Monday, December 29, 2008

Update on Bad Santa's flaming death weapon


A reader sends us this update on our early report on the device allegedly used by Bruce Jeffrey Pardo when he allegedly put on a Santa Claus outfit, allegedly opened fire on a Christmas Eve gathering of his in-laws in the Los Angeles suburb of Covina and then allegedly methodically set their house ablaze, killing nine people before allegedly killing himself:

"The photographs that have been released of Pardo's device, and of his home, indicate that he used the Bykas 16 gallon fuelling system, and a DeWalt D55168 air compressor to make the flame thrower.

"He removed the compressor from the 15 gallon tank on the DeWalt D55168, and replaced it with the 5 lb. CO2 cylinder from the Bykas fueller. He used a regulator on the CO2 to bring the pressure down. Don't know what pressure he used, but as the DeWalt tank could hold at least 200 psi, he could really spray a lot of gas at high pressure. Unregulated CO2 might be 1000 psi.



"The only parts he used from the Bykas system were the CO2 cylinder, maybe the regulator, and perhaps some hardware.

"There are plans around the internet for giant CO2 powered super soaker water guns. He built something similar.


"He could have filled the DeWalt tank with 15 gallons of gas instead of water, and sprayed it all out at 150 psi.


"Yikes."

(Thanks, Anonymous! And thanks to Reuters, which notes the photos are "FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.")

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