A 72-year-old Denver parolee who threatened to blow up four Aspen banks on New Year’s Eve with gasoline bombs if he wasn’t paid $240,000 shot and killed himself.
The body of James Chester Blanning Jr., 72, of Denver was discovered early Thursday in a sport utility vehicle on a mountain road east of Aspen, said Bill Linn, spokesman for the Aspen Police Department. The SUV was stocked with a rifle, a handgun and ammunition.
Blanning, authorities say, placed suspicious packages in two Aspen banks just after 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Two additional plastic containers intended for two other banks were discovered in an alley after the suspect apparently abandoned his scheme. In threatening notes, he had demanded $60,000 in used $100 bills from each bank.
The threats led to an evacuation of the downtown area on one of this legendary party town’s most festive nights of the year.
A package with a note was found about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Wells Fargo bank at 119 S. Mill St. Minutes later, similar packages showed up at the Vectra Colorado branch at 534 E. Hyman Ave.
Each of the packages contained threatening letters promising “mass death” if his demands were not met, Linn said.
“He was on a suicide mission,” he said.
One letter was hand-delivered to a bank official.
“You had better be a very cool individual and not start a panic or many in Aspen will pay a horrible price in blood,” the note said.
The letters indicated that several people were working in concert, keeping the banks under surveillance. But Linn said evidence indicates Blanning acted alone.
The notes instructed bank officers to place the money in a white box within 20 minutes and that if any dyes or trackers were used, it would trigger a disaster. Bank officials instead called police.
Although the scheme didn’t net Blanning any money, it proved costly to downtown Aspen businesses.
Johnathan Dean, a front-desk employee at the Aspen Square Condominium Hotel, just outside the evacuation zone, said the hotel was filled with disappointed holiday visitors.
“This is going to cost millions of dollars to Aspen,” he said. “Every restaurant in town was booked. Parties everywhere were canceled.”
Aspen’s fireworks display was postponed until Thursday night because of the threats.
Although it is unclear whether any of the four homemade devices were functional, one of them exploded into a “small fireball” as a bomb-squad team attempted to defuse it. No one was hurt.
Each bomb consisted of a plastic container with about 5 gallons of gasoline, a cellphone-triggering mechanism and a mousetrap — intended to ignite the bomb if anyone tampered with the device. The packages were wrapped in Christmas paper and had pizza boxes underneath them.
Blanning’s notes also referred to a fifth bomb hidden in a “high-end watering hole” to allow bank robbers time to get out of town. Authorities notified bartenders about the threat, but no other packages were found.
“At this point, we think that was a bluff,” Linn said.
Surveillance cameras got a clear image of a man leaving the packages Wednesday, Linn said.
When Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis saw the video, he recognized the suspect. He had talked Blanning down from the roof ledge of the Pitkin County Courthouse in July 1994. At the time, Blanning had threatened for seven hours to kill himself.
On Thursday, Blanning’s body was discovered just after 2 a.m.
Blanning was sentenced in Rio Blanco District Court in 1996 to 16 years in prison for racketeering and a series of white-collar crimes including forgery of deeds and wills, fraudulent security sales and forged money, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He was out on parole.
