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