Why A Car Bomb?

[00:00:00] Okay, so we're back to September 30, 1976. Have we ever left that day? Will we ever leave that day? [00:00:09] And the question of that day, fact of the week, of that month was why a car bomb. [00:00:18] We know from crime statistics that when it comes to the murder of a woman, we can expect several things. [00:00:27] First, if you're living in the usa, your killer is most likely a husband, an ex husband or an intimate acquaintance is what they call it at the U.S. department of Justice a quaint term. [00:00:45] The word intimate of course, is a stand in for, you know. [00:00:49] And in fact, female murder victims are almost six times more likely to than male murder victims to have been killed by an intimate partner. [00:01:02] And one of the reasons that's given for this, the male partners and I quote, inability to accept what they perceived to be a rejection of them or their role of dominance over their eventual victim. A walkout or threat of a separation was especially provoking, representing, and I quote, again, intolerable desertion, rejection or abandonment. [00:01:34] That's a mouthful, but you got it. [00:01:39] He's a jerk. [00:01:41] All of which, all of which, by the way, points to an emotional, perhaps long building and act of revenge, of domination, of control. [00:01:54] See, I told you. [00:01:56] Unsurprisingly, we also find that most often there's a gun involved. We're talking the U.S. [00:02:02] handgun, pistol, rifle, in second place, a knife. And then after that, hands and fists. [00:02:12] All of which, by the way, points to an emotional, perhaps long building act of revenge, of domination, of control or the lack thereof. [00:02:24] But car bombs, those take planning and skill. It's something methodical, which perhaps at least partially explains why the US Department of Justice statistics through the early 2000s show no car bombs at all. None. [00:02:47] Doesn't mean they didn't happen. It's just not often enough to be anything more than unknown. [00:02:55] When we think of car bombs, we might think politics of the Irish Republican army of the Middle east, starting with the Lebanese civil war, then Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Iraqi insurgents. [00:03:12] There's also in this category, organized crime. [00:03:17] By 1974, in fact, Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland, Ohio had become the leading site for car bombings in the US the main cause, a gang war between Italian crime families and a group of Irish American gangsters. [00:03:37] And here's the key revelation. [00:03:41] Car bombs are a preferred method of assassination because the evidence is often destroyed in the explosion. [00:03:50] Police have no leads, and death, it's a sure thing. It's almost usually instantaneous. [00:04:03] Sa. [00:04:31] Now let's get back to that day in September and the Muriel bombing. Ambulance emergency personnel, they they reached the scene within two minutes. So fast. [00:04:47] Already too late to save Muriel. [00:04:51] But that wasn't the only problem. Because of the bomb. Wait. Let's start over. [00:04:57] Let's get back to that day in September and the Muriel bombing. Ambulance and emergency personnel reached the scene within two minutes. It was already too late to save her. [00:05:11] And that wasn't the only problem. Because of the bomb. There had been an engine fire. And local construction crews came by and dumped dirt to put it out, contaminating the evidence. [00:05:26] Then the fire department sprayed down the gas tank to prevent it from exploding. More contamination. [00:05:34] They did find a couple of important pieces of evidence, though, Particularly a wire. [00:05:41] Two wires, in fact, in the engine compartment. [00:05:45] Two wires that didn't seem to belong there. [00:05:51] Okay, what else do we know? [00:05:54] Well, pretty soon, police were investigating another car bombing. This one and an abandoned small station wagon. And Fairbanks, 385 miles to the north. [00:06:08] They couldn't ignore it. In fact, an acreage. Police immediately started to check the flight lugs. Were everyone going between Anchorage and Fairbanks. Maybe someone was practicing for the Mural file bombing. Maybe somebody they'd recognize. [00:06:25] And that wasn't the only speculation. [00:06:29] Other evidence also seemed to point elsewhere. One investigator said he believed her key was found on the floor mat, not in the ignition. Okay, it was an explosion, right? Things move and there's a bomb. [00:06:44] Which in turn led them to speculate that a timed device was set to explode at a pre arranged time, which in turn. [00:06:54] Yeah, you got it. The killer was banking on her getting out of the car and being in her office. [00:07:01] In other words, the bomb was allegedly a scare tactic meant to frighten her. [00:07:07] Didn't really mean to kill her. Which actually really. [00:07:13] Okay. [00:07:16] Which in fact, takes us to another story which first emerged out of Seattle. That the origin of the car bombing was. You got it. Organized crime. Because organized crime figures wanted her travel agency. And she wouldn't sell. So they. They wanted to scare her into selling. The Anchorage cops dismissed that one. But there's this. [00:07:43] Mural's agency was the most successful in the state. [00:07:49] And having a successful travel agency, in fact brings certain advantages to organized crime. [00:08:01] One, it was a way for them to funnel gamblers to their casinos. [00:08:07] Reduce fare. Come on a junket, come to Vegas, come to Vegas. Second, equally important, maybe even more important, Having a local connection made it easier to collect on bad gambling debts from said junket goers. They had somebody, essentially, locally and the town. Knock, knock, you owe money. Knock, knock, you owe money. [00:08:33] Which takes us back to the notion that Muriel was indeed the Target of the blast. [00:08:42] And not just that, but you know, whoever did this was taking careful steps to ensure that Scotty was not in the car. Which meant or implied someone must have known Mural's schedule. [00:08:55] Must have known when Scotty would be with her and when he would be elsewhere. [00:09:01] Which of course whispers the name Neil McKay, his father. [00:09:09] Because cuz Scotty was not in the car. Scotty was not killed. Scotty was never in danger. [00:09:19] We know Scotty was actually far from the scene. [00:09:24] And even with Neil McKay in the picture. [00:09:30] Fact. Especially if you put Neil McKay in the picture, you have to question, have to ask how he pulled it off. [00:10:10] Remember, planting a car bomb is a good complex act. It's not like here. Hey, I've got a gun, honey, I'm going to shoot you. It's not that. Right, but the cops went there and then they went even further. [00:10:26] They were speculating that it could have been a remote controlled device. [00:10:32] See where I'm going? [00:10:34] That would explain how you could have the car sit there for a couple of hours and her driving it around and no bomb. No bomb. Scotty's safe. And then boom, Scotty's gone and she's there by herself. [00:10:49] Time to hit it. [00:10:52] Okay, and we mentioned that, we've talked about that. [00:10:57] And investigators knew that could happen. That there was some pretty sophisticated equipment around in those days. [00:11:09] Except what about the bit that Neo McKay did not seem to know where Scotty was, much less that he was safe. [00:11:18] Was that all for show? [00:11:22] Well, you got that right. Maybe. Sure, why not? [00:11:28] So the cops started searching nearby office buildings in an attempt to locate the transmitter which could have been used to trigger the blast. Seriously? A team was seen searching closets in one of the buildings nearby. [00:11:46] Less than a block away. [00:11:48] So close. [00:11:50] Really close by. [00:11:51] That's where they're looking. Line of sight, trying to see if those offices, and this is a key, see if those offices provided a view, mural files, car and her office. Because one thing we know about those transmitters, they don't go through buildings. Remember Doug Pope's office? Yeah. There is a view of her car from there. [00:12:17] Now this takes us, of course, back to boat. [00:12:24] And the police could not and did not ignore the fact that mural File and Neil McKay had many, many, many court battles. Several years worth. In fact, there was a recent one concerning visitation rights which Neil not only lost, but lost badly. [00:12:46] Remember that bit about intolerable desertion, rejection or abandonment? [00:12:53] Or said in other ways, honey, I'm pissed. [00:13:00] Then there was also the question of money. [00:13:04] Money always comes up Here it is. Bureau received a cash settlement of more than $750,000. Not payable all at once. Payable in installments over 10 years. [00:13:21] And remember, it doesn't seem like that much money, but this is 1976 money. We're talking millions if you move it to the present day. [00:13:33] And of course, the monthly child support payments, $500, which again, seems kind of weak maybe, but again, put it in present day, honey, and remember this the most important part. [00:13:48] Mikaya's friends and acquaintances were all very firm about one thing. [00:13:56] The man loved his money. [00:14:00] Could call him kind of a miser, hoarding it. Don't take my money. Don't take. Don't take my money. [00:14:11] But if there was a problem with this homicide investigation, it was the inconvenient matter of reality. [00:14:25] And that reality check hit the cops less than a week after the murder. [00:14:32] This is when the man who headed up the investigation, Police Lt. Ralph Christensen of the Anchorage Police Department, admitted that the investigation is settling into a long, drawn out affair. [00:14:50] Part of this was because, of course, samples of the wrecked Volvo had to be sent to the FBI lab in Washington D.C. and that takes time, you just to get there. And you're not the first case. There's already other cases in front of you, waiting in the queue. You are going to the back of that queue. I mean, on the day you arrive, you're in the queue, but it's not even. It starts as soon as you send them. [00:15:20] There was something else. Christensen was at the point where he was ruling out the Fairbanks bombing, quote, because the only real similarities are that both vehicles were station watches that were both bombed of the Fairbanks incident. He said no one was injured and the bomb was under the driver's seat, not in the engine compartment. [00:15:47] This goes to the notion that if you're a bomber, given the complexity of. Of it, you're going to have a tendency to do it the same way every time. [00:16:04] We are creatures of. Of habit. And in something where the bomb could kill you instead of your target. [00:16:15] Yeah, makes sense to kind of do it the same way. [00:16:22] And this takes us to another piece of the investigation, and that's the coroner's inquest. [00:17:06] What came out of that inquest just a few days after her death was that. [00:17:12] Well, several details. [00:17:17] For instance, she actually was more likely to park behind her travel agency. She had a space there, but for about two weeks there was some construction going on, so she had to park in that parking lot across the street. [00:17:36] She was using a space, in fact, that belonged to one of her employees. [00:17:43] So this starts to take us in the direction of mistaken identity. [00:17:50] We'll find out who was on that menu. But one person was a young journalist who was investigating some hanky panky amongst the Teamsters union in Fairbanks. [00:18:10] Fact, she had an interview with someone who's going to fill her in on some of the crimes that were taking place there. Some of the untoward stuff. [00:18:27] Guy didn't show up. [00:18:29] Hey, wait. What? Long enough. He did. [00:18:32] In a snowbank. [00:18:34] Dead. [00:18:35] Murdered. [00:18:36] No. So that. Okay, but here's the. Here's the. The key thing. She had a Volvo. She had a Volvo just like Muriel did. Oh, it was older, different color, but that put her in the ballpark. [00:18:54] The other thing that emerged, of course, was the sequence of events start to finish, with witnesses testifying as to what they saw, what they heard, what they remembered. [00:19:11] Number one, Meryl had arrived at Professional Travel Service shortly after noon. [00:19:17] Told her workers she had just bought a new coat from a downtown department store. We'll name it Nordstrom. [00:19:24] And at about 2pm she went to get the coat. [00:19:30] She returned a few seconds later to get her keys because she forgotten her keys and the car was locked. [00:19:39] Her employees also testified that when she went back to the car, she was gone longer than it would take to walk across the street and get into the car. She should have been on her way back, but she wasn't. [00:19:54] They noticed Mural had left behind her purse and her glasses, which she usually wore when she drove. [00:20:04] She would never go out without her purse, said employee Linda Buckman. [00:20:09] She had no intention of going anywhere when she walked out the door. She had no intention of off driving anywhere. [00:20:18] The inquest further revealed that the bomb blew off part of the engine, bowed out part of the car's doors and killed Muriel. File instantly. [00:20:29] Within seconds is what the autopsy said. In fact, it didn't even say that. It just said seconds. [00:20:38] Then they heard from a man named John W. Simpson, who was at a nearby attorney's office when the bomb exploded. [00:20:46] Here's a note here. There were lots of attorney's offices in the vicinity that close to the courts. And he was one of the first to reach her car. He testified he found her sitting in the car while, quote, still holding the steering wheel in her left hand. [00:21:04] He also said that the fingers on her right hand were nearly severed. Now, now that's a gruesome detail, but it indicates she had died while turning the ignition key. Again, more evidence that Muriel was in the position to trigger the bomb by her actions alone. [00:21:25] By this time, the investigators did in fact, have many of their ducks in a row. [00:21:31] For example, investigator Robert Clemens testified that the key was in the ignition, evidence that the bomb went off when the key was turned. [00:21:42] And added that while a remote control had not been ruled out, he pointed to the two wires on the coil. That quote, as far as we can find out, don't belong there. [00:21:58] Don't belong there. In other words, they were added by someone. [00:22:03] And that begs the question, if there's a bomb planted in the engine compartment, how did it get there? [00:22:11] What they'd learned was that the hood of the Volvo opened from the inside. It was locked. [00:22:18] If you're on the outside of the car, there was a little lever he had to pull inside the car. [00:22:23] But the officers, using a coat hanger on a similar Volvo, we're able to reach through the engine compartment and quickly open the hood. [00:22:54] Foreign. [00:22:58] Which leads me, by the way, to my own theory about how things were set up, how it happened, and why nobody noticed. [00:23:06] It's informed speculation. Okay. But first, you plant the bomb on your own time, on your own schedule. Just plant it days in advance because you, you know where Mural lives. [00:23:19] It's easy enough to open the hood, plant the bomb. [00:23:24] Those conclusions are enhanced by the fact that Muriel lived in what I would call a low traffic neighborhood. I've been there. There's lots of duplexes, which means lots of renters, which can mean low investment. And your surroundings. And here's the key. Plant the bomb, but don't hook it up. [00:23:47] For all we know, she could have been driving around for days with that bomb in the car ready to go. Maybe easier said than done, but still doable. I, I say that because somebody actually did it. [00:24:02] And yes, there's still risks here, like getting spotted somewhere along the line, like finding the right spot to do the install with the least exposure to prying eyes. [00:24:15] Broad daylight, just like a mechanic. Works for me. But under the circumstances, this makes the most sense. It's no need for a remote, no need to spend a lot of time at the bomb site. [00:24:29] You presumably know what time she goes back and forth against Scotty. She only does it two days a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays. [00:24:40] So then you have everything ready to go, except for that one last piece on the designated day. It's Thursday. She's there. No Scotty. Just connect the two wires. That's all that's left. [00:24:54] How long does that take? Boom, boom, boom, boom. An explosion. [00:25:02] This is no amateur at work. This is a professional. [00:25:15] See you next time.