Episode 678: The Mad Bomber of New York (Part 1)
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I don't know. We had to run out of the, we literally just ran out of the house. We had to run out for a minute. And when we came back, Mikey had cleaned the entire studio and lit candles. And the vibe in here is just a million times better.

So right. It was like the greatest thing in the entire world. I feel so relaxed. No, I feel so much better. I'm ordering Panera as we speak. This vibe today is about to go crazy. It's immaculate. Immaculate. I'm also feeling...

I'm feeling very much in the slasher summer vibe. Me too. I want to live in it. I think it's been so like gloomy. Yeah. And a little bit chilly, which is nice. Oh, yeah. And you've been wearing, like we've all been wearing comfy sweatshirts and yeggings. Yep. Yeggings. We put our yeggs in our yeggings.

And it just feels spooky. Yeah, and I keep getting, I mean, TikTok's always feeding me my vibes. The halfway to Halloween. The halfway to Halloween and like slasher summer kind of shit. I'm getting a lot of that. I think because you keep saying it in my presence. It's getting me in such a mood for it. Yeah. Like I need it. Yeah. I'm craving it. And now I want to watch all the things that,

Like the summer slasher things. I want to read all the summer slasher things. I just watched a pretty good one actually at your recommendation. For Scream. For Scream. We're going to be recording it today so it'll be out in like a couple weeks. But it's called Hell of a Summer. It was really good. It's the 2025 one. I think there's a couple movies that are called Hell of a Summer. It's brand new. But it just came out in April. It was funny. I thought it was fun. It looked fun when I saw it. That's why I haven't watched it yet. But that's why I suggested it to you because when I saw it I was like...

That's got the vibes. Yeah. It feels like it's like campy literally. It is campy in every sense of the word. Yeah, campy, like fun slasher where you can laugh and also just kind of like bop along to it. I love those kind of things. Yeah, I suggest it definitely. Go to Scream and listen to our episode to get our full opinion. Yeah. I'm excited to watch it. Let's go, girl.

But yeah, I'm trying to think if there's any more fun. If you're looking to pre-order The Butcher Game in paperback, because paperbacks are great. Who doesn't fucking love a paperback? You know what I mean? You can put that shit anywhere. You can put it in your back pocket. I love when you say that you can put a paperback anywhere. I don't know. It's just a crazy sentence. You can literally put it anywhere. But you're not wrong.

It's easier sometimes to carry in like a bag or people love to shove a book in their back pocket. Do they? Yeah, I've seen it a lot. Jess Mariano used to do it in Gilmore Girls. Big Jess move. I think that really laid the groundwork for me that people do that. I think that imprinted on your soul. I don't think anyone else does that. I don't think I've ever seen anyone put a book in their back pocket. And actually, I feel like that would make...

I feel like that would make you pretty angry. Yeah, I wouldn't do it. I can't even dog you a page without you dogging on me. Well, I'm also, I'm a hardcover girl. Oh, okay. So it's like this, honestly, I have no business commenting on a paperback conversation.

But you can comment on your own paperback. But I can give you a paperback that I wrote. There you go. So like there you go. You can go take it. And you should definitely preorder it and grab it. You can preorder it anywhere you want to – you feel in your soul that you want to buy a book.

Whatever bookstore or book outlet feels right to you and feels lovely to you, do that. Go crazy. I support it. Especially smaller indie bookstores. They're like the best. I love a small indie bookstore. And if you need like a list of them, you can go to thebutchergame.com and there's like a little list of... It'll bring you to different places. But yeah, go do that. Because you really want to catch up on the story because...

Who knows why? Who knows what's coming down the pike? Who knows why you might want to catch up on this story? I don't. I don't know anything. Who can be sure? Who knows? So I don't know. Maybe hang on to that information. Maybe. You know?

I don't know. But go catch up on it. And a paperback is a great way to do that. It's true. So let's go, girls. Let's G-O-O-O-O-O. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. So today we're going to be, we're going to do a two-pata here. Two-pata. And it's just because there's like a lot of people.

going on. This is a wild one. This is the Mad Bomber of New York. Okay. It did happen in the 1940s, but just because it happened in the 1940s doesn't mean it's not an insane story. In fact, it might make it more insane. It might make it, and I think it does. This is a very interesting one.

Any New Yorkers? I wonder if you guys know about this, have heard about it, maybe family members told you about it. It seems like New York was really put through it during this. Oh, man. So this started, it was in the fall of 1940. Right.

When an employee of the Consolidated Edison Company in Manhattan discovered a bomb in the company's main offices. Along with a note that said, Con Edison Crooks, this is for you. Oh, damn. The bomb was discovered before it detonated and no one was harmed. That's good.

A year later, the company received a second bomb, followed by a note to the NYPD where the bomber announced that he was going to make no more bombs for the duration of World War II, but then he would begin again after the war ended. So this motherfucker's playing a long game. Oh yeah, playing a... You don't call him the mad bomber?

For nothing. No. The Mad Bombers, it was literally a reign of terror on New York. It lasted for a long time. Remember, this is the fall of 1940. He was not, he ends up being captured, luckily, so don't worry, New York. Good news. But he was captured in 1957. Oh, wow. It was a lot. And when they finally got him...

He, him as a person and his motives didn't make a lot of sense to New York. It's always interesting when that happens. Yeah, they lived in fear of what was going on here. So in the early afternoon of November 18th, 1940, the desk sergeant at the 20th squad of the NYPD received a call from a very anxious employee saying,

of, like we mentioned before, the Consolidated Edison Company, Con Ed, we'll call it. Oh no, not Con Ed. On West 64th Street. According to the caller, one of the Con Ed employees was on a break when he noticed a little, you know, wooden toolbox just sitting unattended on a window ledge on the second floor.

I'm glad he thought this was a little weird because if he had just ignored it, it would have been a big problem. Can you imagine finding a fucking bomb on your break? No. You're just on lunch. You're just on lunch, man. And you're just trying to get away from everybody. Yeah, you're just trying to take a minute away from your fucking job. And then you have a bomb on your shoulders. And then you're like, now I have to report a bomb. Yeah, that's a lot. I just wanted to have my egg salad sandwich, you know? That sounds good. It does. So when the man approached the toolbox, he saw that it contained a four and a half piece of iron pipe, which was capped in both ends. Wow.

Which like immediately not good. And when he looked closer at it, he found a small piece of paper wrapped around it. So this person unwrapped the paper. Damn, that's brave as fuck. Pretty brave and like. Ballsy. Don't do that. Yeah. Don't do that. If ever you find a strange looking wooden box. And found on that piece of paper, he found that it was a note written in neat block print that read, Con Edison Crooks, this is for you.

A second line of text underneath it, it was written in a coarse gray substance, apparently. And it read, there is no shortage of powder boys. And the note was simply signed F.P.

So was he saying powder boys or was he saying boys? There's no shortage of powder. I think powder boys. Powder boys. So I think he's calling these bombs maybe powder boys. Oh. It's like a pipe bomb. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. The implications of the note obviously sent the employee into a full panic and he carefully set the toolbox down on the windowsill because remember this man is now holding this pipe bomb. Fuck. And he ran it. Luckily it didn't detonate. And he ran to the phone and called the police.

Later, when the note was tested, it was discovered that the second line of text was written in gunpowder. Oh. Which was the same substance that was packed into the pipe. Hate that. Powder boys. At the time, though, the NYPD officers who responded to the call had no idea what they were actually dealing with here.

although bombings or threats of bombings had kind of increased across the city throughout the first half of the 20th century just with like advancement of people knowing how to make these things yeah those matters were handled by the bomb and forgery squad obviously there's like a specialized thing um

So it's like when you have a group that's specially trained to do this stuff, the regular patrol officers are like, I don't really know what to do with this bomb. Yeah, call in the special guys. Yeah, so when they were called in, they had to report this explosive device to that specialized squad, and they had to wait hours for the bomb and forgery squad to arrive, which I'm like, I feel like that squad should be a bit more prompt. That's the thing. That's how I feel. I feel like they should be maybe those like,

You've got to have one foot out the door at all times kind of squad. You're an emergency responder pretty much. I feel like timeliness is next to godliness in that scenario. When it comes to bombs, I'd say so. When it comes to bombs. Because you don't know when that's going to go off. You don't. You want to get there before it does. Yeah, so waiting hours feels...

Risky. Hours. I'd be pissed if it took them like 25 minutes. Hours? Yeah. I'd be pissed that just the regular patrol officer showed up. I'd be like, I did say this is a bomb. When it's like, obviously you can evacuate and like, hopefully they did. Yeah. But then you also have a whole building on your hands. Exactly. And then that, if that does explode and the building falls down, you got a whole mess to clean up and people could get hurt. So many things could happen.

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So when they did finally arrive at the Con Ed building, the lead detective on the bomb squad confirmed that what they found was indeed a, quote, infernal machine, which was a homemade explosive device, quote, maliciously designed to explode and destroy life or property. But it still hadn't gone off yet. It still hadn't gone off.

Now, unlike more sophisticated devices that, you know, use electronic components, a bomb that you're probably thinking in your head right now. Like the ticking bomb. With the wires and shit. The Infernal Machine, which is one of the scariest names for something. Great band name. I literally was just going to say, there has to be. I'm going to Google it. Infernal Machine has to be a band name. Yeah.

It is a very crude, very volatile explosive that could be triggered by a number of things. Like this is not an electronic explosive, so it's not like somebody's just waiting or they, you know, set it to go off at a certain point. It's like it gets triggered by random things. It's a band.

I knew it had to be. Yeah, it's a band. Good on you for making that because that's a great band name. Yeah, absolutely. Also, the pipe bomb couldn't be deactivated in like a traditional sense, like a regular bomb.

But instead, it had to be just detonated in a controlled setting. Like, they just had to explode the bomb in a controlled area. The fuck? Because in, like, a regular bomb, there's a way to detonate it or to, like, deactivate it with, like, electronically and shit. Yeah, yeah. This one's just, like, a very crude fucking infernal machine. So where do you go? So...

I don't really know. I think they have to, they go to like clearings to do these things. Sometimes it still has to be done. Like they have to find places to do these things. So they really have to go to like places obviously where there's absolutely no chance that somebody could be hurt by this. Damn. The squad knew that the bomb had already been handled by the employee who had reported it. So they knew it wasn't triggered by, you know, moving it from its position. Touch or movement.

And after clearing the building, one of the squad members donned a suit of body armor and used a five-foot grabbing pole, and he turned the device over, looking for any kind of timing device or other potential triggers. That's so scary. Yeah, he didn't find anything. And getting no result from poking at it and, you know, handling the device, they were fairly certain it was not triggered by movement. And the pipe was retrieved, placed inside a bag. The bag was made of woven steel cable, because that, like...

That's how they transport bombs. Yeah. And it was taken out to the containment truck and taken to a secluded area where it was inspected and ultimately submerged in motor oil. Why? Apparently, and this is very interesting, motor oil was believed to clog up any moving parts that might trigger the device. Oh. Which I'm like, how did you guys figure that out? Yeah, that's interesting. What was the test that made that possible?

I mean, it is very thick, so I guess that makes sense. Viscous. It is. So once they were confident that the bomb was a dud, investigators transported it back to headquarters for analysis. Now, inside the pipe, technicians found a large amount of gunpowder and several typical bomb components, including a flashlight bulb, a battery, and a steel spring, as well as a cough drop. What? Which no one could explain why that cough drop was there. Used? Used.

I don't know if that was a used cough drop or not. What? A cough drop. Why? No one knows to this day. That's bizarre. Despite having all the right parts and a cough drop to boot, it was clear it was a little bit of something extra. Just a little ruffle dazzle. And a little bit of spice.

Maybe they wanted it to, like, smell good? Yeah, I guess. I don't know. I have no idea. But despite having all the right parts, it was clear to experts that the bomb had been incorrectly assembled by a very amateur person and was never in danger of exploding at all. Well, that's good news. Yeah. But while there may have not been any imminent danger, the threat was very real and investigators needed to identify the maker of the device before...

He improved on his technique. I was just going to say, before he got better. Yeah, and struck again. Yeah. Because if they do it once, of course they can do it again. Well, and especially if he knows it didn't go off. Yeah, now he's going to be pissed. Now, in 1940, Consolidated Edison was one of the largest employers in Manhattan with thousands of employees, many of whom worked in the building where the bomb was found. Also, as the primary supplier of electricity for the whole region, the company served millions of customers.

That's basically it was clear that whoever left the bomb had clearly a grudge with this company. But that fact alone didn't narrow the pool of suspects down at all. Because remember, we got thousands of employees and millions of customers. Yeah. Now, further complicating the whole thing was the fact that Con Ed was a conglomerate of several smaller companies operating under like one umbrella. Right.

All operating in different parts of the city. That means that even if police did want to take the time to comb through all their administrative records, it could have been literally years before they found anything that could help them. If they found anything at all. Right. So because of that, the incident report was written up and filed and no one really gave it a thought. The bomb incident report? Yeah, they were just like, well, that happened. Right.

Now, in late September 1941, nearly a year after this first bomb was discovered at the Con Ed building, passerbys noticed something strange lying in the road a few blocks away from the Con Ed building at 4 Irving Place. It was stuffed inside a red wool sock with a four-inch length of pipe with both ends capped. Okay.

Just as they'd done before, police officers called the bomb squad and the device was removed and determined to be a dud. Damn, this guy sucks. Then it was taken back to headquarters for analysis.

There was no note with this one, but to the members of the bomb squad, the device was immediately recognizable as being the work of whoever had left the bomb at Con Ed the previous year. Was there another cough drop? Inside, they found the same ingredients as the previous bomb, all assembled in the same way. And another cough drop. Called it. Cough drop. What? Cough drop number two. Does he ever say why?

We're at a loss. Goddamn. Now, given that the bomb was assembled the same exact way as the previous one, including the weird fucking cough drop. I was going to say random ingredients and all. Like, that's the thing that's really nailing it. And then it was discovered around the corner of the Con Ed building. Investigators were like, yeah, this is the same guy.

Equally disturbing was the fact that a year had passed and the bomber still appeared intent on bombing the Con Ed building. That's commitment. Yeah. This time, though, they theorized that he had been on his way to the building and was interrupted or maybe diverted and chose to drop the explosive in the street and abandoned his plan. Okay. Within days of finding the explosive in the street, letters started arriving at the Con Ed headquarters as well as newspaper editorial desks, hotel desks.

hotels, and department stores around the city. The letters were pretty short, pretty vague, mostly alluding to, you know, quote, dastardly deeds and ghoulish acts that the power company had committed and demanding, quote, justice for wrongs perpetrated against the writer of the notes and others. These notes were mostly hand-printed in that same, like, very blocky handwriting. Mm-hmm.

But some were typewritten, though. Like, it wasn't consistent throughout. Okay. And the clauses were all separated by dashes rather than commas or periods. Okay. All the notes were written on the same plain white paper. There was no identifying information about the sender other than the initials FP. Uh-huh. And many contained allusions to or outright threats of another bomb coming.

A few months later, on December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor military base in Honolulu, Hawaii. I'm sure we all know about that. That's where I was born. This effectively drew the American military into World War II. Not long after that attack on Pearl Harbor, the usual round of recipients of FP letters received a new note.

Although the latest letter included the usual vague threats and, you know, claims of injustice, the sender also seemed to understand that with the entire country preoccupied with the nation's, you know, now forceful entry into a world war, there was very little chance that he was going to get the kind of attention that he was so craving here. So he was like, you know what?

I'm going to let somebody else have their moment right now. He said, I will make no more bomb units for the duration of the war. My patriotic feelings have made me decide this. Later, I will bring the con ed to justice. They will pay for their dastardly deeds. Like that doesn't feel very patriotic. Yeah, that feels pretty rough. It's killing your fellow man. To everyone's surprise, though,

He remained true to his word, and there were no other bombs or letters from FP in the years that followed. Interesting. The war raged on across Europe, and the nation's attention was obviously, he was right, they were consumed by fighting. Yeah. And New York forgot kind of all about FP and his grudge against, you know, the whole Con Ed building and employees and company as a whole. But FP...

He was not giving up on this mission. He was lurking. Yeah, and he did not have any intention of being forgotten. Just before 5.30 p.m. on the afternoon of March 29th, 1951, the peak of rush hour at Grand Central Station, an explosive device detonated. Oh, no. And a cigarette urn placed outside the entrance to the Grand Central Oyster Bar. It sent sand, cigarette butts, and other debris flying in all directions. Oh, no.

Despite being placed on one of the lower levels by track 27, there were no passerbys when the bomb went off. Wow. And no one was hit. That's amazing. Inside this pipe bomb, he had packed nuts and bolts in there too. Oh, wow. Which is what like some of these fuckers do. Like the Boston bombing is one of the ones that obviously very much sticks out to us. They put all this like fucking horrific shrapnel in it to get the most damage. Yeah.

So since the bomb had already detonated by the time the police came to Grand Central Station, there was no need for the bomb squad. But investigators still had little evidence to work with and initially attributed the incident to boys or pranksters. Y'all. I'm sorry.

A pipe bomb is not pranksters. Yeah, I don't know about all that. Yeah, the remains of the device were turned over to the bomb squad for analysis, but nearly a decade had passed since the bombs were discovered at the Con Ed building at this point. Wow. And this time no one recognized the pipes and their various components because it had kind of gone out of everyone's minds.

Even if someone had recalled the bomb discoveries back in 1941, it's unlikely they would have made, you know, the connection here because this latest bomb, one, it went off. Right. So that's different from the other two. It also contained no gunpowder, but instead contained just one .25 caliber round of

that was rigged to a mechanism that would discharge at a predetermined time, and it would send the shrapnel out in all directions. So he has obviously upped his game. Right. It is remarkable that nobody was walking by. Yes. Especially like you said, like peak traffic time at Grand Central Station. It's amazing. Right next to track 27. I can't believe that nobody was hit. Veterans on the bomb squad, however, would likely have recognized one thing.

A cough drop. One cough drop contained in the pipe. Bitch, I just Googled it and I couldn't find anything about why he did that. Why? No one knows. Why? But by that time, it had been disintegrated with the rest of the internal components, so they wouldn't have been able to see it anyways. Oh. Yeah. Morbid is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools and

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But we know that it was there because we know it's the same guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the bomb at Grand Central failed to achieve much notice by the police or the press. Which is insane. Because they were kind of chalking it up to like, which I'm like, what kind of fucking teens were running around New York? For real. And the

The second bomb that detonated after this one, because there was another one, didn't receive a lot of attention either. It detonated inside a phone booth in the basement of the New York Public Library. I would call that a big deal. Yeah. Like the one at Grand Central Station, the second bomb caused no injuries, luckily. That's good. And barely registered with anyone, earning a few paragraphs pretty deep in the pages of the New York Times that day. But wouldn't

Why didn't everybody be like, hey, it seems like two bombs could be related. But still, this time the bombings were different. They didn't cause much damage or harm to anyone. That was only because no one had been unfortunate enough to be around when they went off. If they were, it would cause massive damage. Had anyone been near either when they detonated, I don't think they would have survived. I really don't. It would be very lethal.

That meant that although the police didn't know it at the time, FP had become, like we were just talking about, more skilled and sophisticated as a bomb maker in the decades since he had started doing this. Which makes sense. He's obviously been studying how to do this for years. Which, like, why the fuck is he still doing this?

And in August, FP struck again with another bomb at Grand Central Station. A little past 9 p.m. on the night of August 27th, a bomb went off in a phone booth on the West Concourse. Like the earlier bombs, this one caused some damage, but no injuries. Wow. I know. This is remarkable. It is remarkable.

The Grand Central bomb was followed a few weeks later by another bomb. This one placed in a phone booth in the lobby of the Con Ed offices at 4 Irving Place. If that doesn't raise some eyebrows. Yeah. The bomb exploded and caused some damage to the lobby, but because it was detonated at 6.15 a.m., the only person in the building was a night watchman, and he wasn't in the lobby when it went off.

So it's missing like any person. It's like really remarkable. Because it's not like he's doing that on purpose. Like the first one when he came back again was high traffic time. He's putting them in phone booths. Like it's not like he's going out of his way to. Yeah, that's the thing. He's also putting shrapnel in them. So obviously he does want to hurt people. He wants to cause damage. And like you said, he's putting them in places where people would be. Yeah. They just happen to not be there. It's like really wild. Yeah.

So yeah, in fact, the damage had been so minimal and mostly confined to the phone booth, the night watchman didn't even bother to call the police right away and waited several hours before even reporting it. Okay, that's a bad plan because there could be more. Yeah, that's wild. Where there's one bomb, as we find out, there's many. So the bombs all were pretty similar in their construction. So one investigator or a few investigators were believing that they probably were constructed and placed by the same individual.

But because the bombs at Grand Central, the public library, and Con Ed appeared to have been detonated at a time when they were like... Because that's the thing. It's like he put them in places where people would be. But he detonates them at times where people won't be there. Or not a lot of people will be there. Like 6.15 a.m. But what about the high traffic one? That's the one. It's like that one, you know... That stands out. Yeah, that one stands out. But a few of the other ones...

It almost looked like they were almost put to cause, because there's like conflicting ideas here because it's like there's shrapnel in them. Yeah. It looks like there's clearly a... Intent. They're wanting to hurt someone. But then the times that a lot of them are placed or detonated, I should say, are interesting. Okay. You know? Yeah. Because it is crazy that they're not getting anyone. Right. Like they're not hurting anyone. Right. Yeah.

Investigators assumed because of this that maybe it was like a prank and they were detonating it on purpose when people wouldn't be there to cause damage and like chaos but not hurt anyone. So they were so convinced that the bombs were the work of an, quote, addled prankster that they were reluctant to provide any details to the press saying it would just build up the ego of the nut who did it.

Okay. I guess I sort of get that. I can kind of see where they're coming from. And again, this is like the 1950s. So like, you know. Yeah, a little different. Regardless of what they told the press, in private, investigators on the bomb squad were at least somewhat concerned of the bombs. Like investigators are kind of like, they're at odds a little bit of what this actually is. In each case, the bombs did get slightly larger and more sophisticated. Okay.

So again, this is kind of showing or suggesting that like the bomber who is doing this is really learning as he goes. And he's like keeping up with his, you know, tutelage of trying to figure out how to do this better and better. And he's getting better at it. In the report on the second bomb at Grand Central Station, the technician wrote, quote, this is a well-constructed mechanism. It shows considerable advance in technique as compared with the earlier bombs.

Also, because the bombs were clearly created in place by the same person, it was impossible for the bomb squad to ignore the reality that they were dealing with a serial bomber. And it was only a matter of time before someone was going to get hurt. Regardless of whether that's the intention or not, it's going to happen. It's just the way that this all works. A month later, on October 22nd, the bomber struck again.

This time in a bathroom at the Paramount Theater. Fortunately, the bomb was discovered before it was detonated. Oh, that's good. And the bomb squad was able to disassemble it without much trouble. But that right there, there was intent or harm. Well, once you realize who he is, you're like, okay.

Like the other devices, the bomb was constructed with a roughly four-inch long pipe containing a .25 caliber shell. With that mechanism, small amount of gunpowder. At the time, roughly 3,500 patrons were in the theater, one floor above watching a show. Wow. So this would have caused massive casualties or at least massive damage. Yeah. And so like that one was like, oh shit.

So just as police were investigating the scene at the Paramount, the editor of the New York Herald Tribune received a letter by special delivery. Inside was a letter, written in block lettering, that said, "'Bombs will continue until the Consolidated Edison Company is brought to justice for their dastardly acts against me. I have exhausted all other means. I intend with bombs to cause others to cry out for justice for me.'"

But you're not telling anybody what happened. You're not telling anyone what happened. You're going to hurt someone. So no one's going to speak for you. And now you want these people that you're trying to harm or inconvenience at the very least to cry out for you. That's what I mean. Your thinking is a little scattered. Motive isn't making a lot of sense.

The note confirmed that FP had planted the bomb at the Paramount, but it also made reference to a second bomb in a telephone booth at Penn Station. Oh, shit. It said, Okay.

Police spent hours searching Penn Station, but found no sign of a bomb anywhere on the premises, and eventually abandoned the search in the early morning hours. While they may not have discovered a second bomb, the bomber had made their intentions and motivation pretty clear in the letter, which was published in the Herald Tribune the next day. With the publication of the letter, the NYPD...

had to end that whole theory of like, maybe they're just pranksters and we don't want to feed their ego. Like they had to end that whole thing. The city clearly had a serial bomber on their hands and he was clear that he intended to continue this reign of terror until he got what he wanted, which no one really knows how to give him that. Because nobody knows what happened. Like I want them held accountable

I want justice for their dastardly deeds against me. Which were what? And you're like, cool, cool, cool. Can you tell us what those were so we can bring them to justice for it? Name them. Name them. Name them. Name them.

So the letter made clear at least that the bomber had some connection to Con Ed. But again, who the fuck are you? Like it didn't help to identify the sender. If anything, police found themselves right back to where they were a decade earlier with a suspect list of millions of employees, former employees and customers.

In the absence of facts, evidence, anything concrete that they could use, wild theories started to emerge, including the suggestion that the bomber was operating on a lunar calendar, which led the NYPD to increase manpower during the full moon. They said, it's witches. They said, it's werewolves. They said, them witches be out here, them werewolves are who in Holland? They said, oh, that's just Jacob Black. Don't worry about that. They said, Bella, where you been, loca? They said, where you been?

They said, Bella, where the hell you been, loca? That is one of the most diabolical lines in literary history. Or is it the most genius? I said diabolical. I didn't say bad. I just said diabolical.

Also, there's just a quick little side because we are who we are. And that reminded me of it. If you're looking for a really funny TikTok to watch, let me bring it up. Have you told me about this? Because that just made me think of it. No, I haven't. Wow, that's fake as fuck. You're telling the masses before you tell your sister? You should all follow this person because she is...

Very, very funny. And what she's doing is she does recreations of what it's like to be in the boardroom during the making of all the Twilight movies. Oh my god, that's iconic. Her name is Ellie Collins. Following right now. And it's her like thing on TikTok is E-L-L-I-E Collins, like C-O-L-L-I-N with four S's.

She is so fucking funny and all the things that they go through with those movies, you will just sit there and be like, what the fuck were we doing? I just followed her. I love it. I love it so much. So go check her out. She's really funny. She also did a whole series of all of Taylor Swift's exes listening to her new songs as they came out. Oh, I think those have come up on my For You page before. She did look familiar. She's real funny. Yeah. But yeah, so Bella, where the hell you been, loca? Where the hell?

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So, well, they put more people on on the full moon because you got to try everything, you know? You should just have more people on the full moon all the time. It'd just be crazy. People be wilding on the full moon. We're a huge percent water. It's true. There you go. We're a huge percent water. We're a huge percent water. It's like 86 or something. I don't know. It's pretty impressive. It's huge. It's pretty impressive how water we are, you know? We do be a lot of water. Are we the ocean? I don't know. The tide we're within. Well, they...

While they seemed willing to entertain any theory at this point, regardless of how serious it seemed, investigators in the NYPD and on the bomb squad knew the type of panic that a serial bomber was going to instill in the public. Yeah. And they just wanted to stop him because now people are...

It's going to be hard for people to live their lives normally here. Especially in New York City. And they didn't care what the method was. They just wanted to stop this guy. That's not great. In early November, police arrested 56-year-old former Con Ed employee Frederick Eberhardt in connection with a hoax bomb that was sent to Con Ed a few weeks earlier. Okay. Based on his employee file...

Frederick fit the profile of the man investigators were looking for. The district attorney told reporters he had been sending simulated bombs around the city the past few months. Rude. Yeah. During his arraignment on November 7th, the prosecution alleged that Frederick had sent a package to Edwin Jennings, the head of personnel at Con Ed, which contained what Jennings believed was another pipe bomb. But when they inspected it, the pipe contained nothing more than white sugar.

Oh. According to company records, Frederick was fired by Con Ed in 1948 for, quote, stealing material and was tried and ultimately acquitted. Following his acquittal, Frederick sued Con Ed for $75,000 in damages, alleging false arrest, and the case was still pending trial at the time.

Despite him being a very strong suspect, his wife loudly protested his arrest and was very against him being admitted to Bellevue for evaluation, saying, quote, this arrest is an outrage. He never sent those things. He couldn't hurt a fly. Oh, yeah.

If the NYPD hoped Frederick's arrest would put an end to the bomb threats of the recent months, they were very disappointed very quickly. So were they scapegoating him a bit? Just a few days after Frederick's arrest was announced in the papers, the bomb squad received an anonymous call reporting that bombs had been planted at the Capitol Theater on Broadway and a Roman Catholic church on East 28th Street.

While the bomb squad found no bombs in either location, later that evening, a pipe bomb was detonated at the IRT subway station in Union Square, sending shrapnel through a row of metal lockers. Once again, no one was hurt.

This is bizarre. Isn't it bizarre as fuck? I mean, it's incredible. Wonderfully bizarre. Yeah, exactly. No one's getting hurt here, but like bizarre. Yeah, wild. And FP, he wasted no time claiming credit, sending a letter to the editor of the Herald Tribune.

He said, Oh, okay.

It was clear from the recent bombings that Frederick Eberhard was not the bomber. And on May 15th, 1952, a court dismissed the charges against him, which forced the NYPD to admit that there was still very much a serial bomber loose somewhere in the city. So the bomber struck three times in 1952. Once in a phone booth at the Port Authority bus terminal and twice at the Lexington Theater. At the Lexington Theater, it was bombs left under random seats. Oh my God.

It was in the second bombing at the Lexington on December 8th that someone was finally injured. Oh, no. A woman sitting in the same row where the bombs were placed during a showing of Everything I Have is Yours was struck by flying shards of metal shrapnel, and it caused several lacerations on her feet and legs. Oh. But she did live. That's good. But, like, what a horrible...

Yeah, you're just sitting in a movie theater. During this period, the NYPD and the investigators on the bomb squad were releasing little, if any, information to the public about the bombings. Which is like, maybe they should have and maybe people wouldn't have gone to the movies. Exactly. So the details of the bombings between 1952 and 1954 are kind of limited. Okay.

On March 10th, 1953, smack dab in the middle, a bomb was planted in one of the seat cushions in the 6,000-seat Radio City Music Hall. Oh, shit. Ever heard of it? Yeah, Paige and Hannah sold that shit out, bitch. Yeah, the same one. The spectators were about halfway through the movie when the bomb went off. Oh, my. Causing panic and chaos among this very large crowd. Yeah.

At the request of the NYPD, the incident was minimized by the press the following day, with several papers ignoring it altogether. Radio City Musical. The fuck? How do you?

Sure, the Herald Tribune, who had received many of the bomber's letters, referred to the bomb as, quote, the work of a psychopath. Fair. While others used, like, very dismissive language to kind of minimize the danger. I would say that was pretty fucking dangerous. A few months later, when a bomb exploded in a luggage locker at Grand Central Station in early May, a police spokesperson was similarly dismissive, telling the press, quote, the culprit was a mental case in search of publicity.

It's like, yeah, but bombs keep going off in various locations, so maybe we should do something and find that person? It's like, my friends, I'm not here debating what's happening in his noggin. Yeah. I'm here saying that, like, he's setting off bombs around the city, so, like, maybe just stop that. Right. Instead of just being like, oh, he's just a nut. Just cry, cry. Yeah, he's a fucking brilliant nut who's making...

scary, dangerous bombs that have hurt at least one person. Right. And it's shocking that they haven't hurt anybody else. The minimal press coverage was an offense to the bomber, too. And it's like they should have thought of that. Oh, to the bomber. That this guy is looking for attention, clearly. And I know that it's like...

It's a hard line to walk. That's the thing. It's kind of like, you know, Zodiac and, you know, Jack the Ripper. It's like when they're looking for the attention, you don't want to give it to them. But you also don't want to set it off anymore. So it's like, I can't say...

that I would know how to handle this, you know, as like an investigator and what to tell the press. And especially again during this time period. Exactly. This is a very new type of mind they're dealing with. Yeah, exactly. And so he started sending outraged letters to the editorial departments of the city's major papers. That's scary. And a letter to the editor and staff of New York Herald Tribune. Unless sloppy or no reporting is corrected about bombings, public will get information by way of Moscow.

Get this into your heads. The Consolidated Edison Company will be brought to justice. All of my physical, mental, and financial sufferings will be paid for in full. You know that bombs are getting bigger. So far, the hand of God has spared everyone from death or serious injury. Believe me, I know.

Yikes.

He's scary. It's very scary. And upping the ante. And again, is not telling anyone what the fuck happened and how they can fix it. Yeah. And he's literally saying like the hand of God has spared people from not getting hurt. That wasn't my intention, right. Which like he was kind of alluding not to that before, but now he's just being like, oh, that's not me. That's just happenstance. Yeah. Which is scary. And it almost sounds like...

He went to them and tried to get his story about what happened at the con place out, and they said no. Yeah, which is strange. Because I'm like, what the fuck? Do we find out what happened to him? We'll find out more in part two. We're actually going to stop there. You butthead. After that letter to the New York Tribune there, the Herald Tribune,

It's another year that passes without any new bombs. Interesting. Yeah. And then it does return. Oh, no. So we're going to talk about that in part two. All right. Yeah. This is an interesting case. I've never heard anything about this one before. Yeah. This is a very, very interesting... It's strange. And yeah, it's so strange. Yeah. And it's like...

It almost seems like the plot of a movie instead of like a real thing that happened. But I really am curious if like any of you are from New York or like, you know, are like native New Yorkers who have like family that were around at this time. I'd be curious to hear if they'll tell you like what it was like. Yeah, yeah. To be around because it's like,

Like, my mom was, like, living in Boston with girlfriends when the Boston Strangler was tooting around. And those stories are always nuts. In, like, an apartment together. Yeah. Like, on his route. And they had, like, things in place. I think we talked about it in the episode, too. They stacked, like...

cans like aluminum cans on top of each other in front of the door so that if it opened it would fall over and alert them because their apartment door she said you could open with like a credit card yeah it was like that janky it's crazy so i'd be i'm curious to see if any of you can get any like cool stories out of yeah family members let us know yeah and um if you want to write them in we would love to share them so just let us know if we have permission yeah definitely um

Wow, I'm very interested to hear part two. Very interesting story. So with that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep weird. But I swear that you don't write in your stories if you have them because now I'm so inter-assante-ed. Do it. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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Hey, weirdos, if Ash and Elena's episode on Ken McElroy left you wondering how someone could become so cruel, manipulative, and untouchable, you'll want to hear my psychological breakdown of this case on my podcast, Killer Psyche. I examined the twisted mindset behind McElroy's reign of terror, how he exploited fear, used charm as a weapon, and turned an entire town into his victims.

Understanding what made him tick is exactly the kind of insight I bring on Killer Psyche, where I use my experience profiling criminals for the FBI to uncover what drives people like Ken McElroy to become predators. So if you're curious about the mind behind the mayhem, join me for an inside look at the psychology of a man who got away with everything until he didn't. Follow Killer Psyche on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.