Woman: Man who set off bomb knew my name, address, details about 3 children
The woman testifying Tuesday described herself as a nice person, which is why she walked the lobby and grounds of Payday Today on Jan. 2, 2020, to help a caller who thought his grandmother had left her keys there days before.
She was walking back inside, convinced she couldn't help him anymore, when she heard a loud explosion and saw debris fly. The caller asked what happened, and she told him.
And that's when the caller's tone changed.
"He said, 'That was me,'" she told jurors.
The caller knew her name, her address, details about her three children and warned that more bombs were in the building and her car, she said. He threatened to kill her kids at one point.
The caller told her to go to a bank and withdraw $10,000.
"His whole voice changed the minute the bomb went off."
The woman testified Tuesday during the trial of Daniel Dewayne Aikens, who has been indicted on eight charges — three counts of making a destructive device, three counts of possession of a destructive device in violation of the National Firearms Act, one count of using an explosive to commit a federal felony and one count of conveying malicious false information.
The bombing of the now-closed business on MacArthur Drive set off a four-day search involving federal, state and local investigators. Aiken, 40, was arrested four days after the bombing and has been in custody since.
Prosecutors revealed in a previous hearing that Aikens was a suspect in another Alexandria bombing that happened on Dec. 20, 2019, at a convenience store and Texaco gas station, formerly known as U-Pak-It, on Jackson Street Extension.
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But, in opening statements Monday, they contended he also was responsible for a Sept. 12, 2019, bombing outside a Monroe beauty school.
On Tuesday, the woman described the PayDay Today caller as very friendly before the bomb went off. But after, she became convinced he was watching her because he knew what she was doing. She testified she was prepared to try to get the money for him because she wanted to protect her family.
When she switched from the business phone to her cellphone and got into her car, the caller wanted to know what she was doing when she didn't leave immediately. She told him she felt like she was going to pass out and needed to get some water from the Valero convenience store next door.
He said OK, but told her to keep talking to him on her cellphone.
She walked into the store, ended the call and asked those inside for help. The same number, from the 716 area code, called her number back. A woman inside the store answered it on speakerphone, and everyone heard the caller ask her, using profanity, what she was doing.
Prosecutors played surveillance video with no sound from the business while she described what was happening.
She testified she only had been working at PayDay Today for a few months when the incident happened. She worked by herself, which worried her family. She got permission to have a friend or her fiancé stay with her until Aikens was arrested, she said.
Also testifying Tuesday was Joseph Matthew, the owner of Cloyd's Beauty School in Monroe.
He testified about the Sept. 12, 2019, explosion outside his business. He and two students were taking broken-down cardboard boxes to the trash can, and he was the first to reach it. When he looked inside, he saw what he thought was a vacuum cleaner.
Matthew testified he thought three things instantaneously before a blast threw him to the ground — Was that a vacuum cleaner in his trash can? Who would put it there? Can I fix it?
The item actually was a pressure cooker that had been made into an improvised explosive device, and it went off as he threw the cardboard inside the can.
"It threw me backwards, and that's all I remember," he said.
He was taken to a hospital for burns to his face, which he said "looked like a really, really, really bad sunburn."
The hair on both of his arms from his elbows to his wrists was singed off, he testified. After the explosion, he said the trash can was "blazing like a jet engine."
Monroe firefighters put out the fire, but they kept getting tangled in fishing line that led from the area around the trash can through a strip of land that separated the beauty school from an apartment complex, testified Senior Special Agent Theresa Meza with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Meza, a certified fire investigator, testified about finding the pressure cooker, its lid, the fishing line, and other components of a homemade bomb.
The materials made an improvised device that was intentional, she testified. But no suspect ever was developed in the case, and Matthew had no connection to Aikens, Meza testified.
Philip Thrower, a loss prevention official with Hobby Lobby's Oklahoma corporate office, testified about photos and videos taken at stores in Monroe and Lafayette, as well as sales receipts.
Photos showed a Black male inside a West Monroe store on Sept. 10, 2019, and on Dec. 19, 2019, in Lafayette. He can be seen buying one of the components used in the Monroe explosive device in a Lafayette photo.
Video from the Lafayette store was much clearer than the photos, showing a man resembling Aikens walking in and buying the piece and then leaving.
Testimony will resume Wednesday morning.
This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Prosecutors try to pin Monroe, Alexandria explosions on Daniel Aikens
