Last week, the federal grand jury indictment of Justin J. Wright revealed that Escambia County Clerk Pam Childers was being extorted. The details for the plot and the June 2024 fire bombing have been sealed until the FBI captures the ringleader.
- Background: The indictment of Justin J. Wright states he “engaged in conduct that placed the person in reasonable fear of death of and serious bodily injury to that person, an immediate family member of that person, and a spouse and intimate partner of that person” in violation of Title 18 US code sections 2261A(1)(A) and 2261(b).
What happened?
While the court documents don’t give many details of the fire bombing. Bruce Childers did last summer as he fought to get on the ballot against Supervisor of Elections Robert Bender.
Bruce and Pam Childers conducted a live interview, streamed on YouTube, on June 25, 2024. During the course of a 75-minute interview, Bruce mentioned that the car that caught fire in his neighbor’s driveway wasn’t arson but was caused by a bomb.
Bruce’s Description
“June 1st, 4:20 in the morning, the people next door to us had their car blown up with the car bomb. You know about that? You know about that. They had, I mean, this wasn’t an arson case because I’ve handled arson cases, and when you use an accelerant, the accelerant burns and chars hotter than everything else, but this was a bomb,” Bruce said.
“This guy pulled up in front of the only house on our street that had an active surveillance system that was recording. And he pulls up – guy about five foot six I guess, and we can see him get out and surveil the situation. He goes back to his van, he pulls something out, we can’t see what it is. He goes back over to the people next door to us. Parenthetically, they have a white car. We have a white car–”
- Pam interrupts him and gives the house numbers.
Bruce said, “Yeah. And long story short, he blows the car up. The fireball went 40 feet up in the air and, well, it woke me up, it woke the neighborhood up.”
- He mentions the name of his neighbor who “got kicked off the couch.” Pam warns him not to use names.
Bruce continues, “Shoot, I got more rules. Anyway, he heard it, and he went out and he called the people across the street and called the fire department first. They were there in no time to put it out. And the FBI showed up, the police showed up. The arson unit shows up that early that morning, and they were very convinced that the bomb was intended for us. They also left a note that said to–”
- Pam cuts him off. “Are you going there? (laughs) I may have to stop him. Let’s just say it was a death threat note. And if you knew the contents, you would know it was for me. It was a missed house.”
Bruce said, “Yeah, it was a mess for us. And we were all pretty convinced that it was the guy got the wrong house.”
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