Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993 TAG: 9312300257
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The New York Daily News and The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Authorities said Michael Stevens, 53, of Rochester, and Earl Figley, 56, were charged in a federal complaint with the interstate transport of an explosive with the intent to kill two of the victims.
Taken into custody after the bombs exploded Tuesday, they were charged after being questioned for more than a dozen hours.
Federal officials said the four lethal bombs and two others that were defused before detonation were targeted at members of the American Indian family of Brenda Lazore, who had been Stevens's common-law wife.
Authorities said Wednesday night they believed that the incidents occurred after tension between Stevens, who is white, and Lazore's family, members of the Mohawk tribe, over the upbringing of the couple's 2-year-old child.
"It was a family feud," said a law enforcement official who asked not to be named. Stevens "had concerns that the family objected to his influence over the child."
Lazore was questioned but not charged.
The complaint accused Figley of buying 55 pounds of dynamite and 50 blasting caps in Kentucky with a forged Vermont driver's license June 30. Figley told Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents that he bought the dynamite at Stevens's request and that both built the bombs.
Stevens was paroled from prison in 1989 after serving 18 months on a forgery charge in connection with a telemarketing scam. His parole expired last year, officials said.
The six bombs were made of dynamite and hidden in metal tackle boxes. They were described by Cheektowaga Police Capt. Thomas Rowan as anti-personnel devices "filled with shrapnel. They were made to kill."
All but one were delivered by private courier. The sixth came by U.S. mail.
They were sent to four homes, an armored-car garage and a prison, stretching from Rochester to suburban Buffalo and an Indian reservation hundreds of miles north of there, authorities said.
Four of the bombs exploded within 90 minutes of each other.
Lazore's mother, Eleanor Fowler, 56, was killed in her home in West Valley, outside Buffalo.
Lazore's stepfather, Robert Fowler, 38, was killed at his job at the Armored Motor Service of America garage in Cheektowaga, another Buffalo suburb. A co-worker, John O'Donnell, also was killed and a third worker was wounded, police said.
Lazore's stepsister, Pam Epperson, 32, was killed in her apartment in Rochester. The explosion also killed Epperson's boyfriend, Richard Urban, 42.
Stevens and Figley were charged in connection with their deaths only. More charges were expected, officials said.
Lazore's uncle, William Lazore, 63, was critically injured outside his home on the St. Regis Indian Reservation near Hogansburg, 250 miles northeast of Buffalo.
Interviewed by telephone from a hospital bed in Cornwall, Quebec, near the U.S.-Canadian border, Lazore, 63, said he received a large cardboard box in the mail but that, "as soon as I got the box, I don't know, for some reason when I touched it, I knew it was a bomb."
Lazore said he took it home, carefully opened the cardboard outer box and saw a dark brown toolbox inside. He said he set the box away from his house and, using a rake, unsnapped one side. Then he unsnapped the other side, and "that's all I remember."
Lazore, a steelworker, said he and his sister, Eleanor Fowler, were part of a large family that grew up on the reservation. He said the other sisters and brothers left as they grew older and that he barely knew Stevens.
Police defused a bomb sent to the Fowlers' daughter, Lucille Fowler, in New Albion, 40 miles south of Buffalo. A bomb sent to Scott Kemp, her boyfriend, at a prison 50 miles southwest of Buffalo was intercepted and safely detonated. Kemp works as a guard at the prison.
Federal and state officials said Stevens and Figley may be charged with murder and could face the death penalty.
Officials said the incident highlighted weak federal regulations on distribution of deadly explosives.
Dynamite and other explosives are sold over the counter by federally licensed dealers. Although purchasers must complete federal forms listing their names and addresses, no background checks are made on buyers.
"We have said that it's a weakness in the law that makes us vulnerable to terrorism," said Jack Killorin, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms spokesman.
by CNB