On the Friday before Mother’s Day, Howard and Joan Kipp were looking forward to a relaxing weekend at their summer home in Lake Hayward, Connecticut. Fifty-four-year-old Joan, a Brooklyn high school guidance counselor, began opening the couple’s mail after arriving home on the afternoon of May 7, 1982. Among the items was a package addressed to her. When she unwrapped the paper, she was pleasantly surprised to see a book bearing the Sears name and entitled The Quick and Delicious Gourmet Cookbook. Believing it was a mother’s day gift from one of her adult children, thirty-three-year-old Doreen or twenty-eight-year-old Craig, she eagerly opened it.

The cookbook’s pages had been removed and it contained a different and deadly recipe: an hors d’oeuvre of three .22 caliber bullets and a main course of an explosive firing device rigged to copper wire, a pair of six-volt D batteries, and gunpowder. Embedded in the pages, the bullets jettisoned from the book, two striking Joan in her chest. Howard, outside of the house at the time, was uninjured. Joan was rushed to the Lutheran Hospital but died that evening.

Joan Kipp seemed to have been targeted for murder. The identity of her killer, as well as his or her motive, remains a mystery.

Joan Kipp

The booby-trapped cookbook, similar to the one pictured, had been mailed through the Post Office from Staten Island, just across the Verrazano Bridge roughly fifteen miles from the Bay Section of Brooklyn where the Kipps lived. The package bore extra postage, likely to ensure delivery.

I could not find anything stating if it was determined whether the cookbook had been purchased at a Sears store or through their catalog.

A Deadly Delivery

Whoever had mailed the booby-trapped cookbook was familiar with the Kipp family and appeared to have a grudge against them. A scribbled note inside read “Howard, Craig and Doreen will be next.”

Joan’s name had been written and crossed out.

Left To Right: Howard Kipp; Doreen Buttner; Craig Kipp And His Wife Susan

Craig Kipp and his wife Susan lived only a few blocks from Craig’s parents. Three months after the bombing, Craig was charged with his mother’s murder after a handwriting analyst found the threatening note sent with the cookbook was similar to his penmanship. In addition, a package-sniffing dog detected his scent on the box.

The charges, however, were dropped in June 1983 after two other handwriting analysts determined the handwriting was not Craig’s, and Assistant District Attorney Charles Abernathy concluded the findings of the dog were not sufficient evidence to go to trial.

Craig Kipp

Joan’s Son

Steven Wavra and an unidentified former roommate who was an ex-con then became suspects in the mail murder of Joan Kipp. She had been his guidance counselor at Brooklyn’s Dyker Heights Junior High School, where Wavra was twice held back as a student. He expressed resentment toward several faculty members, including Joan, and was imprisoned after being caught creating book devices similar to the bomb sent to her.

Although Wavra was behind bars at the time the bomb was sent to Joan, some investigators believe he may have had his friend mail the device on his behalf.

I could not find any connection between Steven Wavra and Craig Kipp.

Steven Wavra

Four bombs similar to the one that killed Joan Kipp in 1982 were mailed to residential addresses across the New York City area between 1993 and 1996.

The first two packages were mailed from Staten Island, the same borough from which the bomb that killed Joan had been sent. The third was mailed from Manhattan, and the fourth from Brooklyn. Five people were injured, but all survived.

Locations Of The 1990s Mail Bombs

The first bomb was mailed to the Staten Island home of retired New York City sanitation worker Anthony Lenza and his wife Connie while they were vacationing in Schohola, Pennsylvania, where their children had brought them their mail on October 15, 1993. After opening a package with a medallion on it, Anthony and two family members were struck and injured.

Seventy-five year-old Brooklyn retiree Alice Caswell opened a similar package addressed to her brother, Richard McGarrell, on April 5, 1994, in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. She too, was struck and injured.

Alice Caswell

Eighteen-year-old Stephanie Gaffney was eight months pregnant when she opened a cookbook similar to the one sent to Joan Kipp, on June 27, 1995, at her grandparents’ St. Albans, Queens, home. She was struck by shrapnel from three bullets.

The package was addressed to “Gilmore or occupant.” Stephanie’s grandfather, Irving Gilmore, was a retired police detective.

Stephanie Gaffney

Stephanie’s fetus was not hit, but the distress of the attack forced her into premature labor. A healthy girl, Qadeera, was born two days later. Stephanie also made a full recovery.

Mom And Daughter Are Fine

The final bomb was received on June 20, 1996, in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. Seventy-seven-year-old retired real estate agent Richard Basile opened a parcel he thought contained a video cassette addressed to his wife, Marietta. As he did so, the cassette exploded. A window to the couple’s home was shattered, but no one was injured.

The video cassette bore the return address of the March of Dimes of Greater New York. The mailing label was found not to be the foundation’s official label.

Richard Basile

The perpetrator of the 1990s mail bombs is unknown. Investigators believe all four bombs were mailed by the same person, but they do not know if the victims were random, or if they were specifically chosen by the sender. None of the recipients knew each other. The only common link police could find was that they all used the same pharmacy, as did Steven Wavra’s unidentified friend.

Although the bombs mailed in the 1990s were similar to the one sent to Joan Kipp in 1982, most investigators believe the bomb sent to Joan was an isolated incident due to the eleven-year gap between attacks and because of the note threatening the Kipp family. None of the 1990s bombs contained any letters threatening anyone.

No similar bombs were received in the Big Apple between the 1982 bomb mailed to Joan and the bomb mailed in 1993.

Perpetrator Still Unknown

The press dubbed the mail-bomber the Zip Gun Bomber, but the name is misleading.

Zip guns were weapons of choice for New York City gangsters during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Zip bombs are, essentially, merely crudely made guns. They are not actual bombs and do not contain any dynamite.

A Zip Gun

Not Used In Any Of The Bombings

The devices used in the New York attacks were bombs consisting of dynamite. The firing pins were replaced with electric filaments which get a charge from small batteries when the packages are opened. The barrels were constructed to hit the victims in their torsos, as they did in three instances.

All of the bombs were placed inside either a book, cassette, or a medallion to appear attractive so that the addressees would be likely to open them. Writing on the package usually indicated some kind of free offer.

A Diagram Of The Bombing Device

The Unabomber, Ted Kacynski, was captured in April 1996, two months before the final bomb was mailed in the New York City area. He was investigated but ruled out as being the so-called Zip Gun Bomber.

Ted Kacynski

AKA The Unabomber

Authorities caution people to never open a package if they do not know the sender, or if there is no return address. In the 1980s, at the time of the attack on Joan Kipp, it was urged that if there was a return address on the package to find a corresponding phone number and call to ask if the addressee sent the package as well as ask about the nature of the package. The abundant use of cell phones, however, has made this process more difficult today.

A $100,000 reward is offered for information leading to the identity of the so-called “Zip Gun Bomber.” If you believe you have any information relating to any of the bombings, please contact the New York City Police Department at 646-610-5000.

Joan Kipp’s Killer

Is Still Unknown

Joan Kipp was a respected and active civic leader in the Brooklyn community, volunteering at the South Beach Psychiatric Center and serving as the treasurer of the Bay Ridge Community Council, a nonprofit umbrella organization representing ninety-six neighborhood and religious groups. At the time of her murder, she was running for Vice President of the council, and likely would have won.

The note mailed with the bomb threatening Joan’s family seemed to suggest that she was targeted for murder. I could not find anything stating if authorities believe her murder was related to her political or volunteer work.

Community Leader

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/237344884/joan-betty-kipp#

SOURCES:

• Daily News Archives
• New York Times
• The New Yorker
• Unsolved Mysteries
• UPI