The Zip Gun Bomber

"New York Daily News, May 9, 1982, via Newspapers.com

Cases of murder-by-poison have a particularly eerie quality, due to the often phantom nature of the killer.  Another example of the unseen murder is the following mystery, where death was delivered by unsuspecting mail carriers.

Joan Kipp led a quiet suburban life in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York.  Her husband Howard owned a marine engineering business, while Joan worked as a guidance counselor at a local high school.  She was also the treasurer of the Bay Ridge Community Council, and was expected to soon become its vice-president.  The Kipps had two children who went on to have families of their own--Doreen, who lived in Connecticut, and Craig, who lived just a few blocks away from his parents.  The family was well-off, contented, and appeared to be blissfully free of any enemies or serious problems in life.

On the evening of May 7, 1982, fifty-four year old Joan arrived at her home after a typical day at work.  When she checked the mail, she found a package addressed to her.  Howard came home as she was unwrapping the package.  They saw it contained a book titled “The Quick and Delicious Gourmet Cookbook.”  Although Joan had not been expecting to receive the cookbook, she was not surprised.  She loved to cook, and assumed it was an early Mother’s Day present.  Joan opened the book.  However, what lurked between the covers was not pages of delicious recipes, but a crude homemade explosive, which immediately detonated, shooting out three bullets, two of which hit Joan in the abdomen.  She also suffered burns to her chest and hands.

When Howard dashed into the room, he found his wife collapsed on the floor, and he instantly called an ambulance.  As he knelt over Joan, she moaned, “Look at what they did to me…there may be others.”  Although she was brought to a nearby hospital and rushed into surgery, it was not enough.  Joan died on the operating table.

The explosive was a six-volt battery wired to metal tubes containing gunpowder and .22 caliber rifle shells.  When the book cover was opened, it activated the battery, which sent out an electric current which fired the shells.  The device was as simple as it was lethal.  Police figured that whoever put the explosive together had to have some knowledge of electrical wiring, but no special training was necessary.

Detectives learned that the package had been mailed from Staten Island.  Fragments of a note was found in the remains of the bomb, which read “Dear Joan, you’re dead.”  It also threatened the lives of Howard and their children.

Lacking any clues as to who may have sent the deadly device, police began their investigation with the people closest to Joan, and all her family members were questioned.  (Doreen was interrogated on the same day as Joan’s funeral.  This insensitivity caused her to feel increasingly hostile towards the investigators.)  Although detectives failed to find any incriminating information about any of Joan’s relatives, they soon settled on twenty-eight year old Craig Kipp as their prime suspect.  Craig had briefly been employed at his father’s business, where he worked on ships and boats, which gave him some knowledge of electrical wiring.  Police reasoned that when he lost this job, it may well have caused him to feel some anger towards his parents.

But enough anger to blow them into smithereens?

Once police settle on a suspect, they usually have little trouble building a case against them, however tenuous it may be.  A tracking dog appeared to find Craig’s scent on the bomb’s packaging.  A graphologist thought the writing on the package resembled Craig’s, although other handwriting analysts disagreed, pointing out that Joan’s name and address were written in block lettering, which is virtually impossible to identify.  Police found evidence that Craig and his mother frequently quarreled, and that he may have had problems with drugs.  Finally, Craig’s refusal to take a polygraph test was interpreted as further evidence of his guilt.  He was arrested on August 9 on the charge of “mailing injurious articles.”

Craig’s father and sister strongly asserted his innocence.  Howard told prosecutors that while Craig and Joan occasionally argued, their relationship was still an affectionate one.  He also said that there was no bitterness associated with Craig leaving his company--his son left because he was having a hard time learning the electrical work his job required.  And while Craig sometimes smoked pot, he was not into any harder drugs.  Despite their best efforts, police were unable to make a convincing case that Craig murdered his mother, leading to the charges against him being dropped in June 1983.

Slowly, things returned to something approaching normal for the surviving Kipps.  Craig and Doreen got on with their lives.  Howard moved to Massachusetts, where he eventually remarried.  And the murder of Joan Kipp disappeared into the “cold case” file, probably, it was assumed, permanently.

However, eleven years later, the Kipp mystery was revived with a literal bang.  On October 15, 1993, 68 year old Anthony Lenza and his wife Connie were vacation in Pennsylvania.  They were joined by various relatives, some of whom brought mail they had retrieved from the Lenza home in Staten Island.  Among this mail was a package wrapped in brown paper, which was addressed to Anthony.  When he unwrapped the parcel, he found a blue velvet coin box.  He accidentally opened the coin box upside-down, a mistake for which he would soon be eternally grateful.  Like Joan’s “cookbook,” the box contained an explosive which detonated, sending out three bullets.  Anthony, Connie, and their young granddaughter Liza were hit with flying debris, but thanks to Anthony opening his little surprise package the wrong way, nobody was seriously hurt.

Investigators noted that the explosive was very similar to the one which had killed Joan Kipp.  The address on the parcel was written in a style similar to the one Joan had received.  It appeared that the same psychopath had sent both packages, but detectives could find no connection between the two victims.  And, if the explosives were the work of just one person, why did he/she wait eleven years to strike again?

On April 5, 1994, a 75 year old widow named Alice Caswell had a package wrapped in brown paper delivered to her Brooklyn home.  However, the parcel was addressed to her brother, Richard MacGarrell.  He had lived with her for a while before moving into a retirement home, so she still occasionally got his mail.  When this happened, Alice always opened the mail before bringing it to her brother.  In this case, that was a very unfortunate decision for her.  When she unwrapped the parcel, it exploded, causing serious abdominal injuries.  Alice was able to stagger to a neighbor’s house, where an ambulance was summoned.  Remarkably, she was able to survive her injuries.

After this, it was clear to everyone that there was a serial mad bomber on the loose.  The improvised nature of the explosive devices caused the media to dub the maniac “The Zip Gun Bomber.”

Just a couple of weeks later, a New Yorker named Harold Ormsby received an unexpected package in the mail.  Very fortunately, he had read news reports about the bombings, which left him understandably wary about opening his mail unless he was damn sure what it was.  He contacted police, who found that Harold’s paranoia had been entirely justified.  The parcel contained another explosive device.

On June 27, 1995, an eight-months-pregnant teenager named Stephanie Gaffney was staying at her grandparents’ home in Queens, New York.  While at home alone, the mail carrier arrived, delivering a package addressed to “Gilmore or occupant.”  “Gilmore” was the surname of her grandfather and uncle.  Unfortunately, Stephanie obviously didn’t follow the news as closely as Harold Ormsby had, because she opened the parcel.  It contained a book that, when she opened the cover, exploded.  She had opened the book at an angle away from her, so that even though she suffered burns to her abdomen and legs, the bullets missed her.  Both she and her baby survived.

The “Zip Gun Bomber” made the news again on June 20, 1996, when a retired couple named Richard and Marietta Basile received a package at their Brooklyn home.  It was addressed to Marietta, but Richard was the one who opened it.  The parcel contained a videotape which promptly exploded.  The device shattered a window and damaged a nearby wall, but miraculously, both Richard and Marietta were not seriously hurt.  The Basiles proved to be the mysterious fiend’s final victims.  

"New York Daily News," June 21, 1996

All the explosive devices seemed to be the work of the same person, but police were unable to find clues for why any of the victims were targeted, or anything connecting these people.  The bombings appeared to be completely random, leaving the investigation hopelessly stymied.

Over the years, only one plausible suspect emerged.  In 1983, police working on an unrelated case searched the home occupied by their suspect and another man named Steven Wavra.  They found bomb-making equipment and a hollowed-out book.  Wavra claimed he was going to use these items to target a nearby military base.  However, police naturally wondered if he had been responsible for the bombing of Joan Kipp the year before.

Wavra was, to say the least, a very troubled man.  In the early 1970s, he briefly served in the U.S. Navy, but was discharged after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.  After this, he turned to a life of crime, centered around various bomb threats.  On several occasions, he was caught with explosive devices similar to the ones utilized by the Zip Gun Bomber.  And Wavra had links to at least one of “Zip Gun’s” victims--when he was in high school, Joan Kipp had been his guidance counselor.  All this would seem to add up to one very pretty circumstantial case against Wavra, except for one inconvenient detail--he was in prison at the time Joan Kipp was killed.  Although the theory was floated that Wavra had had outside help with the bombing, no evidence for that could be found.  (Wavra denied having anything to do with the bombings, insisting that he had been caught in "a web of circumstantial evidence.")

In 1995 Wavra’s name came up again in the “Zip Gun” case, when he mailed a long, threatening manifesto to some federal courthouses.  When Wavra was arrested, he was carrying a hollowed-out book containing some knives, as well as four .22 caliber rifle shells.  As all of this violated his parole conditions, Wavra found himself back in prison.  Investigators again tried to connect him to the mail bombings, without success.  However, they did uncover one curious detail--when police looked at records of pharmacies visited by the Zip Gun targets, the name of Wavra’s roommate was in all of them.  This seemed a bit too interesting to be coincidental, but it did absolutely nothing to solve the mystery.  Although, thankfully, the “Zip Gun Bomber” has yet to be heard from again, this person’s identity--not to mention motive--remains unknown.