A Morgan Hill man arrested last week on suspicion of making explosives in his home has a history of bomb and drug related offenses, according to police reports and news archives.
The police reports state that after initially denying that he was making explosives, Dennis Fritsinger later admitted to officers who responded to his home that he intentionally detonated a mixture of chemicals in his backyard.
Fritsinger, 63, was arrested by Morgan Hill Police March 13 at his home on the 17700 block of McLaughlin Court, after his neighbors heard a series of explosions outside the residence over the previous days.
On March 15, Fritsinger was charged at the South County Courthouse with one count of possession of a destructive device and one count of possession of materials with intent to make a destructive device or explosive, according to Santa Clara County Supervising Deputy District Attorney Vishal Bathija. Fritsinger’s next hearing is scheduled for 1:30pm March 23, when he is expected to enter a plea.
Both charges are felonies, and his maximum sentence, if convicted, is four years, eight months in prison, according to Bathija. Fritsinger is being held at Santa Clara County Jail on $200,000 bail.
According to sfgate.com, Fritsinger was convicted in 2000 of three counts of bomb possession, two counts of possessing assault rifles, three counts of possessing silencers, one count of manufacturing methamphetamine and possessing chemicals to make meth.
Fritsinger was a resident of Cupertino when he was arrested for those crimes, according to sfgate, a website published by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Morgan Hill Police reports of the incident, found in the court file, describe a few tense moments as the first responding officers were notified over the radio of Fritsinger’s criminal history just before they noticed test tubes, beakers and other suspicious chemistry-related materials in his garage.
Officers initially responded to Fritsinger’s home after neighbors reported two explosions the afternoon and early evening of March 12. Police could not locate the source of the first explosion. But after a neighbor offered more details on the second explosion, about 6pm March 12, police pinpointed Fritsinger’s home as the source, according to the court file.
One neighbor told MHPD dispatch over the phone that the 6pm explosion sent clumps of mud and other debris onto the neighbor’s next-door home and over the roof, according to the court file. The neighbor looked over the fence and saw a small crater in Fritsinger’s backyard with smoke coming out of it.
Neighbors also phoned police that they had heard smaller explosions from Fritsinger’s property over the previous two weeks, according to the court file.
When the first officer approached the home and asked Fritsinger about the previous explosions, he denied that any such explosions had occurred, according to the court file. The first responding officers noticed a workbench in his garage, where a “large white tube approximately eight inches in diameter, capped on both ends” was spinning on an unidentified machine. Officers also saw an “unknown substance” in a large glass beaker.
Fritsinger initially told officers that the tube was a “tumbler” for polish, and that the chemicals were for refrigeration materials for his work. The court file lists Fritsinger’s profession as “self-employed.”
After Fritsinger gave the officers verbal permission to search his home, police found chemicals on his kitchen island such as thermite and ammonium nitrate, the court file reads. The officers recognized these as potential bomb-making material. They also found a substance labeled “thermite ignition mix,” as well as aluminum powder, wires, electronic boards, metal pipes and a notepad with the names of chemicals listed on it.
Fritsinger “then admitted to causing explosions in his backyard with thermite in a container mixed with ammonium nitrate,” according to the MHPD report contained in the court file.
MHPD officers then acquired a search warrant and the Santa Clara County Bomb Squad returned to search the property March 13. Some neighboring homes on McLaughlin Court were evacuated on March 12 after the explosions were reported, and during the March 13 search.
No injuries were reported due to the explosions outside his home, according to police.
Fritsinger’s home is about one block east of Monterey Road just north of downtown. The Morgan Hill Pre-School Academy and Shadow Mountain Baptist School, among other commercial properties, are nearby. Britton Middle School is about two blocks away, on the west side of Monterey Road at West Central Avenue.
