ATF Bomb Expert Anthony May
Appearances
20/20
Explosive Secrets
People think when the explosion occurs, everything goes away. Well, it doesn't.
20/20
Explosive Secrets
Yes, we are. We're going to reenact a bombing that occurred in 1996 that ended up taking Gary Triano's life.
20/20
Explosive Secrets
It would be up, most of ours is going to be up over that ridge. Well, we're going to walk into the blast scene. Now we're starting to pick up some heavy components and now we're going to decide, is it from the car? Is it from the bomb? And what I'm seeing is car parts here. the door handle. As I can see already, the roof of the car is over here.
20/20
Explosive Secrets
That's the objective. Take a look at what the crime scene is telling you, what the evidence tells you, and then go from there.
20/20
Explosive Secrets
This is actually a picture of when Jim brought the evidence up to me. This is kind of like a puzzle now. I am trying to match pieces. This is the pieces of the pipe. So what specifically did you find as you looked at all that evidence? People think when the explosion occurs, everything goes away. Well, it doesn't. There's 95% to 99% of the device still there. It's just different configurations.
20/20
Explosive Secrets
There was a witness that said that he saw Gary Triano get in the car and then lean over into the passenger seat, meaning that the bomber was also somewhere close by with the remote control device. And when he saw him lean over the bag, that's when he initiated the device.
20/20
Explosive Secrets
We had found a piece in the debris here of parts that were soldered together. There were globs of solder. The globs instantly told you, not somebody who does this on a regular basis. They do it on a regular basis. The question to me was, is this a professional hit? Are we dealing with a mafia? From the design, the construction, the soldering, the battery, I don't see that.
20/20
Explosive Secrets
That indicated to me that we're not dealing with some young individual who has experience with AA batteries or 9-volt batteries.
20/20
Explosive Secrets
My job was to determine what was used and build a reconstruction of the device. And then the device was used to present it in court for his prosecution.