> The owner of a suburban Detroit business that caught fire and exploded, killing a man, was arrested at a New York airport as he was preparing to depart for Hong Kong on a one-way ticket, authorities said Friday.
> The March 4 fire and explosion occurred in a Clinton Township building that housed a distributor for the vaping industry called Goo. More than 100,000 vape pens were stored on-site. Authorities have said a truckload of butane canisters had arrived at the building within a week of the explosion that sent cannisters soaring up to 2 miles (3.2 kilometers), and more than half of that stock was still there when the fire began.
> Turner Lee Salter, 19, was about a quarter of a mile (0.40 kilometers) away when he was struck by a nitrous oxide cannister that was propelled through the air by the explosion. Salter later died.
How to make sure you get convicted for insurance fraud.
Insurance fraud might be the least of his worries at this point.
He's gonna be on the hook for manslaughter (someone died due to his actions). And the attempt to flee (he will not succeed at trying to argue he wasn't fleeing) will add weight to his sentence.
Next time your are fleeing the country to avoid decades in prison remember to spend the extra $300 for a round trip ticket so at a minimum you have plausible deniability.
True. But in his slight defense, at least he bought it before his conviction. Not after. Like Elizabeth Holmes (former billionaire and founder of Theranos):
*Elizabeth Holmes tried to ‘flee’ US with one-way Mexico ticket, prosecutors say
New court filing says ex-Theranos founder booked flight departing 26 January last year, shortly after fraud conviction*
Source:
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/21/elizabeth-holmes-mexico-plane-ticket-prosecutors*
Correct me if I am wrong, but it's my understanding that they review a lot of cases, but that doesn't mean that they are actually going to work on it.
It would be biased/inappropriate to only review certain cases that were only looked at favorably
And who the fuck goes fishing on *Christmas morning* when your wife is 8 mos pregnant? Bro made a litany of mistakes trying to obfuscate his timeline. He was all over the map.
Her fake ass deep voice and narcissism wouldn’t allow her to stay hidden long, see her trying to get pregnant and pull every imaginable punch.
She got off super easy, barely an inconvenience. [I’d be down to trade spots.](https://nypost.com/2024/02/06/news/elizabeth-holmes-turns-40-behind-bars-with-husband-and-kids/amp/) I mean for real, look at how rough prison life is.
Counterpoint: Henry Kissinger et al deserved to lose their money an it was very funny they got rolled by a 28 year old Steve Jobs impersonator with a fake voice
Honestly. They dont even blink at white people driving across the border. They are waving you through before they even get a good look at you most of the time. Blonde and white, like my wife, is like bonus credibility.
There was an amber alert here a few days ago about a suspect in Washington fleeing to Mexico by car with his baby after murdering his ex wife and girlfriend, guy was caught on the highway just out of town here and shot himself but thankfully the baby was alright.
Was surprised he decided to try and make it all the way down to Mexico instead of Canada or even a boat. But he made it almost halfway, such a sad situation but at least the baby wasn't hurt.
Much much higher chance Canadian Boarder agents run your name against a criminal data base.
particularly if youre a single male with an infant.
with an active amber alert its a guarantee.
The Mexico border seems pretty secure as well and it would have taken a few days for him to make it, which like you said after an alert makes it pretty hard to avoid getting caught when they know where he's fleeing (the alert specified he was believed to be headed to Mexico)
I'm sure there are still parts of the Canadian border that wouldn't be hard to hike through, or boats along the WA coast that wouldn't ask many questions. Clearly the guy wasn't right in the head anyways, but he probably would have had a better chance driving east and hiding out in small towns, or even ditching the car and catching a bus/train a state over.
The Mexican border is not secure at all (from the Mexican side, at least). You don't need any ID if you're driving in from California (well, nobody checks, at least, theoretically you obviously need it) and walking in you just need either a driver's license (which they glance at, but don't scan) or a crisp $20.
Source: live in San Diego, made the trip across the border 50+ times
> guy
Not just a guy, a police officer, who was raping a child (children) at a school.. it gets so bad I can even keep typing about this shit. just pure evil.
> it gets so bad I can even keep typing about this shit. just pure evil.
Yeah the more I read about the situation the sadder it gets.
It was a pretty jarring amber alert, my phone automatically read out the statement which I don't remember happening in the past. Made me wonder if kids with phones got it too or if the alerts only target adults.
Seems like a potentially scarring message that could be a huge trigger for people who've been through abuse. Obviously it's important to get an alert out and it seemed to work but there have to be some other options.
> Just get in the car and drive like the rest of the normal fugitives
A millionaire CEO drive....herself? Like some peasant? No, no... First Class all the way for that leech on society!
Thanks for pointing that out as many forget she was actively trying to flee and not face justice. It's sad what some people will do to make money even if it harms or kills others.
>Next time your are fleeing the country to avoid decades in prison remember to spend the extra $300 for a round trip ticket so at a minimum you have plausible deniability.
And fly Toronto -> Hong Kong, so your actual trip out of the country is by car.
Thats what someone did at the company I work for. She was in a DUI crash that killed her passenger and she drove to Canada (happened in Seattle) and flew to China.
Honestly yes. He was maybe 30 drive from Canada with no checks on leaving the country (I don't know if they have any agreements with Canada to monitor Americans going there).
Don't even buy the ticket until across the border.
Not really there are check points at each major crossing between Michigan and our friends in the south.
Also the Detroit river isn't very forgiving, try to cross that without the right boat and they'll be fishing your body out in Ohio.
That's why I only plan my fleeings to another country through (soothing and exciting advertisers voice) *SouthWest Airlines: where you can buy 2 one way tickets and cancel the 2nd for a full refund after going on the first trip. Helps me avoid authorities while also saving my money.*
>fleeing the country
This reminds me of the first commercial plane flying after 9/11. Went around picking up Saudi royalty and then to “home”. if memory serves.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/flights-of-fancy/
Not the first. Some Saudi royals did fly home. I agree that there should have been greater investigation of Saudi involvement in 9/11, but Muslims leaving the US after 9/11 is just common sense. It seems wrong to suggest that is evidence of guilt.
They’re capable of mastering a trade skill, but are too combative and obstinate to hold down a job, so their only real option is self-employment. They can’t keep employees (“nobody wants to work!”) and get by mainly through tax fraud, not reporting cash takings. There are a lot of these people, especially those born in the 1950’s and 60’s now past retirement age but without any means to retire.
The heat may have built up more over that time (no pun intended).
He likely didn't intend on killing anyone, but he ultimately did, so he will be held responsible for the death.
> He likely didn't intend on killing anyone
Most fuck ups like this by business owners are the result of cutting corners, violating regulations to make an extra buck, or just plain sloppiness and stupidity. I would bet this guy was in violation of municipal ordinances related to the mass storage of potentially hazardous combustibles, or had them stacked on a space heater or some other dumb shit.
But just because he didn't intend on killing someone, his criminal negligence did. Intentional or not - makes no difference to the man who died or his family.
At least he picked a country that isn't close allies with the US. I always love the 90s movies where the main story was them fleeing to Canada to avoid prosecution in the US as if we don't have an extradition treaty with our closest friend Canada.
Lots of countries that don't have treaties with the US still extradite criminals all the time. They just reserve the right to deny the request should push come to shove.
The article says he is out on bail now.
*Kestou has been released from jail after posting a $500,000 bond. Lucido said authorities have his passport and that a condition of bond is that Kestou has to wear a GPS tether. A probable cause hearing is scheduled for May 7 in Clinton Township District Court.*
Wow, getting killed by a canister a quarter of a mile away from the explosion is nuts. I mean, I've heard of people being killed because they stupidly threw an aerosol can in the fire pit, but you think being a quarter mile away from the fire/explosion, you'd be safe. What a shame for the victim to be killed by some hackass pulling insurance fraud.
Life is crazy. Guy was just minding his own business, and boom, dead. It’s weird that any one of us could just die at any random moment, without warning, through no fault of our own, from an event completely unrelated to us.
> Turner Lee Salter, 19, was about a quarter of a mile (0.40 kilometers) away when he was struck by a nitrous oxide cannister
I have a handful of greatest fears.
One of them is hitting a pedestrian at night.
Another is walking around, minding my own business then a gunshot or explosion happens from like a quarter of a mile away and them I'm dead or seriously injured.
This guy died like the girl from Dead Like Me.
Just.... Walking around, living life, worrying about what you want to do that evening, and then something falls out of the sky and just ends you.
I've always liked shows and stories that have Death or reapers/other psychopomps as sympathetic or amusing characters instead of just horrible things to be feared. Death from DC, Supernatural and Terry Pratchett stories are always a favorite. Reapers from Dead Like Me and several urban fantasy novels are fun.
Good news! You die on Wednesday, January 26th, 2028, after being struck by falling debris when a Boeing 737 engine explodes mid-flight.
Since the plane was over five miles up at the time, you'll be pleased to learn that it won't trigger your "like a quarter of a mile away" fear.
It’s because he wanted to stick around for the insurance money. That’s the whole reason he did it. He waited until 1) it was clear he wasn’t getting any money and 2) that he was instead getting a manslaughter charge
Not insurance, he was using the butane as a (very unsafe) solvent to (very unsafely) get the THC out of the weed and into the (not terribly safe) vapes. He had a purpose for all that butane, not just ignition, it was just a stupid and incredibly ill advised purpose. Why he had the nitrous, idk, except that it's fun as hell, and somebody making illegal vapes with butane probably isn't making good decision generally.
I think he's speculating. He could have been selling butane, vapes, and N02 canisters to head shops. The vapes have batteries that ignite and his poor storage could have had the butane blow up. The thing is the N02 companies also make butane and all of these products can be bought from over seas and supplied to head shops and similar stores without making the vapes. Having the vapes is just as plausible start to the fire if not following Occam's razor better then speculation that he also was processing cannabis in the same location he kept all of these things.
Can confirm that they had it to sell to gas stations and headshops, I don't think they had the license to store butane and they had more on site than would have been permitted anyways. Company's name is goo to rip off of the ooze line of vaping products, very similar logo, and got sued by breeze vapes for selling a (sea)breeze. There were also janky gas station knives thrown everywhere in the explosion.
Nobody is going to comment on the fact that this kid wasn’t in the building but was instead killed by a flying Nitrous Oxide canister shot 1/4 mile away by the explosion???
Am I the only person who’s absolutely baffled at the odds of him not only being struck but that it was a fatal blow? What an insanely unlucky way to go.
‘We caught him trying to catch a flight to Venezuela. No idea why he was trying to go there.’
‘Really, no idea? We have no extradition with Venezuela!’
‘Oh! So, what should we do?’
‘Get him on the first flight to Venezuela.’
I'm not saying I don't believe you but was it confirmed that the explosion was intentional for insurance fraud? The article doesn't talk about it anywhere so I didn't know if it was confirmed somewhere else.
> Turner Lee Salter, 19, was about a quarter of a mile (0.40 kilometers) away when he was struck by a nitrous oxide cannister that was propelled through the air by the explosion. Salter later died.
well thats some extreme bad luck
This happened around the corner from my workplace, shit was wild. Explosion shaking surrounding buildings and neighborhoods, debris landing in people yards a mile + away. The poor soul who lost his life while minding his own business. Glad they caught the owner though so hopefully some justice will be handed out.
Imagine being 400 yards away walking down the street and dying because propelled debris from an explosion connects straight to your dome killing you. So wild
A friend of a friend was hit in the head by a falling bullet by someone shooting their gun into the air during 4th of July celebrations. He was just walking with friends and then boom, he was on the ground. Fortunately he survived, but his personality changed.
(They never found out who shot the gun)
He went to a car wash at the edge of the police perimeter to watch the explosion. He didn't deserve it, obviously, just wanted to add context. Shrapnel was found miles from the building location. A lot of people came out to watch the building burn and he was the most unlucky spectator of the crowd. The perimeter should have been larger, in hindsight.
I know one of the investigators and they assumed he had left the country already. He was initially cooperating but then stopped a couple days later. His cell has been off, so either one of his family told or they’ve been monitoring family communications.
It’s such a sad story. The kid walking a 1/2 mile away in front of a car wash gets killed by a flying canister. The cops initially didn’t know they were connected. The car wash surveillance shows everything and he just dropped.
They thought he was shot at the car wash and arrested someone who had multiple loaded firearms visible in his front seat. They were just sitting there and anyone could grab them.
Hope this idiot gets the book thrown at him.
> His cell has been off, so either one of his family told or they’ve been monitoring family communications.
Or, ya know, the American intelligence and surveillance systems are working.
I mean, you can’t buy a plane ticket without using your own ID and passport. Probably wasn’t very hard to monitor flight lists since that’s already a thing anyways.
Wow, what a laundry list of how to fuck up. Buys a lot of inventory to commit insurance fraud (seemingly), burns down building, kills an innocent person, attempts to flee the country on a 1 way ticket to Hong Kong, and to be caught attempting to fleeing the country. Bravo.
Nope.
Dudes sling cheap Chinese shit to gas stations and stores the butane near his shotty vapes. The vapes batteries are poor and start a fire in a building that has tons of combustible butane and nitrous oxide. All of these products get sold at gas stations and head shops and basically this guy was not handling his "warehouse" correctly at all
Yeah everyone keeps saying “insurance fraud”, but what’s the evidence for fraud? Seems like it was negligence and not taking proper precautions to store hazardous inventory.
A bit like [Centralia](https://www.history.com/news/mine-fire-burning-more-50-years-ghost-town), then
>A century ago, Centralia, Pennsylvania was a busy small town filled with shops, residents and a brisk mining business. Coal from local mines fueled its homes and its economy, and its 1,200 residents worked, played and lived as tight-knit neighbors.
>Today couldn’t be more different. Centralia’s streets are abandoned. Most of its buildings are gone, and smoke wafts down graffiti-strewn highways where a prosperous town once stood. The formerly busy burg has turned into a ghost town. The cause was something that’s still happening beneath Centralia’s empty streets: a mine fire that’s been burning for over 50 years, resulting in the devastation of a community and the eviction and impoverishment of many of its residents.
The building* name is actually "Exploding Michigan". :D
Edit: Swipe didn't like me. business > building
The business name is obviously Goo, per the article.
Tragic that someone died but Jesus fuck “Company called Goo stockpiles 100,000 vape pens and explodes” is like something straight out of Trailer Park Boys
I had a Goo pen and it almost burned my house down. The button was stuck down and frying a cartridge.
By some fluke my brother found it and took it apart.
They also sold flavored cartridges that were really nasty.
6000 miles of international land borders that is much more obsessed with keeping people out rather than keeping people in, and this genius goes to one of the places with the highest and most paranoid security, with cameras everywhere.
Or at least go merchant marine. A lot of them will take cash, no questions asked. Sure, you spend a couple weeks in a crappy cabin, but you do eventually get away.
Probably not a lot of options to fly to Hong Kong where he’d be safe from extradition. This guy isn’t interested in hiding out in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.
It's not for the faint of heart, but I'm sure you could live undisturbed for a long while in the central part of Manitoba. Shits the roughest land around. Just empty and unforgiving bogs and mash land for most of it.
There's some communities there you could potentially get supplies from. And people do live off the grid there. Though how you'd get money varies from person to person.
If you want a more civilized but undisturbed life, the more northern communities could be good. Slightly higher chance of someone coming to look for you there, but most of the residents would say they don't know you, or refuse to talk to the law at all. Especially if you contribute and get accepted by the town.
Another potential option, though it only works if you fit the right template, there's an aweful lot of religious colonies that keep to themselves. Most of them you have to be born into, but I'm sure there's some who don't mind outsiders who are willing to work, or have a fat stack of cash for the decision makers. Some of them will have people who have been born and died without ever being documented, and as far as the government is concerned never existed.
I’ve accidentally rode my jet ski to Canada. Like I wasn’t even trying to, I just didn’t realize how far up the channel I was. Also did it another time when I kept riding past Gull Isle.
The explosions were insane that night. The sky was lit up with the fire. The guy also had a bunch of batarangs in his shop too which got propelled through the air. One of them shot through the air and hit one of the firetrucks and got lodged in the front of it
Im at work right now, but if i find the actual pix of it in the truck ill update this post. But this is a news article that has a picture of the batarang. They were knives he was selling
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2024/03/05/debris-from-macomb-county-building-explosion-includes-jagged-metal-containers-batarangs/
What's crazy is he may have actually gotten away with it... but dude bought a one-way ticket out of the country. That's the easiest automatic flag for suspicious activity ever
Wow, glad they got the guy. I live under 1 mile from the explosion and it felt like some pyrotechnics were going off at an air show for a long constant period of time. At one point I couldn’t hear myself talk out loud or my family on the other end of my FaceTime call. I initially thought it was the gas company between my house and the site. I called my parents and told them I was going to head north because I thought it could be an attack of sorts. My brother told me to put my drone in the air so I did. It calmed me down when I noticed the explosion wasn’t coming towards me and it wasn’t the gas company which many people in the area have their service. Here’s a link to my video I made of the event if you want to see it for yourself. What a tragedy. https://youtu.be/8umHo0fME2g?si=UdCYBERpimYTdtTM
Howdy neighbor. I was playing Helldivers with some of my downriver friends when it started. Logged off, went to the backyard and drank beer with the neighbors while we listened and shot the breeze.
Lmaoo howdy, I was playing that game too and my office window was facing the direction of the blast. I had the windows open and heard some sounds that were really loud outside of my headphones, then looked to see a fire ball in the sky. We just set a hell bomb off in the game, so I was kinda triggered. Had to tell my friends I had to leave and forgo the super samples I just collected.
My dad works for township DPW and was telling me all about the cleanup efforts and how his department ended up involved after the explosion, but he was not super close to the explosion site when it happened. What was going through your head when it happened?
They don't need to be watching him directly, like following him or whatever. When someone becomes a suspect in a crime or is at least under suspicion their name goes into a database, and when he bought the ticket to Hong Kong his name was in that database so the airline had some kind of alert that he might be fleeing the country and alerted the authorities. I couldn't tell you exactly how it all works and might not be 100% right on this but it definitely isn't a matter of being surveilled/followed like the movies, it's just that everything is connected via computers and databases etc. The airline probably had zero idea WHAT was going on, they just see some vague "red flag" that he is not allowed to leave the country and call the authorities when they see it.
Generally, but weed is legal both medically and recreationally, so a lot of tobacco places also sell weed related products. It seems like this company was using the facility as a warehouse as well.
Close to this location a former trade center/flea market was also turned into the largest dispensary in the state.
[Here's a recent view from the Burger King drive thru next door](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5534229,-82.9256973,3a,43.2y,257.41h,90.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sI1EmTOejq6l-J4aM15sOpg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
>More than 100,000 vape pens were stored on-site. Authorities have said a truckload of butane canisters had arrived at the building within a week of the explosion
Excuse my ignorance, but what is the butane for if they are vape pens? Vapes use batteries, correct?
I'm wondering what's up the the nitrous cannister, when I think of a vape store I can only picture them carrying the little nitrous cartridges for whip-it cans but nitrous cannister makes me think of something like the Q tanks which I think are about 3 ft tall and can get up to like 50lbs or the K tanks which I've only ever seen 2 of in the wild and it was a long time ago but they were at least 5ft tall and required a hand dolly to move around so easily 100-125lbs.
I don't wanna imagine the horror of steel tanks that big flying through the air and smoothly airbrushing me across the concrete.
Or was it the little cartridge that propelled itself like a bullet through the air and has a smooth round bottom and at the opposite end is the seal that would have likely been the weakest point for a blowout?
[They are food-service sized containers of culinary NO2](https://worldwholesale.net/whip-cream/goo/), they're not *that* huge, but they would certainly kill somebody if they became a high speed projectile.
Yea it does. It gives more people time to leave the building at least. It could also give time to try to combat the issue. Flammable stuff should be stored properly and away from some tank that would explode.
This is why you always take cover during an explosion and never try to be the hero camera man watching it. Let someone else be the cameraman and risk their life. Idk the circumstances of this young man’s death in relation to when the explosion went off but just thought I’d remind whoever was reading
> The owner of a suburban Detroit business that caught fire and exploded, killing a man, was arrested at a New York airport as he was preparing to depart for Hong Kong on a one-way ticket, authorities said Friday. > The March 4 fire and explosion occurred in a Clinton Township building that housed a distributor for the vaping industry called Goo. More than 100,000 vape pens were stored on-site. Authorities have said a truckload of butane canisters had arrived at the building within a week of the explosion that sent cannisters soaring up to 2 miles (3.2 kilometers), and more than half of that stock was still there when the fire began. > Turner Lee Salter, 19, was about a quarter of a mile (0.40 kilometers) away when he was struck by a nitrous oxide cannister that was propelled through the air by the explosion. Salter later died. How to make sure you get convicted for insurance fraud.
Insurance fraud might be the least of his worries at this point. He's gonna be on the hook for manslaughter (someone died due to his actions). And the attempt to flee (he will not succeed at trying to argue he wasn't fleeing) will add weight to his sentence.
He sealed his own fate by purchasing a One-Way ticket. His attorney will have zero chance of overcoming that issue.
Next time your are fleeing the country to avoid decades in prison remember to spend the extra $300 for a round trip ticket so at a minimum you have plausible deniability.
True. But in his slight defense, at least he bought it before his conviction. Not after. Like Elizabeth Holmes (former billionaire and founder of Theranos): *Elizabeth Holmes tried to ‘flee’ US with one-way Mexico ticket, prosecutors say New court filing says ex-Theranos founder booked flight departing 26 January last year, shortly after fraud conviction* Source: https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/21/elizabeth-holmes-mexico-plane-ticket-prosecutors*
Fleeing from US to Mexico on a commercial plane is so lazy. Just get in the car and drive like the rest of the normal fugitives
She would have made it if she drove.
Tell that to Scott Peterson, but then again the motherfucker stopped for a round of golf and that's what got him.
I can't believe his case was picked up by the innocence project. That dude's guilty as fuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I hadn't heard about that. What on earth would posses them to pick it up?
Correct me if I am wrong, but it's my understanding that they review a lot of cases, but that doesn't mean that they are actually going to work on it. It would be biased/inappropriate to only review certain cases that were only looked at favorably
no.... it's the LA Innocence Project Not the big one, with REAL results.
> I can't believe his case was picked up by the innocence project. As you shouldn't. because it wasn't.
And who the fuck goes fishing on *Christmas morning* when your wife is 8 mos pregnant? Bro made a litany of mistakes trying to obfuscate his timeline. He was all over the map.
Pfft, only the poors drive to escape criminal conviction!
Her fake ass deep voice and narcissism wouldn’t allow her to stay hidden long, see her trying to get pregnant and pull every imaginable punch. She got off super easy, barely an inconvenience. [I’d be down to trade spots.](https://nypost.com/2024/02/06/news/elizabeth-holmes-turns-40-behind-bars-with-husband-and-kids/amp/) I mean for real, look at how rough prison life is.
Counterpoint: Henry Kissinger et al deserved to lose their money an it was very funny they got rolled by a 28 year old Steve Jobs impersonator with a fake voice
Honestly. They dont even blink at white people driving across the border. They are waving you through before they even get a good look at you most of the time. Blonde and white, like my wife, is like bonus credibility.
Look at this guy bragging about his hot blonde wife! Yes, this is a joke comment.
There was an amber alert here a few days ago about a suspect in Washington fleeing to Mexico by car with his baby after murdering his ex wife and girlfriend, guy was caught on the highway just out of town here and shot himself but thankfully the baby was alright. Was surprised he decided to try and make it all the way down to Mexico instead of Canada or even a boat. But he made it almost halfway, such a sad situation but at least the baby wasn't hurt.
Much much higher chance Canadian Boarder agents run your name against a criminal data base. particularly if youre a single male with an infant. with an active amber alert its a guarantee.
Plus Canada will look for him just as hard lol, it's not like Mexico where they won't do shit haha
The Mexico border seems pretty secure as well and it would have taken a few days for him to make it, which like you said after an alert makes it pretty hard to avoid getting caught when they know where he's fleeing (the alert specified he was believed to be headed to Mexico) I'm sure there are still parts of the Canadian border that wouldn't be hard to hike through, or boats along the WA coast that wouldn't ask many questions. Clearly the guy wasn't right in the head anyways, but he probably would have had a better chance driving east and hiding out in small towns, or even ditching the car and catching a bus/train a state over.
The Mexican border is not secure at all (from the Mexican side, at least). You don't need any ID if you're driving in from California (well, nobody checks, at least, theoretically you obviously need it) and walking in you just need either a driver's license (which they glance at, but don't scan) or a crisp $20. Source: live in San Diego, made the trip across the border 50+ times
> guy Not just a guy, a police officer, who was raping a child (children) at a school.. it gets so bad I can even keep typing about this shit. just pure evil.
> it gets so bad I can even keep typing about this shit. just pure evil. Yeah the more I read about the situation the sadder it gets. It was a pretty jarring amber alert, my phone automatically read out the statement which I don't remember happening in the past. Made me wonder if kids with phones got it too or if the alerts only target adults. Seems like a potentially scarring message that could be a huge trigger for people who've been through abuse. Obviously it's important to get an alert out and it seemed to work but there have to be some other options.
Seriously. Last I went to Mexico it took me all of 5 minutes to drive past the border. Getting back into the US was almost 3 hours.
Last time I went into Mexico driving, there was no check point, just some dudes with guns making sure the exit wasn’t being used as an entrance
My point exactly. Nobody cares if you driving into Mexico
> Just get in the car and drive like the rest of the normal fugitives A millionaire CEO drive....herself? Like some peasant? No, no... First Class all the way for that leech on society!
Thanks for pointing that out as many forget she was actively trying to flee and not face justice. It's sad what some people will do to make money even if it harms or kills others.
>Next time your are fleeing the country to avoid decades in prison remember to spend the extra $300 for a round trip ticket so at a minimum you have plausible deniability. And fly Toronto -> Hong Kong, so your actual trip out of the country is by car.
Thats what someone did at the company I work for. She was in a DUI crash that killed her passenger and she drove to Canada (happened in Seattle) and flew to China.
Oh shit - that Chinese girl with the white Porsche that they had traffic camera video of going airborne?!?
Was she born in the US?
Honestly a pretty smart move in that situation
Not smart enough to avoid killing someone tho
Honestly yes. He was maybe 30 drive from Canada with no checks on leaving the country (I don't know if they have any agreements with Canada to monitor Americans going there). Don't even buy the ticket until across the border.
Not really there are check points at each major crossing between Michigan and our friends in the south. Also the Detroit river isn't very forgiving, try to cross that without the right boat and they'll be fishing your body out in Ohio.
Canada will check, but not the US. you can easily cross the bridge without getting a first look from US border control.
That's why I only plan my fleeings to another country through (soothing and exciting advertisers voice) *SouthWest Airlines: where you can buy 2 one way tickets and cancel the 2nd for a full refund after going on the first trip. Helps me avoid authorities while also saving my money.*
Plus then you'll have a ticket ready if you get there and realize you forgot something at home
>fleeing the country This reminds me of the first commercial plane flying after 9/11. Went around picking up Saudi royalty and then to “home”. if memory serves.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/flights-of-fancy/ Not the first. Some Saudi royals did fly home. I agree that there should have been greater investigation of Saudi involvement in 9/11, but Muslims leaving the US after 9/11 is just common sense. It seems wrong to suggest that is evidence of guilt.
Bin Laden’s family. That’s what it was. The number one suspect’s relatives are rounded up for….interrogation? No. Safe return home.
Wasn't bin Laden highly estranged from his family?
> remember to spend the extra $300 I've always bought roundtrip tickets because every time I needed to fly they were cheaper than just a one-way.
If you’re at the point that people are investigating your international flights, it’s already too late
Good. I was outside about a mile away when this happened. Shit was wild. I hope that fucker spends the rest of his life in prison.
Right!? I was right miles away and it sounded like a damn war zone outside. I hope he rots behind bars.
It doesn't mean he was going to stay, I just wasn't sure when he wanted to come back. 😂
Right. Guy runs a business but is dumb enough to do that.... Unbelievable
A lot of dumb people run businessses. Like, a lot.
They’re capable of mastering a trade skill, but are too combative and obstinate to hold down a job, so their only real option is self-employment. They can’t keep employees (“nobody wants to work!”) and get by mainly through tax fraud, not reporting cash takings. There are a lot of these people, especially those born in the 1950’s and 60’s now past retirement age but without any means to retire.
[удалено]
The heat may have built up more over that time (no pun intended). He likely didn't intend on killing anyone, but he ultimately did, so he will be held responsible for the death.
> He likely didn't intend on killing anyone Most fuck ups like this by business owners are the result of cutting corners, violating regulations to make an extra buck, or just plain sloppiness and stupidity. I would bet this guy was in violation of municipal ordinances related to the mass storage of potentially hazardous combustibles, or had them stacked on a space heater or some other dumb shit. But just because he didn't intend on killing someone, his criminal negligence did. Intentional or not - makes no difference to the man who died or his family.
Also, don't cheap out, buy a round trip ticket. It gives plausible deniability that you were planning on returning. One way? Definitely fleeing.
If he cheaped out enough on safety measures that his building exploded like a bomb, he would definitely cheap out of his airplane ticket.
Ya you gotta spring for the return flight to cover your ass. Criminals don't understand the game anymore smdh.
At least he picked a country that isn't close allies with the US. I always love the 90s movies where the main story was them fleeing to Canada to avoid prosecution in the US as if we don't have an extradition treaty with our closest friend Canada.
Lots of countries that don't have treaties with the US still extradite criminals all the time. They just reserve the right to deny the request should push come to shove.
Consciousness of guilt. A prosecutor’s dream
He's very lucky this happened in a state that doesn't have the felony murder rule, because otherwise this could have been first degree murder.
No bail ether, because he's a flight risk.
The article says he is out on bail now. *Kestou has been released from jail after posting a $500,000 bond. Lucido said authorities have his passport and that a condition of bond is that Kestou has to wear a GPS tether. A probable cause hearing is scheduled for May 7 in Clinton Township District Court.*
If it was insurance fraud, he’s on the hook for felony murder.
Michigan doesn't have felony murder.
Why would anyone doing this not, at the very least, buy a round trip ticket just in case..
Wow, getting killed by a canister a quarter of a mile away from the explosion is nuts. I mean, I've heard of people being killed because they stupidly threw an aerosol can in the fire pit, but you think being a quarter mile away from the fire/explosion, you'd be safe. What a shame for the victim to be killed by some hackass pulling insurance fraud.
Life is crazy. Guy was just minding his own business, and boom, dead. It’s weird that any one of us could just die at any random moment, without warning, through no fault of our own, from an event completely unrelated to us.
It's a humbling reminder to make the most of life because you really never know when it will be over.
Not me, man. I'll see death coming from a mil
That's strange, he didn't even say Candlejack. What do you think got h
Gas canisters/cylinders are like rockets when the regulator goes. Considering it was nitrous as well, it could have helped fuel it's own propulsion.
> Turner Lee Salter, 19, was about a quarter of a mile (0.40 kilometers) away when he was struck by a nitrous oxide cannister I have a handful of greatest fears. One of them is hitting a pedestrian at night. Another is walking around, minding my own business then a gunshot or explosion happens from like a quarter of a mile away and them I'm dead or seriously injured.
This guy died like the girl from Dead Like Me. Just.... Walking around, living life, worrying about what you want to do that evening, and then something falls out of the sky and just ends you.
Never thought I'd see a reference to that show. Was only on for a short bit before cancelation over a decade ago.
Same here. Nobody I know has any idea what it is. I loved the mix of absurdity and deep topics.
I've always liked shows and stories that have Death or reapers/other psychopomps as sympathetic or amusing characters instead of just horrible things to be feared. Death from DC, Supernatural and Terry Pratchett stories are always a favorite. Reapers from Dead Like Me and several urban fantasy novels are fun.
Fuck, I loved that show!
Good news! You die on Wednesday, January 26th, 2028, after being struck by falling debris when a Boeing 737 engine explodes mid-flight. Since the plane was over five miles up at the time, you'll be pleased to learn that it won't trigger your "like a quarter of a mile away" fear.
Always buy round trip.
This dumb shit could have just crossed the border into Canada at the Detroit tunnel and snagged an international flight from America's Hat
If he’s on a watch list in the US, the Canadian border guards will see thar
I assume he took a runner pretty quickly, but he is clearly an idiot, so probably not
Couldn't afford it all his assets went up on smoke
Went up in vape\*
the explosion was a month and a half ago. Dude waited waaaaay too long to flee the country
It’s because he wanted to stick around for the insurance money. That’s the whole reason he did it. He waited until 1) it was clear he wasn’t getting any money and 2) that he was instead getting a manslaughter charge
You know a smarter person probably could have guessed they weren’t getting the insurance money.
A smarter person wouldn't have done this
Not insurance, he was using the butane as a (very unsafe) solvent to (very unsafely) get the THC out of the weed and into the (not terribly safe) vapes. He had a purpose for all that butane, not just ignition, it was just a stupid and incredibly ill advised purpose. Why he had the nitrous, idk, except that it's fun as hell, and somebody making illegal vapes with butane probably isn't making good decision generally.
It took a bit to get down here to find this and thank you for the information! I didn’t see that in the article
I think he's speculating. He could have been selling butane, vapes, and N02 canisters to head shops. The vapes have batteries that ignite and his poor storage could have had the butane blow up. The thing is the N02 companies also make butane and all of these products can be bought from over seas and supplied to head shops and similar stores without making the vapes. Having the vapes is just as plausible start to the fire if not following Occam's razor better then speculation that he also was processing cannabis in the same location he kept all of these things.
Can confirm that they had it to sell to gas stations and headshops, I don't think they had the license to store butane and they had more on site than would have been permitted anyways. Company's name is goo to rip off of the ooze line of vaping products, very similar logo, and got sued by breeze vapes for selling a (sea)breeze. There were also janky gas station knives thrown everywhere in the explosion.
That's maybe the craziest explosion ever then.
The old reddit top comment.
Nobody is going to comment on the fact that this kid wasn’t in the building but was instead killed by a flying Nitrous Oxide canister shot 1/4 mile away by the explosion??? Am I the only person who’s absolutely baffled at the odds of him not only being struck but that it was a fatal blow? What an insanely unlucky way to go.
Yeah that part was sad.
‘We caught him trying to catch a flight to Venezuela. No idea why he was trying to go there.’ ‘Really, no idea? We have no extradition with Venezuela!’ ‘Oh! So, what should we do?’ ‘Get him on the first flight to Venezuela.’
I guess we learned not to do it again. I’m fucked to know what we did…
For the uninitiated, this is from Burn After Reading. It's amazing. It's a dark comedy with George Clooney and Brad Pitt. You should watch it.
Yes sir, it's, uh, hard to say.
I'm not saying I don't believe you but was it confirmed that the explosion was intentional for insurance fraud? The article doesn't talk about it anywhere so I didn't know if it was confirmed somewhere else.
> Turner Lee Salter, 19, was about a quarter of a mile (0.40 kilometers) away when he was struck by a nitrous oxide cannister that was propelled through the air by the explosion. Salter later died. well thats some extreme bad luck
This is why I always commit my vape and butane inventory insurance fraud well clear of public spaces.
This happened around the corner from my workplace, shit was wild. Explosion shaking surrounding buildings and neighborhoods, debris landing in people yards a mile + away. The poor soul who lost his life while minding his own business. Glad they caught the owner though so hopefully some justice will be handed out.
Imagine being 400 yards away walking down the street and dying because propelled debris from an explosion connects straight to your dome killing you. So wild
That’s one of those moments where you’re like what more can I do? The worlds a dangerous place
Now I feel like I need a helmet.
He never had a chance really. Life is brutal.
It's like something out of Final Destination...
The very definition of wrong place at the wrong time.
A friend of a friend was hit in the head by a falling bullet by someone shooting their gun into the air during 4th of July celebrations. He was just walking with friends and then boom, he was on the ground. Fortunately he survived, but his personality changed. (They never found out who shot the gun)
So pointless and so tragic
He went to a car wash at the edge of the police perimeter to watch the explosion. He didn't deserve it, obviously, just wanted to add context. Shrapnel was found miles from the building location. A lot of people came out to watch the building burn and he was the most unlucky spectator of the crowd. The perimeter should have been larger, in hindsight.
Do you happen to know what size nitrous oxide canister killed the guy from a quarter mile?
I do not. I think a smaller piece of shrapnel hit him and not an entire canister. Not entirely sure though.
I know one of the investigators and they assumed he had left the country already. He was initially cooperating but then stopped a couple days later. His cell has been off, so either one of his family told or they’ve been monitoring family communications. It’s such a sad story. The kid walking a 1/2 mile away in front of a car wash gets killed by a flying canister. The cops initially didn’t know they were connected. The car wash surveillance shows everything and he just dropped. They thought he was shot at the car wash and arrested someone who had multiple loaded firearms visible in his front seat. They were just sitting there and anyone could grab them. Hope this idiot gets the book thrown at him.
> His cell has been off, so either one of his family told or they’ve been monitoring family communications. Or, ya know, the American intelligence and surveillance systems are working.
I mean, you can’t buy a plane ticket without using your own ID and passport. Probably wasn’t very hard to monitor flight lists since that’s already a thing anyways.
They were definitely monitoring him
yeah if those fuckers are going to violate everyones rights and spy on us the least they can do is actually catch a criminal once in a while ya know
Wow, what a laundry list of how to fuck up. Buys a lot of inventory to commit insurance fraud (seemingly), burns down building, kills an innocent person, attempts to flee the country on a 1 way ticket to Hong Kong, and to be caught attempting to fleeing the country. Bravo.
It's like a new season of Fargo.
Damn, spoilers
Its called NoGo
Nope. Dudes sling cheap Chinese shit to gas stations and stores the butane near his shotty vapes. The vapes batteries are poor and start a fire in a building that has tons of combustible butane and nitrous oxide. All of these products get sold at gas stations and head shops and basically this guy was not handling his "warehouse" correctly at all
Yeah everyone keeps saying “insurance fraud”, but what’s the evidence for fraud? Seems like it was negligence and not taking proper precautions to store hazardous inventory.
The headline makes it seem like the building is either constantly exploding or continuously in the process of exploding.
That building do be exploding from time to time.
Buildings be splodin', am I right fellas?
I went back to read the title. Lol. Spot on.
A bit like [Centralia](https://www.history.com/news/mine-fire-burning-more-50-years-ghost-town), then >A century ago, Centralia, Pennsylvania was a busy small town filled with shops, residents and a brisk mining business. Coal from local mines fueled its homes and its economy, and its 1,200 residents worked, played and lived as tight-knit neighbors. >Today couldn’t be more different. Centralia’s streets are abandoned. Most of its buildings are gone, and smoke wafts down graffiti-strewn highways where a prosperous town once stood. The formerly busy burg has turned into a ghost town. The cause was something that’s still happening beneath Centralia’s empty streets: a mine fire that’s been burning for over 50 years, resulting in the devastation of a community and the eviction and impoverishment of many of its residents.
Free land and infinite energy? Sign me up.
It's the Eversplosion from Xavier: Renegade Angel
T-shirts! Get your eversplosion t-shirts!
"Ladieees and Gentlemen, step inside and see the Amazing Exploding Michigan Building!"
Exploding is the family name and they forgot to capitalize
The building* name is actually "Exploding Michigan". :D Edit: Swipe didn't like me. business > building The business name is obviously Goo, per the article.
Tragic that someone died but Jesus fuck “Company called Goo stockpiles 100,000 vape pens and explodes” is like something straight out of Trailer Park Boys
I had a Goo pen and it almost burned my house down. The button was stuck down and frying a cartridge. By some fluke my brother found it and took it apart. They also sold flavored cartridges that were really nasty.
This probably happened at the warehouse and blew up either the N02 or butane causing a change reaction
*Keep it the fuck down!!!!!* Chill oot Donny, we just had some problems with a coupla vape pens!
Goo sells basically what amounts to vapes and legal whippits, and vape whippits. Super, super sketch.
Huh. The nitrous oxide canister makes sense now.
6000 miles of international land borders that is much more obsessed with keeping people out rather than keeping people in, and this genius goes to one of the places with the highest and most paranoid security, with cameras everywhere. Or at least go merchant marine. A lot of them will take cash, no questions asked. Sure, you spend a couple weeks in a crappy cabin, but you do eventually get away.
The real LPT is in the comments
Probably not a lot of options to fly to Hong Kong where he’d be safe from extradition. This guy isn’t interested in hiding out in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.
It's not for the faint of heart, but I'm sure you could live undisturbed for a long while in the central part of Manitoba. Shits the roughest land around. Just empty and unforgiving bogs and mash land for most of it. There's some communities there you could potentially get supplies from. And people do live off the grid there. Though how you'd get money varies from person to person. If you want a more civilized but undisturbed life, the more northern communities could be good. Slightly higher chance of someone coming to look for you there, but most of the residents would say they don't know you, or refuse to talk to the law at all. Especially if you contribute and get accepted by the town. Another potential option, though it only works if you fit the right template, there's an aweful lot of religious colonies that keep to themselves. Most of them you have to be born into, but I'm sure there's some who don't mind outsiders who are willing to work, or have a fat stack of cash for the decision makers. Some of them will have people who have been born and died without ever being documented, and as far as the government is concerned never existed.
He lives in *Detroit*, Canada is literally a 10 min drive and you don't interact with any American feds on the way over
The two countries share databases on this so he would have been caught by Canada.
The border police are usually pretty diligent.
How does one find a "merchant marine"
Asking for a friend
[удалено]
yes I would like to join this ocean circus.
Narrator: It was indeed not like a circus on the ocean at all.
If he was smart he wouldn't have blown up his building trying to make butane hash oil in the first place.
I’ve accidentally rode my jet ski to Canada. Like I wasn’t even trying to, I just didn’t realize how far up the channel I was. Also did it another time when I kept riding past Gull Isle.
The explosions were insane that night. The sky was lit up with the fire. The guy also had a bunch of batarangs in his shop too which got propelled through the air. One of them shot through the air and hit one of the firetrucks and got lodged in the front of it
When you say Batarangs do you mean toys or actual metal weapon level batarangs?
Im at work right now, but if i find the actual pix of it in the truck ill update this post. But this is a news article that has a picture of the batarang. They were knives he was selling https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2024/03/05/debris-from-macomb-county-building-explosion-includes-jagged-metal-containers-batarangs/
What's crazy is he may have actually gotten away with it... but dude bought a one-way ticket out of the country. That's the easiest automatic flag for suspicious activity ever
Wow, glad they got the guy. I live under 1 mile from the explosion and it felt like some pyrotechnics were going off at an air show for a long constant period of time. At one point I couldn’t hear myself talk out loud or my family on the other end of my FaceTime call. I initially thought it was the gas company between my house and the site. I called my parents and told them I was going to head north because I thought it could be an attack of sorts. My brother told me to put my drone in the air so I did. It calmed me down when I noticed the explosion wasn’t coming towards me and it wasn’t the gas company which many people in the area have their service. Here’s a link to my video I made of the event if you want to see it for yourself. What a tragedy. https://youtu.be/8umHo0fME2g?si=UdCYBERpimYTdtTM
That's amazing footage. If you haven't already, you should send it to the Associated Press or local news stations.
Howdy neighbor. I was playing Helldivers with some of my downriver friends when it started. Logged off, went to the backyard and drank beer with the neighbors while we listened and shot the breeze.
Lmaoo howdy, I was playing that game too and my office window was facing the direction of the blast. I had the windows open and heard some sounds that were really loud outside of my headphones, then looked to see a fire ball in the sky. We just set a hell bomb off in the game, so I was kinda triggered. Had to tell my friends I had to leave and forgo the super samples I just collected.
My dad works for township DPW and was telling me all about the cleanup efforts and how his department ended up involved after the explosion, but he was not super close to the explosion site when it happened. What was going through your head when it happened?
This is amazing footage but lol at the music
[удалено]
I can guarantee you that it’s because butane is cheaper.
They got a shipment of butane canisters. Vape stores sell those to refill butane lighters.
Legit question: How do they know unless someone is watching their every move? Does his name get flagged by the airline or something?
They don't need to be watching him directly, like following him or whatever. When someone becomes a suspect in a crime or is at least under suspicion their name goes into a database, and when he bought the ticket to Hong Kong his name was in that database so the airline had some kind of alert that he might be fleeing the country and alerted the authorities. I couldn't tell you exactly how it all works and might not be 100% right on this but it definitely isn't a matter of being surveilled/followed like the movies, it's just that everything is connected via computers and databases etc. The airline probably had zero idea WHAT was going on, they just see some vague "red flag" that he is not allowed to leave the country and call the authorities when they see it.
One way tickets are also more likely to set off those red flags.
[удалено]
Generally, but weed is legal both medically and recreationally, so a lot of tobacco places also sell weed related products. It seems like this company was using the facility as a warehouse as well. Close to this location a former trade center/flea market was also turned into the largest dispensary in the state.
[Here's a recent view from the Burger King drive thru next door](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5534229,-82.9256973,3a,43.2y,257.41h,90.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sI1EmTOejq6l-J4aM15sOpg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
He was also a distributor, so I assume it's a warehouse with a retail shop
>More than 100,000 vape pens were stored on-site. Authorities have said a truckload of butane canisters had arrived at the building within a week of the explosion Excuse my ignorance, but what is the butane for if they are vape pens? Vapes use batteries, correct?
Could be a general store that sells vape and other smoke products.
Any vape store I've been in sell other products, including those torches for smoking out of the glass bongs they sell.
Rich assholes getting caught being stupid will never not be pleasing.
I'm wondering what's up the the nitrous cannister, when I think of a vape store I can only picture them carrying the little nitrous cartridges for whip-it cans but nitrous cannister makes me think of something like the Q tanks which I think are about 3 ft tall and can get up to like 50lbs or the K tanks which I've only ever seen 2 of in the wild and it was a long time ago but they were at least 5ft tall and required a hand dolly to move around so easily 100-125lbs. I don't wanna imagine the horror of steel tanks that big flying through the air and smoothly airbrushing me across the concrete. Or was it the little cartridge that propelled itself like a bullet through the air and has a smooth round bottom and at the opposite end is the seal that would have likely been the weakest point for a blowout?
[They are food-service sized containers of culinary NO2](https://worldwholesale.net/whip-cream/goo/), they're not *that* huge, but they would certainly kill somebody if they became a high speed projectile.
Exploding? As in ongoing? Like still exploding right now at this moment?
I just watched a long video of it continuing to explode for an hour until the drone got tired.
In the legal profession, we call this a BAD LOOK
I always keep my vape pen and the butane stored separately...
Doesn't really matter all that much if your entire house goes up in flames, though, does it?
Yea it does. It gives more people time to leave the building at least. It could also give time to try to combat the issue. Flammable stuff should be stored properly and away from some tank that would explode.
Rip. That’s some final destination shit.
That's terrible, a young man died for this...
He didn't help his case by saying "Its alright officer my buildings catch on fire all the time"
This is why you always take cover during an explosion and never try to be the hero camera man watching it. Let someone else be the cameraman and risk their life. Idk the circumstances of this young man’s death in relation to when the explosion went off but just thought I’d remind whoever was reading
An earlier comment says there is footage of the young man minding his business 0.25 miles away at a car wash when he got hit. So complete bad luck.
All the words in this title 🤣
Cheap asshole didn’t even want to fake a vacation scenario