Bomb-maker hoarder house in San Diego County
A house occupied by George Djura Jakubec, 54, a computer software consultant who is now under arrest, and his wife, in an unincorporated area of San Diego County near Escondido, CA, is said to house the largest cache of two homemade explosives ever found in one spot in the United States. Authorities found more HMDT (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) in addition to the 8-9 pounds already found, and PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) a favorite of Al Qaeda bomb-makers. HMTD is an explosive powder that suicide bombers use.
Besides the bomb-making charges, Jakubec is charged with two bank robberies. When he was arrested last week, he was on probation for a 2009 burglary conviction. He is now being held in lieu of $5 million bail. Jakubec is a Serbian national who is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Authorities found more blasting caps yesterday, in addition to the ones found last week, and also recovered hazardous reagent chemicals including about 4 liters of hydrochloric acid, 1 liter of nitric acid, 25 gallons of sulfuric acid, and 50 pounds of hexamine.
Jakubec’s wife, Marina Ivanova, is distraught and thinks that her husband has lost his mind, according to the CNN report. Her husband had been “obsessively collecting stuff,” which has impeded searches of the property. A retired agent of BATFE described HMTD as “… the devil’s own mixtures, and they can be set off by shock, friction, static electricity, heat, flame or even a chemical reaction….”
Authorities discovered the explosives last Thursday when a gardener set off some of the HMTD powder in the backyard, perhaps by friction. Last Friday, authorities shut down southbound lanes of Interstate 15 and evacuated two adjacent houses, which remained evacuated yesterday.
Techinicians have found improvised grenades that were not live, and yesterday, two or three technicians seized a computer and other items and videotaped the house to determine their future strategy with regard to searching the house.
(Note added December 12, 2010: Authorities decided that the safest way to get rid of the explosives was to burn the house down [no kidding!].)
-Bill at
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