Buckshot From Bomb, Shop Identical Fbi Expert Says Pellets In Bomb Came From Same Batch As Suspect Possessed

Buckshot used in last year’s Planned Parenthood bombing came from the same source as pellets seized from suspect Robert Berry’s business, an FBI chemist testified Friday.

Earlier testimony in the trial of three Spokane bombing suspects revealed buckshot had been taped to a pipe bomb that exploded at the Spokane Valley clinic July 12 to create more shrapnel.

On Friday, FBI metal expert Kathleen Lundy said those pellets were made from the same batch of lead as the No. 3 shot found in Berry’s Sandpoint truck repair shop after his October arrest.

Because buckshot is produced from recycled metal with lots of chemical impurities, every batch is chemically unique, Lundy said.

But during cross-examination Friday, Lundy admitted she did not know if that particular batch of lead produced “500 pellets or 300,000.”

Defense attorneys contend someone else could have bought the same brand of shot made by the same company from the same batch of lead as Berry’s.

Berry, 42, Charles Barbee, 45, and Verne Jay Merrell, 51, are charged with bombing the clinic, a Spokesman-Review newspaper office and a U.S. Bank banch, and twice robbing the bank last year.

The three North Idaho white separatists were friends and often worked together in Berry’s shop. Friday concluded the second week of their trial in U.S. District Court in Spokane.

Lundy testified that the FBI laboratory in Washington, D.C., determined the shot taken from Berry’s shop and the bombing site had the same trace portions - detected down to parts per million - of silver, copper, tin and other metals.

Shot from the two sites was “analytically indistinguishable,” she said.

Other federal authorities have testified that No. 3 shot is unusually large for hunting.

In other testimony Friday, FBI agent Andy Caster said stamps depicting an American flag were placed on threatening letters with religious references mailed by the bombing suspects in Portland in October.

The stamps were placed on the envelope upside down. The same style of stamps were used on letters mailed Sept. 6 to Planned Parenthood, earlier testimony revealed. Those stamps were placed sideways on the envelope.

Earlier testimony showed the person mailing the September letter knew details about the July 12 explosion that only the bombers could know.

The September letter pointed out Planned Parenthood employees must have missed the bombers’ earlier note about Psalm 139.

Psalm 139 makes reference to a mother’s womb and asks God to slay the wicked.

That note was left on a matchbook at the scene, a piece of evidence FBI officials only made public after the trio’s arrest in October.

Berry, Merrell and Barbee face mandatory life in prison and up to $3 million in fines if convicted.

Prosecutors expect to wrap up their case early next week.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Trial news online For stories and pictures about the federal trial in Spokane of three bank robbery and bombing suspects, visit Virtually Northwest at http:// www.VirtuallyNW.com.