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His bunker
-- toured by a reporter and photographer from The Associated Press on Monday
-- comprised 2 1/2 levels. Remnants of tear gas, along with bleach used to clean up the blood, stung the throat. Keller had excavated a giant horseshoe-shaped gash in the side of the ravine, hacking into the bedrock in some places. He downed trees, 15 inches in diameter, that had been growing for half a century, skinned them of bark and split them lengthwise, apparently using a chainsaw. With 18-inch lag screws and 10-inch nails, he fashioned a sort of underground log cabin, surrounded by emerald ferns and whips of spruce trailing their needles overhead. The bunker's lower level was a long, narrow hall, the width of his wingspan, where he stashed bottles of water and Coke, lined neatly on shelves. There was a clear plastic jug of beans; a sealed bucket of barley, with silicone packets to suck out unwanted moisture; a bucket of candy
-- 100 Grand bars were a favorite. There was a generator, PVC pipe for water, and extra Ziploc bags for keeping supplies dry. Boxes of ammo, for example. A second shift of SWAT officers arrived as night approached. They settled in, confident in knowing they had Keller surrounded but knowing he could start firing any time. Saturday morning arrived. The first shift, the King County sheriff's officers, came back on duty. Time for action. They turned once again to Chaffee, this time for his expertise in explosives. He and another bomb tech were hoisted down to the bunker by helicopter, long cords of explosives in a bag between his legs
-- like explosive garden hose, he said. Officers had heard a pop during the night, and thought Keller might be dead. They weren't sure. Chaffee helped calculate how much explosives would be needed to blow the log roof enough to loosen it from the nails and lag bolts, without caving the structure in. As he and his colleagues laid the cord, they worried about how exposed they were. But SWAT officers who snaked a camera into the bunker saw that the danger had passed: Keller was in a pool of blood. They blew the top, then pried away the logs. The blood evidence told the tale: Keller had shot himself on the top level with a Glock pistol. His body plunged nearly 30 feet down, past his makeshift ladder, and landed on the bottom floor. His hand, under his contorted frame, clutched an AM-FM radio buzzing with white noise. His blood splattered on a shelf and dripped down, collecting on a June 19, 2010, sports section of The Seattle Times. Detectives are studying more than 120 pieces of evidence collected from the bunker in hopes of learning what motivated the murders and his survivalist philosophy.
[Associated
Press;
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