DENVER | A former hippie who pleaded guilty to leaving a homemade bomb with a dangerous explosive outside the police department to avenge a friend’s death from the 1970s in a Colorado mountain town is set to be sentenced Thursday.
The bomb was discovered in 2016 in a backpack near the front door to the station in a strip mall that also contained a school, a diner and other businesses in Nederland. It did not detonate on its own even though investigators say David Ansberry attempted to set it off by calling a cell phone attached to the device, which contained a peroxide-based compound, HMDT, that is prone to explode if exposed to heat or friction.
Since the device was intentionally detonated by authorities, Ansberry’s lawyers say it’s not known how much HMDT was present.
