Motive unknown in bombing of Arlington home

Published 10:25 pm Wednesday, February 13, 2008

ARLINGTON — When a bomb exploded outside his bedroom window, Randall Phillips thought the world had come to an end.

Sitting in his living room Saturday evening, Phillips said he heard an “unbelievably loud” noise. Then he felt a rush of air come toward him.

Splinters and shattered glass littered the home.

At first, Phillips, 67, said he thought a nearby propane tank had blown. Then the smell of burned gunpowder filled the air.

It wasn’t until the retiree went outside his mobile home that he realized someone had set off a bomb on an outside wall of his bedroom. It was planted inches away from where he lays his head down to sleep.

Had he been in his bed, “they’d have been scraping me off the walls,” Phillips said.

Police told Phillips the bomb was made using a tennis ball, duct tape and a fuse, he said. It likely was taped to the trailer’s metal siding.

Detectives are investigating the bombing as an attempted murder.

“At this point we can find no reason why this occurred,” Arlington police chief John Gray said. “We have no reason why he would have been targeted.”

No one was injured, but Phillips isn’t sleeping well, and neighbors in his 55-and-older mobile-home community are frightened.

“It’s darn scary that someone would do that in the first place and then not have a reason why,” Phillips, a retired Kimberly-Clark forklift operator said.

Now, a blue tarp covers a gaping hole in his back wall. Shards of glass hang in the window frame. His bed’s headboard is in pieces, the Venetian blinds a tangled, ruined mess.

Insurance adjusters and contractors estimate it will cost about $5,000 to repair the damage.

Arlington police detectives have leads in the case and are “working it heavy,” Gray said.

“There’s a number of working theories,” he said. “We’re not doing a rush to judgment in one particular direction.”

Phillips and his friends can’t make sense of the blast.

“Nobody can believe it. Everybody’s just dumbfounded. Why me?” Phillips asked. “If I have an enemy in this world I don’t know it. It’s just mind boggling.”

Across the street, World War II veteran Max Delashmutt, who gave his age as 80 or older, was home when the bomb went off.

The blast sent him upright.

“I didn’t know I could get up that fast,” he said.

Phillips and Delashmutt worked together years ago at the Scott Paper Co. mill before it became Kimberly-Clark, he said. Now, the neighbors often spend afternoons chatting.

Along with other neighbors, Delashmutt said he believes Phillips wasn’t the intended target.

“It was a mistake because he isn’t that type,” he said.

Phillips said he’ll leave the detective work to the professionals.

“I’m not going to get into that,” he said. “That’s up to the police department to figure out.”

Knee surgery last year slowed Phillips down. He spends most of his time sitting in an easy chair watching a big-screen TV. It’s flanked by family photos. He was watching a NASCAR race when the bomb went off.

“I was sitting right here when it went kaboom,” he said.

When firefighters asked him if he was OK, he told them he was fine, but shaken.

“If you took my blood pressure right now,” he told the medics, “I’d probably break your machine.”

Now, Phillips is considering installing a security system, he said. The mobile home park may put up a perimeter fence.

Mostly, he’s just trying to get some rest and get his home put back together.

“I just hope it doesn’t happen again,” Phillips said. “I’m alive. That’s the main thing.”