Buckshot Now Focal Point At Bomb Trial Lead Shot At Berry’s Shop Part Of Same Batch Used At Clinic, Chemist Says

Buckshot seized from Robert Berry’s truck-repair shop was part of the same batch as shot used in last year’s Planned Parenthood bombing, an FBI metals expert testified Monday.

Meanwhile, the unusual chemical makeup suggests Berry’s buckshot and the shot found at the bomb scene were bought at Spokane’s White Elephant surplus store last spring, an ammunitions manufacturer later told jurors.

While defense attorneys tried to suggest both conclusions were flawed, Monday’s testimony established a stronger link between Berry and the July 12 bombing than similar testimony at his first trial.

Berry, 43; Charles Barbee, 45; and Verne Jay Merrell, 51, are on trial for the second time on charges of bombing Valley offices of the clinic, The Spokesman-Review and U.S. Bank, and twice robbing the bank last year.

The Sandpoint white separatists’ first trial ended in a hung jury in April when a lone juror refused to convict on the most serious charges.

On Monday, FBI chemist Kathleen Lundy told jurors that the No. 3 buckshot found in Berry’s Sandpoint shop was “analytically indistinguishable” from the pellets found after the Planned Parenthood building exploded.

That means the pellets from both places were made from the same kettle of lead, manufactured by Hornady Ammunitions company, she said.

“What we’ve found over the years is that a kettle or vat … will have its own unique composition,” Lundy said. “Bullets made from a different kettle will have a different composition.”

At the last trial, defense attorney Roger Peven used that information to suggest a single vat could have produced thousands of bags of buckshot. That in turn, he said, could have been purchased by hundreds of people besides Berry, any one of whom could have built the pipebomb.

This time, Lundy told jurors she had visited the manufacturing plant. There, she learned the pellets were unusual because the manufacturer recently had changed lead suppliers.

New witness Greg Hanson, a sales representative from Hornady, then told jurors that only 32 bags of that shot were sold to Inland Northwest distributors as of spring 1996 - almost all of them to the White Elephant.

One of the buckshot packages found at Berry’s place was unopened, with the price - $6.99 for five pounds - written in marker on the outside.

Hanson told jurors the White Elephant is the only retailer in this area that doesn’t use price stickers on its ammunition.

“I checked in with them last week,” Hanson said. “The prices were on there exactly the same.”

Defense attorneys tried to show that Hornady shot made in earlier years could have had a similar makeup, just through impurities in the metal itself. But Lundy insisted that wasn’t likely.

In other testimony Monday, agents from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms described items seized from searches at the truck shop and Barbee’s home.

One of those items was a book titled “Vigilantes of Christendom: The Story of the Phineas Priesthood.”

Letters left at the bombing and robbery scenes contained references to Phineas, an Old Testament figure who killed a mixed-race couple.

A friend of Merrell’s, Sandpoint typesetter Clifford Collier, testified that Merrell had recommend the book, saying it was a “good history lesson.”

Testimony from FBI agents will resume this morning. Barbee, Berry and Merrell are charged with eight felonies counts and could face up to life in prison without parole if convicted.

, DataTimes