Bomb Kills Woman, Injures 3 Children

A bomb wrapped inside a Federal Express package was left at the front door of an upscale home and exploded when it was opened Friday, killing a mother and injuring three children, police said.

Police detectives at the suburban Fort Lauderdale house said the bomb was clearly intended for the woman and was not a random act. She had been the victim of an attempted bombing in March.

“A neighborhood boy came over to the house to play with the children today, and as he entered the house, he saw the package on the porch and just brought it in with him,” said police Sgt. Michael Price.

The mother opened the package in the kitchen toward the rear of the house, and the powerful blast ripped the front doors from their hinges, blew out windows and scattered debris into the family’s swimming pool.

The 38-year-old woman, whose identity was not immediately released pending notification of family, had been the intended victim of a pipe bomb March 8, police said. In that incident, a 12-inch-long bomb inside a brown paper bag was left on the hood of her car outside a grocery store.

Authorities safely defused the bomb at that time and told the woman to watch for suspicious packages. No one has been charged in that crime.

Police were searching for the woman’s former husband, from whom she was divorced three years ago, for questioning.

In addition to the woman, six other adults and children were inside the house at the time of the explosion, officials said. Their identities were not released, although police said that one of the adults was the boyfriend of the victim.

Investigators from the U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency, the Broward County sheriff’s bomb squad and postal inspectors gathered evidence.

A spokeswoman for Federal Express in Memphis, Tenn., said the company had checked its records and determined that it made no deliveries to the Florida address Friday.

The woman’s children, ages 13 and 9, were taken to Broward County General Hospital for treatment of minor cuts and wounds, a hospital spokesman said. A neighborhood playmate who was visiting the house was also treated for minor injuries.

The other two adults and child in the house were not injured, officials said.

“I heard a big boom. I just thought it was a car accident,” said Kirsten Curran, 13, who lives several doors down from the house. “We live in a pretty nice neighborhood. It’s real sad and scary because nothing like this has ever happened before.”