Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991                   TAG: 9104140092
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From staff and wire reports
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TEENS FACE PIPE-BOMB CHARGES

Police first believed a third youth might have been involved, but Barry Balser, investigator with the city Police Department, said Saturday that possibility had been ruled out.

Clifton Forge Police Chief Dorsey Huffman said Friday that two youths are suspected of placing the bomb behind the school.

Balser said the youths, both 15, had been released to the custody of their parents. Charges are expected to be filed early this week.

A custodian discovered the plastic-wrapped bomb Thursday while raking leaves behind the school. The device was loaded with wet, black gunpowder and contained a battery, wires and a timer.

The names of the teens were withheld because of their ages.

Huffman said the juveniles didn't intend to leave the bomb on school grounds. One of the teens was carrying the device and panicked when he saw a group of students approaching, so he hid the bomb in a pile of leaves and planned to retrieve it later, Huffman said.

"There was basically no motive involved with the school," Huffman said.

Officials have linked the youths, who recently had been experimenting with gunpowder, to several explosions throughout the city. Balser said the youths had set off bombs in the open in order to see if they worked. There was no damage.

Some of the earlier bombs had been set off near the school ballfield, Balser said, but most of the experiments over the last few months took place near Virginia 606 in Alleghany County.

If the bomb found at the school had exploded, "it certainly would have been dangerous," Huffman said.

"It was a good thing we were able to get to the bottom of this thing so quickly," he said.

The school's 260 students remained in class Thursday while police defused the bomb. A state bomb technician disarmed the device, and pieces were sent to a state forensics laboratory in Roanoke for analysis.