Forensic Files - Season 10, Episode 10 - Tagging a Suspect - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[music playing ] NARRATOR: Bombings are often difficult to solve since the perpetrator usually has left the scene,--
[explosion] --and the evidence goes up in smoke. But there are clues, if investigators
know what to look for. In this case, a tiny piece of plastic, the size of a grain of sand, would
hold the key to a man's murder. [theme music] At one time, the Bethlehem Steel mill in Sparrows Point,
Maryland was the world's largest steel-making plant. More than 30,000 employees produced
an incredible 15 tons of steel per minute. 45-year-old Nathan Allen worked at the mill
to support his five growing children, who ranged in age from seven to 16. DANIEL P. BOEH: Nathan Allen was well-liked.
He was a hardworking man. He worked. And when he wasn't working, he was taking care of his children.
NATHAN ALLEN JR.He was dedicated to raising us kids, taking care of five kids with a job.
And that's all he did was work and take care of us. NARRATOR: Around 11:00 PM on May 10, 1979,
Nathan Allen and a friend had just finished work and were heading home. When Nathan got into his truck and started it,
there was an explosion. [explosion] Nathan was blown through the windshield. [siren]
JUDGE LYNNE A. BATTAGLIA: He didn't die right away. He lived for a period of time in what the doctors called
was excruciating pain. They couldn't even describe it to us. -Maybe we were hoping it was a mistake, but it wasn't.
And we were just devastated. We didn't know what we were going to do. It was really rough.
NARRATOR: Nathan Allen died. But miraculously, the passenger, Robert Riffey, was not badly hurt.
DANIEL P. BOEH: Robert Riffey received minor injuries, hearing loss, and some other minor injuries,
but he survived. NARRATOR: When questioned, Riffey was able to provide some important information.
He said the explosion didn't happen until after Nathan started the truck. [explosion]
At first, investigators suspected that a gasoline leak might have caused the explosion, but that
was eliminated fairly quickly. DANIEL P. BOEH: We could see that the crater was actually
blown in towards the gas tank, not out from the gas tank. So we knew that the gas tank didn't
have anything to do with the explosion. NARRATOR: Investigators performed a grid search,
examining every inch of the parking lot, and found a key piece of evidence. RAYMOND J. KOZLOWSKI JR.: In one of the squares,
I located what was the end cap, a small, plastic, rubber-type material that is the end cap to an electric blasting cap.
NARRATOR: A blasting cap is a device used to detonate explosives. DANIEL P. BOEH: That find is quite unique.
Usually, you do not find the end of the blasting cap because it is-- it's inserted into the explosives
and usually is completely destroyed. NARRATOR: And they also found small pieces of blue and yellow plastic-coated wire.
RAYMOND J. KOZLOWSKI JR.: And those are the colors and the type that are used in the electric blasting caps used
in the initiation for commercial-type explosives or even military-type explosive.
NARRATOR: The detonation wires were attached to the truck's electrical system, specifically the secondary lights,
meaning the bomb exploded when the driver hit the brake lights or used the turn signal.
[explosion] JERRY RUDDEN: When the first thing that you need to be able to do, at least in the first 72 hours,
is you need to be able to identify the type of device that was used, how it was initiated.
And what that does is it establishes a window of time during which the device may have been placed.
NARRATOR: Nathan's truck had been in the parking lot from 3:00 PM until the explosion around 11:00 p.m.
This proved that someone tampered with the truck's wiring while it sat in the parking lot.
JERRY RUDDEN: It became significant. Obviously, he didn't drive there without using the brakes.
So it let us know that the device had to have been connected in the parking lot.
-The bomber does not have to be around and watch his victim. He doesn't-- it's not what we call a command detonation.
There's no wire leading somewhere, and he has a big plunger to make the thing go off.
The bomb is a self-contained unit because it uses the automobile's own power to set the explosive off.
So the bomber could watch if he wants, or he could be 1,000 miles away. It doesn't make any difference.
NARRATOR: But investigators had no obvious suspects, which meant that if the bomber decided to strike again,
they'd have no way to stop him. Investigators believed the explosion that killed Nathan Allen was a commercial explosive,
the type used by experts. JERRY RUDDEN: The intricacy of the device would be the understanding that the bomber needed
to have of the electrical wiring system of the vehicle, so as to preclude himself from being blown up
when he connected the wires to the electrical system. It would-- it would have required
more than just a grassroots knowledge. NARRATOR: And they had to consider whether tensions
between steel workers and company management had finally turned deadly. JUDGE LYNNE A. BATTAGLIA: No one knew
why anyone wanted to kill Nate Allen, and so the agents began looking at possible reasons why.
One was Nate Allen had been involved in some union activity. RAYMOND J. KOZLOWSKI JR.: The first things we kick around
on almost any of the cases were, was it somebody they knew? Was it somebody they worked with?
Who did they have an argument with? Or, you know, who would want to do something like this to him,
you know? NARRATOR: But according to co-workers, Nathan Allen and his passenger, Robert Riffey,
were both popular and friendly with fellow workers and management. JERRY RUDDEN: It didn't appear that any of them
had any obvious enemies. Nothing jumped out and said, here I am. NARRATOR: The bomb had been placed directly
under the driver's seat, which indicated that the truck's owner, Nathan Allen, was the intended victim.
Police asked Allen's family if anyone in Nathan's personal life may have wanted to harm him.
Nathan's estranged wife was in a psychiatric hospital hundreds of miles away when the bombing occurred
and was not considered a suspect. NATHAN ALLEN JR.: My parents were separated and divorced.
And we all wanted to live with our father, so we did, because my mom was always kind of sick
and if she didn't take her medicine, she wasn't doing real well. NARRATOR: Nathan's aunt, Sandra Sue McFillin,
took care of Nathan's children while he was at work. She and her husband Pete insisted
he had no known enemies. JERRY RUDDEN: Inspector Clouseau had a saying, we suspect everyone, we suspect no one.
Basically, you need to come in-- into an investigation like this with no predisposition.
If you come in with a predisposition, you have a tendency to follow avenues that-- that may not be the right avenues.
NARRATOR: Investigators knew that someone had armed the bomb while Nathan's car was parked at work.
Unfortunately, the parking lot was open to anyone, not just employees, and there was no video surveillance.
With no suspects and no apparent motive, investigators hoped debris at the bomb site
would help identify the killer. DANIEL P. BOEH: One way of solving a bombing, and I believe it's the best way, is trace the evidence.
Find something that's unique and trace it back to the actual bomb scene or trace it back to the suspect.
NARRATOR: There were thousands of pieces of potential evidence in the bomb debris.
Foam padding and other materials from the truck needed to be separated from potential evidence,
and for that investigators used a black light. RONALD PEIMER: There was material that was standing out
pretty strongly, and I was able to recover them. They, they, they clearly were not
pieces of fabric or other material. NARRATOR: Peimer saw thousands of granules, each
the size of a grain of sand, that looked as if they were made of plastic. Under a microscope, each one had six layers, each layer
a different color, white, blue, white, purple, yellow, and red. -[laughs]. I was absolutely stunned.
When I found them, I didn't believe it at first. I went away. I got some coffee.
I came back, and I looked at them again. NARRATOR: And then, he remembered. RONALD PEIMER: Once I looked at them,
there was nothing else it could possibly be. NARRATOR: It was a discovery that would make scientific history.
Investigators found thousands of multi-colored plastic fragments, each the size of a grain of sand,
in the bomb debris that killed Nathan Allen. At first they were baffled. But then, they remembered.
These fragments were taggants. They were put into explosives as an experiment by the ATF
as an aid to investigators. RAYMOND J. KOZLOWSKI JR.: It was a microscopic chip that they place inside of a-- the explosives themselves.
They're microscopic, but they are color-coded. NARRATOR: At the time, only 1% of all explosives had them.
RONALD PEIMER: In addition to having the colors, the chips also had a fluorescent layer
on one side and a magnetic layer on the other. NARRATOR: Peimer called the ATF, gave them the color sequence.
And he was given the corresponding date/shift code. -It's like finding the explosives unexploded
and finding the date/shift code on the explosive and being able to trace them out.
And once you can do that, you go through the records and see who bought it, or who stored it, or who stole it,
or whatever it happens to be. NARRATOR: The order of the colors indicated the code was 8DEO2A146.
These meant that the explosives were made by the DuPont Company and were a brand called Tovex 220.
The code number also identified the plant, the date, the time it was manufactured, and the lot number.
In other words, investigators could trace the explosive from the plant to the store which sold it.
This lot of explosives was sent to a dealer in West Virginia, which sold them out of his garage.
The dealer provided a list of every customer who had purchased Tovex 220 explosives from this lot.
RONALD PEIMER: Back then, essentially what you needed was a driver's license or some form of identification
to fill-- to be able to fill out the ATF explosive form. Today, it's a lot different.
NARRATOR: There were 15 people on the list, and investigators recognized one of them.
It was Pete McFillin, Nathan Allen's uncle, whose wife babysat for Nathan's children.
JERRY RUDDEN: The taggants were the first really big break with the date/shift code.
Subsequently, seeing the McFillin name attached to the purchase of-- to the purchase of the explosives
was absolutely significant. It was jubilation. It was like scoring a touchdown and spiking
the ball in the end zone. NARRATOR: Family members couldn't believe it. NATHAN ALLEN JR.: My dad and my Uncle Pete,
they grew up together, and they were close their whole lives. They were more like brothers, probably, than anything.
-Sometimes he called himself "Pete, the bad man." So he wanted to be a tough guy.
I don't know how tough he was. NARRATOR: When questioned, McFillin said he'd bought the explosives to remove some tree
stumps on a piece of land he owned. And he said he still had them in his garage.
JERRY RUDDEN: Pete McFillin said, I found my explosives. I have them right here.
We went. Interestingly enough, the Tovex that he had was Tovex 210, an entirely different product.
NARRATOR: Pete McFillin wasn't able to produce the Tovex 220, which he'd purchased in West Virginia.
And investigators discovered McFillin was an automobile mechanic, who regularly serviced Nathan's truck.
JIM MCFILLIN JR.: My father was a real good mechanic. He could fix about anything.
And I was told about a week before the explosion happened that Nathan was having a problem with his brake lights,
and he'd asked my father to fix them. And my father rewired the brake lights, or whatever he did to the vehicle.
NARRATOR: In a toolbox in McFillin's car, investigators found some blue and yellow wires.
Forensic analysts used infrared spectrography to analyze the chemical components of the wires.
RONALD PEIMER: A beam of infrared light is passed through the material. The material that you're testing either
absorbs or reflects the light. And as it absorbs or reflects the light, the graph goes up and down, and this produces a tracing.
NARRATOR: The results indicated that the plastic used to make the wires found in Pete McFillin's toolbox
was identical to the plastic in the wires found at the bomb scene. RONALD PEIMER: Another piece of evidence
that was found during the search warrant was a notebook, which contained the information that showed
the shifts and the times that the victim worked. This information was examined forensically,
and an association was made between the handwriting in the notebook and the handwriting of the suspect.
NARRATOR: Pete McFillin was arrested and charged with his nephew's murder. All investigators needed now was the motive.
Investigators, family, and friends all wanted to know why Pete McFillin would murder his nephew Nathan Allen.
Family members provided a possible explanation. They said that Nathan Allen and Pete McFillin's wife, Sandra
Sue, used to date when they were teenagers. -I imagine, in around 1955, Nathan and Sue
kind of hit it off, and they were boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't think there was any reason for my father
to be jealous, but it was probably always that in the back of his mind that there-- something could happen.
NARRATOR: 25 years later, Nathan was a single father, and Sandra Sue babysat his children when he was at work.
JERRY RUDDEN: Pete McFillin felt that Sandra Sue was spending entirely too much time with the Allens,
and particularly with Nathan Allen. And he felt that she was not spending enough time with him
and not fulfilling her responsibilities as a wife to him, and felt that Nathan Allen was
the person responsible for this. -My father would just say, Pete, come on now, you know better.
But that would be the end of that, and they would just leave, you know, well enough alone
and go on. -He had a potential to do something drastic, and I-- I would think, from his previous experiences
with my mother, he was-- I think he was pretty jealous of my mother. And I know he was-- he had threatened her a lot of times,
threatened to kill her. JAMES L. MCFILLIN III: Everybody knew that she did not have this affair with him.
The only person that knew that there was one was my father, Pete McFillin. He had an affair in his own mind because he was crazy.
He was just a son of a bitch. That's all there was to it. He was a crazy son of a bitch.
There was never an affair. NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe jealousy got the best of Pete
McFillin, who set out to kill his nephew Nathan Allen, and he had the skills to do it.
When Nathan asked his uncle to fix the lights in his truck, Pete seized the opportunity.
He made a bomb using the explosives he'd purchased in West Virginia and attached it
to the underside of Nathan's truck directly beneath the driver's seat. He mistakenly left some of the excess wiring
in his tool chest. [music playing] On the day of the murder, Pete drove into the Bethlehem Steel
parking lot and wired the bomb to the truck's secondary lighting system. [music playing]
McFillin knew Nathan's schedule, which was found in his garage, but he had no way of knowing that Nathan had offered
his friend, Robert Riffey, a ride home that night. [music playing] [explosion] Most of the evidence went up in smoke,
except for the microscopic taggants put into the explosives, which tied Pete McFillin directly to its purchase.
Pete McFillin was tried and convicted of murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
JUDGE LYNNE A. BATTAGLIA: Even though we could prove that Pete McFillin might have a motive to kill Nate Allen because
of his jealousy, motive doesn't take you to guilt. The only thing, I believe, that took us to guilt in this case
was the forensic evidence. -Especially the taggants was-- made the investigation a lot easier, .
I don't think we could have solved it, and-- and I don't believe we would have got a conviction
without the taggant evidence that we had. -In a lot of instances in explosive cases,
you can say to yourself, I know that he's the bomber. But you cannot put the-- you cannot
put him forensically with the bomb. The taggants allowed us to forensically attach the suspect to the bomb.
NARRATOR: Pete McFillin was the only person in the United States to be convicted with taggant evidence.
The ATF abandoned its taggant program in 1979 because of the costs involved as well as political concerns.
RONALD PEIMER: The explosive taggant program should have continued. It provides a lot of information for investigators.
It acts as a deterrent to bombers. There are a lot of reasons to-- to tag, and the number one reason is just solve cases.
NARRATOR: Today, Switzerland is the only country with a mandatory taggant program.
[theme music]

Bombings are difficult to solve, because the perpetrator isn't usually at the scene, and the evidence goes up in smoke. In this case pieces of plastic the size of grains of sand hold the key to a man's murder.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Nathan Allen was murdered by a bomb in 1979; his uncle was convicted using forensic evidence from taggants in explosives.

Key points

The Tragic Explosion. Nathan Allen's life was cut short by a devastating explosion in his truck.
The Key Evidence. Investigators found unique taggants in the bomb debris that led to a breakthrough.
Family Betrayal. The investigation revealed a shocking connection between Nathan and his uncle Pete.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He lived for a period of time in what the doctors called excruciating pain.

Describing Nathan Allen's suffering after the explosion.

2:14WatchJan 14, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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