Two arrested in Centralia bomb scare investigation
Friday, September 5, 2008 6:20 PM PDT
By The Daily News
Printable version
E-mail this articleLewis County Sheriff’s detectives arrested two men Friday morning for the improvised bomb discovered along the railroad tracks near Transalta in Centralia on Aug. 20.
Patrick Eberle, 29, and Robert McGee, 44, both of Napavine, were arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail for explosives and trespassing charges, according to a press release from the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
The bomb in question was a five gallon propane tank with green and yellow wires like those used in electrical blasting caps. After Transalta employees called 911, the Washington State Patrol bomb squad responded and removed a blasting cap — which detonated but did not cause the bomb to go off “for unknown reasons,” the press release said.
Eberle told detectives he made the bomb — which Sheriff Steve Mansfield called “extremely dangerous” — for the 4th of July but it didn’t go off as planned. In early August, he put the device in his car and planned to take it to a location where he could dump it, but threw it alongside the railroad tracks after he became frightened by a security guard near Transalta.
The device is still at the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab for evidence processing.
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