KVUE has learned federal investigators had a big lead on the Austin bomber as early as Thursday, March 15 - when they began asking neighbors of at least one of the bombing victims about the 23-year-old's SUV, according to residents on Galindo Street.
Neighbors told KHOU's Brett Buffington about a surveillance video of the suspect's vehicle four houses away from where one of the bombs exploded. The surveillance video allegedly shows the events of the third explosion in the series of Austin bombings.
Just before noon on March 12, a package explosion was reported in the 6700 block of Galindo Street, near East Riverside Drive and Montopolis Drive. Family identified the victim as 75-year-old Esperanza "Hope" Herrera. Police said she was sent to the hospital in critical condition with life threatening injuries.
Herrera’s family said she will be in rehab for months, her knees are shattered and she’s shaken. However, the family said they are thankful Herrera is still alive.
A woman in her 80s was also evaluated by police at the scene, but was not taken to a hospital.
The neighbor who gave that video clip to federal agents told Buffington that in the hours before Herrera had become one of Austin bomber's eight victims, an SUV just like the one bombing suspect died in turned around in the driveway next to his.
This video, picked up by the ATF, is one of at least two clips that show an SUV similar to the Austin bomber's in the East Austin neighborhood. The blast happened on March 12, and three days later, police were back with pictures, according to neighbors.
"They didn't give us anything to lead to that vehicle, they did say that other people had pointed out an SUV," Haidee DeLafunte, a resident on Galindo Street, said.
When federal agents asked DeLafunte about the pictures, she told them the SUV did not belong in the area and knew it had to be the bomber's SUV caught on camera when she saw the vehicle on the news after he died.
"We just knew, we knew that had to be his car that they got on camera," DeLafunte said.
It is still unclear how many other places police caught the Austin bomber's car on camera. It is clear, however, they got a picture of it three days after the blast, again days later when he mailed two more bombs, and finally in Round Rock - where 19 days of terror ended.
It remains unclear if the investigators knew the value of the video the neighborhood camera captured at the time.
However, the neighbor who gave those clips to law enforcement told Buffington that agents were clear with him - they had no doubt the driver of the SUV was who they were looking for.