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."
Where in the article does it say that a device was NOT found? Did I miss it?
IMHO, if they did find a device, that would be something they'd keep off the record to increase the liklihood of conviction in any future case against someone.
Jim, I'm still waiting for you to tell me why a woman would roll down her window...
BTW: You are doing a great job with this story. Just like your screenname did. : )
Your IMHO is probably correct, in my IMHO.
: )
I'll leave them to do their work (at least they did go public with the arson, eliminated "accident" from the discussion).
I do intend to follow the stories on this case for awhile and chime in where I can. At this point a good number of my responses have been to help coordinate information from different threads and help bring some posters up to speed (alive at the time of fire, accelerant, witnesses, previous car owner, etc.). Is it asking too much to see a journalist (perhaps in one of America's newsweeklies like Time or Newsweek) recap the details on this incident?
Mystery death of scientist (Yet another scientist has been killed in mysterious circumstances)
Contains info on bridge jumper pushee in Tennesse
If the gasoline could have been smelled inside of the car it would have drawn attention. Something inside the car could have sprayed her (triggered on an event) but could it do sufficient quantity and a fireball quick enough to overtake her to prevent exit (or maybe faulty door locks that she was willing to manage with until she "owned" the car)?
It's all speculation. The only car bomb I can recall from the movies is the one on the radio at the beginning of Casino.
Someone who has seen the different flavors of car "bombs" will be better prepared to look for clues as to just what was done in this instance.
I'm thinking that she may not have even been incapacitated when the fireball torched (so fiercely that she breathed it in, possibly indicating something in the front). I would throw some suspicion on the locks (if she couldn't get out then she would be incapacitated quickly and no one would be the wiser).
I believe that it would be difficult to sustain the car in motion on the highway after placing the body inside. I would think that it would soon be off course.
We assume from the photo that the moon roof was closed and broke from the heat.
Racing back to college on a Sunday night in the rain three of us were passed by a speeding drunk. Who hit the concrete bridge and caught fire. The three of us snuck up on this mess and though the car was really too hot, got the door open and the unconscious guy out. Flagged down a Barracuda (remember?) and I got to hold his head in the back on the folded flat seat, saying, "Don't die, don't die." He bled from the nose and ears and mouth and didn't open his eyes and when I called back to the hospital, "Oh, no, he didn't make it."
So somebody jumped out in front of her car? I don't know. . .highway speeds. . .hard to see anything but a Stephen King clown from It surviving that.
She could've been unconscious but breathing in the passenger seat and driven there by a driver and a gas man (to the tune of the Beatles' "Taxman") in the back seat. Set au flambeau and a stick on the gas, popped into gear in time for the Griswolds on vacation to go "Kewl! That babe is HOT!" BOOM (watchout for the tree)
She was inconvenient. I mean, Jumpin' Jack Jihad it's a gas gas gas.
My question is: Was rivero anywhere nearby?
Uh huh ... and how many years on the force as an arson investigator have you had?
I would ALSO say that your experience with gasoline fires is a little limited ... when was the last time you 'played' with a gas fire out behind the barn - ever?
Willie Pete was exactly what I thought, probably combined with gasoline sot that if the fire was subdued for a time, the willie pete would reignite it.
Bump for anything new!
A Who-done-it BUMP!!
This investigation seems to have been buried before the deceased was in the ground. I am sure it wasn't but it does seem that way.
Got my hopes up that there was an update.
Just as nosing around on Google, I learned that the "third gay male" in the Texas sodomy case (the ex-boyfriend who called the police that night) had a pending assault charge against one of the men. He was assaulted and murdered before the case came to trial.
No one in the media wants to touch that case (at least the Dallas paper was willing to admit that the two prominant homosexuals were not saints and that they had a number of violent and drug charges already against them for past offenses).
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