August 1, 2024 • 30 mins
Two more bombings. The first one at a gay bar in Atlanta. The second one at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, AL.
But something is different with the explosion in Birmingham. The bomb wasn't on a timer. No, this time the bomber watched from a distance, waiting. Waiting to push the button at the exact moment when he can inflict the most possible damage.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
You're listening to Flashpoint, a production of tenderfoot TV and
association with iHeartMedia. The views and opinions expressed in this
podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast.
This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be
suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
I loved Atlanta, always knew I'd probably move here. And
the community was strong, men and women, black and white,
and transgender, and it was always the dream abov and
made to have a community nightclub that was for everyone.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
They called it the other Side Lounge. It was known
as a lesbian bar, but as Dana Ford just said,
it was a bar for.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Anyone, for everyone.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Inside outside other Side people would wander in, some of
them I didn't even know Ellen Degenerous, I guess at
sometimes Steve Martin.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
It was a big spot. A lot of things were happening.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
As you know now, back at the beginning of ninety seven,
I'm not even born yet. If the Sandy Springs abortion
clinic hadn't been bombed, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't exist.
I've been picking at these threads for as long as
I can remember, and this podcast is my reckoning, my
coming to terms with the devil that made me. But
back in ninety seven, Dana Ford and her partner Beverly
(01:47):
had planted a pretty original flag with the other Side Lounge.
It was their personal love letter to the city of Atlanta,
a safe haven for free expression. But there's two sides
to that coin, and the truth is a place like that,
it's a refuge for lots of people, but for others,
(02:10):
it's a target.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Episode three, Army of God.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
You know, back then, you still had to congregate together.
You know, you still had to be careful when you
walk the streets. And the politics were changing, and when
they were trying to get don asks, don't tell and
get people who were able to serve in the military,
and it was across the board looking for rights. You know,
we'd have people vandalize our property, had eggs thrown at me,
(02:59):
and bobblestone at me, and my car keyed and our
locks super glued, and people would come through the parking
lot and vandalize the cars or they'd and one time
there was a homicide outline, like a dead body on
our stoop. We'd get calls where you know, they're threatening
rape or harm or assaults, and you know, you had
to be careful and you had to be aware, and
(03:19):
the community needed to stick together. It was a hard
fought period to get to where we got with gay
marriage and these small little victories. But it starts at
the community level. And that's why Bev and I were
active and active in human rights and people who knew
(03:40):
who we were downtown and that was part of our job.
We weren't just slinging drinks and making money. We wanted
to make a change.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Most people are creatures of habit. They don't like change,
and some folks they hated.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Reported by Brian Williams.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Good Evening, the city of Atlanta might have a big
problem on its hands again.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It's the night of February twenty first, nineteen ninety seven.
Barely a month has passed since the bombing at the
Sandy Springs abortion clinic, and still no leads. But trouble
waits for no one, and with the echoes of this
blasts still lingering in the air.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Another bomb goes off in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Suddenly Atlanta's mayor thinks his city might be in the
sights of what he calls a deranged killer.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Take me through.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
When you first heard news of the bomb, you didn't
think it was a bomb, did you?
Speaker 4 (04:33):
I knew something was detonated as my manager, I said,
what is it? You said, something blew up? Is it
like an M eighty?
Speaker 5 (04:41):
Is it?
Speaker 7 (04:41):
You know?
Speaker 4 (04:41):
What? What do you mean blew up? He goes, I
have no idea. I went eighty miles an hour down
p Stree Hills Avenue and was at the club in
a matter of minutes. I pulled up in the front
and then I went inside just to make an assessment
of what had happened. I saw about four or five
(05:02):
flashlights flicking around in the bushes on the back of
the building, about two or three on the side. Knowing
its police officers, I walk in. There was a person
sitting on a bar stool being treated by a medic,
and they had a wound on their back. So I thought, okay,
that person obviously is well enough to be sitting on
a stool, and I kept going going, and I saw
(05:24):
as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding
out on the floor and people frantically working on them.
And then I saw a woman covered in blood on
the phone. She was taking orders, I mean, somebody was
explaining to her what she needed to do. And I
kept walking and the DJ was still in the booth,
the bartender was still behind the small bar, and so
(05:46):
I went out the patio door and assessed what was
going on. And that's when the tin roof that we
had was just shredded, and everything on an elevated deck
that we had was told leave blown around in speakers
so I could tell it was something huge, something significant.
And then there was this fine particular dust on the floor,
(06:09):
which now I understand probably came from the rock wall,
but it blew all the way in like a cloud.
And there was a single young cop standing there kind
of dazed, and I said, so, what do you think,
and he said, I think it's a bomb.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
After the twin bombs at the Sandy Springs Clinic, law
enforcement changed their approach to these situations. Veteran GBI agent
Charles Stone was early on the scene.
Speaker 8 (06:37):
We had had training sessions then to APD and beat
offshers and detectives saying, if you get a call of
an explosion or anything like that, be on your page
and q's and look for damned secondary devices. Well they
did the very right thing. They combed the parking lot
(06:58):
and found.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
The once again not one bomb, but two, which meant
the threat was not over. A second device was just
sitting there waiting to explode, and it could happen any minute,
any second, with dozens of innocent people in its path,
and nobody knew how much time they had.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
And I asked for the officer on duty. I said,
what do we need to do and she said, we
think we found a second device. And that second device
was about twenty five feet or so from the door,
and she said, well, we need to get the people
out of there. I said, how are we going to
do that? She said, they can't run and they can't
know that's there. So I went inside and kind of
(07:42):
gathered everybody together. I changed my disposition so they wouldn't
be frightened. I said, well, you know, guys, we got
to get the head out of here, kind of like that,
and people were trying to down their drinks. I said, no, no, no,
nont grown, I'm just take them with you, and they
hit them under their coats. I well, that's a good idea,
you know, anything to kind of keep them calm. I
do know, though, my bartender, when I said just shut
the registers and walk away, they looked at me because
(08:04):
they know I'd never leave money in the register. And
I calmed them down and said, it's cops. They're not
going to steal it. They just leave it there. None
of them knew that there was a bomb, none of them,
and I knew it was getting close. In my gut
because of the abortion clinic, I knew and my mind
a clock had started, and that's why I said, we've
(08:26):
got to get these.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
People out of here.
Speaker 9 (08:29):
They called in the bomb squad with the robot, and
the robot went to diffuse it.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
US Attorney Ken Alexander, who was alreadinvestigating the two other
Atlanta bombings, was also in the parking lot.
Speaker 9 (08:41):
You can actually diffuse bombs by shooting these high powered
water guns into them, and as they did it, the
bomb dropped on the pavement and everybody thought it was
going to explode, and he didn't. Then they started to
shoot it. The bomb ended up exploding, and I distinctly
remember or the valet sign. It was riddled with what
(09:03):
looked like bullets, but as with Sandy Springs, remarkably nobody
was killed.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
A police robot shot it with a stream of water
about two this morning and it exploded. Authorities were investigating
another bombing at the same club when they found the backpack.
Speaker 9 (09:19):
And it was really after that bomb when we took
a look forensically at the components of the bomb started
to compare that there was really little doubt that we
were dealing with the same bomber.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
We were dealing with the serial bomber.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
The bomb that went off in Atlanta's Centennial Park last
July also was placed in a backpack. Nails were used
in that bomb, as well as in the second of
two bombs that exploded last month at an Atlanta clinic
where abortions are performed.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
God law enforcement was now clearly dealing with a serial bomber.
The theories and suspicions from Sandy Springs were finding purchase
with this new evidence. But back in ninety seven, the
term serial bomber wasn't a very well known thing. Even
the forensic science surrounding a serial bomber was very much
(10:12):
just getting started. The information gathering, the safety protocols, the
communication protocols, the technology, the language, and how it seeped
into the culture. These things were just figuring themselves out.
Add to the fact that there were five massive bureaucratic
agencies involved, and this was a lot for anyone to manage.
(10:32):
But new evidence would begin to fit this story into
a bigger picture, one with a dark history and an
even darker future.
Speaker 10 (10:54):
The bombings and sandy springs in Midtown were carried out
by units of the Army of God. The aboration was
the target of the first device. The murder of three
point five million children every year will not be tolerated.
Those who participate in any way in the murder of
children may be targeted for attack. The attack therefore serves
as a warning anyone in or around facilities that murdered
(11:17):
children may become victims of retribution.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
A very specific point of view was claiming responsibility now
and sending handwritten letters to news outlets and federal authorities.
They called themselves the Army of God. The letters were
riddled with spelling and grammar errors, but they were deadly
serious and for as unprofessionals. The letter may have read
to most in the media. It was designed to put
(11:43):
the fear of God in you, and that's exactly what
it did.
Speaker 10 (11:47):
The second device was aimed at agents of the so
called federal government ieatf FBI, marshals, etc. We declare and
will wage total war on the ungodly communist regime in
New York and your legislative bureaucratic lackeys in Washington. It
is you who are responsible and preside over the murder
(12:09):
of children and issue the policy of ungodly perversion that's
destroying our people. We will target all facilities and personnel
of the federal government. The attack in Midtown was aimed
at the Sodomite bar. The other side, we will target Sodomites,
their organizations, and all those who push their agenda in
(12:30):
the future, where innocent people may become the primary casualties.
And warning phone call will be placed to one of
the news bureaus or nine to one one generally, a
forty minute warning will be given. To confirm the authenticity
of the warning, a code will be given with the
warning statement. The code for our unit is four to
(12:51):
one nine nine three, Death to the New World Order.
Speaker 9 (13:03):
The analyst said, first, who I was writing this is
really angry, just because the way they were bearing down
that was written by a bomber. That's kind of a
given they're gonna be an angry person. But second they
said they were trying to disguise the writing. The thing
that jumped out at everybody though, which was chilling, was
the letters were signed off with the code, which was
the date of Waco.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Waco, Texas April nineteenth, nineteen ninety three. This was the
day when state and federal authorities laid siege to a
religious compound led by cult leader David Koresh. He and
his followers had been a standoff with law enforcement for
nearly two months.
Speaker 9 (13:41):
It was chilling to see that date, and it was
also a major clue that whoever did this bombing wasn't
necessarily driven by abortion. But there was something deeper with
this anti government bent relating to Waco and perhaps Ruby Ridge.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Remember this date April nineteenth. We'll dig into that later,
but it was here in this moment that the authorities
first picked up on a deeply menacing and unexpected scent,
one that connected to a very dark piece of American history.
But they still didn't have any idea who was actually
(14:18):
planting the bombs.
Speaker 9 (14:20):
So our focus started going in that direction a bit
more as we decided this might be somebody really trying
to almost throw us off track by bombing a largely
gained lesbian nightclub and bombing an abortion clinic, because what's
really afoot here is somebody who's very much against the government,
(14:41):
world or that sort of thing, and the same sort
of things that drove a lot of people who used
Waco as their personal wake up call to a call
to arms against the US.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
Sour's as close to the investigation tell NBC News there
are differences in those five bombs too. Natils used for
shrapnel were longer than time and the backpack was described
as ready, you.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Know, we have kids. So we had the car seats
in the back, and the shrapnel they were like bullets.
I mean, they just pierced everything I know. On the patio.
It literally sliced like a butter knife through a full
section of tin roof that was probably about twenty feet long,
and so it was embedded in the trunk and there
(15:24):
was glass shattered all through the car seats and it's
a little jarring to see that when they're handing your
baby seats back then, apologizing that they couldn't get all
the glass out of.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
It, so the children's car seats and Dana and Bev's
car were riddled with shrapnel. The nursery at Sandy Springs,
the actual crib where Rob Saddler's twin toddlers napped, was destroyed,
the ceiling collapsing on top of it, crushing it. This
bomber is leaving quite a trail of collateral damage, not
(15:54):
to mention the emotional trauma.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
The death threats that we subsequently received for years threatened
the lives of our kids. Only certain people could touch
the mail. We had to write down who handled it.
We had to put it in special envelopes, We had
to call the FBI, and this went on for years.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
For a while, all of Dana and Bev's mail was
passed on to the FBI for filtering. To this day,
Dana doesn't know the exact contents of this hate mail,
but she knew that they contained threats to both the
club and her family. This is another example of one
of those protocol things law enforcement hadn't.
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Quite figured out yet. So what was the solution? A
family couldn't open their own mail for three years?
Speaker 4 (16:38):
The last one we received was two thousand and one.
You know the FBI. The reassurance they gave us was
if they really want to hurt you, they're not going
to warn you about it, so you don't have to
worry about the ones that threaten you. It's like that's
not reassuring when you're staring at your children at the
dinner table, thinking, well, today I received a threat that
someone's going to kill you, and there's not much I
(16:59):
can do about it. It was a struggle after the bombing,
with all the stress we were under. I would get sick,
literally get sick going in and you had to hide it.
You can't let people know that you're having anxiety attacks
and you're going into the restroom and vomiting. And I
(17:20):
know it sounds horrible, but that's part of what the
stress was. And I have to tell you. After I
got that last death threat, I turned to Bev and
I said I'm done. We closed in two thousand and one.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
And that wasn't the only fallout.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Bev and I don't really have conversations. We broke up
about a year ago, and the bombing had its effects.
It wiped out our savings, and you know, we have
children approaching high school, trying to get them into college.
Had an opportunity to work in Florida. You know, even
a few months before we broke up, she said something
about the bombing and what she recalls as my response
(18:03):
to it. So I don't think it ever left her.
I don't think she ever resolved it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Some consequences are unintentional, unanticipated, They aren't engineered to happen
by design. Others are more purposeful, blatant, even deliberate.
Speaker 7 (18:39):
I never knew I could have been so outspoken about something.
When I first got the job. It was exactly that
I looked in the newspaper doctor's office blah blah blah,
said I would never work in the doctor's office, little
one behold. A couple of months after we got married,
I went and had an interview and she asked me
(19:00):
what was my view and abortion. I said, I'm okay
with it.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Emily Lyons was thirty seven years old when she answered
the job posting for the new Woman All Women Healthcare Center,
an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 7 (19:14):
The first day I went, there was a protester out
on the curb of the street, and you know, He
was the one that was there all the time, mostly blind.
He couldn't tell if you were male or female. But
everybody he just said, don't kill your baby. But he
(19:35):
was a fanatic about it, and that first time I
was like, what is that. I had no clue, but
the mental the verbal abuse they gave those women was horrible.
Then there was David Lackey, used to be the former
(19:56):
head of Operation Rescue in town. One day to work,
I was getting out of the car and he says,
what do you do with your blood money? Did you
buy that car with your blood money? He was vicious.
Out of all the people that usually came to the
clinic to protest, he was the one that could have
(20:20):
been the biggest trouble. We had a package delivered one day.
It was brown paper, had a lot of stamps on it.
He was dressed to the office and I'm like, what
is this? And so the administrator took it upstairs to
the doctor and he's like, put it down called the
(20:40):
bomb squad. It's like, oh my goodness. But inside was
a box of chocolates and there were little plastic fetus
things stuck in each of them.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Emily says, even in the face of such threats, she
never once questioned her position at the hospital.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
The pats would come to you afterwards and shake your hand,
thank you so much for being there, thank you for
holding my hands, And that became important to me. Most
people have a job and they just do it. The
bosses really don't say a whole lot. They keep on,
just keep going. But that became one of the reasons
(21:21):
to do a good job, to make sure you took
care of the women, because that's what your job was.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And Thursday, January twenty ninth, nineteen ninety eight, was just
like any other day for Emily.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
She was just doing her job. What do you remember
from that day?
Speaker 7 (21:40):
Nothing? Absolutely nothing. I don't remember getting up taking a
shower about that. The only thing I know about it
is what people have told me. The lady that usually
came in was pregnant. She was on attornity leave. She
(22:01):
had the baby the next week, so I was taken
her place doing some of her jobs, working on lab
work and stuff. They had put a new security system
in and I didn't have the code for it, and
the administrator was late that day because she had been
sick that morning. So I was there an hour and
(22:23):
a half early. Of course, Sandy would have always been there.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Robert Sanderson, better known as Sandy, was an off duty
police officer the clinic hired to protect their nurses and
patients from protesters. He had only recently begun working at
the clinic, filling in for another off duty officer who
was away on leave.
Speaker 7 (22:43):
I didn't know Sandy much. I mean, he came to work,
he did his job. He was courteous. He was not
pro choice, but he knew it was his responsibility. Every
day he came to work to protect those women. He
was there before we got there. He would leave after
they left. There was very few hours of the day
(23:07):
that we weren't protected by a police officer, just mild manner.
I considered him one of the good guys. I'm sure
it was a difficult thing for him to do. He
did his job.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
Back to that morning, it's around seven thirty am.
Speaker 7 (23:28):
Now there were other people there. Man and his daughter,
the daughter's boyfriend, and the boyfriend's father were there. They
came way too early. They got out one time and
talked to Sandy. I wasn't there yet, I don't think,
and they left because Sandy said no. The clinic's not
(23:49):
open yet. So they left. They came back and the guy,
the dad, got out of the car and walked up
and Sandy told know they're not open yet. He goes,
what is that over there? And when he told Sandy that,
Sandy took out his night stick and went to look
at it, and that's when he pushed the button. And
(24:14):
that was six to twelve feet in front of the bomb.
Sandy was off to the side. He got the force
of the blast. I got the shrapnel. There was no
hope for Sandy. His gun was out in the street,
his badge was somewhere else, leg was other places.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Emily Lyons was walking into the abortion clinic where she
worked as a nurse. Birmingham police officer Robert Sandy Sanderson
was standing guard outside. Sanderson spotted a suspicious object hidden
in a flower pot near the door. The blast killed
officer Sanderson instantly. Lion spent the next eight weeks in
the hospital.
Speaker 7 (24:59):
The U paramedics and all those got there quickly after
nine to one one call. The FBI didn't want them
to come up to me. They thought there may have
been a secondary bomb, so they wanted to leave me there.
Firemen and the paramedics one are the initial people who
(25:21):
saved me. All I know is they told me the
bomb went off at seven point thirty three. I had
a watch on, I didn't get it back, and I
was in the operating room before eight o'clock that day.
(25:44):
Jeffrey was the first one to tell me. In the
burn unit, he would always every day come in talk
to me. He would tell me what had happened.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Emily and Jeffrey had only been married for four years
at this point, but he never left her side, not
even for a minute.
Speaker 7 (26:01):
I didn't see what I had looked like for almost
a year. I couldn't see the pictures on the computer.
It went until it had my eye fixed and lens
and everything done that I could see how bad things were.
Those first few pictures that I saw, my face was charcoal. Oh,
(26:25):
every little spot just stood out of where something had
gone in and burned me, broke in my face. And
then when I saw the X rays and stuff, it
was how could somebody do that to somebody else? I mean,
just deliberate and it was premeditated. He thought about it,
he planned on it. I just cried because it was like,
(26:50):
you hurt me so badly. And you don't know me,
your opinion, your thoughts are no more important than mine, Heart,
But I'm sure I'm gonna kill you. The FBI came
that first summer and told me it was different from
his other bombs he had made. The others were time related.
(27:13):
This was detonated by him, so we know he watched.
He stood out there and watched us, and when he
thought he was going to be found out, he pushed
the button.
Speaker 5 (27:34):
Next time on Flashpoint, he heard.
Speaker 11 (27:38):
The bomb explode, and when he looked out of his window,
you could see some smoke and some people moving that way.
But yet there was one individual that appeared to have
some kind of disguise on and was not running, but
walking very hurriedly away from the scene. And he just
(28:00):
thought to himself, there's something wrong with this picture. Jeff
saw him get in a truck, a gray Nissan pickup truck,
and wrote the tag number of the pickup truck down
the tag number we ran and was registered to.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Flashpoint is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with iHeartMedia.
I'm Your Host. Cola Cassio, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay
are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV. Flashpoint was created, written,
and executive produced by Doug Mattica and myself on behalf
of seven nine nine seven. Lead producer is alex Espostad,
(29:00):
along with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Steadman.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Our associate producer is wit Lukassio.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Editing by Alex Vespostat with additional editing by Liam Luxon
and Sidney Evans. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Artwork by
Station sixteen, original music by Jay Ragsdale mixed by Dayton Cole.
Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum and the team at Uta
(29:28):
Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group. Special thanks
to Jason Morphew, angela Q, Tolly Revied Mattica and Tim Livingston.
For more podcasts like Flashpoint, search Tenderfoot TV on your
favorite podcast staff or visit us at tenderfoot dot tv.
(29:49):
Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episod a Flashpoint.
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(30:10):
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Flashpoint is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free,
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subscribe to tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot com or on
Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
You're listening to Flashpoint, a production of tenderfoot TV and
association with iHeartMedia. The views and opinions expressed in this
podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast.
This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be
suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
I loved Atlanta, always knew I'd probably move here. And
the community was strong, men and women, black and white,
and transgender, and it was always the dream abov and
made to have a community nightclub that was for everyone.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
They called it the other Side Lounge. It was known
as a lesbian bar, but as Dana Ford just said,
it was a bar for.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Anyone, for everyone.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Inside outside other Side people would wander in, some of
them I didn't even know Ellen Degenerous, I guess at
sometimes Steve Martin.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
It was a big spot. A lot of things were happening.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
As you know now, back at the beginning of ninety seven,
I'm not even born yet. If the Sandy Springs abortion
clinic hadn't been bombed, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't exist.
I've been picking at these threads for as long as
I can remember, and this podcast is my reckoning, my
coming to terms with the devil that made me. But
back in ninety seven, Dana Ford and her partner Beverly
(01:47):
had planted a pretty original flag with the other Side Lounge.
It was their personal love letter to the city of Atlanta,
a safe haven for free expression. But there's two sides
to that coin, and the truth is a place like that,
it's a refuge for lots of people, but for others,
(02:10):
it's a target.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Episode three, Army of God.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
You know, back then, you still had to congregate together.
You know, you still had to be careful when you
walk the streets. And the politics were changing, and when
they were trying to get don asks, don't tell and
get people who were able to serve in the military,
and it was across the board looking for rights. You know,
we'd have people vandalize our property, had eggs thrown at me,
(02:59):
and bobblestone at me, and my car keyed and our
locks super glued, and people would come through the parking
lot and vandalize the cars or they'd and one time
there was a homicide outline, like a dead body on
our stoop. We'd get calls where you know, they're threatening
rape or harm or assaults, and you know, you had
to be careful and you had to be aware, and
(03:19):
the community needed to stick together. It was a hard
fought period to get to where we got with gay
marriage and these small little victories. But it starts at
the community level. And that's why Bev and I were
active and active in human rights and people who knew
(03:40):
who we were downtown and that was part of our job.
We weren't just slinging drinks and making money. We wanted
to make a change.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Most people are creatures of habit. They don't like change,
and some folks they hated.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Reported by Brian Williams.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Good Evening, the city of Atlanta might have a big
problem on its hands again.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It's the night of February twenty first, nineteen ninety seven.
Barely a month has passed since the bombing at the
Sandy Springs abortion clinic, and still no leads. But trouble
waits for no one, and with the echoes of this
blasts still lingering in the air.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Another bomb goes off in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Suddenly Atlanta's mayor thinks his city might be in the
sights of what he calls a deranged killer.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Take me through.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
When you first heard news of the bomb, you didn't
think it was a bomb, did you?
Speaker 4 (04:33):
I knew something was detonated as my manager, I said,
what is it? You said, something blew up? Is it
like an M eighty?
Speaker 5 (04:41):
Is it?
Speaker 7 (04:41):
You know?
Speaker 4 (04:41):
What? What do you mean blew up? He goes, I
have no idea. I went eighty miles an hour down
p Stree Hills Avenue and was at the club in
a matter of minutes. I pulled up in the front
and then I went inside just to make an assessment
of what had happened. I saw about four or five
(05:02):
flashlights flicking around in the bushes on the back of
the building, about two or three on the side. Knowing
its police officers, I walk in. There was a person
sitting on a bar stool being treated by a medic,
and they had a wound on their back. So I thought, okay,
that person obviously is well enough to be sitting on
a stool, and I kept going going, and I saw
(05:24):
as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding
out on the floor and people frantically working on them.
And then I saw a woman covered in blood on
the phone. She was taking orders, I mean, somebody was
explaining to her what she needed to do. And I
kept walking and the DJ was still in the booth,
the bartender was still behind the small bar, and so
(05:46):
I went out the patio door and assessed what was
going on. And that's when the tin roof that we
had was just shredded, and everything on an elevated deck
that we had was told leave blown around in speakers
so I could tell it was something huge, something significant.
And then there was this fine particular dust on the floor,
(06:09):
which now I understand probably came from the rock wall,
but it blew all the way in like a cloud.
And there was a single young cop standing there kind
of dazed, and I said, so, what do you think,
and he said, I think it's a bomb.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
After the twin bombs at the Sandy Springs Clinic, law
enforcement changed their approach to these situations. Veteran GBI agent
Charles Stone was early on the scene.
Speaker 8 (06:37):
We had had training sessions then to APD and beat
offshers and detectives saying, if you get a call of
an explosion or anything like that, be on your page
and q's and look for damned secondary devices. Well they
did the very right thing. They combed the parking lot
(06:58):
and found.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
The once again not one bomb, but two, which meant
the threat was not over. A second device was just
sitting there waiting to explode, and it could happen any minute,
any second, with dozens of innocent people in its path,
and nobody knew how much time they had.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
And I asked for the officer on duty. I said,
what do we need to do and she said, we
think we found a second device. And that second device
was about twenty five feet or so from the door,
and she said, well, we need to get the people
out of there. I said, how are we going to
do that? She said, they can't run and they can't
know that's there. So I went inside and kind of
(07:42):
gathered everybody together. I changed my disposition so they wouldn't
be frightened. I said, well, you know, guys, we got
to get the head out of here, kind of like that,
and people were trying to down their drinks. I said, no, no, no,
nont grown, I'm just take them with you, and they
hit them under their coats. I well, that's a good idea,
you know, anything to kind of keep them calm. I
do know, though, my bartender, when I said just shut
the registers and walk away, they looked at me because
(08:04):
they know I'd never leave money in the register. And
I calmed them down and said, it's cops. They're not
going to steal it. They just leave it there. None
of them knew that there was a bomb, none of them,
and I knew it was getting close. In my gut
because of the abortion clinic, I knew and my mind
a clock had started, and that's why I said, we've
(08:26):
got to get these.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
People out of here.
Speaker 9 (08:29):
They called in the bomb squad with the robot, and
the robot went to diffuse it.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
US Attorney Ken Alexander, who was alreadinvestigating the two other
Atlanta bombings, was also in the parking lot.
Speaker 9 (08:41):
You can actually diffuse bombs by shooting these high powered
water guns into them, and as they did it, the
bomb dropped on the pavement and everybody thought it was
going to explode, and he didn't. Then they started to
shoot it. The bomb ended up exploding, and I distinctly
remember or the valet sign. It was riddled with what
(09:03):
looked like bullets, but as with Sandy Springs, remarkably nobody
was killed.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
A police robot shot it with a stream of water
about two this morning and it exploded. Authorities were investigating
another bombing at the same club when they found the backpack.
Speaker 9 (09:19):
And it was really after that bomb when we took
a look forensically at the components of the bomb started
to compare that there was really little doubt that we
were dealing with the same bomber.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
We were dealing with the serial bomber.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
The bomb that went off in Atlanta's Centennial Park last
July also was placed in a backpack. Nails were used
in that bomb, as well as in the second of
two bombs that exploded last month at an Atlanta clinic
where abortions are performed.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
God law enforcement was now clearly dealing with a serial bomber.
The theories and suspicions from Sandy Springs were finding purchase
with this new evidence. But back in ninety seven, the
term serial bomber wasn't a very well known thing. Even
the forensic science surrounding a serial bomber was very much
(10:12):
just getting started. The information gathering, the safety protocols, the
communication protocols, the technology, the language, and how it seeped
into the culture. These things were just figuring themselves out.
Add to the fact that there were five massive bureaucratic
agencies involved, and this was a lot for anyone to manage.
(10:32):
But new evidence would begin to fit this story into
a bigger picture, one with a dark history and an
even darker future.
Speaker 10 (10:54):
The bombings and sandy springs in Midtown were carried out
by units of the Army of God. The aboration was
the target of the first device. The murder of three
point five million children every year will not be tolerated.
Those who participate in any way in the murder of
children may be targeted for attack. The attack therefore serves
as a warning anyone in or around facilities that murdered
(11:17):
children may become victims of retribution.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
A very specific point of view was claiming responsibility now
and sending handwritten letters to news outlets and federal authorities.
They called themselves the Army of God. The letters were
riddled with spelling and grammar errors, but they were deadly
serious and for as unprofessionals. The letter may have read
to most in the media. It was designed to put
(11:43):
the fear of God in you, and that's exactly what
it did.
Speaker 10 (11:47):
The second device was aimed at agents of the so
called federal government ieatf FBI, marshals, etc. We declare and
will wage total war on the ungodly communist regime in
New York and your legislative bureaucratic lackeys in Washington. It
is you who are responsible and preside over the murder
(12:09):
of children and issue the policy of ungodly perversion that's
destroying our people. We will target all facilities and personnel
of the federal government. The attack in Midtown was aimed
at the Sodomite bar. The other side, we will target Sodomites,
their organizations, and all those who push their agenda in
(12:30):
the future, where innocent people may become the primary casualties.
And warning phone call will be placed to one of
the news bureaus or nine to one one generally, a
forty minute warning will be given. To confirm the authenticity
of the warning, a code will be given with the
warning statement. The code for our unit is four to
(12:51):
one nine nine three, Death to the New World Order.
Speaker 9 (13:03):
The analyst said, first, who I was writing this is
really angry, just because the way they were bearing down
that was written by a bomber. That's kind of a
given they're gonna be an angry person. But second they
said they were trying to disguise the writing. The thing
that jumped out at everybody though, which was chilling, was
the letters were signed off with the code, which was
the date of Waco.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Waco, Texas April nineteenth, nineteen ninety three. This was the
day when state and federal authorities laid siege to a
religious compound led by cult leader David Koresh. He and
his followers had been a standoff with law enforcement for
nearly two months.
Speaker 9 (13:41):
It was chilling to see that date, and it was
also a major clue that whoever did this bombing wasn't
necessarily driven by abortion. But there was something deeper with
this anti government bent relating to Waco and perhaps Ruby Ridge.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Remember this date April nineteenth. We'll dig into that later,
but it was here in this moment that the authorities
first picked up on a deeply menacing and unexpected scent,
one that connected to a very dark piece of American history.
But they still didn't have any idea who was actually
(14:18):
planting the bombs.
Speaker 9 (14:20):
So our focus started going in that direction a bit
more as we decided this might be somebody really trying
to almost throw us off track by bombing a largely
gained lesbian nightclub and bombing an abortion clinic, because what's
really afoot here is somebody who's very much against the government,
(14:41):
world or that sort of thing, and the same sort
of things that drove a lot of people who used
Waco as their personal wake up call to a call
to arms against the US.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
Sour's as close to the investigation tell NBC News there
are differences in those five bombs too. Natils used for
shrapnel were longer than time and the backpack was described
as ready, you.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Know, we have kids. So we had the car seats
in the back, and the shrapnel they were like bullets.
I mean, they just pierced everything I know. On the patio.
It literally sliced like a butter knife through a full
section of tin roof that was probably about twenty feet long,
and so it was embedded in the trunk and there
(15:24):
was glass shattered all through the car seats and it's
a little jarring to see that when they're handing your
baby seats back then, apologizing that they couldn't get all
the glass out of.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
It, so the children's car seats and Dana and Bev's
car were riddled with shrapnel. The nursery at Sandy Springs,
the actual crib where Rob Saddler's twin toddlers napped, was destroyed,
the ceiling collapsing on top of it, crushing it. This
bomber is leaving quite a trail of collateral damage, not
(15:54):
to mention the emotional trauma.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
The death threats that we subsequently received for years threatened
the lives of our kids. Only certain people could touch
the mail. We had to write down who handled it.
We had to put it in special envelopes, We had
to call the FBI, and this went on for years.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
For a while, all of Dana and Bev's mail was
passed on to the FBI for filtering. To this day,
Dana doesn't know the exact contents of this hate mail,
but she knew that they contained threats to both the
club and her family. This is another example of one
of those protocol things law enforcement hadn't.
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Quite figured out yet. So what was the solution? A
family couldn't open their own mail for three years?
Speaker 4 (16:38):
The last one we received was two thousand and one.
You know the FBI. The reassurance they gave us was
if they really want to hurt you, they're not going
to warn you about it, so you don't have to
worry about the ones that threaten you. It's like that's
not reassuring when you're staring at your children at the
dinner table, thinking, well, today I received a threat that
someone's going to kill you, and there's not much I
(16:59):
can do about it. It was a struggle after the bombing,
with all the stress we were under. I would get sick,
literally get sick going in and you had to hide it.
You can't let people know that you're having anxiety attacks
and you're going into the restroom and vomiting. And I
(17:20):
know it sounds horrible, but that's part of what the
stress was. And I have to tell you. After I
got that last death threat, I turned to Bev and
I said I'm done. We closed in two thousand and one.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
And that wasn't the only fallout.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Bev and I don't really have conversations. We broke up
about a year ago, and the bombing had its effects.
It wiped out our savings, and you know, we have
children approaching high school, trying to get them into college.
Had an opportunity to work in Florida. You know, even
a few months before we broke up, she said something
about the bombing and what she recalls as my response
(18:03):
to it. So I don't think it ever left her.
I don't think she ever resolved it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Some consequences are unintentional, unanticipated, They aren't engineered to happen
by design. Others are more purposeful, blatant, even deliberate.
Speaker 7 (18:39):
I never knew I could have been so outspoken about something.
When I first got the job. It was exactly that
I looked in the newspaper doctor's office blah blah blah,
said I would never work in the doctor's office, little
one behold. A couple of months after we got married,
I went and had an interview and she asked me
(19:00):
what was my view and abortion. I said, I'm okay
with it.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Emily Lyons was thirty seven years old when she answered
the job posting for the new Woman All Women Healthcare Center,
an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 7 (19:14):
The first day I went, there was a protester out
on the curb of the street, and you know, He
was the one that was there all the time, mostly blind.
He couldn't tell if you were male or female. But
everybody he just said, don't kill your baby. But he
(19:35):
was a fanatic about it, and that first time I
was like, what is that. I had no clue, but
the mental the verbal abuse they gave those women was horrible.
Then there was David Lackey, used to be the former
(19:56):
head of Operation Rescue in town. One day to work,
I was getting out of the car and he says,
what do you do with your blood money? Did you
buy that car with your blood money? He was vicious.
Out of all the people that usually came to the
clinic to protest, he was the one that could have
(20:20):
been the biggest trouble. We had a package delivered one day.
It was brown paper, had a lot of stamps on it.
He was dressed to the office and I'm like, what
is this? And so the administrator took it upstairs to
the doctor and he's like, put it down called the
(20:40):
bomb squad. It's like, oh my goodness. But inside was
a box of chocolates and there were little plastic fetus
things stuck in each of them.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Emily says, even in the face of such threats, she
never once questioned her position at the hospital.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
The pats would come to you afterwards and shake your hand,
thank you so much for being there, thank you for
holding my hands, And that became important to me. Most
people have a job and they just do it. The
bosses really don't say a whole lot. They keep on,
just keep going. But that became one of the reasons
(21:21):
to do a good job, to make sure you took
care of the women, because that's what your job was.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And Thursday, January twenty ninth, nineteen ninety eight, was just
like any other day for Emily.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
She was just doing her job. What do you remember
from that day?
Speaker 7 (21:40):
Nothing? Absolutely nothing. I don't remember getting up taking a
shower about that. The only thing I know about it
is what people have told me. The lady that usually
came in was pregnant. She was on attornity leave. She
(22:01):
had the baby the next week, so I was taken
her place doing some of her jobs, working on lab
work and stuff. They had put a new security system
in and I didn't have the code for it, and
the administrator was late that day because she had been
sick that morning. So I was there an hour and
(22:23):
a half early. Of course, Sandy would have always been there.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Robert Sanderson, better known as Sandy, was an off duty
police officer the clinic hired to protect their nurses and
patients from protesters. He had only recently begun working at
the clinic, filling in for another off duty officer who
was away on leave.
Speaker 7 (22:43):
I didn't know Sandy much. I mean, he came to work,
he did his job. He was courteous. He was not
pro choice, but he knew it was his responsibility. Every
day he came to work to protect those women. He
was there before we got there. He would leave after
they left. There was very few hours of the day
(23:07):
that we weren't protected by a police officer, just mild manner.
I considered him one of the good guys. I'm sure
it was a difficult thing for him to do. He
did his job.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
Back to that morning, it's around seven thirty am.
Speaker 7 (23:28):
Now there were other people there. Man and his daughter,
the daughter's boyfriend, and the boyfriend's father were there. They
came way too early. They got out one time and
talked to Sandy. I wasn't there yet, I don't think,
and they left because Sandy said no. The clinic's not
(23:49):
open yet. So they left. They came back and the guy,
the dad, got out of the car and walked up
and Sandy told know they're not open yet. He goes,
what is that over there? And when he told Sandy that,
Sandy took out his night stick and went to look
at it, and that's when he pushed the button. And
(24:14):
that was six to twelve feet in front of the bomb.
Sandy was off to the side. He got the force
of the blast. I got the shrapnel. There was no
hope for Sandy. His gun was out in the street,
his badge was somewhere else, leg was other places.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Emily Lyons was walking into the abortion clinic where she
worked as a nurse. Birmingham police officer Robert Sandy Sanderson
was standing guard outside. Sanderson spotted a suspicious object hidden
in a flower pot near the door. The blast killed
officer Sanderson instantly. Lion spent the next eight weeks in
the hospital.
Speaker 7 (24:59):
The U paramedics and all those got there quickly after
nine to one one call. The FBI didn't want them
to come up to me. They thought there may have
been a secondary bomb, so they wanted to leave me there.
Firemen and the paramedics one are the initial people who
(25:21):
saved me. All I know is they told me the
bomb went off at seven point thirty three. I had
a watch on, I didn't get it back, and I
was in the operating room before eight o'clock that day.
(25:44):
Jeffrey was the first one to tell me. In the
burn unit, he would always every day come in talk
to me. He would tell me what had happened.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Emily and Jeffrey had only been married for four years
at this point, but he never left her side, not
even for a minute.
Speaker 7 (26:01):
I didn't see what I had looked like for almost
a year. I couldn't see the pictures on the computer.
It went until it had my eye fixed and lens
and everything done that I could see how bad things were.
Those first few pictures that I saw, my face was charcoal. Oh,
(26:25):
every little spot just stood out of where something had
gone in and burned me, broke in my face. And
then when I saw the X rays and stuff, it
was how could somebody do that to somebody else? I mean,
just deliberate and it was premeditated. He thought about it,
he planned on it. I just cried because it was like,
(26:50):
you hurt me so badly. And you don't know me,
your opinion, your thoughts are no more important than mine, Heart,
But I'm sure I'm gonna kill you. The FBI came
that first summer and told me it was different from
his other bombs he had made. The others were time related.
(27:13):
This was detonated by him, so we know he watched.
He stood out there and watched us, and when he
thought he was going to be found out, he pushed
the button.
Speaker 5 (27:34):
Next time on Flashpoint, he heard.
Speaker 11 (27:38):
The bomb explode, and when he looked out of his window,
you could see some smoke and some people moving that way.
But yet there was one individual that appeared to have
some kind of disguise on and was not running, but
walking very hurriedly away from the scene. And he just
(28:00):
thought to himself, there's something wrong with this picture. Jeff
saw him get in a truck, a gray Nissan pickup truck,
and wrote the tag number of the pickup truck down
the tag number we ran and was registered to.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Flashpoint is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with iHeartMedia.
I'm Your Host. Cola Cassio, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay
are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV. Flashpoint was created, written,
and executive produced by Doug Mattica and myself on behalf
of seven nine nine seven. Lead producer is alex Espostad,
(29:00):
along with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Steadman.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Our associate producer is wit Lukassio.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Editing by Alex Vespostat with additional editing by Liam Luxon
and Sidney Evans. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Artwork by
Station sixteen, original music by Jay Ragsdale mixed by Dayton Cole.
Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum and the team at Uta
(29:28):
Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group. Special thanks
to Jason Morphew, angela Q, Tolly Revied Mattica and Tim Livingston.
For more podcasts like Flashpoint, search Tenderfoot TV on your
favorite podcast staff or visit us at tenderfoot dot tv.
(29:49):
Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episod a Flashpoint.
This series is released weekly absolutely free, but for ad
free listening, early access and exclusive bonuses, you can subscribe
(30:10):
to Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or at tenderfootplus dot
com
Host
Cole Locascio
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