LUCK, MIRACLES and EVIL: Solving Terror Crimes at Lockerbie, Oklahoma City and The World Trade Center

By Rick Hahn

Amazing stories of how landmark terrorist attacks were solved. The bombing of a Pan Am airliner as it flew over southern Scotland, the bombing of The World Trade Center in 1993 and the infamous bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, all terrorist acts with a small chance of being solved. Yet they were all solved, some in just days by the intervention of incredible luck! Author Rick Hahn describes each terror attack, then details the response by law enforcement, painting a portrait of the key figures that led to the resolution of the cases. In each case one finds an amazing set of circumstances, the right person in the right place at the right time. Hahn leads the reader along as events unfold, piecing together the puzzle until the picture comes into clear view. Each story is an exciting journey filled with the surprise of amazing luck!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Nov 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781977250117

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LUCK, MIRACLES and EVIL

Solving Terror Crimes at Lockerbie, Oklahoma City and The World Trade Center

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2022 Rick Hahn

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In the face of great Evil,

Sometimes miraculous luck appears

R. Hahn

Table of Contents

Introduction

Don Sadowy and The World Trade Center – The Man God Answered Twice

The Rain in Scotland

Evil in the Heartland

Acknowledgments

Introduction

This book is the story of three great crimes of evil. Evil is something most people think of in figurative terms. But some people, particularly those who have worked in law enforcement, know that there is, indeed, real evil in the world. It is often times embodied in a single person, or in a small group of persons. I have seen evil in my career. I have also seen cases of great evil resolved in an unbelievably short period of time. How, one may reasonably ask, was law enforcement able to resolve this or that, and how so in such a short time? That is the focus of this book. For the means by which these cases of great evil were resolved were, at the very minimum, instances of incredible luck. Many who were part of these investigations do not believe it was luck alone, but rather divine intervention that led to the resolution in these cases. It is a position difficult to argue with, as you will see. If resolution of these cases was by luck alone, then in each case it was a series of amazing bits of luck, having the right people, in the right places at the right time, and often times disconnected entirely from the rest of the story. In these cases, the perhaps routine looking actions led serendipitously to resolution, identification and capture of the responsible parties for the acts of evil.

In my view it is worth noting that each of these are, indeed, acts of great evil. I doubt that many would argue that point. It is further worth noting that in my 26 years as an investigator, there were few times that I saw luck, or miracles, that paralleled those you’ll find in this book. Yes, there is always a chance for luck, but nothing like what you’ll find in these stories. Call it luck or call it miracles, the fact is that these are true, well documented events that I had the privilege of witnessing. To this day I find them incredibly appealing for the wonder they portray about life, evil and the possibility of miracles. I hope the reader finds them a good read.

R.S. Hahn, November, 2015

Don Sadowy and The World Trade Center – The Man God Answered Twice

New York City, World Trade Center Complex, Friday, February 26, 1993 – 12:18 p.m. ~

First there was a deafening roar, a roar that sounded like freight trains colliding at full throttle. It went on for several seconds, six, seven, eight and more. Simultaneously there was the shudder, the shaking, one violent initial shake, then continuing jolts of lesser magnitude. Then the screams, and, as the roar subsided, a cacophony of honking horns and alarms of vehicles. The noise filled the underground parking garage, punctuated by shouts and horrendous thuds as pieces of concrete and cars fell into the now gaping pit in the World Trade Center underground plaza. Then came the clouds of thick black smoke from cars. Their fuel tanks crushed, the gasoline ignited by sparking batteries, burning the plastic, rubber, leather and paint of the cars themselves, sending billows of toxic gas into the air. The rising smoke carried the dry dust of the broken concrete and the fireproofing material that had been sprayed on steel members of the structure. All of it made a hot, thick, toxic plume which quickly made its way from the basement into the elevator shafts and emergency stairwells, drawn up like smoke in a chimney. It choked the thousands of terrified occupants of the titanic buildings as they struggled to make their way down the unlit stairs and out of the buildings. Some struggled not to panic. Others became frozen with fear, unable to think or act, forced to rely on those around them for assistance.

The bomb, consisting of some 2,000 pounds of improvised explosives carried in a rental van, had been parked quite intentionally aside the base of World Trade Center Tower 1. The bomber’s intent was to topple the tower, hopefully causing a domino effect, crashing one skyscraper into another and in the process, …killing 250,000..¹ people. It was an act of great evil. The bomb ripped a hole some 110 feet by 95 feet into the floor of the B-2 parking level of the complex and breached upward through the B-1 level and the lobby of the Marriot Hotel at street level. On the B-2 level concrete collapsed sending tons of stone, steel and crushed automobiles down through the successive levels of the layer-cake construction of the WTC plaza, dropping debris all the way down to the B-6 level. The bomb was powerful enough to rip one of the steel cross beams free from the base of the tower. That I-beam, measuring more than18 feet in length, 18 inches on each side, forged of steel 1 ¼ inches thick, weighed over six tons. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, huge slabs of concrete hung precariously from reinforcing bar at the edge of the yawning void on each level. Live electrical wires danced, and both water and sewage ran through the debris at various points, flowing from broken pipes. The crushed hulks of automobiles littered not only the area immediately surrounding where the detonation had occurred, but in far reaches of the parking garages, where the shock wave from the detonation had echoed, bouncing between the concrete floor and ceiling, crumpling the cars as if made of paper as it passed.

Six were left dead, including a mother with her unborn child. Most were in a records office on the B-2 level, located on the other side of a wall from where the vehicle with its deadly load had been parked. Just minutes before the explosion erupted up through the floor of the lobby of the Marriot Hotel, a class of school children had been standing in the spot where it broke through. Had they still been there, the casualty count would have been much higher. The low number of fatalities was miraculous given the power of the bomb. The devastation it inflicted on the multi-level plaza bore witness to just how powerful it was. But while fate had intervened to limit the number of casualties, more than a thousand were injured, including 88 firefighters and 35 police officers.

It took more than ten hours to evacuate the complex. Paul Maniscalco, EMS Battalion Chief, established triage on site, assisting evacuees as they made their way out of the buildings. Most were injured by breathing the toxic smoke that filled the stairwells as they struggled to escape down to the street and fresh air. But other injuries were also common. Broken bones from falls, bruises and cuts, and stress related injuries. The psychological damage went unmeasured.

Virtually every available fireman, emergency medical service and police unit responded. The entire staff of the NYPD Bomb Squad went to the scene to investigate. In the immediate minutes after the explosion, many thought it was an accident. A transformer, perhaps, or some other piece of equipment had exploded. Politicians and police were cautious, reluctant to whisper the word bomb. But bomb technicians from the NYPD, the FBI and ATF all quickly identified the epicenter of the explosion, and speaking with building engineers determined that there was nothing in that area that could have caused such an explosion; no transformer, no chemical tank, not anything. They concluded that this was a bombing.

Office workers who were making their way down those darkened, smoke-filled stairways to daylight were being debriefed by EMS personnel as they reached the plaza level. Were they alright? Who else was up there that needed help? Did they see anything unusual? Some reported seeing boxes with wires protruding on the 85th floor near one of the stairwells. The bomb squad commander, Lieutenant Walt Bozer, immediately thought these boxes may be secondary devices, other bombs placed to instill yet more injuries and panic. Bozer led a team of some 30 bomb technicians, those trained to investigate suspect packages and, if determined to be explosive devices, disarm them. He knew there was no way any of his bomb technicians could trek up the stairs with the necessary equipment, a bomb suit weighing some 85 pounds along with the other tools they required to do their job. He started to devise a plan to investigate. The answer was to have his bomb technicians dropped onto the roof of the 110 story building, and allow them to walk down with the equipment. They then could suit up in their bomb suits and investigate to determine whether or not these suspect packages were secondary bombs. Bozer asked for volunteers from his men. Donald Sadowy, known as Don, volunteered.

World Trade Center, February 26, 1993, @ 10:00 p.m. ~

With an 85-pound backpack which held his bomb suit, Sadowy sat in the open, right-side door of the police helicopter with his feet just above the runner. Steve Berberich, his partner on the bomb squad stood behind him, one hand braced against the helo fuselage, the other firmly holding Sadowy by the backpack. It was a cold and blustery February night and the pilot, with years of experience, was more than well aware of the risk that high winds, channeled up skyscrapers like the Trade Center, presented to control of the aircraft. A helicopter could be buffeted and thrown off course by sudden gusts, causing not only changes in direction but making the craft buck, pitching it front to back or rolling it side to side like a ship in heavy seas. Taking off from a nearby parking lot on Vesey Street, the helo climbed and approached the roof of Tower 1. But approach was difficult. Tower 1 held a huge mast antenna which rose 362 feet above the roof of the building. Stabilization for the antenna depended on guy wires, thick steel cables, from points on the antenna to various outlying points on the roof. As the pilot approached, he could see the guy wires and began to study them, searching for a way to get the craft close enough to the roof to deposit his cargo without hitting the wires. As he brought the helo carefully within just yards of the roof, a sudden gust of wind shot up the side of the building, throwing the helo up and rolling it to the left. Instinctively the pilot compensated, rolling the craft to the right, at which point Sadowy was nearly thrown out of the helo. He suddenly found himself lurching forward with a sense that he was about to die, staring directly into the darkness of the World Trade Center plaza a quarter mile below. His partner held firm, pulling him back into the helo as the pilot stabilized the craft. It had been a harrowing moment for all.

Over the next 30 minutes Emergency Services personnel climbed to the roof and cut some