Pending Review
Pipe Dream
When is a pipe not a pipe? When it's a canon!
Investigators said on May 26 around 9 p.m. they responded to a home in the town of Dupont for a man injured when the 4-foot-long steel pipe exploded, striking the victim in the abdomen.
The victim recorded two videos of the incident, according to the complaint.
In the first video, court documents state Robert Mattes lit a fuse on a large pipe that was standing in a field. He then took off running. After a number of seconds there is a flash out of the top of the pipe. The video shuts off. In the second video, Robert Mattes again lights a fuse on the pipe and the fuse burns until it reaches the pipe. There is then a large explosion and the phone hits the ground.
According to Niemer, after the first attempt to light the explosive device failed, Scott Mattes put paper towels down the metal tube. He used a long wooden stick to pack the towels over the gunpowder. Scott Mattes then dropped an aerosol can of WD-40 down the pipe before Robert Mattes lit the fuse.
The victim, who has not been identified, died of a “penetrating fragment wound of abdomen” with a steel fragment removed during the autopsy, the complaint says.
https://www.wsaw.com/fox/content/news/Explosion-of-homemade-cannon-leads-to-Waupaca-County-mans-death-510571281.html
Submitted on 06/03/2019
Submitted by:
Iona Macdonald
Reference:
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