LIVERMORE FALLS – Two local teenagers face charges after they were accused of making six explosive devices that blew up in the Baldwin, Church, Pleasant, Knapp and Green Street area over the weekend.
The boys, ages 14 and 15, are charged with criminal use of explosives after they built the devices using acid and soda bottles with some of them also containing BB’s, according to a press release from Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland.
Information was developed and the Livermore Falls boys were identified and came to the Livermore Falls Police Station with their parents on Sunday for questioning, Ken MacMaste, an investigator with the Office of the State Fire Marshall said Monday.
The boys admitted to making the bombs, he said. The contents in the plastic soda bottles created a chemical reaction to the point that the containers could not hold the ingredients any longer and they exploded, MacMaster said.
There were no injuries or property damage in the explosions but the potential was there because they added shrapnel in the form of BB’s, MacMaster said.
The case will now go to the juvenile justice community officer and then to the District Attorney’s Office to determine if the charges will be prosecuted, MacMaster said.
All of the bottles had exploded, he said.
The investigation began on Saturday morning when Livermore Falls police officer Steve Wilkinson responded to a report of suspicious conditions on Baldwin Street at 9:40 a.m., Livermore Falls police Chief Ernest Steward Jr. said Monday.
Wilkinson found what appeared to be an exploded bottle bomb on the ground in the parking lot of the former Primary School on Baldwin Street, Steward said.
Wilkinson contacted the Office of the State Fire Marshal and MacMaster responded at about 11:30 a.m. Wilkinson stayed at the scene to make sure the evidence was not disturbed.
Another exploded soda bomb was found later in the day at about 4 p.m. near J.P.’s Corner Store, which is located at the intersection of Baldwin, Pleasant and Church streets.
At 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, two more soda bombs were found near the Eaton Memorial United Methodist Church on the corner of Knapp and Church streets, Steward said.
MacMaster said two more were found exploded on Green Street near Rite Aid.
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