like this one was spotted
00:47:56
and detected and identified for what it was a bomb because we have no death we have no injuries in this attack attempt
00:48:04
and the bomb is safely detonated so we have a second occasion where someone is able to identify the bomb as
00:48:15
an as a bomb before it triggers the mechanism to explode yeah Samsung's not that bright I mean
00:48:23
and maybe it's because we get so many more packages now than they got back in the day
00:48:29
but it's like I get boxes to my house all the time and I I just open them up I don't think twice about it yeah that's
00:48:37
one thing that I considered when researching this case you know I know my neighborhood and and most people's
00:48:45
neighborhoods the Amazon little trucks and vans are are frequent flyers in those areas and
00:48:53
constantly just placing boxes on doorsteps and and front porches heck we are subscribers and we advertise
00:49:04
things like hellofresh and butcher box and first Leaf wine club and things like that on this show all showing up in
00:49:10
boxes right at people's homes and every time I cut open that box from first Leaf
00:49:15
I go thank God it's wine and not a bomb yeah well I mean I guess the I guess the
00:49:20
difference is that you do see the the shipping labels and you you see who it's coming from and in a couple of these
00:49:27
attacks the guy didn't even bother to mail it yeah of course this was mailed here for the Boeing attack the attempt
00:49:33
on Boeing but in some of these attacks they're just leaving these random packages
00:49:39
where curiosity kills the cat thankfully no one's been killed but there's been people been injured by opening or
00:49:46
handling a random package that they find somewhere it's like too cheap for uh stamps on November 15 1985 a University
00:49:56
of Michigan psychology professor and his assistant were injured when they opened
00:50:03
a package containing a three ring binder that had a bomb inside now this was Professor James McConnell and research
00:50:12
assistant Nicholas suno they were both severely injured after suno opened the mail bomb addressed to McConnell
00:50:22
so again University again a package addressed to a specific Professor well again now we have to go even further
00:50:31
does this individual have connections uh to Northwestern to the University of Michigan to
00:50:39
California or Berkeley in California the bomber not only indicates that he is specifically targeting Professor
00:50:49
McConnell by addressing this package to the professor but also the bomber included a letter with this package
00:50:58
asking the professor to review a student's Master thesis so taking it an extra step further Captain addressing it
00:51:06
to your target but also not wanting this item to just kind of sit there randomly
00:51:13
this is a letter to encourage the professor to open up the binder because the bomb is disguised as a thesis in a
00:51:22
three-ring binder simple bomb the three ring binder is a little larger than some
00:51:26
of the previous packages that means it can be a little larger of a bomb a little more destructive but again a
00:51:33
simple action to trigger the bomb take the binder out of the package open the binder binder goes boom thankfully no
00:51:39
one is killed in this attack on December 12 1985 the Sacramento Bee newspaper ran
00:51:49
the following news article the title is Mystery blast kills Capital Merchant and the article reads A Sacramento
00:51:57
businessman was killed yesterday when a bomb that had been left behind his store
00:52:03
blew up in his face the blast shortly after noon mortally wounded Hugh Campbell scrutin age 38 owner of Ren
00:52:13
tech computer rentals in Century Plaza this located on Howie Avenue in Sacramento right this is a little bit of
00:52:21
a left turn I mean we have Airlines we have universities now we have a technology store
00:52:29
the device exploded just moments after scrutin left his store through the back door and headed for the parking lot
00:52:36
according to reports the blast blew scrutin about 10 feet the first person to arrive at the scene heard the victim
00:52:45
cry out oh my God help me and scrutin was pronounced dead at 12 34 pm at the University Medical Center he
00:52:54
reportedly took the full force of the blast in the chest there were no known witnesses to this
00:53:02
crime the blast shook the entire shopping center and shrapnel was scattered up to 150 yards from the point
00:53:10
of the explosion shrapnel penetrated this store's rear wall but no one else was hurt
00:53:18
no motive for the bombing has been established and there are no known suspects they said law enforcement said
00:53:27
that it's possible that scrutin was not the intended victim this according to the head of the sheriff's Homicide
00:53:33
Bureau in Sacramento investigators noted that the rear of the shopping center has a series of back
00:53:41
doors and identifying which door is for which store would not be easy with the doors that close they said how do you
00:53:50
know which door belongs to which business no suspicious activity was reported by
00:53:55
the merchants at the shopping center and interviews with employees did not turn up any significant leads in this case
00:54:02
obviously looking at these bombs afterwards that's we're going to lose some evidence with inside the bombs
00:54:08
because they actually exploded they actually worked but again are we seeing the signature FC in this bomb as well or
00:54:17
are they not telling the public at this point that this one's connected to the other ones well that's a good question
00:54:23
because they're not really clueing us us being the public in on everything that they seem to know about the bombs the
00:54:31
making of the bombs or who is making and sending and leaving these packages now on February 20th 1987 another bomb was
00:54:41
left in the parking lot of a Salt Lake City computer store so again Salt Lake City again a computer store or text Tech
00:54:50
type store the bomb this time severely injures the business owner's son but we have something very different
00:55:01
here Captain one of the employees at that store working at the store that day saw a man leave the package and from
00:55:10
that witness account we can create a composite sketch of the suspect all right so now we're we're gonna at least
00:55:16
make some Headway here this led to a widely distributed sketch of the suspect wearing a hooded sweatshirt an aviator
00:55:25
sunglasses and the suspect is sporting a mustache now do you think captain that this is probably
00:55:34
one of if not the most well-known suspect composite sketch of all time yeah yeah or at least In Our Lifetime
00:55:42
that's for sure yeah I couldn't think what of one on the top of my head that that would be
00:55:48
even closely comparable so they were Distributing a few different versions of this um DB Cooper
00:55:58
is pretty popular that's true as far as a composite sketch they were Distributing a few different
00:56:05
versions of this composite sketch for the public to see again it was very widely distributed at the time and would
00:56:13
be for years to come but one of the early ones I wanted to take it sometime here and read what is on this actual
00:56:20
wanted poster they were offering a fifty thousand dollar reward and stated that the suspect was wanted by the postal
00:56:27
inspection service for mailing or placing an explosive device and it goes on to say that on February
00:56:34
20th 1987 a package exploded at a computer business in Salt Lake City Utah bombs have been either received in the
00:56:43
mail or placed in the following states so they have somehow connected all of these according to this wanted poster at
00:56:52
the time bombs have either been received in the mail or placed in the following states Utah Pennsylvania Illinois
00:56:59
California Michigan and Washington my my gut is telling me that there's there's the signature FC on all of them again I
00:57:08
believe you on that 100 Captain I think this guy he wants the investigators to know that they're all connected he wants
00:57:17
credit for the attacks and he wants them he wants the threat of them knowing I'm not going away I'm
00:57:26
going to keep doing this it also goes on to say that the incident has been linked to 11 other incidents
00:57:33
which have occurred across the United States since 1978 injuring 21 people and killing one person the description is
00:57:43
given of the suspect and is as follows we're looking for a white male 25 to 30 years old 5 foot 10 inches tall to six
00:57:53
foot tall approximately 165 pounds slender build blonde reddish hair with a light mustache and Rudy complexion which
00:58:04
I was not familiar with what that means but what does that mean I always thought
00:58:08
people were saying Ruby complexion because I looked up Rudy complexion and it means like reddish color uh Rosy
00:58:15
color yeah I thought that was like Ruby and goes on to say that the suspect was wearing blue denim jeans a gray hooded
00:58:24
sweatshirt and Teardrop sunglasses smoked with smoked lenses not a lot to go off of there
00:58:31
no obviously this person thought that there was a chance that they would be seen placing this bomb in that parking
00:58:38
lot and even though it's behind the business they were organized enough in their attack that they chose to disguise
00:58:45
themselves or at the very least conceal their appearance in some manner with the
00:58:50
sunglasses in the hooded sweatshirt but now that we got this composite sketch they're going to be coming out and they
00:58:56
they're going to tell you they're all connected and all by the way this is a guy that we believe is the Unabomber
00:59:02
right so we have noticed the two major shifts in this case and of Investigation one the attacks have now become lethal
00:59:11
the bomb maker has retooled and constructed a better explosive device and two now we have something on this
00:59:19
guy we have a witness description so where before we simply just had the FC markings that's the bombers including
00:59:27
with the bombs now we at least have some idea of what this guy looks like foreign
00:59:46
thanks for joining us here in the garage my gift to you on my birthday is a promo
00:59:53
code take this down it's four two zero j i b 420 jib use that promo code at our store Page and you can save 25 off your
01:00:08
purchase and join us back here in the garage for the rest of the story until then be good be kind and don't believe
01:00:20
foreign [Music]