FBI takes lead in Lincoln County bombing investigation

The FBI has taken the lead in the investigation into last week’s deadly bombing in the Lincoln County town of Panaca.

FBI spokeswoman Bridget Pappas declined to discuss the agency’s role on Monday. But she said, “The FBI is working with our law enforcement partners on this situation. As the matter is ongoing, no details can be provided at this time.”

Authorities in Lincoln County and Kingman, Arizona, where a cache of explosives were discovered in a motor home owned by the bomber, also have participated in the investigation.

Glenn Franklin Jones, 59, was killed in the bomb attack authorities believe he orchestrated at the Panaca home of former hospital chief nursing officer, Josh Cluff; his wife and fellow nurse, Tiffany Cluff; and their three daughters. Josh Cluff was Jones’ former supervisor.

No one else was seriously hurt when two explosive devices detonated seconds apart, destroying a car, seriously damaging the Cluffs’ house and showering the tiny town with shrapnel.

Reached by phone Monday, Tiffany Cluff said she wasn’t talking to anyone right now and quickly hung up.

Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee confirmed Monday that Jones was a military veteran.

Jones’ former neighbor, Dennis Sanders, told The Associated Press that Jones claimed to have served as an explosives and demolition expert during a stint in the Army. Sanders told The Associated Press he did not know how long Jones was in the military or where he was posted.

Longtime Panaca resident Richard Katschke said Jones used to decorate old bomb shells and was obsessed with military things.

Jones was stripped of his Nevada nursing license for mishandling narcotics four months before the bombing, records show.

At a March 24 hearing in Reno, the State Board of Nursing found Jones guilty of withdrawing morphine from the medication dispensers of two patients at Grover C. Dils Medical Center in Caliente without documenting what happened to the controlled substance. The facility is about 15 miles from Panaca.

Jones stopped working at the medical center in August, shortly after the last undocumented morphine withdrawal cited by the nursing board.

Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg over the weekend declared Jones’ death a suicide.

Fudenberg said Jones shot himself in the head after igniting explosives that tore through the Panaca home. Blunt force injuries from the explosion also contributed to his death, Fudenberg said.

“Due to the fact that the location of that gunshot wound had a high probability of lethality, we believe his cause of death was the gunshot wound of the head, and that the explosions went off after the gunshot wound,” Fudenberg explained on Monday.

Kingman authorities spent part of last week carefully removing and inspecting bomb parts from Jones’ motor home at a recreational vehicle park in the heart of the high desert community 100 miles southeast of Las Vegas.

Deputy Kingman Police Chief Rusty Cooper said last week that the cache of explosives and components had to be removed one at a time from Jones’ 25-foot RV using a remote-controlled robot.

Cooper said the FBI was “very interested” in Jones and what was found at the RV park, but he declined to elaborate.

Las Vegas Review-Journal writers Rachel Crosby, Henry Brean and Wesley Juhl contributed to this report. Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter.