No Shrapnel At Hinrichs’ Explosion Site
Allen October 6th, 2005
I stopped by the site of the Hinrichs’ explosion site. As noted in an earlier post:
Tapscott’s Copy Desk has also learned that a tree near where Hinrichs’
bomb detonated displays a number of small round holes and some areas of
a metallic substance. The holes and substance are only on the side
facing the bench on which Hinrichs was seated when the bomb detonated.
The holes appear to be about the size of the head of 16 penny nail.
Now understand that I am not any sort of forensic geek, but rather a computer geek. I was not able to detect any evidence of shrapnel in the area.
Enclosed are some photos that I took of the structures near the bench where Hinrichs last sat. Click on the photos to see the full-sized version of the photos.
Overview of the tree nearest the bench. I was not able to find any sort of shrapnel damage to the tree.
Closeup of the tree showing a hole, but it appears to me to be a hole created by an insect. There is only two or three of these holes on the tree, some even on the opposite side of the blast.
Closeup of a lamp post near the bench. No indications of metal-on-metal markings or "pings" on the lamp post. There are some flakes of paint that are peeling off, but they seem old to me. (Gurk: The auto-focus thought I was going for the sidewalk rather than the pole).
Closeup of the monkey grass on a wall behind the bench. No indications of markings on the wall nor any sign of metal in the monkey grass.
So again, in conclusion, I (as definitely a non-forensic-science-type-guy) was not able to see any evidence of shrapnel or anything that would make the bomb explosive device more lethal.
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- Comments(8)
Excellent work. I proposed that someone do exactly what you did in some comments at Tapscott’s Copy Desk. This is pretty good evidence that there were no bearings or nails attached to the bombs (unless it was packed with very few). Although there are still a lot of unanswered questions and coincidences, I am leaning a bit more to the suicide scenario pushed by the FBI.
There ARE Holes in the Hinrichs Tree at OU
After reading Acorns’ post, closely examining the photos of the tree on his site and talking with my researchers in Norman, I stand by my previous post. There are indeed numerous holes in the tree, just as Tapscott’s Copy Desk described them, and the…
No Schrapnel at the Hinrichs’ Explosion Site?
We passed along the information last week that it was suspected that some metallic objects had been in the explosive device that Joel Hinrichs used to kill himsef a week ago Saturday outside the University of Oklahoma stadium while 84,000+ were inside …
BTW, I believe this is a fairly important item, as one would imagine that a HOMICIDE bomber would defiantly make the effort to wrap shrapnel around the explosive to make it more lethal…whereas a SUICIDE bomber wouldn’t.
Thanks for the legwork.
If you have a little extra time, a screwdriver and a little elbow grease might prove or disprove the theory. If someone happens to dislodge a piece of twisted metal from one of the three holes visible in the top photo…
I have also looked at the area where the explosion took place. I did not have a camera with me. I did see about three areas on the tree that looked like a small piece of the bark might have been knocked off. It did not look like the bark on the tree had been shredded by metal. There were about 10 matches on the ground directly under the tree. I wondered if they could have been blown there by the force of the explosion. There were no matches by the new bench. Actually, the area was cleaned up so well you would never have guessed an explosion had occured at that site.
Hi Susan,
I also noticed the matches, but found them only in the area of the tree. Given that the sulphur in the match-heads would probably burn up in any sort of explosion, I figured they were left there after the explosion. Plus I would imagine the FBI/OUPD/Norman PD would have gathered them up as evidence if they had been there originally.
And directorblue, I really don’t want OUPD coming down on me because I am sticking a screwdriver into a tree and digging around. I’m satisfied that there is no shrapnel and don’t feel the need. Perhaps I can locate another tree of the same species and see if there are holes in it as well. If so, that leads more credence to my supposition that it is merely insect damage.
As a note, there was one other person in the area (originally across the street) taking pictures with her camera phone. After I was apparently bold enough to take the photos, she started getting closer and taking pictures as well.
This is you idea of a closeup?