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May 17th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
The golf cart was parked in the room where investigators believe the blast
began, officials said. The golf cart’s batteries hold a charge and when they
fail, they can ignite the materials around them, officials said. They found
two pieces of the cart: a brake pad and the axle.
As part of their site investigation, officials tried to reconstruct part of
one building on the plant site with debris and as much of the power systems
as they could. They were able to rule out a higher-voltage electrical system
used at the plant.
Officials have ruled out the possibility that the blast was an act of terror,
but not that it was a crime. They refused to take questions on the arrest of
Bryce Reed, a West paramedic who responded to the blast but was arrested
weeks later with what authorities said were materials for a pipe bomb. The
Texas Rangers, a state investigative agency, and the local county sheriff’s
office opened their own criminal investigation after his arrest.
Reed’s attorney has denied that his client had any role in the blast, and the
McLennan County Sheriff’s Office said last week that there was no evidence
linking Reed to the explosion. He pleaded not guilty this week to the
possession charge.
Ammonium nitrate is a chemical used as a fertiliser that also can be used as a
cheap alternative to dynamite. It was the chemical used in the 1995 Oklahoma
City bombing.
Rachel Moreno, a spokeswoman for the Texas State Fire Marshal’s Office, said
the death toll had officially reached 15 with the determination by a local
justice of the peace that an elderly man who died after being evacuated from
the nursing home had been an explosion-related death. The nursing home’s
medical director previously had said the man died of his pre-existing
ailments.
Edited by Steve Wilson for telegraph.co.uk
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