How Forensics Caught Walter Moody and Dean Hicks | The New Detectives | S3 E10

Two serial bombers are unmasked by forensics. From Judge Robert Vance's mail bomb to a failed IRS truck attack, see how signatures lead to arrests. In December 1989, a package bomb killed Federal Judge Robert Vance in Birmingham, Alabama, and attorney Robbie Robinson in Savannah. A third device was found at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, and a fourth sent to Jacksonville NAACP President Willie Dennis was safely disabled. Investigators cataloged shrapnel, square end plates and nails, matched components across scenes, and studied x-rays and packaging. ATF chemist Lloyd Irwin recognized a rare bomb design from 1972 and pointed agents to Walter Moody. Purchases of Red Dot powder and thousands of primers in Griffin, Georgia, plus a pipe prototype from a Shambly storage space and testimony from Moody's wife, Susan, cemented the case. Motivated by a grudge against the courts that denied his appeal and bar eligibility, Moody was convicted and ultimately received the death penalty after initial life terms. In West Los Angeles, February 1990, firefighters discovered a pickup loaded with five 55-gallon drums of ANFO and improvised mortars aimed at an IRS office. The timer's digital watch wasn’t set correctly, averting catastrophe. That device echoed earlier attacks: a 1988 IRS garage car bomb using a water heater packed with ANFO, toxic-fume booby traps, and power-pole charges in LA and Laguna Niguel. Letters from “UP the IRS Inc.” claimed credit. Component signatures tied the bombs to specialized electronics, steering the task force toward Ford Aerospace. A truck VIN led to sellers who described a buyer using the name James T. Harmon; a composite sketch was made. After a 1991 Fresno IRS mortar attack, a distinctive red-painted, defective heat sink linked straight back to a specific lab area at Ford Aerospace. Handwriting on alias purchases and on wadded newspaper math matched engineer Dean Harvey Hicks. He confessed in detail; searches found bombs in progress, ammonium nitrate, and false ID. Acting alone, Hicks received 20 years and was ordered to pay over $335,000 to the IRS. This episode of The New Detectives reveals how tiny manufacturing marks, component databases, x-rays, and expert memory expose a bomber’s signature and stop the next blast. #TheNewDetectives #Forensics #TrueCrime #BombSquad #WalterMoody #DeanHicks #ATF