Forensic Files - Season 3, Episode 5 - Deadly Delivery - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[music playing] Back in here. NARRATOR: In December of 1989, Federal Court Judge Robert
Vance and his wife were preparing for the busy Christmas holiday. Who sent the box?
I don't know. Doesn't say. NARRATOR: It was a delivery he never expected. [explosion]
[music playing] Robert and Helen Vance lived with their family in an affluent suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.
For more than a decade, Robert Vance had been a federal court judge for the 11th District,
presiding over cases from Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. MARK WINNE: He was very bright.
Not only the book smart kind of bright, but he had just amazing common sense, street smarts.
NARRATOR: Judge Vance undoubtedly had his share of enemies, but had never received any threats,
which explains why he wasn't suspicious of the package mailed to him a few days before Christmas.
[explosion] The package contained a pipe bomb with nails wrapped around the pipe which acted like shrapnel.
The blast killed Judge Vance instantly. His body was thrown clear across the kitchen.
Miraculously, Helen Vance survived the explosion and she was able to get to a neighbor's home for help.
ROBERT VANCE: Mom suffered some severe injuries from the explosion. She had several cuts in the flesh from the nails that had--
the bomb had been bound with. And she had had several internal injuries from nails actually
penetrating the body, including one that had done some damage to her liver. NARRATOR: US Marshals warned all members
of the judiciary to be on the alert for any suspicious mail packages. Two days later, a security guard at the 11th Circuit Court
in Atlanta noticed something unusual in a routine x-ray of packages entering the building.
Inside the package was an 8-inch tube attached to a pair of flashlight batteries, the telltale sign
of a pipe bomb. Investigators did not want to detonate the bomb. They wanted it dismantled in order
to study its construction. When they did, experts determined that this bomb was identical to the one
that killed Judge Robert Vance. The bombs told us we were dealing with a very angry guy because of the nature
of their construction. And the nature of that construction also told us that we were dealing with a very purposeful
individual, someone who had not just idly gotten mad and done this, but someone who really did a good deal of work
in putting this together. NARRATOR: The bomb had two unique characteristics which investigators had never seen before.
The bomb and the inside of the box had been covered with black enamel paint. It had square end caps, which were bolted and welded
onto the ends, which delayed the explosion and increased its force. Unfortunately, scientists could find no trace evidence
inside the bomb package, no hair, fibers, or fingerprints. The bomb was similar to a tear gas bomb which exploded
four months earlier in the Atlanta office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.
Along with that bomb was a letter, a declaration of war against the 11th Circuit Court.
ACTOR AS BOMBER: The attacks will continue until widespread terror forces the court
to adopt the impartial and equitable treatment of all as its highest priority. NARRATOR: No one knew why a threat against the 11th Circuit
Court had been sent to the NAACP, which was involved in civil rights issues. Investigators suspected that the tear gas bomb was mailed
as a test to see if it could be sent through the mail without exploding. When that test was successful, the bomber
started on his path of murder. Two days after the bomb explosion, which killed Judge Robert Vance, Robert Robinson, a civil rights
attorney, went to work as usual at his office in Savannah, Georgia. Waiting for him on his desk was a package that had been
sent to him through the mail. When he opened it, it exploded. His friend Dr. Brown, was across the street
and rushed to his aid. I'm just holding him at this point, looking around the room, surveying,
of course, the damage and seeing the wounds that he had suffered. Throughout that process, you see,
having my arm under his armpit, could feel, actually, his pulse as it waned. NARRATOR: Three hours later, Robert Robinson died.
The bomb was set to detonate when the string wrapped around the outside of the package
was pulled. The string was attached to a battery-powered charge, triggering the explosion.
All of the bombs were identical, and the bomber was meticulous in every detail of their construction.
Once the bombs were completed, the bomber sprayed black paint over the inside of the box, which
covered up possible evidence, such as fingerprints or fibers. And the bomber was careful not to leave any genetic material,
such as hair or saliva, on the mailing labels or on the backs of the stamps. MARK WINNE: These were very meticulously built bombs.
So meticulous that some of the finest forensic machinery in the world failed to find one speck of DNA, one fingerprint,
so much as a trace of powder under a fingernail. NARRATOR: On the same day that Robert Robinson was murdered,
Willye Dennis received an identical package in the mail. At the time, Willye Dennis was president of the NAACP office
in Jacksonville, Florida. But Miss Dennis was late for a meeting, so she left her office before opening the package.
That night, at home, she received a phone call from a friend. WILLYE DENNIS: She says, [inaudible],,
I don't know whether you heard the news, but Bobby Robinson in Savannah, Georgia, has received a bomb,
and and he was killed instantly. He said, and if you receive any funny packages,
funny looking packages, make sure that you notify the sheriff's office. NARRATOR: Which is what she did.
Inside was a pipe bomb. I saw a common hand, which was the bomber's signature, on all four bombs that led me to conclude that
not only the same person or persons, but the same person constructed these four bombs to the exclusion of anybody else.
NARRATOR: There were four letters inside the package. One took responsibility for the murders of Judge
Vance and Robert Robinson. Another made reference to the tear gas bomb sent a few months
earlier to the NAACP. ACTOR AS BOMBER: To the officer who opened our smoke bomb,
the officers of the NAACP have become targets for assassination. NARRATOR: The letters and mailing labels had all
been typed with the same typewriter, which had a signature flaw. The number one on the keypad did not match
the typeface of the other keys. It was a replacement. There was a broken key which was replaced
with a different type key. So that was fairly unique. I mean, the odds of finding another one
with that same letter replaced with another typewriter was-- was a fairly unique characteristic.
NARRATOR: The FBI searched the files of the 11th Circuit Court looking for any documents which might have been
typed with the same typewriter. More than one million documents were examined. The FBI found one letter typed with the same typewriter.
It had the same flaw, the number one was a different typeface. The letter dealt with an obscure life insurance case from 1987.
And the sender was alive and well in the small town of Enterprise, Alabama. The investigation into these bombings
became the largest and most exhaustive in the history of federal law enforcement.
Investigators used every method at their disposal to find the typewriter used to type the letters and mailing
labels on the bomb packages. Their investigation revealed that the same typewriter had
been used by a man in Enterprise, Alabama, Robert Wayne O'Ferrell, to type a letter
about an insurance dispute. My sense of the typewriter match that led them to Enterprise was that this was believed by agents to be almost
tantamount to a fingerprint. I mean, a solid forensic link. NARRATOR: O'Ferrell was a junk dealer,
and investigators searched every inch of his home, garage, and warehouse. They even excavated his septic system.
But they couldn't find the typewriter. O'Ferrell recalled typing the insurance letter,
but couldn't remember what happened to the typewriter. His daughter had a vague recollection of selling it
to a young woman about a year earlier, but could provide no description of the buyer,
and she had no receipt of sale. With the typewriter now a dead end, investigators were left with the bombs
as their main source of evidence. Pictures of the bombs were distributed to bomb
experts throughout the country. No one had ever seen a bomb constructed quite like this before.
I got a call from a very good friend of mine, Lloyd Erwin, was a chemist analyst of ATF's up in Atlanta.
And Lloyd called and asked, what did I have? And I said something to the effect, the damnedest pipe
bomb I've ever seen. It's got a threaded rod that ran right through the middle of it.
And I went on to say something to the effect that I'd never seen or heard of such a design
feature in a pipe bomb before. And his response was, well, I have. I said, oh, tell me about it.
NARRATOR: Lloyd Erwin recalled a similar bomb many years earlier, one with a rod through the center
and the same distinctive square end caps. There's only one that we'd ever had like that.
We have lots of pipe bombs and different kinds, even remote controlled, but when you have one
that's the only one you've ever seen like it, I mean, and it sticks. NARRATOR: Erwin searched through the thousands of cases
in his file all the way back to 1972 and learned that the bomb he recalled had accidentally maimed a woman who came across
it unexpectedly in her home. Authorities suspected that the bomb had been constructed by her husband, Walter Leroy Moody.
Although he denied it, Moody was convicted of constructive possession of that bomb
and sentenced to six years in the state penitentiary. Walter Leroy Moody was furious about that conviction,
and after he was released from prison, spent the next 10 years trying to have his conviction
overturned. Mark Winne described Moody's legal battles in his book, "Priority Mail."
I think those who have come to know Moody in various spheres would say that Moody could be charming, he could be,
in some respects, enormously bright. I think one psychologist called him a genius.
But on the other hand, he could become blinded by obsession. NARRATOR: That obsession may have included the case of Julie
Love, a young White woman who was murdered and raped by a group of Black defendants in one
of the most highly publicized cases in Atlanta history, a case tried at the 11th Circuit Court.
This was the case mentioned in one of the bomber's letters. ACTOR AS BOMBER: Any time a Black man rapes
a White woman in Alabama, Florida, or Georgia in a future, Americans for a competent federal judicial
system shall assassinate one federal judge, one attorney, and one officer of the NAACP.
It's not happenchance that he's mad with the 11th Court of Appeals where he sent a bomb.
And the 11th Court of Appeals is made up of the states of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.
So all three of those states got a bomb. NARRATOR: But if Walter Leroy Moody was the bomber,
authorities couldn't prove it. They had no forensic evidence linking him to any of the bombings.
[music playing] After interviewing more than 6,000 people, poring over a million documents, and examining the case files
of every bombing in the United States, federal authorities were convinced that Walter Leroy
Moody was the serial bomber. Federal agents searched the home Moody shared with his second wife, Susan.
The search was so complete that even the floorboards were removed and the entire residence vacuumed for gunpowder
and other trace evidence. But authorities could not find one single piece of evidence
in their search. I'm not concerned about anybody finding any connections regarding those
or any other bombings ever. NARRATOR: Although investigators found nothing inside Moody's home, it was what they
didn't find that was revealing. The first search of the house appeared in the house
have been sterilized, meaning that normal things that would be found in a house that could be used to fabricate a bomb
device, wire, nails, pliers, even pieces of pipe, things that you probably have around your house,
they were totally lacking, absent in this house. NARRATOR: But the pressure of a federal investigation
was too great for Susan Moody. She was 20 years younger than her husband and told authorities that Moody was emotionally
and physically abusive. When she was questioned separately without her husband, she provided some interesting information.
Just do it the same way as always. NARRATOR: Susan Moody said that her husband often
took her shopping at stores throughout the southeastern part of the United States.
He told her to buy steel pipe, acrylic tubing, raincoats, rubber gloves, shower caps, and safety glasses.
She was also told to buy black enamel paint. [music playing] CLERK: Hi, how you doing?
Fine. NARRATOR: And she said to her husband once shoplifted some nails from a store in Georgia,
nails similar to those which were used in the pipe bombs. Investigators believe that Moody used the cap, gloves,
and safety glasses to dress himself like a surgeon while making the bombs so that he
wouldn't leave genetic material in the package. Moody sprayed the inside of the package with black enamel
paint to mask any fingerprints, hairs, or fibers that may have been left inadvertently.
Prosecutors believe that moody removed all of the materials he used to make the bombs
before his home was searched. Susan Moody also confirmed that she had purchased a used typewriter for her husband, which
had later been thrown away. There was one more piece of evidence that investigators had almost given up on,
the fingerprint found on one of the bomber's letters. Susan Moody told the FBI that she had copied
the letters for her husband in a small shop in Florence, Kentucky. Excuse me? I think the copier is out of paper.
NARRATOR: When the copy machine ran out of paper, one of the employees put more in.
When he did, his fingers touched the top piece of paper. CLERK: You're all set. NARRATOR: The employee's fingerprint
matched the one found on the threatening letter, which confirmed Susan Moody's story.
It was the link investigators needed to tie Moody to the bombs. And that's where they bought the boxes
that contained the bombs, and it's where they did some Xeroxing. And to prove that they did the Xeroxing,
the fingerprint was there. The fingerprint did not change. The pattern on the Xerox machine changes over a period of time,
so forensically, that fingerprint, to the exclusion of everything else in the whole world, put them at the place
that she said they were where they bought the boxes. If you look at Susan Moody's testimony by itself,
there could have been the potential for the defense to say, this is the ex-wife who has a motive
to want to stay out of jail. But key is that much of what Susan Moody testified to
could be corroborated by forensic science. NARRATOR: Susan Moody was granted immunity
and testified for the prosecution. Walter Leroy Moody was found guilty of the murders of Judge
Robert Vance and Robert Robinson and was sentenced to death by electrocution. I think if we had not identified Moody
as a potential suspect very quickly, I think there would have been more bombs. I don't think he was through.
I really don't think he was through. I don't think he would have ever been through
as long as he was out there. The evidence suggests that the bomber's obsession with making
his devices just that much deadlier, that much more vicious and destructive is ultimately what
became Roy Moody's undoing. Some people would call that irony. I think some people would call it justice.
[music playing]

In this classic episode of Forensic Files, the longest running true crime series in television history, a serial bomber was waging a vendetta against the legal profession: A judge, two attorneys and even a courthouse had been targeted. Employing a range of forensic techniques, investigators used evidence from the bombs to lead them to the perpetrator.

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.

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

The episode details the 1989 bombings that killed Judge Vance and Robert Robinson, leading to Walter Leroy Moody's conviction.

Key points

The Unexpected Delivery. A package arrives for Judge Vance, leading to a deadly explosion.
The Aftermath of the Blast. Judge Vance is killed instantly by a pipe bomb, while his wife survives.
The Investigation Begins. Investigators discover a second bomb identical to the one that killed Judge Vance.
The Forensic Breakthrough. A fingerprint found on a letter links the bomber to the crime.
Justice Served. Walter Leroy Moody is found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Who sent the box?

0:19WatchJun 24, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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