letters from a purported killer. plus a diagram of what s certainly looked like the actual bomb that killed roberto ayala. was it real, a ruse, a lucky guess? if it was real, who sent? it was it from the lead suspect, peter moore or a hitman as the letter claimed? or was it from somebody who is not even on david salm s radar? whoever was, five weeks and it was the only lead investigators had. so they played along with the guy, played an ad, as requested, in the sacramento bee . and sure enough, somebody responded. cops rushed to see him, perhaps arrest him. he was pretty surprised when he got a visit. false alarm, it was just an unlucky guy looking for a job. the killer though? the killer never called.
with this bolt. and there. was the thing that made it exceptionally clear was that the bull still had some fishing string attached just under the head of the boat, which is how it was depicted in the diagrams. so it would ve been hanging? yes we as a wait? yes. it was clear that that bolt was part of our device that was described in the letters. and we re fragments of a plastic soda bottle. black paint still clinging to them. again just like the diagram. so it s a spring that was similar to a rat trap spring, there was gasoline on the victims clothing. and then we recovered pieces of a nine volt battery that we were able to determine had no business being in the panel. so if you found the writer of those letters you had found the killer? that was our opinion, yes. along with a diagram was a second letter, in which the bomber repeated his earlier claim that he was a reluctant
drug cartel and that s ms-13 had been contracted. the author of the letter talented the detectives, writing that lab results will find military grade powder but no dna. which is true so far. but the point of the letter wrote that its author was a warning. roberto s brother, eduardo, was next on the hit list. the writer said he had turned down the job to kill eduardo, but a second assassin would soon be on the way. did you think it was a hoax or real? i didn t know what to think. i had never seen anything like that before, except something similar on tv. the one thing about that strange letter was all too obvious. whoever wrote it had inside knowledge. because nobody, besides the cops, new with the atf had discovered. we didn t tell anyone it was a bomb, so for someone to write a letter, claiming responsibility for a bombing,
a deadline. the letter said, he was given eight weeks to do this job and it will be reassigned in five weeks. i want to give you guys time to help these guys and do something about. it so you release had some time? maybe. maybe. dave tells me that they hadn t received a letter, and the letterhead mentioned me. roberto s brother eduardo. it says be careful. watch yourself. but it wasn t just eduardo in the crosshairs. he claimed whoever was driving the pick up truck, that white f-250, the bomber wrote, is in great danger. and who was that person? roberto ayala s sun jesus. well it didn t just look real, it was real.
assassin. after a career of killing, he wrote, i want to save a life before i take my life. the bomber repeated his warning, roberto ayala s brother eduardo was next. the whole ayala family was in danger. he said i want to make sure you get this letter to help these guys. so it was designed to do something, i don t want to happen, i want you guys to prevent. it that was basically the gist of the litter. did you believe? it not exactly. there are things in the investigation that we could not release. there was information about the letters that we couldn t release. keeping that stuff confidential was important for the integrity of the investigation. but the man s life may be in jeopardy. we did talk to ed. we gave him as strong warning as we could, without going into specific details. one of those details was that the killer had been given