Indiana Blast Was No Accident

The blast that killed two people and left an Indianapolis neighborhood looking like a "war zone" earlier this month was no accident, investigators believe. The chief of the Indianapolis Department of Public Safety’s Homeland Security division says the probe is now a criminal homicide investigation, the Indianapolis Star reports. The explosion destroyed five houses and damaged 81 others in the city's Richmond Hill subdivision.

Officials haven't said why they think the blast was homicide, though they are seeking information about a white van seen in the area. "Most people figured that something like this had to be more than an accident," says the organizer of a crime watch program in the area. "Especially with the large police presence that’s been there all week." He says he saw the suspicious van in the neighborhood and at the house at the center of the blast for weeks. The explosion's two victims, a couple in their 30s, lived in a house adjacent to the one at the epicenter. (More Indianapolis stories.)