It was just a coincidence, investigators said.
But Manheim Auto Auction employees — who received a threatening letter two weeks ago — weren't taking any chances when they found a 12-inch metal pipe in the trunk of a car Monday morning.
The Pennsylvania State Police bomb squad, officially known as the Hazardous Device and Explosive Section, was called in, took the pipe to a remote area, detonated it and concluded that it was a harmless piece of pipe, according to spokeswoman Trooper Linette Quinn.
Just to be safe, Quinn added, troopers had their specially-trained bomb-sniffing dog patrol the auction property, along Route 72 south of Manheim, to make sure there were no other explosives present.
The nearly 3,000 employees at the auction were already on heightened anxiety levels after word spread of the threatening letter.
Penn Township Police asked the FBI to investigate the threat and this morning referred all questions to them.
"There is no correlation between the letter received two weeks ago and the incident that happened yesterday," FBI Special Agent Thomas Perzichilli said this morning.
"We're continuing to look at how the piece of pipe got there. It did look suspicious, but there was nothing in it that would make it dangerous," he said. "There was no note, it was more of a coincidence. It's certainly logical the two are connected, but they're not."
Quinn said the car had just been unloaded from a truck carrier when the 12-inch metal pipe with a cap on the end was found near a spare tire in the trunk.
Auction officials referred questions to David Kratzer, Penn Township manager, who explained the pipe was found in the trunk of a car during a routine inspection Monday morning.
"Early in the week, they go through a car, check the condition of the car, clean out any trash. It's just part of the daily operation," Kratzer explained.
But during the course of going through this car trunk, Kratzer said, "somebody saw this device. That's how it was found."
"It looked unusual. Obviously with the previous situation, there was a degree of heightened sensitivity to these issues. The device was detonated safely and found to be a fake."
Quinn said the state police explosives unit has a robot that took the object to a safe area and "blasted the end off."
"There was no fuse, no contents," Quinn said, "just a pipe with a cap on the end and nothing inside it."
As for the letter received two weeks ago, Perzichilli said, FBI agents have "been unable to find the origin of the letter and the return address was non-existent," which "makes it hard" to find who sent the letter and why.
Perzichilli said the "poisoned pen letter" was directed at certain people, not the auction house. But the "people named in the letter had nothing to do with what they're accused of," he said.
Originally, Penn Township Police Chief Larry Snavely said the letter contained an "open statement" about threats and mentioned a specific date.
Also last week, auction officials said they were cooperating with investigators and considering additional security on auction days.
The auction is the county's third-largest employer, with 2,700 workers, and operates on a 500-acre complex.
The 62-year-old auction annually consigns about 600,000 cars, typically owned by rental-car companies, leasing companies, manufacturers and banks. It sells about 350,000 of them, making it the largest auto auction in the world.
Buyers come from about 4,000 dealers in all 50 states and more than a dozen foreign countries.
Staff writer Janet Kelley can be reached at jkelley@LNPnews.com or 481-6026.
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