Thought for the day

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

- Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Should drugs be legal?

This informal, unsourced discussion of drug policy is intended to put Brett Kimberlin's lifelong crime spree in the proper perspective. My chief goal is to aid readers in realizing how the justice system should better deal with criminals like Brett Kimberlin, but as side effects, I will talk about many arguments that are posed about whether drugs should be illegal.

To lock up ones neighbors and fellow citizens for drug use is immoral

I personally disapprove of the use of recreational and illegal drugs. But if I had the chance, I  would never vote in favor of locking up my neighbors and fellow citizens who use them. I have peaceful tools of persuasion I can use, and that is my proper and just recourse to carry out my disagreement over whether to use drugs. Sending the courts and police after people who aren't persuaded is heavy handed and immoral. The proper use of court and police power is to resolve disputes and to force bad actors to atone to their victims. Forcefully attacking drug users achieves none of these proper uses, and in fact, it undermines them.

Drug use is not a dire emergency that justifies severe reactions

Some people see my point in the prior paragraph but argue that the consequences of drug use are so dire and awful that extreme, forceful responses must be accepted. The premise is false.

Most users are not addicts

As I said earlier, I don't approve of drug use, but a great majority of people using illegal and "hard" drugs - ranging from marijuana to cocaine to heroin - are not habitual addicts. They are mainly otherwise normal members of society, who mainly obey laws, work for a living, but happen to do things in their spare time I disapprove of. Even those who do form habits normally manage to drop them after some years. Heroin is presented as the scariest, hardest drug. But if you want to know what most heroin use is like, it's actually very similar to alcohol use. A majority of heroin users are occasional users. Some addicts are still functioning acceptably in most areas of life; some other addicts allow their lives to be ruined. Most addicts eventually come to completely drop the drug after some years of their own volition. Some people are on again, off again. The patterns are very similar whether one talks of alcohol, cigarettes, and yes, "scary" heroin or cocaine. Heroin addiction, while serious, does not warrant a massive wholesale inversion of the whole legal system any more than alcohol or cigarette addiction does.

Prohibition makes problems worse rather than better

The "dire emergency" argument is in no way helped by the fact that prohibition tends to make consequences to users WORSE. When the US federal government prohibited alcohol in the 1920s and early 1930s, the business was taken away from reputable, accountable tradesmen, and handed over to criminal gangs such as the mafia, and to fly-by-night scofflaws. One result was several incidents in which the delivery of impure, poisoned product injured or killed tens of thousands of customers. Prohibition curtails or outright denies the use of the justice system to people harmed this way, so, prohibition means that dangerous products, cheating, lying, stealing, and thuggery are no longer deterred in the industry like they would be if the industry were legal. Prohibition not only doesn't protect users from the potential problems of their drugs; it shepherds them in to business with criminals who might expose the users to dangers without the deterrent consequences that would be present if the drug were legal.

I readily acknowledge that the problems of drug addiction can be painful and heart-wrenching.  Solutions are hard to come by. But those claiming to offer prohibition as the solution are selling snake oil.

Addiction connected troubles are not unique enough to warrant uniquely harsh recourse

It's often pointed out that a drug addict often harms people around him. For private matters, the proper response to this is to withdraw (whether partially or fully) from voluntary relationships with the addict in response to his misdeeds. Or, if an addict lies to you or steals from you, your reaction should be basically similar to if a non-addict lied or stole. Apply this logic to any other failing that an addict might experience - all these failings also happen on the part of non addicts and to the extent that the recourse might involve the legal system, the recourse should generally be similar. Handing over an entire industry to criminal gangs is a ridiculous recourse to take.

Prohibition has terrible consequences for people who don't buy, sell, or use drugs

 

Crime and corruption increase due to prohibition

When alcohol was prohibited in the US in the early 20th century, the result was a huge growth in organized crime activity. Over a period of little more than a decade, the murder rate rose by a factor of about three. A much higher percentage of law enforcement officials were corrupted by payments from criminals in the illegal alcohol trade. Meanwhile law enforcement deviated from its productive goal of helping people, and instead wasted more resources on a battle against something people have a perfect right to consume. Resources were also strained by the rise in crime that was a consequence of prohibition. Also note that drug traffickers and retailers often compete with each other not by running more efficient businesses, but by engaging in outright violence. Prohibition is a terrible policy because it rewards the business that is better at violence and corruption, instead of rewarding the business that is most efficient at peaceful use of legitimately acquired resources.

When federal prohibition ended, the US murder rate began a major, nearly continuous decline that lasted for decades. A later long term spike in the murder rate followed beginning in the 1960s and 70s, which suspiciously coincides with a greatly increased law enforcement focus on illegal drugs.

Making drugs illegal hands the trade to criminals, who behave much worse than legitimate businesses

Illegal drug traffickers specialize in violence, threats, fostering and recruiting street gangs, corrupting officials, etc. This is in stark contrast to above-board, legal businesses. If you want to reduce violence, threats, street gangs, or corruption, you want to hand the drug trade back over to legitimate businesses. Legalize it. Completely.

Major Conclusion: drug prohibition concentrates more power and influence in the hands of criminals

If you have no desire to ever use drugs, you should still want them to be legal. That's because prohibition hands the trade over to criminals. It leads to the criminals having more revenue, more influence, more public support, and more opportunity to corrupt the justice system. If you aren't swayed by the drug war's negative effects on small time end users of drugs, you ought to be totally outraged by the drug war's effect on overall criminality, which affects everyone. Including people who personally have nothing to do with drugs or the drug trade. High crime rates, bigger and richer mafias, full jails, and corrupted officials are inevitable and universal costs of prohibition.

What does all this have to do with Brett Kimberlin?

As I said above, drug prohibition takes business away from the peaceful law-abiding population and hands the business over to lying, cheating, violent, disreputable bad actors - such as Brett Kimberlin. Brett cultivated bad, undesirable, dishonest "anti-skills" in his criminal career, including: forgery, perjury, and impersonating federal security personnel. Because of the folly of prohibition, these bad behaviors were HUGELY renumerative to Kimberlin. By age 24, Kimberlin's drug income had bought him his 300 acre property with a big custom 4000 square foot dream home, with a late model Mercedes. He took expensive vacations and romanced girls (in his case, an underage elementary school girl) with his horses, pool, and expensive vacations. He apparently also bought huge amounts of silver, and spent a fortune on a high power expensive Texas drug defense lawyer, along with other lawyers for his other crimes. These expenditures were all funded with drug money. Prohibition was part of the problem here. The prohibition-created underground crime world of the drug trade was like a playground for Brett.

It is also worth noting that the seedy nature of the illegal drug business attracted William Bowman, who helped Brett by doing his dirty work of shooting Julia Scyphers. Such thuggery is no asset in the legitimate business sector, but it is perhaps an asset in the seedy underground criminal scene that surrounded Brett Kimberlin.

Conclusion: drugs should be legal in order to prevent power from concentrating in the hands of violent, dishonest scofflaws like Brett Kimberlin.

What happened to Brett Kimberlin after his September 1978 FBI arrest?

You may remember from my previous post how Brett Kimberlin was caught with bomb parts and bomb making materials (along with forgery items related to his other crimes) by the FBI. He was wearing this laughable costume to help get unauthorized access to military bases:

At first glance, it sounds like Brett Kimberlin had finally met the end of his crime spree. The Speedway police had already been circling around him due to his obvious involvement in the Scyphers murder. And (unwisely) someone in local law enforcement had leaked to the press clues that essentially made it obvious that Kimberlin was a suspect. Worse, when the FBI agent arrested Kimberlin in the act of committing different forgery-related crimes the agent was investigating, Kimberlin had some of his leftover bomb making materials in the trunk of one of his cars. While under arrest, he called his lawyer to try to get the car towed, but the lawyer (whom Kimberlin had already hired when he realized the police were on to him about the Scyphers murder) wasn't fast enough and the FBI got at all the evidence. You might think he was totally finished in his criminal career with this arrest.

FBI Arrest wasn't nearly enough

Actually, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of multiple crimes, Kimberlin was let out for the time being. The bombing investigation continued carefully but slowly to process all the evidence, which would not even be presented for another couple years or so. The murder investigation - which had far fewer people working on it - proceeded for a while, until the only surviving witness to the event, Fred Scyphers, succumbed to cancer.

As for Brett, he did more than just return to his large international smuggling operation. He also felt the need to compound his despicable violent crimes by hiding both the Scyphers murder weapon, and some of his remaining bomb-making gear, in the yard of one of Julia Scyphers' daughters, as part of a several months long attempt at framing her.

So, let's review. Kimberlin was caught by the FBI in the act of forging government documents and he was doing it while impersonating a government official and he had some of his spare bomb-making parts with him. There was already a murder investigation team circling around him. As some of you may know, the evidence for the forgery and bombings was all good enough to get convictions worth decades in prison, so the case was both serious and well established. But it still wasn't enough to stop him. Not yet, anyway. He spent the whole rest of 1978 out of jail. He wasn't in jail again until the feds caught him in one of his many smuggling runs in early 1979, and only this time did he actually end up staying in jail. And even then, it was a few more years until he was sentenced.

Logical Conclusion: More effort is needed

It's often said that the law grinds slowly but finely, and maybe that was true then too. But I think there are other ideas to consider, too. I think justice doesn't get done unless people care enough to sacrifice and make the effort to help the victims. Nothing happens automatically. It takes the hard work and expertise of many. You can help. Here are some ideas, and almost anyone can do at least several of them. If enough people help, Brett would not only be unable to effectively victimize anyone anymore, he could even be pressured into atoning for previous victims (including Brett Kimberlin's disgusting treatment of Sandra DeLong).

• You can donate to defend some of his current lawfare victims at http://bombersuesbloggers.com/
• You can donate to defray litigation costs to any of his individual victims as you like
• You can better acquaint yourself with Brett's history of victimization. Brett Kimberlin's authorized biography is great for this.
• You can help get the word out to others about what Brett Kimberlin has done and what he is doing.

Brett Kimberlin hopes most people will eventually let him get his way if he just punishes them enough. You counteract this by not giving up. He also hopes that when he files frivolous lawsuits against his critics, they will see the lengthy delays and high costs of the court system and just give up. There is no danger of this happening if you defray the costs to his critics, all of whom deserve to exercise their legal and God-given right to use their free speech right. And criticizing litigious crooks is one of the more meretricious ways to exercise one's free speech rights. Please join in.

20 September, 1978: Brett Kimberlin Arrested by FBI, With Speedway Bomb Parts In His Car

On the afternoon of September 20, 1978, Brett Kimberlin was arrested by the FBI while wearing this ridiculous costume:

If you only knew Brett Kimberlin from posts I made on this blog before today, you'd guess the FBI agent was investigating Kimberlin's bombing spree in Speedway two weeks prior. Actually, the FBI agent who arrested Kimberlin didn't know about the bombings. He was following up on reports of forged documents being created at a local print shop. When arrested, Kimberlin was walking out of that print shop picking up some fake military IDs he'd had made along with a printed copy of the US Presidential Seal.

Just another day of forgeries for Brett Kimberlin

Brett Kimberlin has a lifelong pattern of forgeries, and his activities that day were part of a pattern which continues today. Kimberlin was using a military base in part of his operation to smuggle drugs into the US. So, he made a fake uniform that was supposed to make him look like a military security guard. He also had fake IDs, badges, and a fake military license plate to complete his identity as a military security operative. An aside: I can't abide lifelong violent recidivist criminal Brett Kimberlin being able to pretend he has some kind of official power; this could be abused to, as Kimberlin often does, deprive people of their rights. Anyway, the FBI agent investigating the fake military IDs and such stopped Kimberlin as he was exiting the print shop to pick up material for some of his latest forgeries. Kimberlin reacted by throwing his fake military IDs in the trash; he tried eating his copy of the presidential seal; and also tried to ditch his car keys by hiding them under a copying machine. Each of these ploys failed, though. Once finally subdued, Kimberlin first tried to convince the two FBI agents on the scene that he was on a secret mission, by telling him he was not allowed to answer their questions about his comical "uniform" costume. After giving up on this lie, Kimberlin then told the FBI agents he could narc on important drug buying clients. The FBI agents weren't interested in making any deal, so they started driving him to the FBI office in Indianapolis.

On the ride into the FBI office, Kimberlin claimed his car - the one whose key he tried to hide under the copier - wasn't his. He then didn't claim he didn't drive the car. His story was that it was someone else's, and he was only using it to drive to the print store, and therefore he had nothing to do with its contents. More on these contents later.

Easily recognized criminal

Kimberlin made it all the way to Indianapolis FBI headquarters without telling the arresting agents his real name, but this ruse failed when he entered the office: he was soon recognized by a different FBI agent at the office. I guess that's a problem for people on prolific lifelong crime sprees.

Contents of the car Brett Kimberlin didn't want to admit to

That day, Brett Kimberlin called the same lawyer he'd been using when he learned he was a suspect in the Julia Scyphers murder. When the lawyer came in, Kimberlin instructed the lawyer to go to the print shop, get Kimberlin's car towed (so no one could find what was in it), and told the lawyer to find $3,500 cash in the car and to withdraw $500 of that for his trouble.

He was too late. The FBI had been busy getting a search warrant that allowed them to open the trunk. The car, of course, had more of Brett's forgeries, but they also found something completely different: Brett's bomb-making materials. In the trunk was a briefcase monogrammed with "BCK" - as in, Brett Coleman Kimberlin. The briefcase had four "Mark Time" brand electronic timers that were identical to the ones used to trigger Kimberlin's time-delay bombs - right down to the hand-done modification to make the timers close circuits instead of open them. Interestingly, the eight timers used in bombs, plus the four in Kimberlin's trunk, plus two more he tried to use to frame a daughter of Julia Scyphers, equal 14 Mark Time brand timers - which was exactly the entire number of Mark Time timers sold in Indianapolis, from 10 days before the bombing, through to the last bombing. It's actually a good thing Brett kept two timers for his failed framing attempt, because they made good evidence to use against him. Anyway, the trunk also had some tools and things Brett used to alter the timers. The trunk also had .445 caliber lead balls of the same type Kimberlin used as shrapnel in some of his bombs. There was also a 6-volt battery like the ones used to trigger the blasting caps in Brett's bombs. Finally, samples from the trunk tested positive for residue of Tovex explosive. In summary, Brett was caught with evidence of most of the parts he ever put into his bombs. And this was all by accident, since he was only caught this way due to tipoffs about forged ID being picked up at the print shop Brett used for some of his forgeries.

Epilogue (for now)

You would probably guess Brett's crime spree was now over, but actually he was let out shortly, and continued committing crimes. One of his worst next acts was to try to frame one of Julia Scyphers' own daughters for Brett's crimes, specifically the murder of Julia Scyphers and the Speedway Bombings. This just shows that justice doesn't get done by itself. It takes careful and thoughtful work from people who care enough. I hope my readers take that to heart.

Note about posting schedule

Before today, I made many of my postings on anniversary dates. This is due to the special significance of the Julia Scyphers murder as well as the bombings, especially the one that maimed Carl D. DeLong in the Speedway High School parking lot. My other posts won't be on an anniversary type schedule, and will not always be in order. Some won't be about the Speedway Bomber history, but rather will be about Brett's continuous, and continuing, attacks and injustices against people who get in his way.

As usual, all the information in this blog post is just drawn from Brett Kimberlin's authorized biography, which I highly recommend to you. As a reminder, in the mid 1990s, Brett was receiving big six-figure payments for this book at the same time he was denying justice to the surviving widow of one of his bombing victims. This disgusting misdeed by Brett must be corrected. Please spread the word.

Explanation of why I blog here about Brett Kimberlin

Anyone who's familiar with Brett Kimberlin will notice that my posts so far are almost all about old stuff, with barely any mention of what Brett Kimberlin has been doing lately. Here is why.

Brett Kimberlin has gotten away with more crimes than many lifelong criminals ever commit. I could list them all - and, over time, I will - but as Brett probably realizes, the trouble is that it can be too hard to get full justice out of Brett. He will not cooperate with law enforcement, will not treat his victims fairly, will abuse legal procedure, and will generally humiliate, fight, and sue his victims every step of the way. He will go fishing with various alternate explanations of history, and try to recruit whoever bites to spread his lies for him. He will hire Neal Rauhauser to help run doxing and harassment campaigns against anyone who criticizes his misdeeds. Looking over the last 36 - no, 41 - years of serious crimes by Brett Kimberlin, these strategies are, at least in his estimation, working well enough. No more.

As of now, Brett Kimberlin will be held responsible for all of his crimes. The ones from this year, the ones from 36 years ago, and all the ones in between. He is not released from responsibility unless he atones. I don’t care how old or recent the deeds are. I don’t care if some of the victims have given up. And Kimberlin is wrong If he thinks he can get away with it just by making the good guys wade through too much of his garbage. Not giving up now. Kimberlin got away with much when people were in the dark, so from now on all his misdeeds must be subjected to the light of a thousand suns.

Why, again, am I mainly writing about old stuff? Because I'm going in chronological order and it'd take me a rather long time to get to the crimes he's committed just in the prior year, which include forgery, perjury, and another one of his attempts at false imprisonment (at least, that last time, the judge understood what Brett was doing and stopped it immediately). The old stuff is still important, though. For instance, Brett needs to make good on what he owes to his surviving bombing victim, Sandra DeLong. Sandra DeLong tried for 20 years to carry on the fight herself, and perhaps she finally gave up. Well, the rest of us should join in the fight. In order for justice to win, Brett Kimberlin has to lose. That's worth fighting for, even if Brett Kimberlin wants to make it hard.

That's why I'm here.

36 Years Ago Today: Brett Kimberlin Bombs a Speedway High School Football Game

If you're not already familiar, please read my article on why Brett Kimberlin bombed Speedway, IN in the first place. The really short version is that Brett Kimberlin is a pedophile who tends to retaliate against his victims, and who covers up his crimes using further crimes.

All my sources for this post are Brett Kimberlin's own authorized biography,KIMBERLIN v. DEWALT, and this newspaper report of the Speedway Bombings, which I encourage you to read.

Speedway High School parking lot bomb left during football game

On September 6, Kimberlin set off his final bomb, this time during a football game at Speedway High School. Considering timing of events, Kimberlin probably placed the bomb in the school parking lot while the game was still taking place. The explosion happened around 8:10 pm. Carl D. DeLong was a father to one of the players, and was in the parking lot waiting for his son to come out when he noticed a brown-and-yellow gym bag in the parking lot. The bomb inside the bag went off either as Carl picked it up, or shortly after.

Injuries from the blast

The worst injuries were suffered by Carl Delong. From Citizen K, pages 91-92:

One of his eardrums was shattered, and two of his fingers had to be reattached. The force of the blast lifted him into the air. "I remember looking down on the tops of cars and wondering why they were there," he later testified. [...] "I looked down at my right leg, and my kneecap was blown up on my thigh," he recalled. "My left leg was just shredded away to the bone. I yelled, 'Oh, God, get those kids out of here,' and tried to crawl away from there."

The left leg Mr. DeLong saw before passing out was actually later re-built, but his right leg was even worse and had to be amputated. Two of his fingers and one ear were re-attached. Two years later, DeLong testified that he was still removing bomb fragments from his body.

Carl DeLong's wife, Sandra DeLong, was standing nearby and received much less severe injuries. A third unidentified victim is mentioned for receiving shrapnel wounds in his back.

Why I'm writing this blog

Brett Kimberlin has continued a disgusting, mean campaign lasting to this very day, to deny Carl DeLong's widow, Sandra DeLong, the restitution which he was ordered to pay her. The original crime was bad enough, but the cheating, lying, harassment, and vexatious lawsuits against his own bombing victim are beyond disgusting. I urge every person reading this to read about Kimberlin's awful mistreatment of his bombing victim. If you already read this, re-read it. I will never let up until Brett Kimberlin corrects this misbehavior completely. Here are just a few highlights of things Brett Kimberlin did to try to intimidate his surviving bombing victim:

• He filed a frivolous suit against her attorney.
• He filed a frivolous suit against Sandra DeLong. Nothing happened with either suit, they were just meant to annoy, harass, and waste time.
• He made apparently hundreds of thousands of dollars while in prison in the 1980s, which he laundered specifically to conceal it from the widow DeLong.
• When he got out of prison, he soon received a 6-figure inheritance; several 6-figure book advances; and some murky middleman job that seems to have involved multimillion dollar deals. The total amounts are very likely near or over $1 million in income from 1994-1997, but Brett made sure $0 of that went to his surviving bombing victim.
• Brett Kimberlin tried to hide his assets in a corporation called Brett Kimberlin Enterprises. With his assets supposedly removed from him, he claimed he had no money.
• Brett Kimberlin induced his sister to file a fraudulent bankruptcy suit against him, in hopes that it would frustrate DeLong's ability to recover damages he owed her.
• At the time, Brett Kimberlin lived in an expensive D.C. area suburb, with three new Mercedes parked in his driveway, but he still claimed he had no money to pay his bombing victim.
• Brett offered to settle with her by paying 2% of the amount the court had ordered. Note this is not "settlement" in the normal sense that happens in civil disputes, because DeLong had already successfully sued and won.

Conclusion

I will not cease until Brett Kimberlin fixes every single one of those points I listed above. I urge everyone reading this to take the same approach. I also urge all of those who are helping Brett Kimberlin's lawfare and harassment campaigns (even if you only are cheerleading it) to cease any such support for him until he corrects these grave injustices he committed against his victims.

Justice doesn't happen automatically, by itself. People have to care, and put in time, hard work, money, and expertise. If you care about justice, you should consider what you can do to help the victims.

 

36 Years Ago Today: Brett Kimberlin Blows Up a Speedway Patrol Car

Commemorating the anniversary of Brett Kimberlin's September 5, 1978 bomb (now with .445 caliber lead shot)

Brett Kimberlin's misdeeds were again front page news in the main Indianapolis area newspaper after Brett Kimberlin planted one of his bombs under a police patrol car on the night of September 5, 1978.

Brett's bombings up until this one

As I already explained in a previous post, Brett Kimberlin began his bombing spree in Speedway with four bombs, close to 10pm on  September 1, with the last going off in the first hours of September 2. These four bombs only destroyed some storefront windows, landscaping, and a car windshield, and the only injuries were minor cuts from flying glass. While I didn't write separate posts about them, he also set off a bomb in a cornfield and another near the Speedway Lanes bowling alley. Neither of these produced injuries, but they started a new twist in Brett Kimberlin's bombing spree: both used some of the huge amount of .445 caliber lead balls Brett bought a few weeks prior.

On the damage of the patrol car bombing

The bomb ripped off the tires and the fuel tank from the police car. Fortunately, the fuel tank didn't ignite. Two other nearby cars were also damaged, one "extensively" according to the above linked Indianapolis Star article. I am at pains to point out that the use of lead shot in Brett's bombs greatly raised the chances of killing someone. I speculated earlier that the use of lead shot could give Brett Kimberlin's bombs a substantial kill radius, similar to or even greater than that of an anti-personnel hand grenade. The cars damaged by Brett's September 5 bomb were in a residential parking lot next to some apartments, so this bomb posed serious danger to the public.

With Brett's ongoing bombing spree, it was only a short matter of time before someone would get hurt or killed. Because of Brett's abuse of the courts and intimidation of a bombing victim who will be the subject of my next post, a long matter of time has elapsed during which Brett Kimberlin evades justice for his bombings. Yes, he was convicted, but he never rendered the help to his victim as required by the civil courts, and indeed, by any reasonable principle of justice. This kind of injustice is what motivates me to write about him.

Gathering evidence

As before, all of Brett's  bombs were made from tubes of Tovex gel in an aluminum can, a lantern battery, a blasting cap, and a store-bought electronic timer that was specially altered. Forensic investigations noticed this pattern and began using the information to track down where they came from - for example, finding if anyone had recently bought a corresponding number of timers (and then altered them) and lantern batteries. The new bombs with lead shot added .445 caliber lead balls to the shopping list. This shopping list would of course directly implicate Brett Kimberlin, and this is part of how he got convicted and earned his moniker as the Speedway Bomber. I will be explaining that evidence in detail in later posts.

September 1, 1978: Brett Kimberlin starts Speedway Bombing spree with 4 bombs

On the evening of Friday, 1st September 1978, Brett Kimberlin unleashed his first four bombs on Speedway, Indiana. The main Indianapolis area newspaper reported the first three of the bombings as front page news the next day. These first three exploded shortly before and after 10:00 pm.  Brett Kimberlin's authorized biographer Mark Singer noted that the lack of major injuries "seemed more a matter of luck than of design." Still, the bomb Kimberlin concealed in a trash can next to the Speedway Shopping Center knocked over two bystanders and some received cuts from flying glass as storefront windows were destroyed. This first bomb also destroyed the windshield of a car in the adjacent parking lot. One of Kimberlin's other bombs that night was in a hotel dumpster and no one was very near the blast. Another bomb was "in the 1600 block of Whitcomb Avenue," a residential area. Finally, after midnight, and apparently after the Indianapolis Star's press time, bomb #4 blew up some bushes on the grounds of Speedway High School. Singer notes that "As the crow flew, it went off less than a hundred yards from the Scyphers residence." If you're not already familiar, please read why Brett Kimberlin wanted Julia Scyphers killed and why he bombed Speedway.

On the strength of the bombs

Brett Kimberlin used tubes of Tovex gel explosive in all of his Speedway bombs. Tovex is a modern replacement for dynamite that's harder to accidentally trigger, but the explosive power is very similar. These Tovex tubes are not comparable to ordinary fireworks, cherry bombs, or a typical charge of gunpowder. They are serious, powerful explosives that can break through rock and soil, shred cars, shred people and throw them up into the air, and permanently destroy eardrums. Reports on the September 1 bombings note that they were heard from up to 5 miles away.

Based on my personal understanding of hand grenades, your typical anti-personnel hand grenade probably has lower explosive power than a single tube of Tovex, however there are other factors in the lethality of an explosive device besides blast strength. I would guess that the bombs that didn't use lead shot could actually have a quite lower kill radius than a hand grenade, whereas those that did use lead shot could have killed from a frightening distance, perhaps meeting or exceeding the hand grenade's kill radius.

Brett Kimberlin's first four bombs didn't use any of the copious amounts of .445-caliber lead balls he'd bought a couple weeks before. Those lead balls will be mentioned again in later posts.

On the placement of the bombs

Brett has never explained his rationale behind bomb placement. Some of them were put in places where they were less likely to hurt anyone. Some of them, owing to confluence of timing and placement, were overwhelmingly likely to hurt someone. Speaking only of September 1, 1978, the bomb placed near the Speedway Shopping Center was placed too late at night to hit most customers, but there were still people around (as later articles will explain, some helped ID Brett Kimberlin and his car) and a few got minor cuts from flying glass. One wonders if the one placed 100 yards from the Scyphers residence was meant to intimidate. A single Tovex package would have similar explosive power to a full stick of dynamite, and would have been extremely loud from 100 yards away.

I can't find any source that explains the exact location of the Whitcomb Avenue bomb, but it makes me curious if it was placed near a house for a particular reason.

On the design of the bombs

All of Brett's bombs included Tovex explosive inside an aluminum can. Blasting caps had to be used to trigger the Tovex. The blasting caps themselves were triggered by a charge from lantern batteries, and the contact was closed by an electronic timer. Every one of Brett's bombs seems to have included all these parts. Only some of them also included any of the huge amount of lead balls Brett bought. The four bombs from the night of September 1, 1978 did not yet include lead shot.

Reminder on the apparent motive of the bombings

Brett Kimberlin set off bombs to distract and confuse the local Speedway police, who were few in number and unaccustomed to deadly crime. Brett felt he needed to distract the police because their investigation of the Julia Scyphers murder had him and William Bowman as the only two suspects. And Brett hired William Bowman to murder Julia Scyphers because Scyphers was interfering with Brett's pedophilic relationship with Scyphers' granddaughter, who Brett pursued aggressively starting when she was 10. The relationship ended when the girl was 14, apparently because they started having arguments and Brett retaliated by taking away the girl's beloved family dog, and also slapping her on two occasions.

Interlude: A musing on the patience of the justice system regarding Brett Kimberlin

Anyone closely familiar with the Speedway Bombings will understand what I mean when I say I have a few 36th anniversary articles planned to go up soon. But in the meantime, I want to step away from that path and talk a little about Brett Kimberlin's history with the justice system.

In 1972, then 18-year old Brett Kimberlin received a three year probation sentence for "juvenile delinquency." This mild charge was given to him for drug related offenses. The events in question happened when Brett Kimberlin was 17, which might be one reason for the mild charge. This sentence was given by a federal judge: Judge William E. Steckler.

What Steckler didn't realize in July 1972 is that Kimberlin had given at least two blatantly contradictory versions of events to a federal grand jury that had indicted him in relation to their investigation of drug problems at Kimberlin's high school. The next year, at age 19,Kimberlin was convicted of perjury for lying to this grand jury.

That wasn't the last time Brett Kimberlin was to meet Judge William E. Steckler. Steckler was also the presiding judge in the trial that convicted Brett Kimberlin of the Speedway Bombings in 1981. After the conviction, there was a sentencing hearing. Kimberlin was invited to speak prior to the sentencing. He gave a speech proclaiming his innocence and intention to appeal vigorously. He told the judge he had with him thousands of signatures from supporters. He then announced he had been convicted on the basis of perjured testimony.

The judge declined to see the thousands of signatures. He gave a disappointed lecture to Kimberlin which included this part referring to the 1972 probation sentence:

And so I am disappointed; I am disappointed that I took it upon myself to exercise the courage to put you on probation the first time you were ever in trouble. I am sorry that you let us down. [...] I am convinced after hearing the evidence that you are not only guilty of the offenses with which you were charged but that you have not done one single thing to cooperate with the government to clarify what may have happened or what did happen which you could help clarify.

(Above from page 181 of Citizen K.) After hearing another completely uncontrite statement from Kimberlin, the judge sentenced him to 50 years, much less than the 93 years the prosecutors recommended. Thus, Brett's sentence ends in 2031 and he is a federal parolee until then. This is true notwithstanding the apparent fact that Brett has, for years, been spreading vague rumors that he is not on parole, including laughably stupid rumors that he was, perhaps secretly, exhonerated. Brett even made statements along these lines under oath in court hearings within the past few years, which is one reason why his recent lawfare victims are at pains to make sure Brett Kimberlin's history of perjury is taken more seriously. Anyone familiar with both recent events and Brett Kimberlin's authorized biography must conclude that Brett's criminal and victimizing ways have not really improved.

Judge Steckler's statements strongly suggest that he was always waiting for an opportunity to give Brett Kimberlin a break. I write this blog to show that it's well past time for Brett Kimberlin's victims to be the ones given a break.

What happened to the gun that was used to shoot Julia Scyphers?

tl;dr version

It's sometimes interesting to rearrange the story to add suspense or mystery, but I'll do the exact opposite. Trigger man William Bowman, at some point, gave the murder weapon back to Brett Kimberlin. Next, some time in fall 1978, Brett buried it one night in the Texas yard of Julia Scyphers' daughter Louise, in hopes of framing her (or her husband) for his own crimes. Kimberlin had also buried a bunch of his unused explosives and bomb parts along with the murder weapon, so he also tried to frame her for that - but, we'll come back to the bombings in later posts.

Murder weapon turned over to law enforcement

Louise, for her part, wasn't as dumb as Kimberlin hoped everyone would be. On March 10, 1979, she raked up a plastic bag full of bomb parts and the rifle while she was doing yardwork. She immediately got in contact with law enforcement, resulting in the ATF coming to her home to collect a gym bag full of bomb parts, including Tovex packages with deliberately defaced serial codes, as well as a Colt AR-15 with the serial number filed off. For various reasons, the law enforcement agents had to quietly sit on this evidence for a couple of years, with Kimberlin meanwhile unaware of exactly whether law enforcement had even found out about the incriminating bag.

Brett Kimberlin's first framing attempts underway

Kimberlin, meanwhile, had already previously begun his attempts to get law enforcement chasing Louise's family for both the Scypher murder and the bombings. For example, when he was arrested (alongside William Bowman, as it happened) in February 1979 due to a different part of his prolific crime spree, Kimberlin had a long interview with law enforcement in which he encouraged agents to look into Louise's household in relation to the Scyphers murder. Indeed, for 1978 and 1979, it seems to have been Kimberlin's main hope to blame his recent violent crimes on Louise and her husband, perhaps in part because he had correctly inferred that they were able to give law enforcement valuable evidence helping to establish Brett Kimberlin's guilt. Again, more on this in later posts.

Cold case murder

Now, Brett Kimberlin and William Bowman never ended up facing charges for the Julia Scyphers murder. The problem is that the sole closeup eyewitness to Bowman's visit was Fred Scyphers, and he died of cancer before the case could be brought to trial. Therefore, prosecutors focused on getting Kimberlin for his bombs and other crimes instead.

In court

Over time, Kimberlin offered the courts a series of different false stories of how someone else may have actually had possession of Brett's bomb-making materials, but none of these were believed and he got convicted anyway. For the courts, he ended up forgetting his attempt to frame Louise's family, possibly because his lawyers were smart enough to see that it couldn't possibly work. But then, to the total surprise of Brett Kimberlin and his defense team, in the 1981 trial that convicted him, the government suddenly brought witnesses, including Louise and a drug wholesaler who was actually in the car with Kimberlin when Kimberlin surreptitiously crept into Louise's neighborhood late one night with his bag. The framing attempt was now front and center and helped put together better chain of custody explanations for his bombing crimes (which, again, I will handle in separate articles). The point about the AR-15 being included in the buried bag was not belabored in court because the government was focused on winning on the bombing charges and did not want to risk losing on the bombing charges by connecting them to the shooting incident that no longer had a living eyewitness.

About that AR-15

On page 174 of Brett Kimberlin's own authorized biography, writer Mark Singer caught Kimberlin saying something he couldn't have possibly known unless he actually planted the bombs and weapons in Louise's yard. You see, I told the history more or less in chronological order, but that's not the order Singer had to learn it in. Interviewing about the trial, on page 174, Kimberlin unthinkingly complained to his authorized biographer that Indianapolis Star newspaper writer Gelarden had written about a report "that the Scyphers murder weapon was buried in the Crosbys' backyard." One problem with Brett's complaint is that nobody had written about the murder weapon being buried. (In fact, as far as I could tell, there are no suggestions in the press that Kimberlin ever knew anything specific about the murder weapon until Kimberlin accidentally admitted here to Singer that he knew where it had ended up.) Singer re-checked every newspaper article and found no reference to the murder weapon ever being buried. And, remember, the Scyphers murder wasn't even discussed in Brett Kimberlin's bombing trial, only the bombings. Witnesses provided testimony about how forensic evidence tied the bomb related contents of the buried gym bag to the Speedway Bombings. They didn't mention anything connecting the rifle in the bag to the Scyphers murder. As Singer put it, "When a person claims to know where a murder weapon is buried, even if he's trying to finger someone else, what does that imply?" (page 175). Oops.

Conclusion

Brett Kimberlin tells too many lies to keep them all straight.

There is no statute of limitations on murder in Indiana.