Posted on 02/15/2002 1:35:24 PM PST by weegee
The first firefighters at a fiery car wreck Sunday in Fayette County that killed a Memphis driver's license examiner thought it was suspicious even as they put out the flames. Investigators began an immediate search for a device that might have triggered the intense fire, said the chief of the Piperton Fire Department.
The fire killed Katherine Smith, the examiner at the center of a federal investigation of an alleged scheme to issue driver's licenses fraudulently to men with Middle Eastern ties.
Smith died one day before she was due to appear before a federal magistrate judge for a detention hearing on the conspiracy charge. She was released on her own recognizance, but her five co-defendants have been in custody since their arrests Feb. 5.
Piperton Fire Chief Steve Kellett said he, other firefighters and Tennessee Highway Patrol officers immediately thought the fire was suspicious. For one thing, the fire appeared to have started in the rear.
"The thing that was strange about it was how high up in the car it was. Normally, if it's from a gas line, it tends to burn up everything and works from the front to the back," Kellett said Thursday.
His description is consistent with testimony Wednesday by FBI agent J. Suzanne Nash before Magistrate Judge J. Daniel Breen. Nash said a group of six witnesses saw a fire in the back seat of Smith's car as the 1992 Acura Legend veered off a stretch of U.S. 72 shortly before 1 a.m. The car crossed a ditch and landed against a utility pole.
"There was lots of damage for the amount of time it was on fire," Kellett said, noting that the fire also spread to the pole. "We would spray an area that normally would go out, but it would keep catching back. That gives you a feeling that there was something there."
Highway Patrol investigators did not find an incendiary device in the car that night, Kellett said, ". . . but they were looking for one."
The Piperton department is trained in fighting arson and spotting signs of accelerants - substances used to start and direct the path of fires. "We've had a lot of training. We've seen what accelerated fires can do," Kellett said.
In 1996, he investigated a similar vehicle fire. In that case, a truck was burned with a device that used a milk jug filled with gasoline.
Nash testified Wednesday that Smith's clothing had gasoline on it and that a dog trained to detect the presence of accelerants indicated such substances were in the car.
Samples of those materials are being tested, she said. She also said the fire was set but did not say how or who may have done it.
Kellett said two "bubble spots" on the back of the trunk indicate arson. "Something was pushing the fire. It was focusing it in a direction."
Day before yesterday, here in North Carolina, two armed Middle Eastern men driving an American compact car with Jersey plates tried to hijack an 18-wheeler fuel truck by forcing it off the road.
Admittedly a really stupid move, but nevertheless in line with this incident.
What I'm wondering is, if we are indeed at war, and we indeed have domestic terrorist cells operating here in the Homeland, why are the media being so hands-off about all of this?? Have they been asked to play things down so that we don't all go out and start shooting Arabs??
Admittedly the Olympics have been in full swing, and their (the national media's) contempt for the American people makes them doubt that we have the mental capacity to entertain more than one idea at a time, but STILL, if Japanese had tried to hijack a fuel truck, say, in May of 1942, the press would be all over it. And we are surely every bit as much at war as we were then.
Except that we don't appear to have any allies...
This is JimBo's pop quiz, not yours!
Perhaps he'll say the lady needed some more headroom or ventilation or just wanted to experience life more fully so she opened her Acura Legend moon roof for a little open-air motoring. ;-)
Hwy 72 is the main east-west line across the top of Mississippi.
It moves north-west & south-east at Collierville, becoming Poplar Ave in Memphis and ends at the Mississippi River.
I have driven from Corinth to Memphis and visa-vesa far too many times.
I agree with you ,that dog ain't huntin'.
Investigators on overtime with the nation on alert
They are aware of these cases; they do agree that they warrant attention; and given the press' interest in "continuing" stories (keeps the readers/viewers coming back for more) it all just seems to be under reported (hey, there's even a car crash and those always make the nightly news).
Guess I ought to get out more...
"Uniforms",......police, fire, or emergency.
??...Uniforms...??
Mailman
Pizza Delivery
Baseball
Basketball
Football
Haz-Mat
Clown
Scuba
Bowling
Clergy
MILITARY
Sorry for the 'rant'.
:-)
I notice that I've missed some threads on this topic (some with 80 messages or more). There may soon be a list.
I'm ignoring you, by the way. ;-)
Witnesses saw the backseat aflame while the car was moving.
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