Exclusive New Information About the January 5th DC Pipe Bomber

From the bomber's height to the model of backpack they carried and much more

It’s been almost a year since I sent this trove of information about a probable January 5th DC pipe bomber to the FBI. Last week I posted a great deal of that data on my Telegram channel (available here). It’s my hope that the data can be of use in identifying the suspect and bringing them to justice. 

For the sake of continuity, the information in this article is organized in the same fashion as last week’s Telegram posts. There are instances where Substack does not allow for embedding of videos and certain other information, and thus the information will be clearly hyperlinked where necessary. 

Any individuals or entities directly or indirectly mentioned herein are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 

I) IDENTIFYING THE BACKPACK — The FBI quickly stated that the person who left pipe bombs at the RNC and DNC HQ’s on the evening of January 5th, 2021 was wearing Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers. 

Why did the FBI never identify the make and model of the backpack? Most likely laziness. 

Within a half hour, I identified the backpack as a Duchamp Getaway. Both the shoes and the backpack were available at deep discounts from Nordstrom Rack prior to January 5, 2021. 

With the use of some social engineering, I was able to learn that A contact at Nordstrom Rack had a record of just one single purchase of both the backpack and the shoes in the 12 months leading up to 1/5/2021. They bought only those two items.

II)  In this video, we can pretty clearly see that the pipe bomber’s gait is thrown off by the fact that the shoes are much too big for them. 

Why would someone pick shoes that are far too large for them when they embark on a high stakes attack like this? 

The reason for this is that the pipe bomber is a woman wearing men’s shoes in order to obscure their identity. They specifically picked shoes for which there are no women’s sizes made.

III) I understand that the contention that the J6 pipe bomber is a woman flies in the face of all of the criminological data. Women usually just don’t commit crimes quite like this one. 

But there’s much more. 

I went out in person and took some measurements of this tree and other landmarks that the pipe bomber walked past on video. Comparing the shadows in multiple locations, I determined that the bomber has a height in the range of 5’3 to 5’5 barefoot. The shoes add a little more than an inch.

IV) We can see here that the bomber wears corrective glasses, as they stop to wipe a smudge from the lenses. This could be part of the disguise, but I doubt it. 

We can also observe that the straps on the backpack are tightened as much as possible, lending to the idea of the small stature of the bomber. 

The Capitol Hill Club’s awning support beams and that stack of cones give us another reference to verify the bomber’s height. Again, I confirmed all of this with in-person measurements.

V) Now it’s time for some criminal profiling 101 reasoning to take us to the next section of evidence:

Someone who would meticulously plot an attack like this would be very unlikely to keep it to themselves. This sort of a criminal always has an immense level of true, clinical narcissism. 

They are also almost always loners. They have very few if any family, community or professional relationships. 

So who would this antisocial loaner with a huge ego tell about their plot? 

I concluded that they would most likely post about it, if only in a veiled way, on either Facebook or Twitter. So I commenced a data mining effort using a software known as Maltego to find every single Tweet and Facebook post mentioning the term “pipe bomb” around the relevant dates that either definitely came from a woman or likely came from a woman. 

It turns out, not that many women have posted the term “pipe bomb” online, unless they were simply staring a news story with that term in the headline. 

What did my search turn up? Take a look…

VI) This is the Tweet that first landed this person on my list. 

A few minutes of digging revealed that the person was in fact a woman. 

And then I found so much more.

VII) As I mentioned, it is very rare to see a woman ever posting online about “pipe bombs” or pyrotechnics of any kind. 

But this woman tweeted about bombs and explosions over and over again. Take a look at some of these tweets and make sure to take note of the dates they were posted.

VIII) Take a look at how this woman describes herself in her instagram bio: “Deeply embittered middle-aged woman. But hey! At least I feel SOMEthing. And yeah, that's right; I have two cats! I own it.”

She points out that her father was a longtime cop and she seems to have a fascination with police tactics and equipment. She also says that she suffers bouts of depression and is financially destitute. All of this fits the profile. Full size images of posts here.

IX) Other tweets from this person seem suspicious as well. And others contribute to the profile. Once again, take careful note of the dates they were posted. 

An industrial accident? Like an explosion? Gory details? Extra shoes? 

She also likes a couple of tweets anguishing over why women don’t ever seem to commit mass shootings targeting men.

X) On February 10th of 2021, this woman is one of only 22 accounts to like a random tweet about explosives going missing from the nation’s largest Marine Corps base. 

Again, women almost never engage with these topics online.

XI) Remember the video where the pipe bomber is wiping smudges away from their glasses? It’s not conclusive by any means, but worth taking note of. 

Another tweet shows this woman was so isolated and lonely that she was replying to a Nigerian lover spam account. 

One of her likes makes clear that she’s on social security, likely relating to her struggles with cancer pointed out in other tweets. 

Note some other facts revealed in other tweets, like that she spent some time growing up on an Army base.

XII) She writes about Republicans on Dec 11, 2020: “Peaceful coexistence seems like such a pipe-dream at this point;”.

XIII) Internet sleuthing revealed this woman’s eBay account, which goes by the same handle as the Twitter and Instagram accounts. On eBay, buyers can leave reviews of sellers and sellers often leave reviews of buyers. 

These reviews are publicly available and sometimes reveal what exact item was purchased as part of the order. We went through every single order in which we could possibly identify what item was purchases. And when we couldn’t identify the specific item, we noted what sorts of items had been sold by that seller before. 

XIV) One seller she had purchased from was recently selling alarm clocks and a motion detecting (*it actually detects heat) alarm contact censor. Another had recently sold LED running lights and cable strippers. All of which are potential bomb making materials. Full resolution records of those transactions are here.

XV) In one of the low resolution images of the pipe bombs released by the FBI, we can see that the end cap on one side of the pipe has a small hole drilled into it. This is the hole used to place the wired ignition mechanism. Because the vast majority of pipe bombs use black powder, there is no need for a blasting cap. 

Notice that the end cap with hole drilled in it is a different, lighter color. That’s because it’s made of a material known as malleable iron. Meanwhile, the other endocarp is made of forged steel. 

The bomber, likely following instructions found on the internet, would have selected malleable iron for the end cap that they were going to drill a hole through, because it has a lower tensile strength than forged steel. 

It appears that the eBay account in question purchased a drilling tool that, according to reviews, works well for reaming holes in steel.

XVI) There appear to be too many suspicious orders from this eBay account to even go into in this article, from steel ball bearings to a wireless doorbell system that could have been used a detonator, but wasn’t. 

Even an order for the paperclips that were ultimately used in the very crude timer detonation mechanism fashioned by the bomber.  

Also note the pinkish-red smear underneath the scotch tape that was used to attach the paperclip. It looks like it could be women’s nail polish that was picked up by the sticky surface of the tape. 

And for whatever it’s worth, given how much men love duct tape, it would stand to reason that only a woman would use scotch tape to make a bomb.

In conclusion: It’s been nearly a year since I presented that info and more to the FBI. Since then, they’ve never so much as updated the public about the make and model of the backpack or given the bomber’s approximate height. 

Hopefully this information can contribute to the hunt for the January 5th pipe bomber.

About the author: Jacob Wohl is the creator of Predator DC and host of The Jacob Wohl Show.