Bomb explosion at Harvey's Resort Hotel

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The bomb explosion at Harvey's Resort Hotel on August 27, 1980
Nevada State Fire Marshal Thomas J. Huddleston examines the bomb

The bomb explosion at Harvey's Resort Hotel occurred on August 27, 1980 while an attempt was made to defuse a bomb hidden in the hotel.

On August 26, 1980, three men had placed a bomb containing 450 kg of dynamite at Harvey's Resort Hotel (now “Harveys”) in Stateline , Nevada , which was secured against defusing by several ingenious booby-traps . The former millionaire John Birges had planned this action. Birges wanted to blackmail the casino and demanded $ 3 million (about $ 8.9 million in 2018). Birges needed the money because he was broke and allegedly lost $ 750,000 at the casino. The FBI proceeded to where it believed the ransom would be delivered. However, Birges instructions were imprecise, so the delivery location was not found and Birges received no money.

Course of the crime

The bomb was cleverly designed and practically impossible to defuse. According to the ransom demand, not even the bomb maker himself was able to neutralize the bomb, but if he received the 3 million dollars, he would give instructions on which switches had to be operated so that the bomb was transported away and detonated at another location could be. However, the FBI came to the conclusion that it would take at least four men to move the bomb - although there was no way of knowing whether the bomb could actually be transported safely, as claimed. Accordingly, the FBI recommended defusing the bomb on site. Then all guests were evacuated from the hotel and the gas supply turned off.

After fireworks had examined the bomb for over a day and x-rayed it, it was decided to use a pressure wave to separate the detonator from the explosive charge and thus defuse the bomb, although it was known that this could lead to an explosion. Specifically, a shaped charge made of C4 plastic explosives was used. The defusing failed, however, because the fireworkers were not aware that the bomb's detonation mechanism also contained dynamite. The C4 shaped charge detonated the dynamite on the detonator - and then the bomb itself. Much of the hotel was destroyed by the explosion, but nobody was injured. Harrah's Casino, which was connected to Harvey's Resort by a tunnel, was also damaged when the shock wave destroyed many windows.

According to the FBI, the bomb was the largest known booby trap . Their load consisted of dynamite that Birges had stolen from several construction sites in Fresno . According to FBI experts, the bomb was the most complex unconventional explosive device it had ever investigated (until 2009). A replica of the machine , as the blackmailers called the bomb, was used by the FBI for training purposes until at least 2009.

John Birges

John Birges, Sr. , born Janos Birges in Jászberény , Hungary , in 1922 , immigrated to the USA in 1957 and last lived in Clovis , California . According to his own, unconfirmed information, he was a pilot in the German air force in World War II , then was taken prisoner of war and was sentenced to 25 years of forced labor in a Soviet gulag . He had success with a landscaping company in the United States , but lost his money to gambling . His gambling debts and experience with explosives were the main pieces of evidence linking him to the Lake Tahoe bombing.

Birges came under suspicion because a white van belonging to him had been seen at the crime scene. He was finally arrested on the basis of a tip from the ex-girlfriend of one of his sons. Birges was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He died of liver cancer in 1996 at the Southern Nevada Correctional Center, aged 74.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Adam Higginbotham: A Thousand Pounds of Dynamite . In: The Atavist Magazine , 2014. Retrieved May 26, 2015. 
  2. ^ Ed Vogel: Casino explosion nearly forgotten . In: Las Vegas Review-Journal , August 27, 2005. Archived from the original on October 28, 2012. Retrieved on August 25, 2011. 
  3. ↑ Adam Fabio: This is What A Real Bomb Looks Like . Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  4. ↑ A Byte Out of History: The Case of the Harvey's Casino Bomb FBI . US Federal Bureau of Investigation . August 26, 2009.
  5. ↑ Federal Grand Jury Indicts 6 in Bombing of Casino at Tahoe . In: The New York Times , August 19, 1981. 
  6. ^ Richard Esposito, Ted Gerstein: Bomb Squad: a year inside the nation's most exclusive police unit . Hyperion, March 6, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4013-0152-1 , p. 178 (accessed August 25, 2011).
  7. ^ Conviction in Casino Bombing . In: The New York Times , October 23, 1982. 

Coordinates: 38 ° 57 ′ 36.7 "  N , 119 ° 56 ′ 31.2"  W.