03x05 - Deadly Delivery

[bunniefuu]

-Thank you, dear.

NARRATOR: In December of , Federal Court Judge Robert

Vance and his wife were preparing

for the busy Christmas holiday.

-Who sent the box?

-I don't know.

It doesn't say.

NARRATOR: It was a delivery he never expected.

[expl*si*n]

[theme music]

NARRATOR: Robert and Helen Vance lived with their family

in an affluent suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.

For more than a decade, Robert Vance

had been a federal court judge for the th District,

presiding over cases from Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.

ROBERT VANCE JR: He was very bright.

Not only the book smart kind of bright,

but he had just amazing common sense.

Street smarts.

NARRATOR: Judge Vance, undoubtedly,

had his share of enemies, but had never received any threats,

which explains why he wasn't suspicious of the package

mailed to him a few days before Christmas.

[expl*si*n]

The package contained a pipe b*mb

with nails wrapped around pipe, which acted like shrapnel.

The blast k*lled Judge Vance, instantly.

His body was thrown clear across the kitchen.

Miraculously, Helen Vance survived the expl*si*n

and she was able to get to a neighbor's home for help.

ROBERT VANCE JR: Mom suffered some severe injuries

from the expl*si*n.

She had several cuts in the flesh

from the nails that had-- the b*mb had been bound with.

And she had had several internal injuries from nails actually

penetrating the body, including one

that had done some damage to her liver.

NARRATOR: US Marshals warned all members of the judiciary

to be on the alert for any suspicious mail packages.

Two days later, a security guard at the th Circuit Court

in Atlanta noticed something unusual in a routine x-ray

of packages entering the building.

Inside the package was an eight-inch tube attached

to a pair of flashlight batteries--

the tell-tale sign of a pipe b*mb.

Investigators did not want to detonate the b*mb.

They wanted it dismantled in order

to study its construction.

When they did, experts determined that this b*mb was

identical to the one that k*lled Judge Robert Vance.

-The bombs told us we were dealing with a very angry guy

because of the nature of their construction.

And the nature of that construction

also told us that we were dealing

with a very purposeful individual.

Someone who had not just idly got mad and done this,

but someone who really did a-- a good deal

of work in-- in putting this together.

NARRATOR: The b*mb had two unique characteristics, which

investigators had never seen before.

The b*mb and the inside of the box

had been covered with black enamel paint.

It had square end caps, which were bolted and welded

on to the ends, which delayed the expl*si*n

and increased its force.

Unfortunately, scientists could find

no trace evidence inside the b*mb package.

No hair, fibers, or fingerprints.

The b*mb was similar to a tear-gas b*mb which exploded

four months earlier in the Atlanta office of the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.

Along with that b*mb was a letter, a declaration

of w*r against the th Circuit Court.

MALE SPEAKER (VOICEOVER): The att*cks

shall continue until widespread terror forces

the court to adopt the impartial and equitable treatment

of all at its highest priority.

NARRATOR: No one knew why a thr*at against the th Circuit

Court had been sent to the NAACP, which

was involved in civil rights issues.

Investigators suspected that the tear-gas b*mb was mailed

as a test, to see if it could be sent through the mail

without exploding.

When that test was successful, the bomber

started on his path of m*rder.

Two days after the b*mb expl*si*n which

k*lled Judge Robert Vance, Robert Robinson, a civil rights

attorney, went to work as usual at his office

in Savannah, Georgia.

Waiting for him on his desk was a package

that has been sent to him through the mail.

When he opened it, it exploded.

His friend, Dr. Brown, was across the street

and rushed to his aid.

-So I'm just holding him at this point,

looking around the room, surveying, of course,

the damage and then seeing the wounds that he had suffered.

And throughout that process, you see,

having my arm under his armpit, could feel, actually,

his pulse as it waned.

NARRATOR: Three hours later.

Robert Robinson d*ed.

The b*mb was set to detonate when the string wrapped

around the outside of the package was pulled.

The string was attached to a battery-powered charge,

triggering the expl*si*n.

All of the bombs were identical and the bomber

was meticulous in every detail of their construction.

Once the bombs were completed, the bombers sprayed black paint

over the inside of the box, which covered up

possible evidence, such as fingerprints or fibers.

And the bomber was careful not to leave any genetic material

such as hair or saliva on the mailing labels

or on the backs of the stamps.

-These were very meticulously built bombs.

So meticulous that some of the finest forensic machinery

in the world failed to find one speck of DNA, one fingerprint,

so much as a trace of powder under a fingernail.

NARRATOR: On the same day that Robert Robinson was m*rder*d,

Willye Dennis received an identical package in the mail.

At the time, Willye Dennis was president of the NAACP

office in Jacksonville, Florida.

But Ms. Dennis was late for a meeting,

so she left her office before opening the package.

That night at home, she received a phone call from a friend.

-And he says, Leta, I don't know whether you've heard the news,

but Bobby Robinson in Savannah, Georgia has received a b*mb

and-- and he was k*lled instantly.

And he said, now, if you receive any funny packages-- funny

looking packages, uh, you make sure that you

notify the sheriff's office.

NARRATOR: Which is what she did.

Inside was a pipe b*mb.

-I saw a common hand, which was the bomber's

signature, in all four bombs.

That led me to conclude that not only the same person

or persons, but the same person constructed these four bombs

to the exclusion of anybody else.

NARRATOR: There were four letters inside the package.

One took responsibility for the murders

of Judge Vance and Robert Robinson.

Another made reference to the tear-gas b*mb sent

a few months earlier to the NAACP.

MALE SPEAKER (VOICEOVER): To the officer

who opened our smoke b*mb.

The officers of the NAACP have become

targets for assassination.

NARRATOR: The letters and mailing labels had all

been typed with the same typewriter,

which had a signature flaw.

The number on the keypad did not

match the type face of the other keys.

It was a replacement.

-There was a-- a broken key, which

was replaced with a different type key.

Uh, so that was fairly unique.

I mean, the odds of finding another one

with that same letter replaced with another typewriter was--

was a fairly unique characteristic.

NARRATOR: The FBI searched the files of the th Circuit Court

looking for any documents which might have

been typed with the same typewriter.

More than one million documents were examined.

The FBI found one letter typed with the same typewriter.

It had the same flaw.

The number was a different type face.

The letter dealt with an obscure life insurance case from .

And the sender was alive and well

in the small town of Enterprise, Alabama.

The investigation into these bombings

became the largest and most exhaustive

in the history of federal law enforcement.

Investigators used every method at their disposal

to find the typewriter used to type the letters and mailing

labels on the b*mb packages.

Their investigation revealed that the same typewriter had

been used by a man in Enterprise, Alabama, Robert

Wayne O'Ferrell, to type a letter

about an insurance dispute.

-My sense of the typewriter match that led them

to Enterprise was that this was believed by agents

to be almost tantamount to a fingerprint.

I mean, a solid forensic link.

NARRATOR: O'Ferrell was a junk dealer

and investigators searched every inch

of his home, garage, and warehouse.

They even excavated his septic system.

But they couldn't find the typewriter.

O'Ferrell recalled typing the insurance letter,

but couldn't remember what happened to the typewriter.

His daughter had a vague recollection of selling it

to a young woman about a year earlier,

but could provide no description of the buyer

and she had no receipt of sale.

With the typewriter now a dead end,

investigators were left with the bombs

as their main source of evidence.

Pictures of the bombs were distributed

to b*mb experts throughout the country.

No one had ever seen a b*mb constructed

quite like this before.

-I got a call from a very good friend of mine, Lloyd Erwin who

is a, uh, chemist, analyst of A*F's up in Atlanta.

And Lloyd called and asked, uh, what did I have.

And I said something to effect the damnedest pipe

b*mb I've ever seen.

It's got a re-- threaded rod that

ran right through the middle of it.

And I went on to say something to the effect

that, uh, I'd never seen or heard

of such a design feature in a pipe b*mb before.

And his response was, well, I have.

I said, oh.

Tell me about it.

NARRATOR: Lloyd Erwin recalled a similar b*mb many years

earlier, one with a rod through the center

and the same distinctive square end caps.

-It's the only one that-- that we'd ever had like that.

We have lots of pipe bombs and different kinds,

even remote controlled.

But when you have one it's the only-- only one you've ever

seen like it, I mean, then it sticks.

NARRATOR: Erwin searched through the thousands of cases

in his file, all the way back to ,

and learned that the b*mb he recalled

had accidentally maimed a woman who

came across it unexpectedly in her home.

Authorities suspected that the b*mb had been constructed

by her husband, Walter Leroy Moody.

Although he denied it, Moody was convicted

of constructive possession of that b*mb

and sentenced to six years in the State Penitentiary.

Walter Leroy Moody was furious about that conviction.

And after he was released from prison,

spent the next years trying to have his conviction

overturned.

Mark Winne described Moody's legal battles

in his book, "Priority Mail."

-I think those who have come to know Moody in various spheres

would say that Moody could be charming, he could be,

in some respects, enormously bright.

I think one psychologist called him a genius.

But on the other hand, he could become blinded by obsession.

NARRATOR: That obsession may have been included the case

of Julie Love, a young white woman who was m*rder*d

and r*ped by a group of black defendants

in one of the most highly publicized

cases in Atlanta history.

A case tried at the th Circuit Court.

This was the case mentioned in one of the bomber's letters.

MALE SPEAKER (VOICEOVER): Any time

a black man r*pes a white woman in Alabama, Florida, or Georgia

in the future, Americans for a competent federal judicial

system shall assassinate one federal judge, one

attorney, and one officer of the NAACP.

-It's not happenchance that he's mad with the th Court

of Appeals where he sent a b*mb.

And the th Court of Appeals is made up

of the states of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

So all three of those states got a b*mb.

NARRATOR: But if Walter Leroy Moody was the bomber,

authorities couldn't prove it.

They had no forensic evidence linking

him to any of the bombings.

After interviewing more than , people,

pouring over a million documents,

and examining the case files of every bombing in the United

States, federal authorities were convinced

that Walter Leroy Moody was the serial bomber.

Federal agents searched the home Moody

shared with his second wife, Susan.

The search was so complete that even the floorboards were

removed and the entire residence vacuumed

for gunpowder and other trace evidence.

But authorities could not find one single piece of evidence

in their search.

-I'm not concerned about anybody finding any connections,

uh, regarding those or any other bombings, ever.

NARRATOR: Although investigators found nothing

inside Moody's home, it was what they

didn't find that was revealing.

-The first search of the house appeared

as if the house had been sterilized.

Meaning that normal things that would be found in a house that

could be used to fabricate a b*mb device-- wire, nails, uh,

pliers, uh, even pieces of pipe-- things that, uh, you

probably have around your house--

they were totally lacking, absent, in this house.

NARRATOR: But the pressure of a federal investigation

was too great for Susan Moody.

She was years younger than her husband

and told authorities that Moody was

emotionally and physically abusive.

When she was questioned separately,

without her husband, she provided

some interesting information.

-Just do it the same way as always.

-OK.

NARRATOR: Susan Moody said that her husband often

took her shopping at stores throughout

the southeastern part of the United States.

He told her to buy steel pipe, acrylic tubing, raincoats,

rubber gloves, shower caps, and safety glasses.

She was also told to buy black enamel paint.

-Hi.

How are you doing today?

-Fine, thank you.

NARRATOR: And she said her husband one shoplifted

some nails from a store in Georgia--

nails similar to those which were used in the pipe bombs.

Investigators believe that Moody used the cap, gloves,

and safety glasses to dress himself like a surgeon

while making the bombs, so that he wouldn't leave

genetic material in the package.

Moody sprayed the inside of the package with black enamel

paint to mask any fingerprints, hairs, or fibers that

may have been left inadvertently.

Prosecutors believe that Moody removed all of the materials he

used to make the bombs before his home was searched.

Susan Moody also confirmed that she had purchased

a used typewriter for her husband,

which had later been thrown away.

[typing]

NARRATOR: There was one more piece of evidence

that investigators had almost given up on,

the fingerprint found on one of the bomber's letters.

Susan Moody told the FBI that she had copied the letters

for her husband in a small shop in Florence, Kentucky.

-Excuse me.

I think the copier is out of paper.

NARRATOR: When the copy machine ran out of paper,

one of the employees put more in.

When he did, his fingers touched the top piece of paper.

-OK.

You're all set.

NARRATOR: The employee's fingerprint

matched the one found on the threatening letter, which

confirmed Susan Moody's story.

It was the link investigators needed

to tie Moody to the bombs.

-And that's where they bought the boxes that contained,

uh, the bombs.

And, uh, its where they did some xeroxing.

And to prove that they did the xeroxing,

the fingerprint was there.

The fingerprint did not change.

The pattern on a Xerox machine changes over a period of time.

So it's-- forensically, that fingerprint,

to the exclusion of everything else in the whole world,

put them at the place that she said they

were where the bought the boxes.

-If you look at Susan Moody's testimony by itself,

there could have been the potential for the defense

to say, this is the ex-wife who has

a motive to want to stay out of jail.

But key is that much of what Susan Moody testified to

could be corroborated by forensic science.

NARRATOR: Susan Moody was granted immunity

and testified for the prosecution.

Walter Leroy Moody was found guilty of the murders of Judge

Robert Vance and Robert Robinson and was

sentenced to death by electrocution.

-I think if we had not identified Moody

as a potential suspect very quickly,

I think there would have been more bombs.

I don't think he was through.

I really don't think he was through.

I don't think he would have ever been

through, as long as he was out there.

-The evidence suggests that the bomber's obsession with making

his devices just that much deadlier, that much more

vicious and destructive, is ultimately what

became Roy Moody's undoing.

Some people would call that irony.

I think some people would call it justice.

[theme music]