Killers had bigger plans
Jersey City duo aimed to target more Jews, say feds
A pipe bomb found in a van left by two accused domestic terrorists responsible for last month’s fatal shooting inside a Jersey City kosher supermarket could have killed people five football fields away, federal officials said Monday.
David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, who killed four people in the hatefilled rage Dec. 10, had bought a cache of weapons and even had enough material in the van for a second explosive, according to local news reports.
The two, found dead in the bloody aftermath of the shooting, are believed to have had broader plans to target New Jersey’s Jewish community and were motivated by antiSemitism and hatred toward law enforcement, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said. “We know now that they planned greater acts of mayhem on both communities,” Carpenito said, according to NJ.com.
Anderson was captured on video from inside the supermarket saying, “They stole our heritage, they stole our birthright, and they hired these guys to stop us,” said Carpenito.
Anderson and Graham prepared for months before killing a Jersey City detective and three others, even going to Ohio for target practice, officials said.
Veteran Detective Joseph Seals was executed by the duo in a cemetery after going there to speak with a man about an impounded car, according to NBC News 4 New York.
Investigators believe Seals approached the couple’s stolen U-Haul van because police were searching for it in connection with the murder of an
Uber driver in Bayonne, N.J., the weekend before the hateful spree. Their fatal encounter with Seals drew law enforcement to the area and is thought to have saved lives.
“We believe he threw off a broader plan,” said Carpenito, who said Seals’ actions “probably
saved dozens if not more lives,” according to NBC.
Their exact plans are still unknown, but the duo started researching a Jewish community center in Bayonne, local reports said.
After killing Seals, Anderson and Graham opened fire and executed three people inside the JC Kosher Supermarket, which investigators said they cased multiple times before the shooting began, including that morning, NBC reported.
Authorities recovered an AR-15-style weapon, thought to be used by Anderson, a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun believed to have been carried by Graham, and two semiautomatic firearms inside the supermarket.
A fifth gun with a homemade silencer was found inside the U-Haul, which was also outfitted with ballistic panels, according to NBC.
Investigators believe the pair had previously identified as Black Hebrew Israelites.
No formal link with the radical hate group has been found, though investigators located anti-police and anti-Semitic social media posts from Anderson, NBC reported.