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The Zip Gun Bomber Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:30
Speaker 1: Welcome to part two of our series about the zipgun bombers.
0:33
Speaker 1: So let's jump right in. So the next incident would
0:36
Speaker 1: take place on June the twenty seventh, nineteen ninety five,
0:39
Speaker 1: and the victim, like I just said, was only eighteen
0:42
Speaker 1: years old. Her name was Stephanie Gaffney and she happened
0:46
Speaker 1: to be living in her grandparents' residence in Queen's and
0:49
Speaker 1: was eight and a half months pregnant at that time.
0:52
Speaker 1: So that day, Stephanie was talking on the phone while
0:54
Speaker 1: looking through her grandparents mail, and she came across a
0:57
Speaker 1: package which was postmarked from Manhattan and was addressed to
1:01
Speaker 1: Gilmore or Occupant, which happened to be the surname of
1:05
Speaker 1: her grandparents. It was an ad for a company which
1:08
Speaker 1: offered a health insurance plan. And you're gonna love this.
1:10
Speaker 1: Stephanie just decides to open her grandparents mail without permission.
1:14
Speaker 1: But she's eighteen years old, I guess she's immature. And
1:18
Speaker 1: she wound up finding a blue hardcover book inside, and
1:21
Speaker 1: when she opened it, it had a homemade zip gun
1:23
Speaker 1: device go off, and shrapnel actually wound up burning Stephanie
1:27
Speaker 1: on her abdomen, chest and legs and even though she
1:30
Speaker 1: was not seriously injured, the incident actually caused some distress
1:33
Speaker 1: with her unborn child, so the doctors had to take
1:36
Speaker 1: her to the hospital and induce labor earlier than scheduled.
1:40
Speaker 1: But thankfully, as Stephanie did give birth to a healthy
1:43
Speaker 1: baby girl who was not harmed by the last She
1:46
Speaker 1: was pretty lucky because she had been talking on the
1:48
Speaker 1: phone when she opened up the book and was a
1:50
Speaker 1: bit distracted and was holding it at a slight angle
1:52
Speaker 1: away from her, and that likely prevented the bullets from
1:56
Speaker 1: directly striking her and probably saved the life of herself
1:59
Speaker 1: and her child.
2:00
Speaker 2: That is so horrifying to think that as Stephanie was
2:05
Speaker 2: paying attention, she wasn't talking on the phone, and she
2:08
Speaker 2: held it at a slightly different angle, that the results
2:11
Speaker 2: could have been very different for her and for her
2:13
Speaker 2: unborn child. So it's such a blessing that she was
2:16
Speaker 2: distracted in that moment. But I can't imagine the type
2:20
Speaker 2: of trauma that would be inflicted upon Stephanie, not just
2:24
Speaker 2: because of what she experienced, but the danger that her
2:27
Speaker 2: child was in.
2:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what ultimately happened to
2:31
Speaker 1: Stephanie and her baby girl who would now be thirty.
2:34
Speaker 1: So that really makes me feel old thinking that this
2:36
Speaker 1: took place thirty years ago. But hopefully they went out
2:39
Speaker 1: and have good lives, though I'm thinking Stephanie probably felt
2:42
Speaker 1: I am never opening my grandparents mail again after this incident.
2:46
Speaker 1: Once again, they could not find any reason why the
2:49
Speaker 1: package was sent to this particular place, and unlike the others,
2:53
Speaker 1: it didn't have a full name. It just said Gilmore
2:56
Speaker 1: or occupant. What was interesting is that Stephanie's grandfather and
3:00
Speaker 1: her uncle were both retired police officers, and a couple
3:04
Speaker 1: of years before that, her uncle had actually broken up
3:06
Speaker 1: a Dominican drug gang as part of a major drug bust.
3:10
Speaker 1: But they looked into that angle couldn't find anything from
3:12
Speaker 1: either man's careers to suggest that the zip gun bombing
3:15
Speaker 1: had made them specific targets. So once again, it just
3:19
Speaker 1: seemed like this place was selected completely at random, and
3:22
Speaker 1: that even if one of her grandparents was the intended target,
3:25
Speaker 1: Stephanie was just the unlucky person who happened to open
3:28
Speaker 1: the package and got injured. But it just added more
3:31
Speaker 1: perplexing questions to the whole thing, because at this point,
3:34
Speaker 1: the person that police thought was their prime suspect, Louis
3:37
Speaker 1: Sippola was now in jail, and now these packages are
3:40
Speaker 1: still being sent out, so they just don't know what
3:42
Speaker 1: to make of the whole thing.
3:44
Speaker 2: So after the first incident, we had roughly a decade
3:48
Speaker 2: cooling off period if we're to assume this is the
3:52
Speaker 2: same person. And then with these three incidents, how close
3:56
Speaker 2: in time were they? Will you refresh my memory.
3:59
Speaker 1: Within a year and a half of each other. The
4:00
Speaker 1: first one was in October of nineteen ninety three, the
4:03
Speaker 1: next one is April and nineteen ninety four, and this
4:05
Speaker 1: is June of nineteen ninety five.
4:08
Speaker 2: That's really interesting with the timeline. It makes me wonder
4:11
Speaker 2: is the offender ramping up or like we've spoken about
4:15
Speaker 2: fairly extensively in Part one, that there's a possibility that
4:18
Speaker 2: there is a real victim hidden in there and the
4:22
Speaker 2: other ones are subterfuge and that's what we're witnessing. But
4:26
Speaker 2: if that is true and that is the case, the
4:28
Speaker 2: question then becomes, how do you find the other random victims?
4:33
Speaker 2: Given the time period we spoke about it, it was
4:35
Speaker 2: the eighties when Jones murder first happened, and now it's
4:39
Speaker 2: the nineties, so yes, there is the Internet, but it
4:41
Speaker 2: isn't what it is today, the ability to find people's
4:44
Speaker 2: addresses and phone numbers. It's kind of rudimentary compared to
4:47
Speaker 2: how it would be as far as like looking at
4:50
Speaker 2: people's social media profiles today, I would think that you
4:53
Speaker 2: would use something like the phone book, because that would
4:56
Speaker 2: have been the central location for most of the citizens
4:58
Speaker 2: in your area.
5:00
Speaker 1: I mean, it is possible that maybe, like the first
5:03
Speaker 1: few victims, were just chosen at random as a distraction,
5:06
Speaker 1: and that their actual target was someone buried in the
5:09
Speaker 1: middle of this. I mean, some of these it appears
5:11
Speaker 1: that there wasn't much research plan because obviously, since this
5:14
Speaker 1: one was addressed to Gilmore or occupant and didn't have
5:17
Speaker 1: a full name, that indicates that they didn't know too
5:20
Speaker 1: much about this family. And of course we already mentioned
5:22
Speaker 1: that the previous one was for Richard McGarrell, who hadn't
5:26
Speaker 1: lived at that address in years, So makes me think
5:28
Speaker 1: that this person did not have much knowledge of this family.
5:31
Speaker 1: But they looked into the backgrounds of all these victims
5:34
Speaker 1: and just couldnot find anything like any known enemies they
5:37
Speaker 1: had who would have had a motive to do this,
5:39
Speaker 1: And that's why investigators were left so perplexed. But the
5:43
Speaker 1: last victim was seventy seven year old retired real estate
5:46
Speaker 1: agent named Richard Basil who lived in the Bensonhurst neighborhood
5:50
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, and on June the twentieth, nineteen ninety six,
5:53
Speaker 1: he received a package which was addressed to his wife,
5:56
Speaker 1: Marietta and had a return address from the charity March
5:59
Speaker 1: of New York, though it was postmarked from elsewhere, and
6:03
Speaker 1: this time around there wasn't actually a book in there.
6:05
Speaker 1: There was actually a video cassette inside the package, but
6:09
Speaker 1: when the cassette's container was opened, he had another booby
6:12
Speaker 1: trapped zipgun device went off and fired three bullets, but
6:16
Speaker 1: because Richard opened the box at an odd angle from
6:18
Speaker 1: a distance, he actually escaped injury as all of the
6:21
Speaker 1: bullets just wound up shattering the window and none of
6:23
Speaker 1: them struck him, so thankfully, this was an incident in
6:26
Speaker 1: which Nolan was hurt. But once again, Richard Basil had
6:29
Speaker 1: no connection to the other victims. He did not have
6:32
Speaker 1: any known enemies, anything in his background which would have
6:34
Speaker 1: made him a target, so it just seemed like another
6:37
Speaker 1: elderly guy who seemed to be selected completely at random, but.
6:41
Speaker 2: The one commonality seems to be that everybody's over the
6:45
Speaker 2: age of fifty four.
6:46
Speaker 1: Correct pretty much.
6:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, well except for Stephanie, but she was the unintended victim.
6:53
Speaker 2: The package was addressed to her grandmother's so obviously the
6:57
Speaker 2: killer wasn't targeting eighteen year old Stephanie. In my opinion,
7:01
Speaker 2: something about the age range or the demographic feels really calculated.
7:06
Speaker 2: It just seems unlikely or improbable that if you were
7:09
Speaker 2: truly choosing victims at random, that you would have all
7:13
Speaker 2: of your victims within a similar age demographic.
7:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it makes me wonder where they were getting
7:18
Speaker 1: that information. And it is also interesting that Joan Kip
7:22
Speaker 1: was the only person who was killed. I know, it
7:25
Speaker 1: was just luck that none of these other victims were killed,
7:27
Speaker 1: but it makes me wonder if the offender just started escalating,
7:30
Speaker 1: like they got frustrated that they're like poking up all
7:33
Speaker 1: these booby trapped devices, yet none of them are fatal.
7:35
Speaker 1: They're only wounding up injured or not being struck by
7:38
Speaker 1: bullets at all. And that's why they kept sending off
7:41
Speaker 1: the packages in such a quicker succession, because they wanted
7:44
Speaker 1: to kill someone else. Yet they couldn't succeed each time,
7:47
Speaker 1: so that's why they had to keep repeating themselves.
7:50
Speaker 2: I really would like to know more about the March
7:52
Speaker 2: of Dime's angle, because if you were involved in a
7:55
Speaker 2: charity at the time, wouldn't it be pretty easy to
7:58
Speaker 2: get a hold of people's personal information.
8:01
Speaker 1: That is possible. It's never been specified if the Basils
8:05
Speaker 1: were part of the March of Dimes New York. I
8:07
Speaker 1: know that Richard was the one who opened the package,
8:09
Speaker 1: but it technically was addressed to his wife, Marietta, So
8:13
Speaker 1: maybe Marietta donated to them at some point, and maybe
8:16
Speaker 1: that's the reason Richard wasn't suspicious, thinking, oh, my wife
8:19
Speaker 1: gets packages from this charity all the time, so I'm
8:21
Speaker 1: going to open it without a second thought. So after this,
8:25
Speaker 1: the case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries, and that's how
8:28
Speaker 1: I originally heard about it. And after that there were
8:31
Speaker 1: no more incidents involving these suspicious packages. So maybe the
8:34
Speaker 1: fact that it was now getting exposure on national television
8:38
Speaker 1: finally scared the perpetrator off and finally convinced them to stop.
8:42
Speaker 1: But you may have noticed that there are no actual
8:44
Speaker 1: bombs connected to this. But I think The reason that
8:47
Speaker 1: they wanted to call him the zip gun bomber was
8:51
Speaker 1: because this was the era where the Unibomber was all
8:53
Speaker 1: over the news when he was finally identified as Ted
8:56
Speaker 1: Kaczinski and arrested. So of course this was all sensation
9:00
Speaker 1: thinking if we use the word bomber, this is going
9:02
Speaker 1: to get a lot more press, and it's going to
9:04
Speaker 1: get a lot more attention. So that's why they decided
9:07
Speaker 1: to give him this nickname, even though he technically only
9:09
Speaker 1: used zip guns and never actually used any bombs. But
9:13
Speaker 1: this was the only serial mail bombing case who have
9:16
Speaker 1: ever occurred in the history of New York City, and
9:18
Speaker 1: it is still unprecedented, as I don't think there have
9:21
Speaker 1: been any other documented cases in the history of the
9:23
Speaker 1: country where people have received packages with a booby trapped
9:27
Speaker 1: zipgun that fires off bullets.
9:30
Speaker 2: I've never heard of anything similar to this, But in
9:32
Speaker 2: all fairness, I was unfamiliar with this case, so I
9:35
Speaker 2: definitely don't know it all. I find it interesting that
9:38
Speaker 2: they would call him a bomber. I guess it comes
9:41
Speaker 2: down to your trying to sell papers. You want eyeballs
9:44
Speaker 2: on the story and what is more compelling, Like you
9:47
Speaker 2: said in the era of Ted Kaczinski than calling him
9:50
Speaker 2: the zipgun bomber. It does have a bit of a
9:52
Speaker 2: ring to it rather than like the zipgun package guy.
9:57
Speaker 2: It reminds me a little bit of the stage ha
10:00
Speaker 2: panic cases from the eighties, where it was like one
10:03
Speaker 2: seemed to build on the next, and it just created
10:06
Speaker 2: this kind of frenzy that sold a ton of papers
10:09
Speaker 2: and had a lot of eyeballs on a lot of
10:11
Speaker 2: news segments.
10:13
Speaker 1: Pretty much. Yeah, and now I want to talk about
10:16
Speaker 1: like how the unibomber might have influenced this offender and
10:19
Speaker 1: maybe paused him to come out of the spotlight again
10:22
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties, because that's when the unibomber was
10:24
Speaker 1: getting all this attention. I don't know if this is
10:27
Speaker 1: just a coincidence, but there was actually a unibomber explosion
10:31
Speaker 1: on May the fifth, nineteen eighty two, two days before
10:34
Speaker 1: Joan Kip received her package. It took place in Nashville, Tennessee,
10:38
Speaker 1: at Vanderbilt University, where a secretary named Janet Smith was
10:42
Speaker 1: seriously injured by a mail bomb when she opened a
10:45
Speaker 1: package which been addressed to a computer science professor at
10:48
Speaker 1: the university. And of course the murder of Joan Kip
10:51
Speaker 1: took place two days later, and I still wonder could
10:54
Speaker 1: someone have read about this story in the newspaper and
10:57
Speaker 1: it gave them the inspiration to send this package to Joe.
11:01
Speaker 1: But even though the Unibomber had been wanted since the
11:03
Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies, he actually went through a six year
11:06
Speaker 1: hiatus in which there were no bombing incidents until there
11:09
Speaker 1: were two separate mail bomb attacks which took place on
11:12
Speaker 1: opposite sides of the country on June the twenty second
11:15
Speaker 1: and June the twenty fourth and of nineteen ninety three.
11:18
Speaker 1: And then lo and behold, after the Unibomber is thrust
11:21
Speaker 1: back into the spotlight in the media, the zipgun Bomber
11:24
Speaker 1: makes his big return and sends a package to Anthony
11:27
Speaker 1: Lenza less than four months later in October. So it
11:31
Speaker 1: makes me wonder if the zipgun Bomber, after this decade
11:34
Speaker 1: long hiatus, read about the Unibomber getting this attention and
11:38
Speaker 1: then decided, I'm going to go into action again, and
11:40
Speaker 1: I'm going to send my own special device to people
11:43
Speaker 1: and hopefully maybe get some of the Unibomber's headlines.
11:47
Speaker 2: If that's true, and it is, the same killer, then
11:49
Speaker 2: it definitely speaks to somebody who really cares what the
11:52
Speaker 2: public things and wants to have this fearsome reputation a
11:57
Speaker 2: la BTK. I think if we look even at the
12:00
Speaker 2: method that the zipgun bomber chose, that speaks to somebody
12:04
Speaker 2: who wants notoriety. If you wanted something quiet, you could
12:09
Speaker 2: just poison somebody. You could do it in a way
12:11
Speaker 2: that wouldn't call such attention with the press. But when
12:16
Speaker 2: you're orchestrating attacks like these, you're doing multiple attacks, and
12:20
Speaker 2: they're so intricate, so calculated, seemingly random, and you're using
12:26
Speaker 2: this carefully constructed zip gun device, you're putting it in
12:29
Speaker 2: like this blue velvet coin box in some cases in
12:33
Speaker 2: the cooking in the cookbook for Joan, it just speaks
12:37
Speaker 2: to somebody who really is thinking, how will my crimes
12:40
Speaker 2: be perceived? And it also speaks to somebody who wants
12:45
Speaker 2: their crimes to be tied together.
12:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would totally make sense to me that he
12:50
Speaker 1: was seeing all this attention that the unibomber was getting,
12:52
Speaker 1: and then even though the zip gun bomber had gotten
12:55
Speaker 1: away with it for over a decade. I just think
12:57
Speaker 1: that like the BTK. They just couldn't stand the thought
13:00
Speaker 1: of not getting any more attention and not being in
13:03
Speaker 1: the papers, so they had to do something in order
13:05
Speaker 1: to get themselves back into the spotlight again. And it's
13:09
Speaker 1: interesting how the Unibomber, one of his later bombs, took
13:11
Speaker 1: place on April the twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five, and
13:14
Speaker 1: then the Zip gun bomber's attack on Stephanie Gaffney took
13:17
Speaker 1: place just two months later on June the twenty seventh.
13:21
Speaker 1: Ted Kaczinski was arrested in April of nineteen ninety six,
13:25
Speaker 1: and then the package sent off to Richard Basil took
13:29
Speaker 1: place in June of nineteen ninety six, so only two
13:32
Speaker 1: months later. So maybe they're thinking of themselves. Kazinski's been caught,
13:36
Speaker 1: he's in custody. Maybe I'll be the new big boy now,
13:39
Speaker 1: the new unidentified bomber getting all the attention. But ironically enough,
13:43
Speaker 1: after the Richard Basil thing, after he finally got the
13:46
Speaker 1: nickname Zip gun Bomber, he pretty much faded from the spotlight.
13:50
Speaker 1: So it makes you wonder did something happen to him,
13:52
Speaker 1: Did he die or go to prison for another crime,
13:54
Speaker 1: or did he just get paranoid that he was going
13:56
Speaker 1: to get caught and then bring everything to a stop.
13:59
Speaker 1: So it would not be until May of two thousand
14:02
Speaker 1: and two, around the twenty year anniversary of Joan Kipp's death,
14:05
Speaker 1: that the New York Daily News published an article in
14:08
Speaker 1: which they reported that two men from Brooklyn who had
14:11
Speaker 1: once been roommates were being looked at as potential suspects.
14:15
Speaker 1: The name of one of these men has never been
14:17
Speaker 1: released publicly. He has only been described as an ex
14:20
Speaker 1: con and a former roommate of the person I'm going
14:23
Speaker 1: to talk about now. But the other man was identified
14:27
Speaker 1: as a forty eight year old Stephen Wavra who had
14:30
Speaker 1: a history of strange criminal behavior during the early nineteen seventies.
14:34
Speaker 1: Warbra had served in the Navy, but was diagnosed as
14:37
Speaker 1: suffering from paranoid schizophrenica, and he had history of run
14:40
Speaker 1: ins with the law for such offenses as making bomb
14:43
Speaker 1: threats against postal facilities, and there were even two separate
14:47
Speaker 1: occasions where Warbra was caught carrying hollowed out books even
14:50
Speaker 1: though they did not contain any guns or bombs or anything.
14:54
Speaker 1: But he just had a history of very irrational behavior.
14:57
Speaker 1: There was one incident where he got into an altercation
15:00
Speaker 1: outside Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, where just one month earlier
15:04
Speaker 1: he had been released from prison on robbery charges, when
15:06
Speaker 1: he suddenly decided to throw black pepper into the eyes
15:09
Speaker 1: of a female MP who was guarding the main gate
15:12
Speaker 1: at Fort Hamilton, an attacker of the crowbar, and when
15:15
Speaker 1: another MP attempted to intervene, Wabrah attacked him as well,
15:19
Speaker 1: and he had to be chased down and restrained by
15:21
Speaker 1: three soldiers before he was arrested. And when asked why
15:24
Speaker 1: he did this, Wabra said that he wanted to steal
15:27
Speaker 1: the forty five caliber handguns that the MPs were carrying
15:30
Speaker 1: because he was only carrying a twenty two caliber weapon
15:33
Speaker 1: and he didn't feel it was intimidated enough, so he
15:35
Speaker 1: had to steal some bigger guns and that was his
15:38
Speaker 1: loan motive for this crime.
15:40
Speaker 2: This is just a really bizarre motive. He sounds like
15:44
Speaker 2: a pretty odd guy, but it really is the hollowed
15:47
Speaker 2: out books. For me, I don't know how common it
15:50
Speaker 2: would be for somebody to be carrying around hollowed out books.
15:53
Speaker 2: Is this like a spy thing that he read in
15:55
Speaker 2: the spy magazine and he just started doing it or
15:59
Speaker 2: is this something that is highly specific to him?
16:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's just such a specific thing that
16:05
Speaker 1: you have to wonder could he have had expertise in
16:09
Speaker 1: making these type of booby traps. Yeah. The first time
16:12
Speaker 1: he was caught with the hollowed out book was in
16:13
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three when police visited Wabra and his roommate
16:17
Speaker 1: at their apartment to investigate an unrelated case, and they
16:20
Speaker 1: noticed that he had a hollowed out book and some
16:23
Speaker 1: bomb making equipment on the kitchen table, and Wabra admitted
16:27
Speaker 1: that he was planning to use it on a military base,
16:29
Speaker 1: but he denied ever having sent a device through the mail.
16:32
Speaker 1: And of course he would go to jail for a
16:34
Speaker 1: few years for having this illegal equipment. Now, obviously they
16:38
Speaker 1: should have raised some red flags because Wabra also lived
16:40
Speaker 1: in New York. We had just had an incident involving
16:43
Speaker 1: a hallowed out book used to kill a woman. But
16:45
Speaker 1: by nineteen eighty three they had already charged Craig Kip
16:49
Speaker 1: and they had still not decided whether or not they
16:51
Speaker 1: were going to take him to trial. So I think
16:53
Speaker 1: in the police's eyes they were thinking that, oh, well,
16:55
Speaker 1: we already got our mand for Joan Kipp's murder, so
16:58
Speaker 1: obviously this hollow out book must be a coincidence. So
17:01
Speaker 1: I think that means that Wabra was not properly investigated
17:04
Speaker 1: at the time because they thought they had already found
17:06
Speaker 1: their suspect.
17:08
Speaker 2: There's a really strange dichotomy here because on one hand,
17:12
Speaker 2: Wabra sounds like such a great suspect, but when we
17:15
Speaker 2: look at our suspect, we think somebody who's like cold, calculated, methodical,
17:20
Speaker 2: but he seems really hot headed. But then when you
17:23
Speaker 2: go back to the books being hollowed out, that is
17:26
Speaker 2: so specific and almost impossible to ignore.
17:30
Speaker 1: It is. Yes, and as we're going to find out,
17:33
Speaker 1: there actually is a personal connection between Wabra and Joan Kip,
17:37
Speaker 1: even though it's a very very loose one. And it
17:40
Speaker 1: turned out that Joan had actually been Wabra's guidance counselor
17:44
Speaker 1: when he was attending junior high school. But it's kind
17:47
Speaker 1: of a weak connection because this would have been something
17:49
Speaker 1: like fifteen to twenty years before the Zip gone bombing,
17:52
Speaker 1: so I'm not even sure he would have remembered her
17:55
Speaker 1: or would have had a motive to select her to
17:57
Speaker 1: harm her, and the reason he wasn't looked at it
18:00
Speaker 1: a serious suspect at first is because he was actually
18:02
Speaker 1: in jail for another crime at the time the hollowed
18:05
Speaker 1: out book was sent to Joan Kip's address. But like
18:09
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, the police said that they suspected two
18:12
Speaker 1: people may have been involved, and that possibly he was
18:15
Speaker 1: getting his roommate to mail mysterious packages on his behalf
18:18
Speaker 1: while he was incarcerated. So even though we don't have
18:21
Speaker 1: many details about the roommate, it's possible that if Wabra
18:24
Speaker 1: assembled the bomb and then went to jail, the roommate
18:27
Speaker 1: still could have mailed it to Joan on his behalf.
18:31
Speaker 2: That's really interesting and it makes me wonder if Joan
18:35
Speaker 2: Kip was indeed an intended victim, or if there is
18:39
Speaker 2: a more cold, methodical person who's partnered with Wavra, and
18:44
Speaker 2: maybe they had the foresight not to want to be
18:47
Speaker 2: tied to any of these crimes, and so they asked
18:50
Speaker 2: Wavra to pick somebody at random, and maybe he thought, oh,
18:54
Speaker 2: this person, Joan Kip, she's far enough removed from me,
18:57
Speaker 2: nobody's going to tie us together, rather than just picking
19:01
Speaker 2: a truly random victim. And because we see similar devices.
19:05
Speaker 2: We know that these crimes are connected to Joan Kipps,
19:09
Speaker 2: but it could be a different individual doing it because
19:12
Speaker 2: we know that it can't be Wavra. He's locked up,
19:15
Speaker 2: and the blue velvet box is different than the hollowed
19:18
Speaker 2: out book, which maybe was Wavra's signature pretty much.
19:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the first one with Joan Kip was a cookbook,
19:24
Speaker 1: but the ones that were sent off to Anthony Lenza
19:26
Speaker 1: and Richard McGarrell, those were in the medallion boxes, the
19:29
Speaker 1: blue velvet boxes, which were so specific that you have
19:32
Speaker 1: to think they were done by the same person. So
19:35
Speaker 1: I do think that it's a pretty weak motive to
19:38
Speaker 1: think that Wabra may have decided to target Joan Kipp
19:41
Speaker 1: because she had been his guidance counselor because that was
19:44
Speaker 1: so many years earlier. But it is kind of more
19:46
Speaker 1: interesting when you think that Joan made all those cryptoc
19:49
Speaker 1: remarks where she said, quote there will be others, and
19:52
Speaker 1: she wanted people to notify the school district and all
19:55
Speaker 1: the other educators to warn them about what was happening,
19:58
Speaker 1: which gave off the oppression she have had some suspicions
20:01
Speaker 1: about someone that deliberately targeted her and sent her the
20:05
Speaker 1: zip gun bomb. So it makes me wonder if she
20:08
Speaker 1: had gotten an opportunity to be questioned about Stephen Wabra,
20:11
Speaker 1: I'd be curious to see if she would have said anything,
20:13
Speaker 1: like maybe she remembered something from her background that maybe
20:16
Speaker 1: he had a history of using hauled out books or
20:19
Speaker 1: building bombs or something when he was in junior high
20:21
Speaker 1: school and she thought he was disturbing kid, or maybe
20:24
Speaker 1: he had resurfaced recently to make threats against her or something,
20:27
Speaker 1: and that's why she suspected that he could have been
20:29
Speaker 1: the one who sent it out. It does seem like
20:31
Speaker 1: a weak connection, but I still wonder if Joan had
20:34
Speaker 1: her own ideas about Stephen Wabra.
20:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely does seem like a weak connection, But
20:40
Speaker 2: I guess if you look at it one way, you
20:43
Speaker 2: could say that things had happened to us during our
20:45
Speaker 2: formative years childhood, high school are deeply impactful, and perhaps
20:50
Speaker 2: or maybe he perceived the way that she treated him
20:54
Speaker 2: to be that like he was less than Maybe they
20:56
Speaker 2: had a positive interaction and rather than come up with
21:00
Speaker 2: a truly random victim, Wavra, when potentially asked by his
21:05
Speaker 2: partner to come up with somebody he came up with
21:07
Speaker 2: Joan Kip and just assumed that investigators would never catch them,
21:11
Speaker 2: so they would never catch the connection because it was
21:14
Speaker 2: so many years in the past that there was any
21:17
Speaker 2: connection that would tie the two of them together.
21:20
Speaker 1: We've already seen him do irrational things like throwing pepper
21:23
Speaker 1: in like the eyes of an MP because they just
21:25
Speaker 1: wanted to steal her gun. So it could have been
21:28
Speaker 1: just this long standing grudge that he hung on to
21:30
Speaker 1: for over fifteen years or something. And even if Joan
21:33
Speaker 1: didn't even remember him, he still could have remembered her
21:36
Speaker 1: and then just decided to target her at random. And
21:39
Speaker 1: no connections have been found between Wavra or any the
21:42
Speaker 1: other victims from the nineties, so that could have just
21:44
Speaker 1: been his mo where he'll just pick people at random
21:47
Speaker 1: and then just decide to mail them packages. Wavra was
21:50
Speaker 1: out of prison for the first three incidents, which took
21:52
Speaker 1: place during the nineties, but in April of nineteen ninety six,
21:56
Speaker 1: he was arrested inside the Brooklyn Public Library for possessing
21:59
Speaker 1: a hull out book containing exact oblades, and he also
22:03
Speaker 1: happened to be carrying twenty two caliber rifle shells and
22:06
Speaker 1: as a convicted Fellon, Warbar was forbidden from possessing ammunitions
22:10
Speaker 1: such as that, so he wound up receiving a ninety
22:13
Speaker 1: month since at the Beaumont Federal Prison Complex in Texas.
22:17
Speaker 1: The Zipgon bomb that was sent to Richard Basil a
22:20
Speaker 1: couple months later, Warbar would have been in prison for that,
22:23
Speaker 1: But once again, he still has the connection with his roommate.
22:26
Speaker 1: I do not believe they were still roommates in nineteen
22:28
Speaker 1: ninety six, but they were still friends. They were still
22:31
Speaker 1: in touch with each other. So theoretically, if Warbar was
22:34
Speaker 1: responsible for the other bombs, he could have had his
22:37
Speaker 1: roommate mail the one to Richard Basil on his behalf
22:40
Speaker 1: after he was already sent to prison.
22:42
Speaker 2: Definitely, anything is possible, especially when you have multiple offenders
22:47
Speaker 2: that are connected to the same prime.
22:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of why I wish we had more
22:51
Speaker 1: information on the roommate to know if he had a
22:54
Speaker 1: history of making devices like that. I'm guessing that the
22:57
Speaker 1: reason that they maybe haven't named him PUBB is because
23:00
Speaker 1: he has never been convicted of any of these serious
23:03
Speaker 1: crimes involving weapons, even though he apparently does have a
23:06
Speaker 1: criminal history, so they just don't feel comfortable enough to
23:09
Speaker 1: say his name publicly, whereas Wabra has been in and
23:12
Speaker 1: out at prison and has a history of erratic behavior,
23:14
Speaker 1: they were a lot more comfortable using his name in
23:17
Speaker 1: the newspapers.
23:19
Speaker 2: And I think that makes a lot of sense in
23:20
Speaker 2: most cases, where you have somebody and if you tie
23:25
Speaker 2: them to this crime without a lot of evidence to
23:27
Speaker 2: substantiate it, it could greatly prejudice things like their future
23:32
Speaker 2: job opportunities, their future partners. So unless there is a
23:36
Speaker 2: lot of evidence and you're going to bring somebody to trial,
23:39
Speaker 2: I don't really think it's the best thing to be
23:42
Speaker 2: releasing their names and then being like, oh sorry, just kidding,
23:45
Speaker 2: like you aren't actually the guilty party, because a lot
23:48
Speaker 2: of people will have formed their opinions about that person already,
23:52
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure specifically hear how much evidence they
23:55
Speaker 2: did or they didn't have about the roommate. But of
23:58
Speaker 2: course he's going to look like a compelling suspect. He
24:00
Speaker 2: lives with Wavra, he's got some criminality in his background,
24:04
Speaker 2: but I don't know how close it's tied to what
24:07
Speaker 2: happened here, or how good of a suspect he truly was.
24:11
Speaker 2: For me personally, given what we know thus far about
24:15
Speaker 2: Wavra and the fact that he had a roommate, it
24:17
Speaker 2: seems likely to me or probable that there would be
24:21
Speaker 2: two people involved here, just because we have Wabra locked
24:24
Speaker 2: up and it's not possible that he could have committed
24:27
Speaker 2: the other three attacks. So I think that there are
24:31
Speaker 2: definitely two people involved. And so I can see why
24:34
Speaker 2: investigators were looking very closely at the roommate.
24:38
Speaker 1: It would yeah, and it would explain like how these
24:40
Speaker 1: packages were still being sent out when Wabar was in prison.
24:44
Speaker 1: In that aforementioned New York Daily News article from two
24:47
Speaker 1: thousand and two, it contained an interview with a retired
24:49
Speaker 1: detective who worked on the case named John Tarangello, and
24:53
Speaker 1: he made this very weird statement. I'm not sure what
24:55
Speaker 1: to make of it. Quote. It always came back to
24:58
Speaker 1: the two of them consistently. There was always a common
25:01
Speaker 1: denominator between them and the victims, whether it was the pharmacy,
25:04
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, the hollowed out cookbook. There was a record
25:07
Speaker 1: of Wavra's pal and the computer of each of the
25:10
Speaker 1: victims local pharmacies. We can never figure it out end quote.
25:14
Speaker 1: So I really wish I got more context on the
25:16
Speaker 1: pharmacies thing, because does this mean that this roommate had
25:19
Speaker 1: his name and like all these different pharmacies that all
25:22
Speaker 1: the victims went to. Because if so, that's a hell
25:25
Speaker 1: of a coincidence, and it makes me wonder, like why
25:28
Speaker 1: a person would need to go to that many different pharmacies.
25:31
Speaker 1: And it also makes me wonder, is this where they
25:34
Speaker 1: were obtaining all the information about the victims? Did they
25:37
Speaker 1: just maybe follow them to a pharmacy, maybe get an
25:40
Speaker 1: address off a prescription on a shelf in the background,
25:43
Speaker 1: and then select them at random. Really makes me wonder,
25:46
Speaker 1: like what the context of this quote is.
25:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is really bizarre. Anytime I hear somebody going
25:52
Speaker 2: to multiple pharmacies, I always think of people doctor shopping
25:55
Speaker 2: for drugs. It also makes you question what type of
25:59
Speaker 2: security measures were there in place in order to protect
26:03
Speaker 2: the patient's information or was it just really easy to
26:06
Speaker 2: access back then because it was really during the advent
26:10
Speaker 2: of like computers and technology, so maybe things were just
26:14
Speaker 2: kept in file folders.
26:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's maybe what he was doing, But I
26:18
Speaker 1: think about some of the outdated information. The fact that
26:21
Speaker 1: one of the packages was addressed to Richard McGarrell, who
26:24
Speaker 1: was no longer hadn't lived there for fifteen years. It
26:27
Speaker 1: makes me wonder if maybe Wavru and his roommate like
26:30
Speaker 1: snuck into a pharmacy and saw some database which had
26:33
Speaker 1: an outdated address for Richard McGarrell that was several years old,
26:36
Speaker 1: and then just said, oh, this person sounds like an
26:38
Speaker 1: interesting target and sent a package there and not realizing
26:41
Speaker 1: that Richard was no longer at that address, or it
26:45
Speaker 1: could explain why when the package was sent to Stephanie Gaffney,
26:49
Speaker 1: the front of the package just simply said Gilmore or occupant.
26:52
Speaker 1: Like maybe they saw the name Gilmore and an address
26:55
Speaker 1: on like a pharmacy prescription or something like that, and
26:58
Speaker 1: then just picked that even though they did not know
27:00
Speaker 1: the name of the person who lived there. So it
27:02
Speaker 1: sounds like they have a little pieces of the puzzle
27:04
Speaker 1: together involving Wabber in the room make but they just
27:06
Speaker 1: can't put everything together or figure out enough evidence in
27:10
Speaker 1: order to make an arrest for either of them.
27:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like we just talked about the likelihood of
27:16
Speaker 2: there being a database where all of these names were
27:19
Speaker 2: available and then searched, and that's how the victims were
27:22
Speaker 2: picked seems unlikely given the time period, But if it
27:26
Speaker 2: was file folders, it makes you wonder did the zip
27:29
Speaker 2: gun bomber attack older people because that was their target
27:34
Speaker 2: demographic or did they literally just pick files at random
27:38
Speaker 2: and people who are older are more likely to be
27:40
Speaker 2: getting multiple different prescriptions or to be in a file
27:43
Speaker 2: cabinet at a pharmacy at any given time, I would
27:48
Speaker 2: think that you're going to have a lot less younger
27:49
Speaker 2: people in the whatever zero to forty five or fifty
27:54
Speaker 2: range than you would people over the age of fifty,
27:57
Speaker 2: which every single victim here was, except for, like we said,
28:01
Speaker 2: Stephanie Gaffney, who was eighteen, but her grandmother was we
28:05
Speaker 2: can assume the intended target.
28:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does make me think that they did additional research,
28:10
Speaker 1: not just getting names and address that maybe they went
28:13
Speaker 1: to these addresses and saw, oh, there's old people living there.
28:15
Speaker 1: They just looks like the type of person who will
28:17
Speaker 1: open up a package if we send it, and that's
28:20
Speaker 1: why they selected all these people. But it's another interesting
28:23
Speaker 1: comment from that New York Daily News article is that
28:25
Speaker 1: even though they said all this incriminating information about wab
28:29
Speaker 1: Wright and his roommate, they also stated that neither Craigkip
28:32
Speaker 1: or Howard Kip had been completely ruled out as suspects
28:35
Speaker 1: in the murder of Joan Kip, which makes me wonder
28:38
Speaker 1: do they have additional information, because you would think that
28:42
Speaker 1: after having all these packages get sent out to other victims,
28:45
Speaker 1: like a full decade after Joan was murdered, that you
28:48
Speaker 1: wouldn't be inclined to lean towards Craig or Howard. So
28:51
Speaker 1: do they still think that maybe they murdered Joan and
28:54
Speaker 1: then either a copycat sent out these other packages, or
28:57
Speaker 1: maybe they sent them out in order to divert suspicion
29:00
Speaker 1: from themselves. But it just seems like after all that
29:02
Speaker 1: time that they're pretty much beating a dead horse, still
29:05
Speaker 1: trying to pin the murder on Howard or Craig.
29:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, this definitely feels like a bit of a reach,
29:11
Speaker 2: especially at this point. Like I understood what investigators were
29:14
Speaker 2: doing when they were looking into Craig and Howard for
29:17
Speaker 2: Jones murder, but now with everything else that's come out,
29:21
Speaker 2: it just seems so unlikely that either of them was involved.
29:24
Speaker 2: And if we think back to the evidence against Craig
29:28
Speaker 2: that they decided to take to trial, they really did
29:31
Speaker 2: not have good evidence. It was wildly circumstantial, and it
29:35
Speaker 2: was like speculative science. It wasn't a hard science like DNA.
29:40
Speaker 2: You know, when you're looking at snifferdog evidence as being
29:42
Speaker 2: like the cornerstone of your case, you have a problem.
29:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I think if they had been able
29:48
Speaker 1: to charge Wava or someone else, they might have finally
29:51
Speaker 1: said that we're clearing the kIPS. But I think it
29:53
Speaker 1: was just out of frustration that they've been unable to
29:55
Speaker 1: solve the crime after twenty years and we're just kind
29:57
Speaker 1: of at their wits end that they're saying, well, there's
30:00
Speaker 1: still a possibility it could have been Praig or Howard.
30:02
Speaker 1: We just don't have the evidence to implicate them. So,
30:05
Speaker 1: like I said, Wabra was serving time in prison when
30:07
Speaker 1: that article was published, but he was finally released in
30:10
Speaker 1: March of two thousand and five. I released a Patreon
30:13
Speaker 1: bonus episode about this in early twenty twenty one, and
30:17
Speaker 1: at the time I had no idea of Stephen Wabra's whereabouts.
30:20
Speaker 1: I didn't even know if he was still alive. But
30:23
Speaker 1: in December of twenty twenty one, Wabra actually made the
30:26
Speaker 1: news again for getting arrested in an anti vaccine demonstration.
30:31
Speaker 1: You might recall that during that time period, if you
30:33
Speaker 1: wanted to go out to a restaurant, you would actually
30:35
Speaker 1: have to provide proof of vaccination before they would seat you.
30:39
Speaker 1: But Wabar was part of a group that decided to
30:41
Speaker 1: stay a sit in demonstration. They showed up at a
30:44
Speaker 1: cheesecake factory at a queen's mall where they said they
30:48
Speaker 1: weren't vaccinated, and they just decided to like chain themselves
30:51
Speaker 1: to the seats and refused to leave, and then they
30:53
Speaker 1: called in the police and then they were carted out
30:56
Speaker 1: and charged with trespassing. And I think there were six
30:59
Speaker 1: people involved, but I saw the names and one of
31:01
Speaker 1: them was sixty seven year old Steven Wabra, and it's like, yep,
31:04
Speaker 1: the age is correct, and this sounds exactly like something
31:07
Speaker 1: Wabra would do. So I'm pretty sure this is the
31:09
Speaker 1: same guy, and that at least in December of twenty
31:12
Speaker 1: twenty one, he was still alive. But other than that,
31:15
Speaker 1: it sounds like he has kept his nose clean since
31:17
Speaker 1: he was released from prison in two thousand and five.
31:20
Speaker 1: And they just still haven't been able to find any
31:22
Speaker 1: other evidence to implicate him in these bombings, so officially,
31:26
Speaker 1: the zip gun bomber remains unidentified.
31:29
Speaker 2: Well, from what we know, Stephen Wavra seems to be
31:32
Speaker 2: the most compelling suspect, and we know that he had
31:35
Speaker 2: to have had a partner or it seems highly probable
31:38
Speaker 2: that he had to have had a partner, and so
31:40
Speaker 2: his roommate would be a logical choice. They're spending a
31:42
Speaker 2: lot of time together. And I do get why they
31:45
Speaker 2: didn't release the name of the roommate because, like I
31:48
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, he could have been unfairly targeted and maybe
31:52
Speaker 2: they weren't quite sure. Don't they have laws like that
31:56
Speaker 2: to shield criminals in maybe in Australia.
31:59
Speaker 1: I think so, and also in places like Ireland where
32:02
Speaker 1: people will be arrested for questioning but they won't release
32:04
Speaker 1: their names to the public. But yeah, Wabra, if he
32:08
Speaker 1: was responsible, just to look at the timeline here, he
32:11
Speaker 1: obviously could not have personally mailed the package to Joan
32:14
Speaker 1: Kip in nineteen eighty two since he was in jail,
32:17
Speaker 1: so he would have needed to get his roommate to
32:19
Speaker 1: do it. He could have mailed out the first three
32:21
Speaker 1: packages from nineteen ninety three until nineteen ninety five, but
32:24
Speaker 1: of course the last one took place after he was
32:27
Speaker 1: re arrested, So in that case, the one to Richard Basil,
32:30
Speaker 1: he would have needed to get his roommate to mail
32:32
Speaker 1: out on his behalf if he was guilty, So that
32:35
Speaker 1: is a theory that makes the most sense to me.
32:37
Speaker 1: I don't believe that Howard or Craig Kip were guilty
32:40
Speaker 1: of this crime. It doesn't make any sense. They had
32:42
Speaker 1: no motive. So I think that if it was Wabra,
32:45
Speaker 1: then for whatever reason he decided to target Joan Kip,
32:49
Speaker 1: and then maybe he did it was a one only thing,
32:51
Speaker 1: like maybe it was a personal grudge. But then a
32:54
Speaker 1: decade later he was feeling antsy again because the unibomber
32:57
Speaker 1: was getting attention and he wanted to do something to
32:59
Speaker 1: get head, so he started mailing out the packages again,
33:03
Speaker 1: and once he went to prison, and then once the
33:05
Speaker 1: unibomber was captured, maybe the roommate said no way, I'm
33:08
Speaker 1: not going to mail any more packages on your behalf,
33:11
Speaker 1: and that's why they suddenly stopped. Because Wabra was incarcerated
33:14
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety six until two thousand and five, and
33:17
Speaker 1: the packages came to an end once they came up
33:20
Speaker 1: with the zipgun bomber title and it was featured on
33:22
Speaker 1: Unsolved Mysteries. So I think that's probably what happened if
33:25
Speaker 1: we're going by the most logical thing is that these
33:27
Speaker 1: two men worked in cahoots together, but we're still not
33:30
Speaker 1: really going to know the motive and why they selected
33:32
Speaker 1: these particular victims.
33:34
Speaker 2: I think given what little information we have, it's pretty
33:37
Speaker 2: easy to operate under the presupposition that Wavra did indeed
33:44
Speaker 2: have some involvement in this, specifically with Joan because of
33:48
Speaker 2: his tie to her and the hollowed out books, and
33:51
Speaker 2: then potentially the roommate or somebody else continued on. But
33:55
Speaker 2: we also have to entertain the possibility that there could
33:59
Speaker 2: be somebody out there who police haven't been able to
34:03
Speaker 2: question or hasn't even been on their radar, who could
34:06
Speaker 2: be responsible for this, because I mean, if we look
34:09
Speaker 2: at Wavra without having an accomplice, he could not have
34:13
Speaker 2: done it because he was locked up for the three
34:15
Speaker 2: other attacks. Yes, he could have done Jones, but the
34:18
Speaker 2: similarities between the two seems to indicate that there was
34:22
Speaker 2: one offender involved in both series of attacks, whether or
34:26
Speaker 2: not they were the one that executed it both times
34:29
Speaker 2: remains up for debate. One last thing. We also have
34:33
Speaker 2: to assume that either Wavra was the mastermind or the
34:38
Speaker 2: roommate was the mastermind, because somebody had to have taught
34:41
Speaker 2: the other person unless somehow they were in some program
34:46
Speaker 2: together where they had some kind of engineering education. But
34:51
Speaker 2: that seems more unlikely than one of them being the
34:54
Speaker 2: mastermind and the other kind of just going along for
34:57
Speaker 2: the ride. But we have to assume that there is
35:01
Speaker 2: a second person in order for Waba to be the guy.
35:04
Speaker 2: So there's just so many assumptions and presuppositions that we
35:07
Speaker 2: have to operate under in the way that we're trying
35:11
Speaker 2: to gut us. But like the investigators are trying to
35:14
Speaker 2: make Wabra the guy, it almost feels a little unindicted
35:18
Speaker 2: co conspirator or unindicted co ejaculator.
35:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the problem, is that there is not
35:23
Speaker 1: one theory that makes sense in this case. And for
35:26
Speaker 1: all we know, maybe the roommate was the main mastermind
35:29
Speaker 1: and Wabra helped him out a few times in the nineties,
35:31
Speaker 1: even though maybe it was the roommate's idea to mail
35:34
Speaker 1: the package to Joan Kip but of course the other
35:37
Speaker 1: simple solution is that it's someone that has not popped
35:39
Speaker 1: up on the radar as a suspect, that just mailed
35:41
Speaker 1: out all of them at the same time, maybe had
35:43
Speaker 1: no connection to any of the victims, just selected them
35:46
Speaker 1: at random in the phone book, and then just decided
35:48
Speaker 1: to do this and has managed to get away with
35:50
Speaker 1: it for over forty years. But of course that only
35:53
Speaker 1: opens up a whole bunch of other unanswered questions, is like,
35:56
Speaker 1: why did he do it once in the eighties and
35:58
Speaker 1: why did he decide to come back and start doing
36:00
Speaker 1: it in the nineties. And I'm thinking that if there
36:03
Speaker 1: was like a reason that these victims were personally targeted,
36:06
Speaker 1: it would have been so much easier just to send
36:08
Speaker 1: a bomb that explodes which will kill you instantly, because
36:11
Speaker 1: as you see, this one had a ratio of one
36:13
Speaker 1: out of five that actually killed someone. It had a
36:15
Speaker 1: batting average of two hundred. So it makes me think
36:18
Speaker 1: that if you really wanted to kill these people, if
36:20
Speaker 1: you had a personal vendetta, you would have sent a
36:23
Speaker 1: bomb and something a lot less complicated. So it makes
36:26
Speaker 1: me think that the person all they cared about was
36:28
Speaker 1: causing fear, causing injuries and that killing these particular victims
36:32
Speaker 1: was of secondary importance.
36:35
Speaker 2: That makes sense to me. But if they were operating
36:38
Speaker 2: in tandem, and let's just say that it was the
36:41
Speaker 2: roommate who was indeed the mastermind, I find it curious
36:45
Speaker 2: that this person, who obviously would have to be very calculated,
36:49
Speaker 2: very methodical, would have somebody as chaotic and seemingly unpredictable
36:54
Speaker 2: as Wabra pick the victim, even if at random. It
36:58
Speaker 2: just seems like that wouldn't be something that you would
37:01
Speaker 2: want to trust somebody like him with if you're somebody
37:05
Speaker 2: who's very controlling in nature and calculated, which it seems
37:09
Speaker 2: like the person who would be the mastermind of this
37:11
Speaker 2: would be, because you have to lay in wait. It
37:14
Speaker 2: takes a long time to build a device like this
37:17
Speaker 2: to choose the victims. And so maybe Wavra shows Joan Kip,
37:21
Speaker 2: but he didn't say that he had a connection to her.
37:24
Speaker 2: Because if the roommate is the mastermind, even if it's
37:27
Speaker 2: anybody attached to Wavra, if Wavra picks a victim that
37:31
Speaker 2: can be traced back to him, then this other individual
37:34
Speaker 2: could then be traced back to the victim by a
37:36
Speaker 2: couple degrees of separation, so it wouldn't be the most
37:40
Speaker 2: intelligent move, and we see criminals make mistakes all the time,
37:44
Speaker 2: so of course that's not outside the realm of possibility,
37:47
Speaker 2: which also makes me think, Okay, so if maybe they
37:51
Speaker 2: had this big plan where they wanted, like you said,
37:53
Speaker 2: to be out there causing all of this like fear
37:56
Speaker 2: in mayhem, then being famous indirectly for what they've done,
38:02
Speaker 2: and just to do it one time to Joan Kip,
38:05
Speaker 2: that seems really curious because if your objective is to
38:09
Speaker 2: create this panic in the public and to become famous
38:12
Speaker 2: in a way or infamous, then just doing it one time,
38:16
Speaker 2: maybe something was going on behind the scenes. Maybe the
38:20
Speaker 2: mastermind whomever that was, found out that Joan Kip had
38:24
Speaker 2: that connection to Wavra and then became really paranoid and
38:28
Speaker 2: was like, okay, we better sit back and not do
38:30
Speaker 2: anything for a while, because what if this is tied
38:33
Speaker 2: back to us, And if that was the thought process
38:36
Speaker 2: of the person who was the mastermind, then maybe they
38:39
Speaker 2: were just a better criminal than Wavra. And there's a
38:41
Speaker 2: reason that they haven't been caught because Wavra has made
38:46
Speaker 2: some egregious errors and he's very impulsive in the way
38:49
Speaker 2: that he's acted, so it's not really a shocker that
38:53
Speaker 2: he ended up behind bars not for this, but for
38:55
Speaker 2: something else. And so the fact that we don't have
38:58
Speaker 2: this other individual behind bars insofar as we know, may
39:03
Speaker 2: lend some credence to the idea that the mastermind was
39:07
Speaker 2: definitely not Wavra.
39:09
Speaker 1: We talked about Louis Sappola, how the fact that he
39:11
Speaker 1: got arrested for throwing a hand grenade at his enemy
39:14
Speaker 1: leads away from him doing such an intricate crime which
39:17
Speaker 1: requires a lot of patients. And we've seen Wavra do
39:20
Speaker 1: other irrational stuff like throw pepper in the eyes of
39:22
Speaker 1: an MP, And you're thinking, could the same guy who
39:25
Speaker 1: do something like that really have the patience and know
39:27
Speaker 1: withal to like construct a device like this and send
39:30
Speaker 1: it off in the mail and not have any evidence
39:32
Speaker 1: pointing towards themselves. So yeah, this could be, for all
39:35
Speaker 1: we know, a complete genius mastermind who has never been
39:38
Speaker 1: arrested for anything and has managed to stay out the
39:41
Speaker 1: radar for forty years. So yeah, I guess that's about
39:44
Speaker 1: all I have to say about it. I don't know
39:46
Speaker 1: if it'll ever be solved after all this time. I
39:48
Speaker 1: guess the news is that this is a crime in
39:50
Speaker 1: which most of the victims were only injured and only
39:54
Speaker 1: one of them wound up getting murdered. But it is
39:56
Speaker 1: still a major tragedy for the kid family because not
39:59
Speaker 1: only did they lose Joan, but also Craig had to
40:02
Speaker 1: be what I think was unjustly accused of the crime
40:05
Speaker 1: and nearly wound up going on trial. And even though
40:09
Speaker 1: he never actually got convicted, never went to trial or
40:12
Speaker 1: spend any time in prison, he still had to live
40:14
Speaker 1: with an accusation of having killed someone and caused his
40:17
Speaker 1: entire family to relocate from New York to Massachusetts. And
40:22
Speaker 1: I'm sure it must have broken their heart that even
40:23
Speaker 1: twenty years later, when they found Wabra as a suspect,
40:26
Speaker 1: they still said, well, we still haven't cleared Craig or Howard.
40:29
Speaker 1: We haven't completely eliminated them, So they never officially got
40:32
Speaker 1: their names cleared. So if the kIPS are completely innocent,
40:35
Speaker 1: I feel so bad for them. I feel more sympathy
40:38
Speaker 1: for them than anyone else in this story.
40:40
Speaker 2: I agree they lost so much. It would be so
40:44
Speaker 2: catastrophic to lose your wife, to lose your mother with
40:47
Speaker 2: the murder of Joan, but then to have Craig accused
40:51
Speaker 2: and Howard under this cloud of suspicion. This poor family
40:55
Speaker 2: suffered immensely and I'm sure continued to suffer as it
40:59
Speaker 2: reverberated outwards through the years when they noticed those holidays
41:03
Speaker 2: that Joan wasn't there for, or maybe the people that
41:06
Speaker 2: gave them the side eye on the street who wondered, hmm,
41:09
Speaker 2: could they have had something to do with it. It's kind
41:11
Speaker 2: of infuriating that they haven't cleared them at this point.
41:14
Speaker 2: When Wavra shows up on the scene, it's like, just
41:16
Speaker 2: say that Howard and Craig had nothing to do with this,
41:19
Speaker 2: and that you guys got it wrong. What does seem
41:22
Speaker 2: clear is the fact that there was immense pressure from
41:24
Speaker 2: the public. There was probably pressure from up the chain,
41:27
Speaker 2: both with investigators and with the district attorney. There was
41:30
Speaker 2: a lot of people to answer to, and they needed
41:33
Speaker 2: to close this case because the idea that there could
41:36
Speaker 2: be this boogeyman out there who could be sending these
41:38
Speaker 2: zip gun bombs to people, it's unthinkable and the public
41:43
Speaker 2: would not want that, and they would not want that
41:44
Speaker 2: out of their politicians or out of their civil servants.
41:47
Speaker 2: So it could create a really contentious environment and a
41:51
Speaker 2: pressure work. I don't even think that they would realize
41:53
Speaker 2: that they have tunnel vision, but they could very easily
41:56
Speaker 2: get tunnel vision with regards to Craig. And then Wabra
42:01
Speaker 2: is so interesting because if we are to look at
42:04
Speaker 2: Wabra being in prison, and we are to look at
42:06
Speaker 2: Joan's murder, Joan died was she received two shots I
42:11
Speaker 2: believe from her package the hollowed out cookbook with the
42:14
Speaker 2: zip gun in there. And then the three other victims
42:18
Speaker 2: they didn't die. And it makes me wonder does it
42:21
Speaker 2: all come down to the angle or is there something
42:23
Speaker 2: in the design that the perpetrator did on purpose where
42:27
Speaker 2: they didn't want to kill anybody. They maybe just wanted
42:31
Speaker 2: to injure them or scare them so that it would
42:33
Speaker 2: create this type of panic or fear or mayhem without
42:36
Speaker 2: the actual carnage, because maybe that was their objective and
42:40
Speaker 2: not the murder itself. But then we know Wavra's locked
42:44
Speaker 2: up for that, So then we questioned, did he do
42:46
Speaker 2: the initial one?
42:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's possible that if it was a copycat or
42:50
Speaker 1: something that maybe they just weren't as skilled, like it
42:52
Speaker 1: could be a thing where Wabra or his roommate was
42:55
Speaker 1: the one who assembled the original device, and the ones
42:57
Speaker 1: that were sent off in the nineties just weren't as
43:00
Speaker 1: expertly put together, and that's why there were no fatalities.
43:03
Speaker 1: There's just no way to know. But yeah, it's whoever
43:06
Speaker 1: it was, they have left their mark, because this still
43:09
Speaker 1: remains to this day the only crime of this nature
43:12
Speaker 1: that I've ever heard of, involving packages with haulowed out
43:15
Speaker 1: books and medallion boxes that are rigged with zip guns
43:18
Speaker 1: that fire off at people. So even after this person
43:21
Speaker 1: passes away, they're still going to remember the zip gun bomber.
43:24
Speaker 2: Do you even think that he was involved at all?
43:27
Speaker 1: I think there is a good chance of that, but
43:30
Speaker 1: I still can't get over the fact that the original
43:32
Speaker 1: one he was in prison for. But the fact that
43:34
Speaker 1: police think that him and the roommate were in cahoots
43:36
Speaker 1: makes me think that it was just like a combined
43:39
Speaker 1: thing where maybe at one time one of them created
43:42
Speaker 1: the device and the second time one of the others
43:44
Speaker 1: created the device, so they kind of took turns or
43:46
Speaker 1: something like that and worked in tandem for over a decade.
43:49
Speaker 1: But I mean, I can't figure out the motive. But
43:51
Speaker 1: when you see Wabra's other behavior. Maybe trying to figure
43:54
Speaker 1: out a motive is an exercise of futility because we're
43:57
Speaker 1: not dealing with people who are thinking in a rational facts.
44:01
Speaker 2: This is very true, and I think that's evident from
44:03
Speaker 2: the behavior of Wavra. But if he has this other
44:07
Speaker 2: co conspirator, or it is indeed the roommate, and we
44:11
Speaker 2: just don't know who that roommate is, the connections that
44:13
Speaker 2: they have, the type of life that they've had, what
44:16
Speaker 2: type of emotional trauma and triggers. So there could be
44:20
Speaker 2: a motive that's hidden and we're just incapable of seeing
44:23
Speaker 2: it because we don't understand the connections. And I keep
44:27
Speaker 2: coming back to this over and over and over in
44:29
Speaker 2: my head. I just can't shake was the first murder
44:34
Speaker 2: of Joan was it because there was more skill and
44:37
Speaker 2: accuracy with the device? Or was it intended to murder her?
44:40
Speaker 2: And then the other three devices were meant not to murder.
44:44
Speaker 2: Was it just such great skill in the design that
44:48
Speaker 2: they didn't end up murdering the three individuals that opened them,
44:51
Speaker 2: or was it a lack of skill. I guess it
44:53
Speaker 2: just depends on how you decide to interpret the evidence.
44:57
Speaker 2: Or what lens you'd look through, because if you look
44:59
Speaker 2: at it like this, this person who is more skilled,
45:01
Speaker 2: you go, oh, okay, well their objective was different than murder,
45:04
Speaker 2: but the first objective appeared to clearly be murder, So
45:07
Speaker 2: it's just also confusing.
45:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and oh, let's also not forget that it also
45:12
Speaker 1: had the note that was addressed to Howard. So it
45:15
Speaker 1: makes me wonder was Howard the target all along? Did
45:18
Speaker 1: someone just want to cause him terror and kill his
45:20
Speaker 1: wife and cause him to live in constant fear for
45:22
Speaker 1: himself and his family? So who knows? Maybe it was
45:25
Speaker 1: someone from Howard's background who sent this whole thing in motion.
45:29
Speaker 2: Something about the first crime, it just feels a lot
45:31
Speaker 2: more personal.
45:32
Speaker 1: It does. Yeah, Like the other victims just feel completely random,
45:36
Speaker 1: just selected because their names were drawn out of the
45:38
Speaker 1: phone book or something. But I do think that this
45:40
Speaker 1: first bomb was made by someone who had a personal
45:42
Speaker 1: grudge against the Kit family. So any further thoughts on
45:46
Speaker 1: the zip gun bomber.
45:48
Speaker 2: My final thoughts are just the same as yours in
45:51
Speaker 2: the sense that somebody had to have had a grudge
45:54
Speaker 2: against the Kit family. They were either targeting Howard or
45:58
Speaker 2: targeting Joan and by targeting Joan, they could have been
46:02
Speaker 2: targeting Howard. The note that was sent to them, and
46:05
Speaker 2: then the fact that she came up with the idea
46:09
Speaker 2: that there could be other people who were being targeted
46:12
Speaker 2: makes me wonder, and it's just one of those things
46:14
Speaker 2: that I can't let go of. Was somebody threatening her?
46:17
Speaker 2: Did she feel unsafe for some reason in the days, weeks,
46:20
Speaker 2: or months leading up to her death. I really wish
46:23
Speaker 2: that investigators would have had the words that Joan said
46:27
Speaker 2: specifically so that we would know, or that we had
46:30
Speaker 2: just a greater inclination of what she was trying to
46:33
Speaker 2: get across. It's such a tragic end. We have Craig
46:38
Speaker 2: who got really swept up in the mess of it all.
46:42
Speaker 2: I can understand why investigators looked at him, and the
46:44
Speaker 2: same goes for Howard. But this family truly suffered. There's
46:49
Speaker 2: a lot of victims in this case, but the kIPS
46:52
Speaker 2: family they bore the brunt of it. And I think
46:55
Speaker 2: one of the worst things about this that whomever did this,
46:59
Speaker 2: they still haven't been held accountable for what they did
47:02
Speaker 2: to the entire Kip family. For the fact that Joan
47:05
Speaker 2: lost her life and all of the other victims here
47:07
Speaker 2: that thankfully did not die after their interaction with the device.
47:12
Speaker 2: So there's just so much tragedy here, and I can't
47:15
Speaker 2: believe after all this time that this case is still unsolved.
47:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it was just these other crimes, there would
47:21
Speaker 1: probably be a statute of limitations on them just because
47:24
Speaker 1: no one was killed. But because Kip was murdered and
47:27
Speaker 1: there's no statute of limitations on murder, this case will
47:29
Speaker 1: always remain open, so there will always be a chance
47:32
Speaker 1: that we could find out who the perpetrator was. Like
47:35
Speaker 1: I said, I have no idea if they've ever attempted
47:37
Speaker 1: to do DNA on this device on any of the books,
47:40
Speaker 1: because that was not an option back in the nineteen eighties.
47:42
Speaker 1: But I'd like to see them try now because the
47:44
Speaker 1: last few years have shown that forensics has advanced so
47:47
Speaker 1: much that you can extract DNA from anything. So yeah,
47:51
Speaker 1: I guess the last thing I'll say is that if
47:52
Speaker 1: any of you out there receiving any mysterious packages containing
47:55
Speaker 1: cookbooks or boxes of medallions, don't open them. What brings
48:00
Speaker 1: an end to our series about the zip gun bomber.
48:02
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your support, and we will
48:04
Speaker 1: see you again next week when we talk about another case, Robin, do.
48:08
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48:09
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48:11
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48:14
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49:00
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