Out of the Wreckage

In this fascinating essay, Kirk Yeager, the FBI’s current chief explosives scientist, details the grueling process of examining the aftermath of a terrorist bombing. Drawing on his 30-year career working with improvised explosive devices, Yeager breaks down prominent cases like the horrific 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when Timothy McVeigh, motivated by white supremacist ideology, detonated approximately 2 tons of explosives outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people. Looking back on crime scenes like the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a multipronged attack by deranged farmer Andrew Kehoe against a schoolhouse and its administrators in Bath Township, Michigan, in 1927, Yeager shares his extensive knowledge of post-blast forensics, from the nuts and bolts of bomb components to scientific analysis of how explosives function and predictions of their destructive power.

Yeager also describes the daunting step-by-step task of attempting to solve the brutal assassination of Lebanese anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir in Beirut, in June 2005, just months after Rafic Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, had been assassinated by a massive roadside truck bomb that killed 22 people and injured hundreds of others. After navigating the bureaucratic maze of foreign airport-security checkpoints, upon arrival in Lebanon, Yeager and his small team worked with local police and well-meaning but forensics- challenged ambassadors and officials and wrangled crowds of chanting protesters as he scoured the mangled wreckage for clues. While Yeager tried to keep the volatile crime scene secured from contamination, a photograph of two Pepsi cans, offered as a refreshing beverage by local law enforcement and then innocently placed next to his crime-scene kit ̶surfaced on the Internet. Shortly thereafter, Yeager had some explaining to do to his FBI bosses.

In Out of the Wreckage, Yeager dives deep into the forensics of an FBI crime-scene investigation, providing seasoned analysis of terrorist bombing cases on both domestic and international grounds as he methodically works to uncover the darkest recesses of a criminal mind.

Yeager’s sister, Selene Yeager, a National Magazine Award nominee and author of, or contributor to, nearly thirty books, is his coauthor.