Deadly Payout | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

a small town in nevada faces disaster a holiday weekend a quarter million tourists and a thousand pound bomb that could explode at any second the device cannot be disarmed it cannot be moved without detonating here we have the all clear stand by for the fbi it's a worst case scenario [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] in 1980 the fbi faced the largest explosive device they had ever seen the bomb was sophisticated carefully constructed and designed to destroy an entire building i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office agents and bomb experts responded from all over the country their mission to disarm the deadly device and stop the dangerous extortionists who built it stateline nevada is a small tourist town straddling the border with california the town has just 1300 residents the largest industry is gambling with all that cash lying around it makes an appealing target for criminals looking to make a big score august 26 1980 5 30 a.m at the receiving entrance of harvey's casino men tell security they're delivering a new copy machine the security guard gives them directions to the executive offices on the second floor he has no idea what he has let in the building [Music] this is no copier shortly after 6 a.m a security guard making rounds notices something unusual the door to the executive office is jammed it looks like the lock has been glued shut he manages to get the door open the guard notices a bizarre looking metal box in the middle of the room on the floor he finds a letter according to the letter the metal box contains a massive bomb [Music] the guard contacts the douglas county sheriff's department captain ron perrini it was about 6 30 in the morning and i received a call from one of my sergeants who told me that they had found a device at harvey's casino harini calls in the tahoe douglas bomb squad the device is huge and made of metal according to the letter it contains a thousand pounds of tnt that much tnt could blow up everything within 500 feet of the casino the letter also says the bomb has three separate timers each set for different explosion times the device cannot be moved it cannot be disarmed unless authorities come up with three million dollars in cash the bomber threatens to blow up harvey's casino he also threatens that if the fbi thwarts this plan then the bomber will strike the same hotel again yeah this thing was big and if it was real and it did go off at that time none of us would be alive the complexity of the design and amount of tnt tells law enforcement this bomber means business this device could blow up the entire block and the police don't even know when it is set to go off the bomber is holding all the cards there was no indication from the bomb squad members that this was a false bomb that it was just a shell they felt it was very real so there was a lot of issues going on at one time how are we going to secure this how are we going to provide the safety for everyone the casino is packed with gamblers the hotel is full of guests with a bomb that size police have to get the hundreds of innocent people to safety over the next several hours 600 hotel guests are moved to a nearby high school and it's scary to tell you the truth it's very scary if this bomb would have gone off in that casino we would have lost 600 people [Music] as the guests are being evacuated captain perrini assesses the situation and determines he needs help we're a relatively small department we certainly don't have the expertise as some agencies may have and dealing with extortions and the resources and the money and all the things that go with that to do a proper investigation so because it was an extortion we called the fbi immediately special agent bill junkie we typically have extortion attempts at the casino the state line we've had those before we've had plenty of small bombs placed here and there in various casinos at this time the fbi was receiving nearly 100 extortion threats a year against casinos but they were seldom this serious but i never in my wildest dreams envisioned a bomb of this size and this complexity there are 28 toggle switches on the top box each one is numbered they were all in the same position in a downward position except for one toggle switch which was numbered 23. that was in the up position we didn't know when we looked at those toggle switches of course what they went to what they were for any one of the switches could deactivate the bomb or detonate it they gave me a letter which turned out to be an extortion letter it identified various components of that bomb and reading that letter i realized we had a big big problem here the letter indicated to us that there was a thousand pounds of tnt in this bomb and judging from the size of the small of the large box i think it was pretty consistent that a thousand pounds of tnt could fit into that larger box a thousand pounds of tnt has a huge blast radius enough to destroy more than one casino that would devastate this small town we blocked off the casino corridor area on u.s 50 made sure no vehicles could go through we told the other casinos to vacate the immediate area near harvey's and they did that they even boarded up some of the windows to make sure that if there was an explosion that would cause the glass to break and hurt others as the sheriff's department closes down the streets the bomb squad works on the device the crew does not wear their bulky bomb suits because nothing could protect them if a bomb this size detonated first they want to know exactly what's inside the metal casing what kind of bomb is it how big of an explosion is it going to be is it going to affect the businesses across the street or how far will it go is there chemicals involved is there even nuclear step herb hawkins is the assistant special agent in charge of the fbi's las vegas field office well the device was x-rayed in parts because no x-ray machine was that big so about a third of the device was x-rayed then another third and another third in all the bomb squad takes over 200 x-rays they also photograph the device in dust for fingerprints getting paint samples is much riskier but for the fbi it could be an important clue to identifying the bomber ultimately we may find a guy who's got that kind of paint in his garage investigators also find a small drop of blood on one corner of the device it is collected as potential evidence we may be able to find a guy whose blood matches that which was taken off the bomb that's a good investigative lead for us the latent fingerprints paint and blood samples are sent to the fbi lab in washington dc in the lab technicians will analyze the evidence in the hopes it will lead them to the bomber but for the agents on the scene the first priority is to disarm this bomb in the command post investigators study the x-rays of the device the bottom three-quarters of this lower box was very high density the x-rays couldn't penetrate that told us in essence that it was explosive in there or some kind of material and they're filling that bottom box we could see wires from the top box going into that material in the bottom box we presume those were wires from the detonators from the blasting caps into that explosive material scientists from nest the nuclear emergency search team analyzed the bottom portion of the bomb to calculate the potential blast radius they estimated that we were looking at about a 1500 to 2500 foot blast area where damage could be somewhat significant and of course inside of 800 yards we're looking at more than severe damage and of course total destruction within 200 meter radius we realized this guy knew what he was doing that it was going to be an extremely difficult bomb to defeat if it could be defeated at all agents are in an impossible position but they must find a way to disarm this bomb and fast before anyone gets hurt in stateline nevada extortionists plant a massive bomb in a crowded casino the bombers demand three million dollars or they will detonate the device within hours of the discovery of the bomb investigators from all over the area arrive in state line sheriffs from douglas county police from south lake tahoe as well as el dorado county special agent bill jonkey they started just flooding in because they knew we would have a lot a lot of work to do we began bringing in fbi agents from surrounding districts almost immediately as bomb experts work on the device agents go after the extortionists we needed every patron in that casino to be interviewed with the chance that maybe they had seen something a vehicle being involved in the delivery of this bomb something authorities set up toll-free hotlines captain ron perrini and the douglas county sheriff's department worked closely with the fbi we want to know if there's any witnesses that anybody saw these people bring the device into the casino what about vehicles descriptions the fbi questions the security guard he tells them about seeing two men delivering a copy machine around 5 30 a.m they were driving a white van we knew that we may have a white van involved in this we knew by then exactly what time that bomb came through the casino we knew we had two people pushing and pulling that device investigators tried to locate all the white vans in the lake tahoe area law enforcement officers were stopping these vans and finding out who who the operators were while agents on the street search for possible suspects technicians continue to analyze the device but the news is not good this bomb is formidable on that first day after the diagnostic work fee x-rays the interpretation of that extortion letter we realized that we weren't going to move that bond that we in fact had a viable functioning live explosive device we didn't know what the explosive inside was we also figured we had explosives in that top box that made any sort of render safe procedure extremely extremely difficult by late afternoon we decided that we were not going to penetrate this bomb with any equipment that we had or that was developed anywhere in the country it appears the bomber has won the fbi must take a new approach they're going to have to cooperate that evening agents meet with harvey gross the owner of harvey's casino we thought we might have a very good opportunity to arrest to identify the people involved in this in this crime through the delivery of the money so we wanted to comply with the instructions the bomber wants three million dollars delivered to a remote location via helicopter in exchange authorities will receive instructions on how to move the bomb and detonate it safely we told them the problems we were having with this bomb and we had a window there that was closing as far as getting the money together or deciding what we were going to do agents feel that 3 million dollars in cash is the fastest way to find him the casino owner is skeptical and he said to us what are you going to try and do with this person we said we are going to try and catch him and he said well if you're going to do that i'm not giving them three million dollars so he gave us five thousand dollars which we appropriately marked and the rest was cut up paper an fbi pilot will fly the helicopter since the bomber has forbidden any radio contact the pilot will wear a wire he must land at a designated spot at south lake tahoe airport no later than 11 pm at 1205 he will receive further instructions he specified that no law enforcement be involved in this operation whatsoever well that was pretty unrealistic we of course had numerous law enforcement people stationed and concealed throughout that airport in an effort to identify anyone that could be seen near that airport that might be linked to this extortion attempt the pilot lands at south lake tahoe airport at exactly 11 o'clock in a nearby building a team of fbi agents and police monitor the pilot's wire we were waiting for contact from the bomber and at 1205 just as he said the telephone rang in the telephone booth okay the caller instructs the pilot to look under the shelf of the phone booth there he will find further instructions [Music] he read that note aloud as he stood there outside the phone booth that allowed us to hear and to know what that letter contained and we immediately dispatched ground units in the direction that he was told to fly the pilot is instructed to fly west along highway 50 at an altitude of 500 feet at some point he will see a strobe light where he is to land not much altitude in the mountains like that very very low very very hazardous for a helicopter to be that low at midnight we were going to do the best we could to provide ground coverage for the protection of our pilot and also obviously to arrest to apprehend this perpetrator if that was at all possible so immediately we had cars traveling westbound on highway 50 for the sole purpose of either one encountering the subject or the suspect in this case or two ensuring the safety of our pilot a swat team flying a thousand feet above the fbi helicopter will provide added security the thing that always makes you more apprehensive is the unknown we didn't know who you were dealing with we didn't know if we had 10 people one person two dozen that were going to meet that airplane the fbi pilot flies west following route 50. he maintains an altitude of exactly 500 feet as he searches for the strobe light [Music] it seems the bomber is playing some sort of deadly game and the fbi is at his mercy stateline nevada 1980 an fbi helicopter searches a 15-mile stretch of highway 50 for a signal from below the extortionist who planted a massive bomb in a local casino has demanded three million dollars agents know that appearing to comply is their best hope for arresting the bomb maker the pilot flies through the mountains in the dark at an altitude of only 500 feet he sees no signal from below assistant special agent in charge herb hawkins controls the search operation from the ground he came back he flew it again and he flew it again we kept sending him back down the route then after he got through with his 15 miles we put him at 250 300 feet which he was scared to death this is an experienced marine helicopter pilot who joined the fbi and he's flying treetops trying to comply with and make this successful and he keeps calling me herb i got nothing i have nothing everything's quiet you know and so i said okay then at four o'clock we brought him back it seems the bomber has won again all the fbi's attempts to establish contact with him have failed if he doesn't want the money what does he want agents turned to their only other lead the airport telephone booth where the bomber left instructions for the pilot special agent bill jonkey we of course examined that telephone booth for leighton fingerprints and we interviewed a few people but we basically came up with nothing nobody had seen anything at that airport that was suspicious in nature so that was a dead end we had not established contact with the extortionist and that was of grave concern to us because we needed more communication the next morning the fbi asks governor robert list of nevada to hold a press conference he needs to convince the bomber to re-establish contact this request is made due to failure of enlightenment and confusion in following the previous directions the hotel is prepared to comply and is standing by as before we had basically silence on wednesday i think that the people were too [Music] cautious to make another contact for the tahoe douglas bomb squad it's a potentially deadly dilemma how can they move the bomb without knowing what's inside it was very heavy it was made of steel and it was loaded with up to a thousand pounds of explosive we couldn't just pick it up and carry it out of it we realized to even move it even if we had a safe way to move would require three to four people that's way too many to have anywhere near a device that could explode even if they can move the device to the parking lot then what we in essence have a giant hand grenade here if it exploded it would send steel shrapnel all over the place we really couldn't afford to have it outside agents and bomb experts do not know if the massive bomb is set on a timer if the extortionist can set the bomb off remotely or exactly how volatile the explosive material inside is they have some hard decisions to make one member of the team makes a radical suggestion our experts told us and we all agreed that if we could explosively separate this top box knock it off the bottom box at a very very fast speed with explosives we could defeat the electrical current from the battery that was being generated and maybe avoid a detonation of the main charge the plan is to use six pounds of plastic explosives to destroy the top box in essence the bomb's brain if they could sever that pulse from actually going down to the dynamite it would may not go off everything depends on whether or not the top box is also rigged with explosives if the top box contained dynamite then our our explosive separation would fail because in essence the bomb would what we call sympathetically detonate in other words the explosion from our attempt to remove the top box would detonate all the explosives in the bomb it's a risky procedure the entire casino could be destroyed they need permission from hotel owner harvey gross and what he did say was as long as nobody gets hurt we can't keep doing what we're doing we're going on for hours and hours and hours and nobody can come up with a solution other than that then that's okay there was tears in his eyes and he basically was giving us a directive that you take care of everyone here make sure nobody's harmed i don't want anybody hurt if the device does go off and it destroys a casino we can rebuild it the bomb squad sets up a linear shaped charge positioning the explosives to destroy the top box wires were run from the explosive charge to a window outside and eventually to a firing point out in the parking lot there is no way to know whether the shaped charge will successfully disable the bomb or detonate it we hoped that we would separate that top box and that there were in fact no explosives in there and we'd have no detonation but we were fully prepared and i have to say we expected detonation of up to a thousand pounds of tnt as the letter had indicated so we were prepared for that when we fired that shape charge at 3 55 pm sheriff jerry maple broadcasts a warning the disarming attempt is about to begin okay we have the all clear everybody stand by five five four four three three two two one one in a casino in nevada fbi agents face the biggest bomb they've ever seen a device packed with a thousand pounds of explosives their only option blow the control box off the top of the bomb with a small explosive charge stand by for countdown please special agent bill jonkey watches from the roof of a nearby casino we had high-speed cameras prepared for the detonation we were watching we were keeping our fingers crossed we of course could hear over the radio the literally the countdown [Music] [Music] the plan has failed part of the casino has been reduced to rubble assistant special agent in charge herb hawkins we had a major mess on our hands we had a hotel that had been blown downward two stories blown upward two stories numerous pieces of [Music] device rebar concrete chips wall desks furniture all mashed up and and in some of it in the hotel down in the hole some of it up on the second and third floor and a bunch of it out in the parking lot all of us probably had the same thought we were thankful that we had not a single person with as much as a scratch nobody was hurt we felt relief that the bomb in essence was gone there was not a danger from that bomb anymore having to go back up on it for a day or two was getting stressful for everybody so we felt a relief when that thing went off if you destroy or damage a building that can be rebuilt we've been lost to human life for casualties is something that can never be healed myself and a few of the bomb technicians went into that building right away right after detonation however it was pretty dangerous rubble is everywhere and the fbi is concerned the rest of the building might collapse once it is secured agents go back into the casino to search for clues we commenced a very thorough crime scene investigation as you would have to do in a bombing case as your crime scene is really the key to helping you solve the puzzle but in this devastation finding those clues will not be easy when a bomb goes off the components just don't evaporate they become much smaller and obviously disfigured but they're there they're there in the rubble they're there in the crater at the bottom they're there our job is to find them and identify them as components of the bond authorities estimate it could take nearly six weeks to process the crime scene the fbi can't afford to give the bomber that much time to cover his tracks within days of the explosion the stateline casinos offer a 250 000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the extortionists [Music] we hit every news media outlet with that information in hopes of somebody calling we generated and started a hotline a 1 800 hotline so that anybody in the country could call us toll free and provide information for this reward the offer of a large reward brings thousands of leads but no solid information several days went by i'd say seven eight nine ten days and we we got leads from this offer but we didn't get what we considered to be viable leads from this the group that was responsible for building and placing this bomb was probably very close-knit maybe even a family because we weren't getting any information agents hope that in the rubble they will find one piece of evidence that will lead them to the bomber at the end of the 40 days we'd recovered approximately 108 pounds of a bomb that we felt probably weighed around 800 pounds so we recovered about an eighth of it the items that we recovered primarily were heavy steel items that survived the blast as each piece of the bomb is recovered it is shipped to the fbi laboratory in washington dc this is the first opportunity the agents have to really study the bomb we were able to determine the type of switches that were used the mercury switches the type of explosive pieces of cardboard box things that would point where and how the device was constructed laboratory analysis tells agents a lot about the bomb and something about the bomber one of the early things that we did was have the metallurgists look at the bomb components we were recovering and determine the stresses on those pieces of metal from a metallurgical point of view to tell us what forces were exerted against them in the blast and by doing that we could put a family of explosives into this and while the threat letter said it was tnt we're not about to take that on face value we want to know that the damage was consistent with that explosive like tnt which it was not so we right away we know something about the bomber he didn't tell the truth in the letter he was trying to tell us something that would get your attention the bomber used dynamite instead of tnt because tnt is more powerful he probably mentioned it to intimidate investigators it was a very complex scheme and therefore when you looked at the device a complex mind had to have put this together a very painstaking patient individual this was not built in a day this was a device that looked like it had taken weeks if not months to build and to build it without drawing attention probably required even more time to try and learn more about the bomber agents asked for assistance from fbi profilers at the behavioral science unit then housed at the fbi complex at quantico profilers determined the bomber is probably a male in his late 30s or early 40s with some sort of bomb making experience based on the complexity of the device and the letter they feel the bomber is egocentric he believes he can outsmart investigators and the bombing profile is extremely difficult it's not like a murder where the guy leaves certain fingerprints at the scene he has some experience bombing is a lot more complex person when you shoot somebody it's more impersonal when you build a bomb and you put it under his car and turn around walk away you don't have to sit there and watch he doesn't like to get close to his victims the agents also suspect something other than money motivates this bomber is this a terrorist act and what's the goal of this particular act is it to just make money are these people involved with narcotics and drugs do we have organized crime the mafia we did not believe that organized crime would try and pull this type of thing we didn't think the druggers would try and pull this type of thing they like to remain off the skyline investigators are running out of leads and the bombers seem poised to strike again in reno 40 miles north four more casinos receive bomb threats in stateline nevada the fbi searches for a dangerous extortionist he's already blown up one casino and in his extortion note he threatened to do it again the fbi fears the bomber is simply toying with them in reno 40 miles north four more casinos receive bomb threats investigators search the casinos but no bombs are found further investigation reveals these threats aren't connected to the harvey's bombing agents again appeal to the public for help they distribute descriptions of the suspects based on the security guard's recollections assistant special agent in charge herb hawkins we were bombarded with thousands upon thousands of phone calls in early september agents receive an intriguing tip three former employees of a jet aircraft plant moved to reno just before the casino bombing according to the fbi lab in washington some of the electronic components used in the bomb resemble aircraft parts aircraft engineers could have the technical savvy to put together a device like this special agent bill junkie they fit our profile if you will of being a group they had access they had experience in explosive work they looked pretty darn good and we spent a lot of investigative man hours looking into these people and covering the leads from this group that extended nationwide we focused on this group with a lot of our resources for two to three weeks before we were finally able to eliminate them as suspects it's one of many dead ends and the bomber has gone strangely silent desperate for leads investigators review every phone tip they have received since the bombing assistant special agent in charge herb hawkins wades through thousands of memos on october 1st a small tip catches his eye a motel owner saw a white van leaving her motel in south lake tahoe an hour before the bomb was delivered from witness statements the fbi knows that the bomb was delivered in a white van hawkins thinks it's too close to be a coincidence when i picked that memo up first it came in on the 800 line and no one looked at it it's now a month old and a suspicious vehicle leaving at 4 30 in the morning in a van needs to be covered agents interview the motel owner who called in the tip on august 26th at 4 am she heard strange noises in the parking lot of the motel she awoke and went to a window and saw two to three individuals in white overalls trying to start a white van she copied down the license number to ensure that it was the same license number on the registration card the next day she called the fbi hotline agents learned the name on the hotel registration card is fake they run the license plate number of the white van through the california department of motor vehicles the information that came back from the dmv check on that license plate was that the vehicle was registered to a mr john burgess who was a resident of slovis california which is right down by fresno immediately agents in the fresno office went to pay a visit to mr burgess and see why that van of his was up at lake tahoe and was being occupied by three people who appeared to be suspicious burgess tells agents he doesn't know what they're talking about he owns a white van but his son usually drives it we were unable to gather very much information from mr burgess other than the fact that his son had the vehicle and that his son might be involved in growing marijuana agents interview burgess's son and fresno they asked him what he was doing in tahoe at four o'clock in the morning and why he used a fake name on his registration the young man told the investigators that he was up at lake tahoe looking for a place to grow marijuana these agents realized that lake tahoe was at an elevation of 6200 feet plus it is not conducive whatsoever to growing marijuana because of the climatic conditions so that was a pretty lame excuse agents suspect burgess's son is lying but they don't know why they don't think he's the bomber at 18 they feel he's too young to construct a bomb this complex agents move on searching for more viable leads the investigation into this bombing war on and on and on we interviewed well over 400 people suspects in this bombing throughout the country the bomb caused three million dollars in damage the people behind this must be stopped before they build another bomb but agents are running out of leads they have not heard from the bomber in months by november all but 16 agents are called home the investigation is stalling the fbi tries a new approach in the early part of 1981 we decided that we needed to up the ante for the reward the reward was then increased to five hundred thousand dollars from two hundred fifty thousand to five hundred thousand dollars if a tight-knit group is responsible for the casino bombing the fbi is betting that a half a million dollars in cash should be enough money to tear it apart we got our 500 000 and we got the news media asked them to put this out we had a small news conference and it was it was prolific the fbi's gamble pays off and it wasn't but a very short time maybe a few days that our phone call came in a young man called the fresno office of the fbi and told them that we had been close but we weren't on the right guy he told us that it was not the young son of mr burgess that we should be looking at that it was in fact john burgess senior himself who was responsible for this the tip makes sense although john burgess didn't appear to be a likely suspect agents have never resolved why his son was in the tahoe area when the bomb was delivered within days the entire investigation is moved from stateline nevada to fresno california there was an already a resident agency there but we established another office there and we brought in another 30 40 agents to fresno to begin our focus on john burgess [Music] i personally believe that this was our guy it was a family situation involved he had two sons who could have helped him and would not have participated in the reward they would have kept their mouth shut like we expected and i moved down to fresno with great anticipation i thought this is it the fbi suspects john burgess senior is the casino bomber but they still need evidence linking him to the crime before they can make an arrest a major casino lies in ruins decimated by a massive bomb the fbi suspects that john burgess a fresno landscaping contractor is the mastermind behind the devastating bomb special agent bill jonkey our investigation of john burgess senior included everything we can think of we talked and interviewed to interviewed his relatives his friends we surveilled him day and night we checked his background we checked people who had worked for him burgess has an interesting past according to special agent herb hawkins he was a hungarian immigrant who had run afoul of the soviets during the hungarian revolution he went to a slave labor camp exiled by the soviets to that area and had a great amount of work with explosives through interviews agents learn that burgess is in financial trouble in march 1980 the irs filed suit against him for 34 thousand dollars in back taxes he also owes harvey's casino fifteen thousand dollars in unpaid gambling markers his gaming losses that he told us about and that we had verified through records beforehand only led to make him a stronger suspect because we always felt that whoever did this had a grudge against harvey's casino probably owed him money or had lost money so it it really fit perfectly into our bomber profile agents feel john burgess has the skill and the motive to bomb harvey's casino now they need to prove it myself and another agent were assigned to contact mr burgess every single day seven days a week just pay a visit to him and talk to him get him to talk some days he'd yell and scream at us and wouldn't let us in other days he'd let us in and talk to us burgess is very egotistical he likes to talk about his successful landscaping business and his skill in electronics the profilers were correct things started to fall into place in terms of background now we needed to find out there in fresno did he build the device there and where did he buy the stuff to do this you have bombing one of the first things you do is you start looking around for thefts where this could where could this stuff have come from they can make it themselves they could import it they could steal it they could buy it you start go to the atf and pull all the theft reports agents learned that one thousand pounds of dynamite was stolen from a construction site near burgess's home prior to the casino bombing so the puzzle started to come together and it was time that we got people to start talking to us from inside the family agents interview a member of burgess's extended family who owns a large turkey farm near fresno they are particularly interested in the switches on a feeding mechanism burge is constructed for the farm it was identical to the construction of the bomb it was the same type of plastic material that he used the same kind of soldering that he used agents turn up the pressure on burgess's sons and finally persuade them to talk both kids in general told us the same story that that initially their father had asked them to participate in this extortion attempt both kids were not anxious to do it they didn't want to do it but they had loyalty to their father and they at times provided some labor burgess's son admits he did not grow marijuana he made up the story to protect his father the fbi learns that two employees in burgess's landscaping business were the men who delivered the bomb to harvey's casino burgess's sons say their father's girlfriend helped write the extortion letter and they lead authorities to the place where their father hid the remainder of the stolen dynamite they've also provided us with information about an additional explosives theft that occurred at basically the same site and they told us where this explosive was buried 600 pounds worth of dynamite was buried in a dry creek bed outside of fresno mr burgess had told the boys he planned to build another bomb and put it somewhere else [Music] on august 16 1981 john burgess is arrested as he tries to leave his home burgess and his co-conspirators are charged with commercial extortion and conspiracy burgess's sons plead guilty to conspiracy and are sentenced to probation on april 15 1985 john burgess is convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole the fbi lost a building but the operation was a success no one lost their lives and the fbi captured the bomber before he could strike again so we learned a lot about processing building bombing what you have to do first second and third where the pitfalls are where the dangers are now unfortunately since then all around the globe we've had opportunities to practice the lessons and refine the lessons that we learned you

Channel: The FBI Files

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Keywords: FBI, FBI Files, FBI Documentary, Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True crime daily, Unsolved, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Full Episode, unsolved true crime, fbi files full episodes, we got him, mystery, solved, investigation, police, criminal, prison, jail, deadly payout fbi files

Id: KuG6fsdTNGo

Length: 49min 25sec (2965 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 20 2021