Mark Tapscott has stayed on the story of Joel Hinrichs, the Oklahoma University student who blew himself up outside the football stadium, long after the FBI dismissed it as a suicide brought on by depression. His vigilance has paid off, as it now appears that the FBI jumped to an erroneous conclusion and that Hinrichs meant to kill a lot more people than just himself:

The FBI reported in November that 0.4 pound of TATP was found inside Hinrichs' apartment. TATP is the most unstable explosive known and is "the explosive of choice" in the Middle East, Mauldin said. "It is so volatile, even a small amount on the tip of a finger will explode if it comes within 8 inches of a match," Mauldin said.

Investigators also found a quantity of acetone and hydrogen, components necessary for manufacturing TATP, inside the student's apartment. ...

Officers also removed "a lot" of military rounds, many of them live, and pieces of metal from the student's apartment, Mauldin said.

Metal fragments often are added to explosives to make them more deadly, he said.

The explosives Hinrichs had outside the stadium were pure, with no fragmentation added, Mauldin said.

However, he said, the student kept careful notes of experimentation with explosives in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 1 blast.

Color me silly if you will, but if all Hinrichs wanted was to commit suicide spectacularly, why was he experimenting with fragmentation? He had created far more TATP than needed to kill himself. Fragmentation and shrapnel would make no difference in his own death; that kind of addition speaks volumes about an intent to kill and maim a large number of people. Also, the FBI found more TATP left behind in his apartment, some of it fashioned into a pill-bottle bomb. If he wanted to kill himself, why would he have fashioned more than one device?

I respect the FBI, but this story doesn't add up.

Mark notes that the FBI continues to dismiss any other explanation than suicide. Keep checking in with Mark and with Michelle Malkin, both of whom remained skeptical about the official explanations and maintained visibility on this story.

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