Trial Over Bombing to Begin This Week : Courts: It is the first such case in at least 20 years. A Moorpark man is accused of throwing an explosive into the bedroom of his wife’s ex-husband.

Five months after a Simi Valley couple awoke to find a pipe bomb spewing sparks in their bed, trial is scheduled to begin this week for the man accused of attempted murder in the ensuing explosion.

The trial of James R. McKeever in Ventura County Superior Court will be the county’s first bombing trial in at least 20 years, officials said.

While cases involving possession of bombs have been tried in recent years, “an actual bombing is a little unusual,” said Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee.

“Actually, it’s a lot unusual.”

McKeever, 42, is accused of the premeditated attempted murder of his wife’s former husband, John Monroe, 34, and Monroe’s present wife, Charlene Mayer, 33, both of whom were injured in the Nov. 21 blast. If convicted, McKeever could face a life sentence.

The trial promises to be a battle of technical experts offering conflicting testimony about whether McKeever’s Moorpark garage was the site of a sophisticated bomb-building operation.

But the jury is also expected to hear emotional accounts of the bitter feelings between McKeever and his wife on one side and the couple that he is accused of injuring on the other.

According to court papers, Monroe described the defendant as his best friend until McKeever “ran off” with Monroe’s first wife, Karen Dunlop. And after McKeever and Dunlop married two years ago, she and Monroe engaged in a bitter fight over custody of their 7-year-old son, Johnny Monroe, according to court records.

Johnny is one of about 40 witnesses whom Deputy Dist. Atty. Donna W. Thonis has said she may call. Others expected to testify for the prosecution include bomb experts from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Assistant Public Defender Jean L. Farley said she will present medical testimony that McKeever, who suffers from two herniated disks, was physically incapable of sneaking across the victims’ front lawn, removing a screen from their bedroom window, tossing a bomb through the glass and slipping away unnoticed.

The blast occurred about 5 a.m. Nov. 21, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, at the house that Monroe and Mayer rent on Lundy Drive. Monroe awoke to the sounds of breaking glass, then saw a flaming object land between him and his wife, according to his testimony at McKeever’s preliminary hearing in January.

Monroe said he and Mayer kicked the fireball to the foot of the bed and were trying to smother the three-foot-high flames when the object exploded, seriously injuring Mayer’s leg and side with shrapnel and causing lesser injuries to Monroe.

After interviewing the victims, investigators began watching McKeever’s house on East Westwood Street in Moorpark. About 1 p.m., McKeever, his wife and the 7-year-old boy left the house in McKeever’s truck--followed by three undercover Simi Valley police officers, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in court.

As McKeever drove to Ventura and then to Lompoc, he frequently made sudden stops and U-turns, “tactics commonly used to detect law enforcement surveillance,” according to the affidavit. After buying some camping supplies in Lompoc, McKeever and the others returned to the Moorpark house.

Meanwhile, investigators determined that the bomb had consisted of a five-inch-long pipe attached with duct tape to a one-gallon bleach bottle full of gasoline and a cylinder of propane. The pipe was stuffed with powder, metal shavings and ball bearings to enhance its destructive effects, a sheriff’s bomb expert said.

The blankets, however, stopped some of the bomb fragments and prevented the gasoline from exploding, the expert said. Otherwise, he said, the couple might have died.

Simi Valley police obtained a warrant to search McKeever’s house, where they seized a number of items. Among them were two propane cylinders made by the same manufacturer as the one found in the bombed bedroom; a bleach bottle of the same brand as the one used in the bomb; fresh metal shavings; ball bearings; and a roll of duct tape.

McKeever was arrested at 2 a.m. Nov. 23, 21 hours after the explosion. He has remained in Ventura County Jail ever since, with bail set at $250,000.

An FBI analysis of the duct tape used in the bomb determined that it was the same type as the roll of tape that police seized in McKeever’s garage, according to court papers. But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ lab said its chemical analysis could not prove that the gasoline in the bomb came from a can found at McKeever’s house.

Both attorneys declined to discuss the case in detail before the trial.

But in addition to the bomb experts, prosecutor Thonis’s witness list includes Richard Buffalo, described in court papers as a friend of both McKeever and Monroe. Buffalo told police that he had heard McKeever claim to have been trained in the use of explosive devices while in the military.

And Johnny Monroe testified at the preliminary hearing that McKeever asked him to draw a map of the victims’ house a few days before the attack. The boy has been in his father’s custody since the bombing.

Defense attorney Farley said she will strive to show that police arrested the wrong man.

“He was physically incapable of doing this, and he’s not the type to do this,” she said, adding that McKeever has no prior arrests and is a veteran of both the Air Force and the Navy.

The trial is expected to last six weeks, in part because McKeever’s back ailment prevents him from sitting more than two hours at a time. During most pretrial proceedings he has lain flat on his back on a jail gurney. Last week, at Farley’s request, Judge Lawrence Storch ordered jail officials to buy a $700 back brace to enable McKeever to sit up more comfortably.

“I don’t want to go through a trial with the defendant on a gurney,” Farley told the judge.

McKeever’s wife, Dunlop, said he injured his back several years ago while working for a computer company and has been on disability ever since.

Dunlop acknowledged that there was ill will between her and her ex-husband, but said McKeever did not try to kill him. She said her ex-husband, Monroe, has a number of enemies with possible motives to harm him.

Investigators have said McKeever was apparently trying to build an alibi when he drove his wife and stepson to Lompoc the day of the bombing. But Dunlop said her husband was taking her on an outing to celebrate her birthday. She said he had to take pain pills and stop frequently to endure the pain.

On Friday, the case was transferred from Storch to Judge Allan L. Steele. After hearing pretrial motions Monday, Steele is expected to begin jury selection on Tuesday.