Deadly fire exposes wealthy man's secret underground tunnels

[sandensea]

A year ago today, a deadly fire exposed Daniel Beckwitt’s curious campaign to build an underground bunker for protection from a nuclear attack.

Neighbors knew nothing about the tunnels before they heard Beckwitt’s screams and saw smoke pouring from the house where 21-year-old Askia Khafra died that afternoon.

The wealthy stock trader took elaborate steps to conceal the network of tunnels beneath his house in this Washington, D.C., suburb. Even the young man helping him dig them didn’t know where they were.

Maryland prosecutors portray Beckwitt, a 27-year-old millionaire, as a paranoid computer hacker who recklessly endangered Khafra’s life. In May, they secured Beckwitt’s indictment on charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.

Beckwitt’s lawyer calls Khafra’s death a tragic accident, not a crime. Defense attorney Robert Bonsib concedes Beckwitt is an ‘‘unusual guy’’ but says his client risked his own life in a failed attempt to rescue Khafra.

Beckwitt was freed on bond after his May arrest. His trial is scheduled for April 2019.

At: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/deadly-fire-exposes-wealthy-man-e2-80-99s-secret-underground-tunnels/ar-BBN9lSQ

Eccentric millionaire Daniel Beckwitt and Askia Khafra, the Mali-born man who died helping Beckwitt create his bunker.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Six bricks short of a full load

A police report says Beckwitt told investigators how he tried to preserve his project’s secrecy when he brought Khafra there. Beckwitt said he would rent a car, pick Khafra up and drive him to Manassas, Virginia, where he had the younger man don ‘‘blackout glasses’’ before driving him around for about an hour. Khafra spent days at a time working, eating and sleeping in the tunnels. He had his cellphone with him, but Beckwitt used internet ‘‘spoofing’’ to make it appear he was in Virginia, according to Montgomery County prosecutor Douglas Wink. ...

Beckwitt lived alone in ‘‘extreme hoarder conditions,’’ forcing the men to navigate a maze of junk and trash, Wink said. The tunnels had lights, an air circulation system and a heater powered by a ‘‘haphazard daisy chain’’ of power strips that created a fire risk, the prosecutor said. ...

Wink said Beckwitt had a ‘‘paranoid fixation’’ on a possible nuclear attack by North Korea.

[sandensea]

2. Life imitating art - imitating life.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Nuts. And I wouldn't be surprised that there are more of these nuts around...nt

[sandensea]

4. I suspect a lot of them hide gold in there.

It's not nuclear war they're worried about, for the most part; it's a collapse in the dollar - a cherished GOPee goal since the Andrew Mellon era (the man responsible for the great crash, with foretought of maice as he himself admitted).