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podcast free all lowercase shopify.com podcast free shopify.com podcast [Music] [Applause]
00:01:28
free [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:47
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always ladies and gentlemen his real name is guy man dude but I call
00:01:55
him the captain what's happening it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
00:02:02
a [Music] friend today we are drinking psychokinesis by the bright and Brilliant Minds over at Grim Artisan ALS
00:02:14
garage grade let's go with three and 3/4 bottle caps out of five I love grim alses and they make so many great beers
00:02:23
it was hard to choose one so expect to see them featured again but this week it is
00:02:28
psychokinesis which is a dry hopped and tart wild ale with notes of tropical fruits and this week's beer was brought
00:02:35
to the garage by these bright and Brilliant Minds first up we have Kimberly and Phoenix Arizona and a big
00:02:42
shout out to Paul in New Orleans let's go to the great state of Texas and say hello to Natalie and San Antonio
00:02:50
hello luy do and then here's it sheers to maela in Wilmington North Carolina and a big we like your jib to Aaron from
00:02:59
from Windsor Colorado and last but not least a shout out to Sarah new pz New York so thanks to everybody for filling
00:03:06
up the fridge for this week's show if you want to help us out with next week's show go to True Crim garage.com click on
00:03:12
the Donate button while you're there check out our blog you can click on the different cases there's discussions
00:03:18
going on on there there's a lot of the great listeners providing some great theories and information on these cases
00:03:24
as well and make sure you check out the store Page this week we have two new logo shirts that are going to be in the
00:03:30
store this week and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:03:36
talk some true [Music] crime [Music] [Music] this is a true story about absolute
00:04:27
Madness and how a paranoid schizophrenic serial bomber used gunpowder and homemade explosives to bring chaos and
00:04:36
fear to New York the following is an excerpt from the book incendiary by Michael
00:04:46
Canal the NYPD certainly didn't understand it the famously tough-minded New York detectives stumbled and fumbled
00:04:55
as a harassing band of newspaper reporters detailed at every turn for more than a century the police had
00:05:03
relied on muscle and shoe leather to collar bad guys the street corner respected the
00:05:10
billy club and that was that but reliable strong armed methods proved useless in the face of a
00:05:18
schizophrenic serial bomber seldom in the history of New York wrote the Associated Press has a case
00:05:26
proved such torment to police the bombers Rampage came at a time when science was transforming the way
00:05:35
Americans thought about the world around them Jonas sulk came up with the polio vaccine eradicating a disease that
00:05:44
crippled hundreds of thousands Bell Labs paved the way for modern electronics and all that came
00:05:52
with it by inventing the Silicon transistor physicist Edward Teller created the hydrogen
00:06:01
bomb scientific advancements however did not Elevate policing at least not in New
00:06:08
York the nypd's corrupt Precinct captains and stubborn commanders resisted new methods promoted by college
00:06:16
educated criminologist until a Serial bomber forced them to [Music] adapt [Music]
00:06:37
on September 5th 1931 a 27-year-old mechanic is working at a Consolidated Edison generating
00:06:45
plant in New York City while this man is going about his business a large boiler
00:06:51
near him misses ignition fumes start to collect building and building and then ignition occurs followed by a sudden
00:07:01
explosion the blast lifts the young man and throws him to the floor there is a large discharge and a black cloud shoots
00:07:09
from the boiler releasing a dark fog of hot gases the man is unable to get up he
00:07:16
lies there helplessly surrounded by the Heat and the gases as the black cloud consumes him the hot gases and fumes
00:07:24
begin to fill his lungs choking him not only can he not breathe but his lungs and throat feel as though
00:07:32
if they are on fire lit from within the Flames growing the heat rising and the pain is unbearable the man thought
00:07:40
surely the Blast has killed him and now he is burning in Hell finally the young man comes to and he sees what he thinks
00:07:47
to be Angels cutting through the fog and coming to his Aid the man was rushed to
00:07:52
the hospital and though he was severely injured he would survive and recover although not completely
00:08:00
because the accident left him disabled and after collecting 26 weeks of sick pay the man was fired from his job
00:08:08
because he was no longer physically able to perform his job duties the accident had led to
00:08:14
pneumonia that in turn developed into tuberculosis he filed a workers compensation claim but it was denied
00:08:21
because he waited too long to file it he appealed the denial of the compensation
00:08:27
three times but each time it was was rejected 9 years later on November 16th 1940 a worker at the Consolidated Edison
00:08:37
power plant located at 170 Street number on the busy West 64th Street in Manhattan found a wooden toolbox sitting
00:08:47
unattended on a window sill thinking someone had forgotten their tools the worker decided to inspect the wooden
00:08:55
toolbox inside there were no tools but what was found found caused the worker to panic and the NYPD were notified the
00:09:03
item and the toolbox were successfully located and removed and no one was hurt the police had found what was described
00:09:11
as a crude pipe bomb it was a short length of brass pipe filled with gunpowder with an ignition mechanism
00:09:19
made of sugar and Flashlight batteries it was a dud it never exploded the bomb was wrapped in a note written in a
00:09:28
distinctive block lettering the note stating Con Edison Crooks this is for you and it was signed F period p period
00:09:39
well this first bomb is kind of interesting because it's wrapped in a note so a lot of people believe that
00:09:45
this bomb was meant to be a dud because why would you wrap it in a note that you
00:09:50
want people to read then have the bomb blow up and then destroy the note yeah that's the investigators looking into
00:09:58
the matter that was their thought you know because the note would have been obliterated by the explosion um bringing
00:10:04
up the obvious possibility that the intention of the bomb and its maker was to threaten someone or maybe even
00:10:12
everyone at this Con Edison location not actually to injure or kill right had the
00:10:18
intent been to injure or kill the maker would have made sure the bomb would have
00:10:21
exploded and then sent a letter later claiming responsibility for this action in sep member of 1941 a pipe bomb was
00:10:31
found lying in the street near for Irving Place uh this is in New York City there were no casualties in this event
00:10:39
either the bomb had been dropped without the fuse being lit the bomb it had similar construction
00:10:47
to the one found at Con Edison in November and it this was found inside of an Old Sock there was no note with this
00:10:56
bomb however yeah it was a wool sock and police theorized that the bomber might have spotted a police officer or for
00:11:04
some reason got scared and dropped the bomb out of fear without setting its fuse uh if this were true it is likely
00:11:12
that the bomb was not dropped near its intended target now here's an interesting thing
00:11:18
Captain the bombs they did Scare some of the Consolidated Edison employees and some of the people who would walk and
00:11:26
travel near Irving Place right but there were much more scarier events going on around the world World War II was well
00:11:34
underway and many countries joining forces with others taking sides in the loss of life due to war would never be
00:11:42
greater in December of 1941 Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean the United
00:11:52
States joined the war and shortly after the police received a letter The Source cited here says the letter was all in
00:12:01
Block capital letters now I've seen photos of this letter and it actually appears to me to be letters cut from
00:12:07
possibly newspapers Andor magazines yeah this is the stereotypical you know serial killer serial bomber you know
00:12:17
clipping uh letters that that you'd see in all the oldtime movies yeah and regardless of how this letter was
00:12:24
constructed it it read as follows I will make no more bomb units for the duration
00:12:30
of the war my patriotic feelings have made me decide this later I will bring the Con Edison to Justice they will pay
00:12:39
for their dastardly Deeds signed FP so he so we have one bomb planted one bomb accidentally planted neither bomb
00:12:52
go off and then we get a letter because this guy's so patriotic that he's just not going to bomb during the war during
00:12:59
the course of the war yeah and true to his words uh true to the bombers words there were no bombs that showed up
00:13:07
during the course of the war and in fact for 5 years after that was that well yeah but it's also a long War I wonder I
00:13:14
wonder if every year the guy just kind of sat around going damn War still going on well in can't start my bombing until
00:13:22
the war's over he didn't stay silent because instead he sent crank letters threatening letters and postcards to uh
00:13:30
police stations newspapers movie theaters to private citizens and to the Consolidated Edison power company all
00:13:38
signed from this FP yeah but I mean at at that point what this is not much of a threat well we will never know the grand
00:13:48
total number of of the amount of correspondents that FP sent and where they all went but what has been reported
00:13:56
was that they were at least 16 of these types of letters or cards that were sent
00:14:02
during the course of this uh what I'm calling is wartime means peace time for this bomber now investigators studying
00:14:10
the penciled blocked lettered messages and they noted that the letters g and Y had a very odd shape to them
00:14:19
they believe that this is possibly indicating the FP had some type of European education and I'd assume that
00:14:27
they had actually think that this guy might have been military or or something like that uh because he is not bombing
00:14:35
during war time yeah there was some consideration to that that possibly he was gone during this time I wanted to
00:14:42
find out more specifically when these 16 threatening letters or postcards were sent and received because if he was off
00:14:51
at War you know what I mean like was he were these not received for 5 years the only information I could find was during
00:14:58
this time that no bombs were sent there was still threatening letters and cards that were sent right I couldn't find
00:15:04
dates to go with those threatening uh messages that he was sending but it was on 19 in 1951 on March 29th shortly
00:15:14
after 5:00 p.m. a hand grenade sized pipe bomb exploded in the landmark Grand Central Terminal at New York City the
00:15:23
bomb had been dropped into an ashtray you know one of those standing ashtrays with like the sand in it yeah we don't
00:15:29
really have too many of those anymore this would have this astray was located near the Grand Central Oyster Bar in
00:15:36
restaurant on the terminals lower level M as said the bomb did explode this startled passengers but thankfully no
00:15:44
one was killed and no one was injured police dismissed this event as the work of quote boys or
00:15:53
pranksters the New York Times reported the event in the following days issue the though only with a three paragraph
00:16:01
brief at the bottom of page 24 ordinarily the detonation of a pipe bomb in a busy commuter terminal at rush
00:16:10
would would be caused for grave public concern yet the local news immediately uh in barely acknowledged this event
00:16:19
well it seemed like they're trying to brush it off cuz one nobody was hurt and then the explosion wasn't huge it didn't
00:16:26
cause a lot of damage and I think the police stating that this is boys or pranksters really kind of quiets down
00:16:33
the alarm there right I mean you're not going to report on the front page that a
00:16:38
local Deli was egged by a bunch of high schoolers right weeks later in April another small bomb exploded inside a
00:16:47
phone booth this time it was in the basement of the New York Public Library a security guard on watch was leaning
00:16:55
against the phone booth when it exploded luckily he was somehow able to escape with his life uh the explosion nearly
00:17:03
destroyed the phone booth but no one including the security guard was injured during the investigation the NYPD bomb
00:17:11
squad found fragments very similar to the bomb at Grand Central both were short lengths of well machined pipe with
00:17:20
threaded with a threaded cap at each end inside the pipe was 25 caliber a 25 caliber ship
00:17:29
and explosive gunpowder packed with nuts and bolts yeah while police believe this
00:17:35
could be connected to the Grand Central bomb just weeks prior they still kind of
00:17:40
chocked this up to some boys or pranksters yeah but the here's where I have an issue with that because this one
00:17:48
we have a phone booth and we remember what oldtime phone booths look like this phone booth was destroyed so if somebody
00:17:56
would have been inside the phone booth uh this person could be seriously hurt or or even killed and the other fact
00:18:03
though too Captain is these are probably we know Grand Central's well-traveled area I would imagine the New York Public
00:18:10
Library would have at most times of the day have lots of people in there this is
00:18:17
these are dangerous spots to be putting these explosives now police failed to make the connection to the bombs that
00:18:23
were back from 1941 and this you know because there's a huge big gap rightfully so it was like 10 years ago
00:18:32
and you know but but however during the 10 years when the mad bomber was inactive remember we said menacing
00:18:40
letters were sent one of those did warn that a bomb would be placed at Grand Central Station I don't remember the
00:18:48
exact wording but it was a warning regarding that there would be an explosion at Grand Central yeah in
00:18:56
August of 51 the NY ypd bomb squad combed through the rubble of another phone booth and found fragments of yet
00:19:04
another pipe bomb of the now familiar design this phone booth explosion was once again at Grand Central in this
00:19:12
attack no one was killed nor injured the police reported that they believed this
00:19:18
to be the result of a of sheer luck rather than a you know plan of the bomber right in the investigation police
00:19:26
noted in their report that the latest bomb showed quote considerable advancement in technique now police
00:19:34
without a public threat or letter from the bomber the investigators had no notion of the perpetrators or the nature
00:19:43
uh of the motive behind the attack well it seems like the bomber was you know he's kind of DIY guy you know so he went
00:19:50
down to the Home Depot and he uh took a weekend class on how to make bombs so seems like he upped his game on this one
00:19:58
yeah and then he gets a wool sock that he no longer wants and puts it in the puts the bomb in the wool sock and
00:20:04
carries it off to wherever the did they find did they find a wool sock in any of
00:20:09
these ones that I'm uncertain of Captain I know that the wool sock would be a common thing that they would find from
00:20:17
time to time uh regarding these bombs but in these specific ones I don't know we have to keep in mind though the first
00:20:24
time that a wool sock was found was in a contained a bomb that didn't explode right these last these last ones
00:20:32
exploded you you might not find any fragments of something as flammable or easy to destroy as a wool sock well at
00:20:41
this point like you said they're not really connecting the dots of the the two previous bombs and that and then
00:20:49
also the mad bomber and all his threats they're not connecting those dots there but one has to wonder with these last
00:20:56
well I guess it' be three right we have one at the Grand Central Station then we
00:21:01
have one back at the library and then we have one back at Grand Central Station right so one would have to
00:21:09
wonder okay are we just getting lucky here and nobody's getting hurt or like you were saying or was this uh a plan
00:21:16
from the bomber like hey I'm showing you that I can hurt people but I'm not going
00:21:22
to and and and then what does the bomber want well and I doing these actions and
00:21:28
think I think here with these latest bombs what my opinion would be is the same as NYPD where they're saying look
00:21:36
this was just sheer luck that nobody was injured because the placement of these bombs and the fact that they did go off
00:21:43
they were in such a public area that you would assume the intent was to harm or kill right but it seems like these bombs
00:21:51
are also if they go off they're going to hurt people in a radius that's pretty small yeah a couple feet where you think
00:21:59
if this this bomber was more sophisticated or their intent was to hurt a lot of people they I mean the
00:22:06
placement of the bombs they're doing a good job as far as they're being able to go into a very public place um place a
00:22:16
bomb somewhere and leave without being noticed and then right and then have the bomb go off now if you really wanted to
00:22:23
hurt people um on on a grand level to make some kind of statement then you would
00:22:30
think that the bomb would be a bigger bomb I guess well and to paint a better picture for the listeners I I think
00:22:38
everybody should think of a hand grenade you know the the these were very small pipe bombs uh almost the size of a hand
00:22:45
grenade and you should expect the about the same size of explosion as you would with a hand grenade now keep in mind
00:22:52
when we see on TV and on in the movies is a dramatization of what a hand grenade explosion looks like
00:23:01
the super deadly thing or harmful thing here is one of the bombs that did not explode they said was packed with nuts
00:23:10
and bolts sending these items flying through the air and potentially into people as they pass by yeah I'm no John
00:23:19
Rambo but when I was a kid like you would pretend that you had the grenade and you throw it into that that that
00:23:26
room you know and then the whole room would blow up but but that's not the case With Grenades oh you've put me on
00:23:32
the spot Captain I I'm no expert in grenades but my from my understanding with these particular bombs right you
00:23:39
know so what I think you're describing is if you threw a grenade into this garage like if you were like uh some
00:23:47
some army guy and you're trying to infiltrate this some AR I'm this garage and you're worried about the threat
00:23:53
level in this garage you would kick in the door you would throw the grenade inide side and assume that the grenade
00:23:59
would blow up and kind of incinerate everybody inside this small garage that we're sitting in and I think with that
00:24:09
may or may not be the case I've never thrown a grenade I've dreamt about it many times but these these little pipe
00:24:17
bombs uh they're only about a 5 in piece of of pipe maybe 6 in at the most but often described as what one would expect
00:24:29
to see with a grenade type explosion well you think that grenade technology would Advance throughout the years too
00:24:35
so what a grenade was capable of in the 50s is probably way different than what it's capable of now well and I think the
00:24:43
phone booth gives us a really good idea of what type of explosion to expect meaning that I don't know how many foam
00:24:52
boosts do you think you could fit in this garage and yet the the pipe bomb only blew up that little phone booth you
00:24:58
know a phone booth is considerably smaller than a room yeah and anytime I hear grenades I just think you know cabs
00:25:04
are here well back to the uh the August 51 bomb the one that exploded at Grand Central Station um like the police said
00:25:16
they they didn't really have an idea of who the perpetrator was or the motive behind the attack because there was no
00:25:22
letter found or letter sent to describe or claim responsibility for this attack but right as our listeners know with
00:25:30
each new attack not only do you have an increased Threat Level but you also have
00:25:35
the preponderance of evidence against the offender or at least to deduce who they are so with each new attack you
00:25:44
should have one if not both of the following either a new clue or Clues and or the same clue repeated adding to the
00:25:55
significance of that clue meaning Maybe you found something at a previous crime scene and let's say that item falls into
00:26:02
the category of well maybe this is evidence or maybe it is not right but if you have multiple crime scenes and you
00:26:10
find a similar item well then this most likely has to fall into this is evidence
00:26:16
category so at some of these bomb sites among the scattered debris of pipe fragments shell Cas casings plaster
00:26:25
glass nuts and bolts police found a partially consumed throat lossing now of course finding a used cough drop in a
00:26:34
public place with a lot of foot traffic may seem like just a coincidence but all
00:26:40
of these lenes were in close proximity to the bombs and they were all of the same
00:26:50
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shopify.com slmp podcast free [Music] all right we're back cheers me cheers to you Captain there we go yeah I cheersed
00:28:45
you back but I didn't even have my beer open yet cheers Che you just it was kind
00:28:51
of a fake kind of limped in with that one huh that's when you're the designated driver and everybody goes
00:28:56
cheers and you just hold up your hand in August of 1951 employees at the Consolidated Edison Company they arrived
00:29:05
at work to find that a phone booth in the lobby of their business of the main office had exploded so this happened
00:29:13
overnight now no one was in the lobby during the explosion so of course no one was hurt the person actually in the
00:29:22
building at the only person actually at all in the building was a security guard
00:29:27
at nighttime now for safety precautions the building was evacuated and a thorough search was conducted NYPD
00:29:36
insisted that the building remain empty this would be for several days when they
00:29:42
were able to return employees in the mail room received a suspicious package and this was in a manella envelope and
00:29:50
inside a short pipe bomb with caps on both ends the letter was addressed to the company's Personnel director this is
00:29:59
Edwin Jennings yeah and the employees are going to evacuate the building and they're going to call in the bomb scare
00:30:04
the bomb squad arrived on the scene the pipe was slowly but safely removed from the premises upon investigation they
00:30:13
discovered it was in fact a pipe bomb and the worksmanship and the materials used both suggested it was from the
00:30:21
serial bomber its triggering mechanism was based on a 25 caliber bullet same as the earlier bombs found in 1951 around
00:30:31
New York and inside the pipe was a throat lossage police dusted the pipe they dusted the envelope and the stamps for
00:30:41
fingerprints but found only smudges nothing of use well this also shows the time period too because if it was today
00:30:49
we'd find the throat lossage and we'd run DNA and this would be solved yeah if if it were partially
00:30:57
uh used right um but regardless the the envelope could yield clues about the bomber a postmark was from White Plains
00:31:07
New York a return address was from Leman and Leman which was a fictionary entity
00:31:14
right and add dress I heed a work for you were the the company president that's how I became the captain and a
00:31:21
dress written by hand was in all caps providing police with a handwriting sample then on October 22nd the New York
00:31:29
heral Tribune received a letter in penciled block letters stating bombs will continue until
00:31:37
Consolidated Edison Company is brought to justice for their dastardly acts against me I have exhausted all other
00:31:46
means I intend with bombs to cause others to cry out for justice for me if I don't get Justice I will continue but
00:31:55
with bigger bombs all right dly deed right dly deed that's what he keeps saying mhm uh when you hear that what's
00:32:04
the first thing that comes to your your brain comic books yeah me too I I think um Batman I feel like this is like
00:32:13
something that like a criminal and in the early Batman with Adam West would say like oh I'm going to get you Batman
00:32:20
for your dastardly Deeds well and I was going yeah I was going to be a little more specific with that but I couldn't
00:32:26
really place you know when I kept digging into this case and I kept hearing this over and over again
00:32:32
dastardly Deeds I couldn't put my finger on which one I would claim that to be from but that seems very it seems very
00:32:40
1930s in a way too like comic Booky 1930s I'm going to get you for the you know the dastardly Deeds the the letter
00:32:51
also listed two Targets one directed police to the Paramount Theater which is is in the very busy Time Square district
00:33:00
there a live bomb was discovered hidden inside of an old wool sock and left in the men's restroom luckily the bomb was
00:33:09
located in time and it was disabled the other Target was a telephone booth at Pennsylvania station there nothing was
00:33:18
found either either the bomber was unable to deliver on the threat or he wanted to send the police on a wild
00:33:27
goose chase back to the bombers letters so detectives made a surprising realization
00:33:34
the first Grand Central device in March of 1951 right was not the first in the evidence archives of the New York City
00:33:45
Police housed in a Dusty box dating from before the war there was another note written by the same handwriting in the
00:33:53
same strange block letters and signed at FP so detectives started working under the premise that this serial bomber may
00:34:03
be seeking revenge and one of those the more common threats was to Consolidated Edison so possibly an angry customer or
00:34:14
disgruntled former employee yeah detectives teamed up with ConEd management that's what they call them
00:34:22
there for short ConEd and provided a sample of the bomber handwriting asking the company to rumage through its
00:34:30
employee archives seeking you know a problematic ex employee with handwriting resembling the unusual letter forms or
00:34:41
somebody with the initials FP or possibly both right right uh considering the thousands of people that the large
00:34:50
utility company had employed over the years reviewing these files would be quite the task they compared the
00:34:56
handwriting sample with old employee applications and tax forms so this was a very tedious process uh but what
00:35:07
happened was it actually produced a single person uh a man who was a former employee he this man was once fired from
00:35:18
Consolidated Edison Company for theft and now at this time in the case he was the prime suspect in the serial
00:35:28
bombing case yeah this man's name is Frederick eard H we got the F part yeah he was a
00:35:38
56-year-old cable splicer who had worked for ConEd until they fired him in 1948 um what was he caught
00:35:47
stealing I don't know what he was caught stealing But Not only was he fired for theft but the police had arrested eart
00:35:53
for that crime for the theft it went to trial uh but what he was acquitted then eart in turn filed a lawsuit against KH
00:36:04
Edison for $75,000 at this time which back then that would have been a lot of money oh
00:36:13
he would probably not have to work again yeah uh at this time the lawsuit that he
00:36:19
was seeking against Consolidated Edison was still unresolved but police noted as
00:36:25
a cable splicer he presumably had the mechanical means to build these crude bombs right and as a disgruntled
00:36:35
employee he had a motive and the strange block handwriting was spoton it it matched his handwriting on Monday
00:36:44
November 5th police went to Frederick ard's home in Connecticut police accused him of sending the bombs and threatening
00:36:52
letters and they arrested him the interrogation process says well it did not bring a confession nor provide the
00:37:00
police with any additional evidence against Ard Ard was charged with sending threatening materials through the mail
00:37:10
now the following Wednesday a disheveled eard stood handcuffed in court as the state district attorney explained to the
00:37:18
judge and quote this defendant is a particular source of annoyance to the New York City Police we are firm fir L
00:37:27
convinced that he is not of sound mind he has been sending simulated bombs around the city the past few months
00:37:36
hundreds of police have been called out at all hours of the day and night to investigate because of his
00:37:43
actions the judge ruled that eard be sent to the psychiatric portion of Belleview hospital for evaluation ard's
00:37:52
wife Louise insisted that the police had the wrong man several months later the case was
00:37:59
actually dismissed in court after ard's lawyer argued successfully that the package that they actually arrested him
00:38:07
for the the latest package right uh it was not so he's being charged with sending threatening items through the
00:38:15
mail yeah the problem with that charge is the bomb doesn't explode it was actually I believe deemed that it could
00:38:24
not physically explode so there is no threat with the actual bomb and furthermore in that particular
00:38:32
incident there was no threatening note sent along with the bomb or later claiming responsibility so therefore uh
00:38:40
the the arrest charge of sending threatening materials through the mail well there was nothing actually
00:38:45
threatening about it deemed by this judge the the lawyer argued that successfully so this this guy is charged
00:38:52
with it but then it's ultimately just dismissed and thrown out of court on November 28th a bomb went off at the
00:39:00
14th Street subway station the serial bomber had rented a coin operated Locker at the IRT 14th Street subway station
00:39:12
there the bomber placed one of his small signature pipe bombs the bomb exploded destroying several lockers and adding
00:39:20
much damage to the immediate area no one was injured now if this latest bomb didn't indicate to
00:39:29
NYPD that they had the wrong man when they arrested eard well then a note sent at the end of 1951 certainly would and
00:39:40
this note read have you noticed the bombs in your city if you are worried I am sorry and also if anyone is injured
00:39:50
but it cannot be helped for justice will be served I am not well and for this I will make the Con Edison sorry yes they
00:40:00
will regret their dastardly Deeds I will bring them before the bar of Justice public opinion will condemn them for
00:40:09
beware I will place more units under theater seats in the near future signed FP so even though there's not there's
00:40:19
not these huge explosions and a lot of people being injured this is costing the city a lot of money yeah the thing we
00:40:27
have to understand here is much like today the bomb squad is a very specific unit and even though even in a city as
00:40:37
large as New York keep in mind this is the most of these bombs were in 1951 and so these men are getting called
00:40:48
out at all hours of the night there's not like it's not like you constantly have a whole team of of bomb squad
00:40:55
they're actually called bomb squad detectives back then right uh on duty 24/7 around the clock and if you if
00:41:03
anybody reads up on this case or or looks on the internet into this case there's some fascinating pictures of the
00:41:10
technology at the time the the way that they removed these bombs with toothpicks well it's it's
00:41:18
actually very strange looking it looks like from the black and white pictures it almost looks like the bomb squad
00:41:24
detectives are wearing um almost like a a wicker material or some kind of basket over their head when
00:41:33
really it's a have you seen these do you know what I'm talking about yeah yeah okay and and actually the bomb squad
00:41:40
vehicle that they were mov the bomb in also looks like it's this giant basket when really what it is is it's threaded
00:41:49
steel I believe or some type of metal so they're actually wearing it's like Man in the Iron Mask picture that they're
00:41:56
you're wearing like a helmet this metal helmet that almost looks somewhat like a
00:42:00
basket it's got tiny little slits for the eyes so that they can get close to these bombs and either diffuse them or
00:42:07
remove them and they also wear these vest and these are like I'm guessing they're like Ironclad type vest so that
00:42:14
if it were to go off that those items like the nuts and bolts that we talked about inside the pipe that when they
00:42:22
explode that they would they would be either caught or unable bble to penetrate and bounce off of this metal
00:42:29
vest that they wear and I could only imagine Captain the weight the weight of that that kind of Steel helmet basically
00:42:37
and that steel or Ironclad vest that they're wearing often what you would see these detectives do is they would get
00:42:46
close and they would approach this bomb you have to can you imagine the amount of Bravery it would take for an
00:42:53
individual to get to walk right up to a bomb especially after we've had some go off and they're starting to look the
00:43:00
same you're you've gotten to a point now in 1951 that you've had about a dozen bombs and about half of them have gone
00:43:07
off and so now you know that the threat level is certainly there and to have The
00:43:12
Bravery to approach this thing and pick it up and remove it cuz most of the time
00:43:18
they've removed it they it's not like right it's not like Mission Impossible where you see Tom Cruz zipline in and
00:43:26
and take the thing apart and decide which wire to cut it's these two detectives picking physically picking up
00:43:33
this bomb disrupting it sitting there which could in fact make it go off in your hand they would place it in some
00:43:40
type of bag purse or or basket type thing and they would place this thing in the center of a bar like a Long Bar so
00:43:50
that you could put one you could hoist one end of the bar up over your shoulder and I could hoist one up over my
00:43:55
shoulder and we could walk it out of there to the vehicle to that Ironclad vehicle to remove this thing from the
00:44:02
area keeping everyone else safe but in turn putting ourselves very much In Harm's Way the purpose of the bar that
00:44:10
we place the thing on the bar is so at at the very least if this thing goes off if this bomb explodes while we are
00:44:18
transporting it to the vehicle at least you and I are 2 and 1/2 3 and 1/2 ft from the thing when it when it explodes
00:44:27
well and you get this jack wagon that is sending bombs so often now that you now
00:44:32
you have to put yourself in this situation over and over again and then some of these bombs aren't going off so
00:44:37
you wonder if that like you know you're in a job that you shouldn't ever let your guard down mhm but this you know
00:44:44
jack wagon is you know uh putting out bombs that aren't blowing up so then yeah it'd be a whole mental um game that
00:44:54
wouldn't be fun in that job well so roughly here Captain we have about a 10-year uh or more time span and through
00:45:02
that course of time we have at least uh 16 to 20 threatening letters that are sent out and received but we also have
00:45:11
about a dozen Bombs over the course of that time probably about half of them going off actually exploding the the
00:45:18
strange mental thing here is that we have in that letter at the end of 1951 that is sent it says if anyone was
00:45:26
injured I he he's apologizing the the bomber is apologizing should anyone be injured or if anyone is
00:45:34
worried I think that's a little telling about what we might be dealing with here
00:45:39
and as to whom might be sending these bombs it doesn't help you zero in on anyone but it puts you in their mindset
00:45:47
in a sense that we have half the bombs didn't go off one wasn't even lit because he was probably scared when he
00:45:54
got spotted by police or somebody caught on to what he was doing and the bomb was
00:45:57
dropped without even being lit right now some of the the bombs that did go off think about where those ones were placed
00:46:05
most of them were inside a phone booth and the one was inside of a a trash can or um ashtray that's kind of shaped like
00:46:13
a trash can right right but the thing my thought there that I immediately go to is even though you're creating this
00:46:21
thing that's supposed to harm and hurt people to get your your revenge mess M across about these Con Edison dastardly
00:46:29
Deeds you're not really trying to hurt anybody you're almost containing your own bomb aren't you by putting it in a
00:46:34
phone booth to to to the extent that maybe it only it only hurts the person that went
00:46:41
into the phone booth right and the contradicting part though of that is he's also putting bombs in very heavily
00:46:48
trafficked areas and very popular areas and I think maybe with like the train station not so much of the library but
00:46:56
especially with the train station and theaters and stuff like that maybe it's some idea that also we have uh Travelers
00:47:04
people coming in from the area maybe that if there we have bombs going off that the police are going to take this a
00:47:09
little more serious um but so it's it's very weird because it like contradicts it you know he almost contradicts
00:47:17
himself like well I'm going to put this bomb in a heavily trafficked area but I'm going to place it in such a way that
00:47:22
it possibly won't hurt anybody well the to give to paint a better picture of what these bombs are okay so these bombs
00:47:31
were all filled with gunpowder they were pipe bombs filled with gunpowder they ranged in size from 4 to 10 in in length
00:47:42
to half an inch to 2 in in diameter now most of these bombs that used timers were constructed from Flashlight
00:47:51
batteries or cheap pocket watches and we know on at least one occasion that a wool sock was used to transport the bomb
00:48:02
the other thing here too captain that you pointed out earlier was that in 1951 when the mad bomber reappeared you know
00:48:11
he said I'm going to take off this time due to the war when he reappeared the long Hiatus since the last
00:48:18
bomb this and mind you at the same time they've discovered that the the construction techniques of the new bombs
00:48:27
found in 1951 had improved right so well obviously I mean there was time there was a time Gap yeah right so you think
00:48:34
that like it would improve like I mean wouldn't you just assume it it it would improve on some level technology and
00:48:43
materials that they could use well I we're talking about we're talking about 10 years not a great length of time what
00:48:50
I mean by that could be a lot that's quite a bit of time as far as like technology is concerned what what no but
00:48:57
I'm going off of what investigators are concerned with investigators are specifically saying not the materials
00:49:03
used they're talking about the long Hiatus since the last bomb plus the improved construction techniques right
00:49:10
of the bomb is what led investigators to believe that the bomber had served in the
00:49:16
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