an army deserter and a mysterious explosion in 60’s vegas:

bombing at the orbit inn

Early morning explosion

Glitter Gulch – the unofficial name of the casino district in downtown Las Vegas – was still bustling with the weekend influx of tourists in the early morning hours on Saturday, January 7, 1967.  Patrons gathered around the table games on the floor of the El Cortez Hotel and Casino were downing drinks and deciding whether to hit or stay when at exactly 1:25 a.m. they were startled by the sound of a thunderous explosion, followed a split-second later by the violent shaking of the ground beneath their feet.  Then the gaming floor of the El Cortez plunged into darkness.  A few moments passed before the lights flickered back to life, the guests and dealers on the casino floor exchanging confused looks.

As curious patrons filtered out of the El Cortez onto Fremont Street, they encountered a scene that would have been more expected thousands of miles away in the cities of South Vietnam rather than in the center of what by the late-60’s was the undisputed gambling capital of the United States. 

A plume of grayish-black smoke was rising from the site of the Orbit Inn Motel, one of the two and three-story motels lining the east side of Fremont Street.  An enormous gash had been torn into the façade of the building and shards of glass littered the street outside the El Cortez as the explosion had shattered windows for several blocks. Soon people began walking in a stunned daze from the rubble of the Orbit Inn.  Some survivors escaped still dressed for bed, shoeless and clad in pajamas, cutting their feet as they fled the choking smoke billowing from their mangled lodging. 

The explosion at the Orbit Inn would turn out to be the deadliest bombing in the history of Las Vegas. Surprisingly, in a city famous for organized crime-linked bombings, this murderous act was carried out by a deserter from the U.S. Army for reasons that are still shrouded in mystery.

“all there was, was a big hole”

The Orbit Inn Motel prided itself on being a “cut above the rest” compared to the lower-budget motels on east Fremont Street that catered to tourists looking for cheaper accommodations than those offered by larger establishments like the Horseshoe, Golden Nugget, or Four Queens on the west side of Fremont Street.  The Orbit Inn was a U-shaped three-story building featuring 173 rooms with an elevated swimming pool on the roof to offer guests a view of downtown while they lounged. 

Police and firefighters arriving on the scene encountered a deformed version of the Orbit Inn.  An explosion emanating from the second floor shredded an entire wing of the building, sending portions of the roof collapsing to the ground and pulverizing several rooms.  Additional firefighters from stations outside the downtown area were ordered to the scene upon reports of the explosion to help combat the anticipated fire.  But instead of flames they were met with smoldering rubble.  A firefighter on the scene commented, “All there was, was a big hole.  We didn’t see any fire…It just blew it up.  I guess it snuffed itself.”

But more jarring than the structural devastation was the human carnage wrought by the bombing.  The force of the blast ripped through flesh and bone, scattering remains into the streets and alleyways surrounding the Orbit Inn.  First responders worked through the night performing the gruesome task of collecting remains of the victims into black body bags that were then arranged in a row on the sidewalk.  Police ultimately recovered six bodies from the wreckage of the motel, with a dozen more people treated for injuries.   

Sheriff Ralph Lamb, the head of law enforcement in Las Vegas for nearly two decades between 1961 and 1979, arrived on the scene shortly after the blast where he encountered throngs of curious spectators that were filling the street from nearby hotels and residential areas. The sheriff hit upon a quick way to disperse the crowd by announcing, “This may not be the last explosion.” The onlookers cleared out and the police, paramedics, and firefighters continued with their grisly duty.

A Disturbed deserter

It did not take long for investigators to determine that the blast originated in Room 214, which was registered to a Richard J. Paris and his wife, Christine.  And due to the nature of the damage from the explosion, the police were able to determine the blast at the Orbit Inn was caused by a perpetrator employing high explosives. 

Richard James Paris was born in Illinois in 1938 to young parents, Charles and Ann, each of whom were the children of eastern European immigrants.  Noticeably Paris does not carry the same surname of either of his parents on his birth certificate, with his mother still bearing her surname of Sekula and his father still bearing the surname Volcheck.  By the time of their son’s demise, Charles and Ann had moved out to California and changed the family name to “Paris.”

Paris enlisted in the military at age seventeen and accounts indicate he enjoyed his time in the service.  But at some point, Paris’s behavior caused him to be written up for violations of the Army’s code of conduct. 

The anger and embarrassment Paris felt over this official reprimand caused the young soldier to go AWOL for the first time.  He was on the lam for a period of months before deciding he wanted to return to the only career he had ever known.  Paris threw himself on the mercy of the military, writing to several generals with a plea to be reinstated to his former position.  Paris was convincing, and upon his reinstatement with the Army he was assigned a position as a shipping clerk at Fort Ord in California. 

While stationed at Ford Ord, Paris met Christine Swiggum, a woman about five years his junior that had emigrated to the United States with her family from Australia when she was a child. Paris and Christine were eventually wed, and the marriage at least gave the outward appearance of being a happy one.

Things went fine for a period of time until Paris again ran into trouble with his superiors in the Army.  He was disciplined for some infraction, and in November of 1966, Richard Paris again failed to show up for duty. After going AWOL again, Paris and Christine saw his parents one last time that November and on that occasion neither Christine or Richard gave any indication of distress. 

The couple briefly settled in Hollywood, California before deciding to travel around the country over the next two months. Shortly before landing in Las Vegas in early 1967, Richard Paris made a trip to Phoenix, Arizona where he legally purchased several pounds of dynamite and obtained a permit to lawfully transport the explosives.

The Bomber’s Mysterious Motive

Clark County District Attorney George Franklin weighed in within hours of the blast, concluding that Paris perpetrated the bombing as a form of murder-suicide resulting from a domestic quarrel. 

Under the District Attorney’s theory, Christine had been engaged in extramarital affairs and Richard Paris had decided he would take revenge on his spouse in Las Vegas.  Paris waited until his wife left the motel, then he loaded a corner of their room with the recently purchased dynamite.  When Christine returned later that night, Richard was waiting with a .25 pistol in hand.  He fired a single round into the pile of dynamite, causing the bundle of explosives to erupt. 

Within days, a dispute between the top prosecutor in Las Vegas and the chief of detectives soon exploded onto the front pages of local papers.  Chief of Detectives Lieutenant Paul Gulas commented to a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter, “I don’t know where [the District Attorney] gets his theories, but it’s certainly not from the Las Vegas Police Department.”  Gulas even posited that the blast may have been accidental rather than a suicide.  Detective Gulas notes that an automatic like the .25 found in the alley behind the Orbit Inn ejects a shell when fired, but investigators had failed to recover a shell casing.  “We cannot even prove the gun was fired recently,” Gulas told the Review-Journal.

When questioned by reporters, District Attorney Franklin admitted he had additional concerns when announcing his views on the cause of the bombing.  Rumors began circulating within hours of the blast that the Orbit Inn had been targeted by the mafia or that it had been the “shack joint” of a mob-connected union leader.  The District Attorney flat-out told reporters that he put forward the suicide theory to prevent the national press from speculating on the cause of the explosion with headlines like, “Mafia Hideout Bombed.”  In a further bout of candor rare for a public official, the District Attorney conceded that he was willing to throw out a non-mob related theory “even if I had to apologize later.” 

The evidence was eventually forwarded to the FBI to draw a conclusion on the cause of the blast, with the federal agency having a greater ability to synthesize Richard Paris’s movements around the country with evidence recovered at the blast site. FBI investigators returned a verdict that Paris intentionally detonated the dynamite he purchased in Arizona because the AWOL soldier was “bent on suicide because of his troubles in the service.”

a suicide bombing and its aftermath

It was only a matter of days before hotels and motels around Las Vegas received bomb threats.  A little after 8:00 a.m. on January 10, the manager of the Minuteman Motel – a small downscale establishment on Las Vegas Boulevard between the Strip and Downtown – received a phone call.  “Are you familiar with what happened at the Orbit Inn?”  When the manager replied that he was, the caller replied, “You have twenty minutes and your motel will look just like that.”  Then the line went dead.  The building was evacuated and searched, but no bomb was found.

Another result of the Orbit Inn bombing was a mini-scandal surrounding medical care for the victims of the blast.  An elderly couple injured in the explosion was treated in the emergency room of the Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital.  When they later sought admission to the hospital they were allegedly denied and prevented from leaving the hospital until they paid their emergency room bill. 

The board of trustees for the hospital quickly convened to pass a measure commending the hospital’s handling of the bombing aftermath.  But one of two dissenters was a trustee names Harry Reid – the future powerful long-term U.S. Senator from Nevada – who objected to passing the measure until the board heard from critics of the hospital.  The measure passed over Reid’s objection, but his opposition was a notable stand in favor of hearing out all sides rather than rushing to protect the hospital’s reputation.

A final result of the bombing was an effort by state legislators from Clark County to pass the “Orbit Inn Act” which would have restricted possession or sale of high explosives without authorization from the Nevada Fire Marshal. This was a reaction to Richard Paris’s perfectly legal possession and transportation of several dozen pounds of dynamite leading up to the attack. This seemingly commonsense bill faced opposition from Northern Nevada legislators reliant on the mining industry. In 1967, the political power in Nevada resided in the northern rather than the southern part of the State, and the Orbit Inn Act was ultimately defeated.

unresolved motives

In the end, Richard J. Paris and the reasons why he blew up the Orbit Inn on a winter day in 1967 remain an enigma.  Paris was generally viewed as a happy, friendly young man by his family.  And he had an obvious dedication to the Army, though he clearly had recurring impulse control issues that caused him to run into military discipline, but these behavior problems never rose to the level where the military sought to discharge Paris.  In fact, had Paris not compounded his own problems by going AWOL twice, it is likely he could have achieved some level of success – or at least stability – in the military. 

Further complicating a determination of Paris’s motive is that the initial news reports do not suggest any marital woes between Richard and Christine.  Only retrospective accounts decades after the attack mention the belief held by the District Attorney and Sheriff Lamb that Paris was motivated by jealousy over an extramarital affair.  However, it is certainly plausible public officials in the 60’s did not see fit to comment on this aspect of the crime.  And the public image of a happy marriage presented by the couple could have concealed deeper divisions, or the prior marital bliss Richard’s relatives remembered from November of 1966 – just after he went AWOL – could have been strained as the two tried to make a life while Richard remained on the lam as a deserter.

What we do know is that Richard Paris desired to make the military his life from a young age.  He may have been drawn to the routine and belonging offered by the Army.  And after he enlisted at age seventeen, he probably ran into minor disciplinary issues for engaging in the sort of rowdy behavior not uncommon from a young man living in close quarters with other young men.  But rather than dealing with the disciplinary measures implemented by the Army, the perfectionist Paris viewed an official reprimand as a humiliating black mark on his character. 

When Paris ruined his chance at a military career by going AWOL for a second time, he may have thought it impossible to imagine any sort of meaningful future.  But the delay between going AWOL and when Paris committed mass murder in downtown Las Vegas suggests troubles with his wife may have exacerbated the stress and despair that led to the bombing.

Richard and Christine Paris lie side by side today at the Rose Hills Memorial Park in Los Angeles with matching inscriptions on their tombstones:

Our Sunshine and Happiness

Together Forever

east fremont a half-century after tragedy

The Orbit Inn was repaired and reopened later in 1967.  The motel persisted for another two decades before closing.  By that time, downtown Vegas had developed a reputation as a seedier area of the city, which was eventually reversed in the early 2000’s with the redevelopment of downtown.

The old Orbit Inn was torn down and replaced with the Container Park in 2013 – a large open-air shopping and dining area guarded by a giant fire-spewing grasshopper sculpture.  Most of the other broken-down motels lining East Fremont are slated for destruction in the near future to make room for further development in line with the new face of Las Vegas.