At around 9:15am on the 27th of May, 1983, on a farm near Benton, Tennessee,
a powerful explosion took place. The blast was heard more than 32 kilometers
(or 20 miles) away, and created a mushroom cloud the height of a six-storey building.
The site was almost completely leveled by the blast,
and many farm workers were instantly killed... but what could have caused
an explosion of such magnitude on a small unassuming fish-bait farm in rural Tennessee?
The farm in question was Webb's Bait Farm, named for its owner Dan Lee Webb. Tt had been in
operation since 1978, cultivating worms and other live bait, and also selling fishing equipment.
It was a relatively modest operation. Webb employed his friends and family to work on
the farm, and also ran a masonry business on the side to generate a little extra cash.
There was nothing about this setup which should have allowed an explosion of any
size... and yet police arriving on scene on the 27th of May, 1983, discovered gutted buildings,
scattered wreckage, and dozens of body parts lying in the ruins.
11 people had been killed in the blast, with only one further victim receiving survivable injuries:
Dan Lee Webb's cousin Tommy had been mowing grass at the time of the explosion,
and had been thrown almost the length of a football field by the blast,
as well as receiving burns to 30 of his body. He was rushed to hospital and ultimately survived.
Identifying the dead was a difficult task. The explosion hadn't just killed the farm workers,
but in many cases had stripped their bodies of personal effects and dismembered them as well.
Human remains were discovered as far away as 150 meters (or 170 yards) from the site of the
explosion. Body parts were terribly burned and traumatized, further complicating the process
of identification. Eventually, with the help of a forensic anthropologist, the dead were named.
They included Dan Lee Webb's brother, mother, and uncle, all of whom had been employed on the farm.
Dan Lee Webb himself, however, was absent at the time of the explosion. His wife Linda Sue had
been present on the farm when the explosion took place, but had fled before authorities arrived.
It soon became apparent why she had run. As well as the awful human debris scattered
across the site police also discovered evidence of explosive chemicals and mixing equipment - things
which they could not reconcile with the kind of work that should take place at a bait farm.
Locals were interviewed, and noted that the farm employed a suspiciously large number of people.
Not only that, but over the course of the previous few months
a number of smaller explosions had been heard coming from the farm buildings.
There was evidence, too, of a sophisticated security system. Webb had employed electric
fences, CCTV cameras, guard dogs, and alarms to protect his farm - an extreme set of measures for
a site that was, at the end of the day, doing nothing more than raising worms for fish bait.
The picture became a little clearer when police came across several boxes of illegal fireworks
and six barrels of highly explosive chemicals stored in a trailer.
The sheer amount of incendiary material led them to believe that Webb
might have been involved in the manufacture of bombs for sale to criminals and terrorists.
The full truth, however, emerged just a few days after the explosion
when Dan Lee Webb surrendered himself to the authorities.
Webb confessed to police that in December 1982 he had started a new line of business at the farm:
the manufacture of illegal fireworks.
The operation had been set up in an old metal dairy barn and had proved instantly profitable.
Cases of M-80 and M-100 fireworks (banned by federal law) were sold for $160
apiece, with the factory producing up to 130 cases each and every week.
The money the fireworks brought in allowed Webb to employ around 14 people in the illegal factory.
He paid them cash-in-hand at the end of each working day at the rate of five dollars per hour.
For this sum they mixed and assembled the deadly fireworks by hand,
in most cases without any safety equipment and certainly without any proper safety training.
It is unlikely that anyone employed to work at the factory
had even an inkling of how dangerous the materials they handled were.
Dan Lee Webb was charged with possessing and manufacturing illegal explosives,
and with 11 counts of involuntary manslaughter. After a brief trial, during which he pled guilty,
Webb was handed a 10-year jail sentence and a $10,000 fine.
If the punishment seems light - less than a year for each of the dead - it should also
be considered that Webb employed many of his friends and family on the farm.
He was close with many of the dead and three of his family were among those killed.
The guilt and grief he must have felt may
have been taken into account when delivering his sentence.
Additionally, Webb wasn't truly the mastermind of the operation.
Left to his own devices he would never have had the inclination or the resources to turn his
farm into a fireworks factory. An acquaintance of his, a man named Howard Emmett Bramblett,
was responsible for starting Webb on the path to destruction.
Webb told police that it was Bramblett who had suggested starting the factory, and who had
hooked him up with suppliers for raw materials and distributors for the finished fireworks.
A lengthy investigation led to the arrest of Bramblett along with 19 other men from nine
different states, all of whom had been involved in the transportation and distribution of fireworks
made at Webb's Bait Farm. Four were ultimately convicted for their role in the operation.
Bramblett, considered the mastermind, was given 10 years, which he served concurrently
with another 10-year sentence given to him for his role in another illegal firework
factory explosion that had taken place in South Carolina in 1983, killing two people.
Bramblett had come to Webb at a time when Webb was desperate and had promised him easy money:
a lucrative operation that would turn around the fortunes of his ailing bait farm.
Webb had risked everything to buy into Bramblett's vision, and as a result he
had ultimately lost it all: his loved ones, his business, his property, and his freedom.
Though he is, by now, out of jail, the deaths of his friends and family and staff remain on his
conscience - a high price to pay for a profit of little more than 100 dollars per crate.