On a spring day in May 1990, 63-year-old Charlie Matney of Jolo, West Virginia, traveled to a hunting trailer he used in Deer Trail Park, Wythe County, Virginia. A neighbor, Melvin Rowe, drove Matney to the site and waited in his pickup while Matney went inside the unlocked mobile home. Shortly after Matney entered, a powerful explosion tore through the trailer and killed him; the blast was strong enough to blow out a window of Rowe’s truck, though Rowe was not injured.

Investigators determined the device was a commercially produced explosive, with one report calling it liquid dynamite. The medical examiner’s autopsy indicated Matney likely picked up the explosive moments before it detonated. Virginia State Police questioned more than 25 people in Virginia and West Virginia and identified the manufacturer of the explosive, but no suspects were publicly named and no arrests were announced. Authorities were not able to conclusively rule whether the death was deliberate or accidental.

If anyone knew Matney’s routines, who had access to the Deer Trail Park trailer, or saw anything unusual there in May 1990, please share what can help explain how that device came to be inside the mobile home.