2012 annual report - Ashland Police Department

All the evidence pointedto someone that had to have anextended amount of access to theMustang. Enough time to wire thecar from front to back and attachthe wire to the brake light. Thissuspect had to have knowledgeof wiring and bomb making. Hehad to have the ability to setuphis destructive plan without beingnoticed or suspected. He even hadto render the Mustang keylessentry fob inoperable so as to notdetonate the bomb prematurely.Only one person had that muchaccess and experience. The onlything he lacked was the knowledgeof how to build a pipe bomb. Luckya little planning the suspect nowhad all he needed to complete hisscheme.But why would he want toharm the wife he loved and destroyhis whole family? The completeanswer can only be given by thesuspect himself but investigatorsfeel certain money had a big partin it. The computer exam alsofound evidence that the familywas far behind in payments on theMustang and investigators foundthat foreclosure proceedingshad already began on the familyhouse. The suspect had not hadsteady work in quite a while andfinances were beyond tight. Alsoloved, a car he could no longerafford, and cash in on a hefty setof life insurance policies was toogreat of a temptation for ThomasBiederman to withstand.At approximately 4:29pm onJuly 28th, 2011, Janie Biedermanentered her white Ford Mustangparked in the Sky Tower parkinggarage in Ashland, Kentucky andpressed the brake pedal settingoff a pipe bomb that had beenbuilt and installed by her ownhusband. If it had not been for thepoor quality of the bomb and theconvertible top of the Mustang,Janie would have surely died thatday. Instead she was allowed tocontinue her days in freedom whileThomas was convicted by a jury ofhis peers of Use of a Weapon ofMass Destruction and AttemptedMurder. He was sentenced to 40years in prison and will not beeligible for parole until the age of86.Det. Gavin Patrickfor him he had a computer and aGoogle search engine.Through computer forensicexaminations by Ashland PoliceDepartment investigators, wewere able to locate a series ofsearch terms the suspect had usedin a Google search bar on his homecomputer. Two of those searchterms were “pipe bomb detonator”and “pull string detonator”. Bothof which appeared to have beensearched only days before thebombing. Further examinationlocated the search term “howto make a pipe bomb”, whichresulted in hits of several videoshosted by Bing and Youtube. Withthe truth about the husband andwife relationship in the house wascoming to light. The two had notslept in the same bed togetherfor several years and had becomemore like roommates in all butlegal terms. The opportunity torid himself of a wife he no longer