Parolee Sought in Pipe Bomb Blast That Killed Mother of Three : Crime: Scott Douglas Hamby is believed to have made explosive device. He could face a murder charge.

A 31-year-old Littlerock man is being sought for questioning in the pipe bomb explosion that killed a Pearblossom woman and injured her 4-year-old son earlier this month, authorities said Sunday.

Scott Douglas Hamby is believed to have made the bomb, but investigators are unsure whether the device was intentionally placed or simply discarded along the dirt road near 106th Street East.

“Evidence recovered at the scene of the explosion links the suspect to the crime,” said Deputy Larry Mead of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Hamby will face charges of murder and illegal manufacture and possession of an explosive device, Mead said.

“Hamby, who is on parole, has a history of manufacturing and possessing explosive devices,” Mead said. “He is considered extremely dangerous and could be a danger to the community.”

Lynn Standish, 33, a single mother of three, was killed May 20 when she came upon the pipe bomb while searching for recyclable or collectible items in the desert near her Pearblossom home. There is no indication Hamby knew Standish.

The woman’s 4-year-old son was injured in the leg by the explosion and is still at Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center in Lancaster, where he is expected to undergo surgery. His 9-year-old brother, also present when the bomb exploded, was unhurt.

The older boy, Jeffrey, removed his shirt and used it to cover his younger brother and carried him back to his mother’s car, family members said of the ordeal. He spent the next three days at his brother’s bedside at the hospital.

Hiking through the desert was a common activity for Standish and her children, and the family regularly went in search of discarded knickknacks as a way to spend time together and relax, relatives said.

“She came back the other day and showed me she had 10 pennies that someone had thrown away with their junk,” said Keith Holmes, her father.

According to court records, Hamby was arrested in September, 1982, on a marijuana charge.

He also was arrested in 1989 on criminal conspiracy charges and again in April, 1992, for possession of an explosive device. One month later, Hamby was picked up and arrested as a parolee in possession of a concealed weapon.

Hamby is described as a 5 feet, 9 inches tall, white, with brown hair, blue eyes and a mustache, weighing about 180 pounds. He has a tattoo of a rose on one shoulder.