Authorities: Texas package bombs were sophisticated
Two were killed, two were hurt after picking up packages at homes.
Describing the devices as sophisticated while struggling to identify who sent them out or why, investigators in Austin, Texas, searched Tuesday for answers behind the string of explosive packages that detonated recently at homes around the city.
Authorities have looked at connections between the victims as they investigate the three explosions at three homes, which have killed two people and seriously injured two others. While the two people killed in the bombings had connections — both were related to prominent members of the city’s black community and they have family members who are close — a third victim with no apparent ties to them was injured by a package addressed to someone else, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The mystery unnerved Austin, prompting scores of residents to call 911 after seeing potentially suspicious packages, unsettling the city when it is deluged by visitors for the South by Southwest Festival.
Officials have said they do not see any connection between the bombings and the festival, but they have still warned of the peril caused by the bombs, with Austin Police Chief Brian Manley saying that whoever is behind the attacks has been able to construct and deliver deadly devices without setting them off at any point in that process.
“When the victims have picked these packages up, they have at that point exploded,” Manley said during an appearance Tuesday morning on KXAN, an Austin television station. “There’s a certain level of skill and sophistication that whoever is doing this has.”
Police have said they are not sure if the devices that detonated had all reached their intended targets. The most recent package to detonate injured an elderly Latino woman who was visiting her mother’s home — but it was addressed to a different home nearby, according to two people familiar with the investigation. The woman who was injured may have been walking the package over to that address when it detonated, these people said.
This suggests that the explosive was not necessarily aimed at the injured woman, who has been identified by her relatives as Esperanza Herrera. The other two bombs killed people whose families have ties, and one of those victims’ relatives said he did not know of any connections to Herrera.
Still, the connection between those two slain victims, a black teenage boy and a black 39-year-old man, has prompted their relatives to wonder whether race or their ties played some role in the bombing.
“Are you trying to say something to prominent African-American families?” said Freddie Dixon, stepfather of Anthony Stephan House, the 39year-old killed in the first explosion March 2.
Dixon said he is good friends with Norman Mason, whose grandson, 17year-old Draylen Mason, was the teenager killed in the explosion Monday.
Authorities say they have received 265 calls about suspicious packages since the two explosions Monday. None turned out to be a threat.