CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In Boston investigators found parts of a pressure cooker they think were used to make the bombs.
The head of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department's bomb squad says injuries are consistent with that type of bomb.
Sgt. Jim Windle said the bright flash and white smoke at the Boston Marathon are hallmarks of a low explosive device.
Windle said making a bomb from all of this takes some skill and an explosive.
The method isn't new. A Homeland Security memo from 2004 is titled "Potential Terrorist Use of Pressure Cookers," and stated terrorists could use "innocuous items to package improvised explosive devices."
In 2010, al-Qaeda magazine Inspire encouraged the method in an article called "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom."
Windle said the victims' wounds fit the profile.
"You are seeing a wound pattern indicative of where the pot is most vulnerable, which is around that seal," Windle said. "That's where you've got that pressure, and that's why you're seeing those low blast wounds."
Windle said any container could house a bomb, which is why the public needs to report anything suspicious.
WSOC
