Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990 TAG: 9004060409
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
An unidentified female caller told Virginia State Police in Wytheville at 4:42 p.m. that the bus was carrying a pipe bomb.
The bus, which left Wytheville about 3:30, was stopped by troopers near Peters Creek Road on Interstate 581 about 5 p.m.
The bus was taken to the Roanoke County Public Safety Building on Peters Creek Road, where it was searched.
The 23 passengers aboard were questioned about whether they had seen any suspicious persons or packages on the bus, said Cecil Handy, special agent in charge of general investigations for the state police in Salem.
"There was no reason to suspect anyone aboard," Handy said.
A state police bomb-sniffing dog was brought in from Amelia County. While the dog did not find a bomb, it did show a preference for some "strong-smelling cheese" in a box, Handy said.
State police bomb experts pulled the box from the bus shortly after 8 p.m. and carefully unwrapped it.
The passengers were moved to another bus and had left Roanoke by 9:30 p.m. It was scheduled to go to New York.
The bus was driven by David Knight, who was the driver of a bus struck by two shots last month on Interstate 81 near Christiansburg.
Early last month, a bomb scare stopped a bus for about five hours on I-81 near Radford.
The windshield of the bus had been damaged when a cinder block was dropped off an overpass near Christiansburg.
by CNB