Explosive Find

A clue to a Denver murder

When FBI agents arrested an armed-robbery suspect after a shootout in a Portland, Ore., motel last month, they got a bigger break than they realized at the time. Last week FBI ballistics experts confirmed that among the weapons found in Suspect Gary Lee Yarbrough's home in Sandpoint, Idaho, was the 45-cal. mac-10 submachine pistol used last June to murder Alan Berg, a combative and controversial Denver radio talk-show host. Yarbrough denied the killing, insisting that he was given the weapon after the shooting. At week's end he had not been charged in the case.

According to FBI agents, the red-haired Yarbrough, 29, is a former member of an Idaho-based neo-Nazi group called Aryan Nations. Yarbrough and five other members of the group were charged last week with a pair of armored-rack robberies worth more than $4 million. Yarbrough is also charged with opening fire on three FBI agents outside his home in October. The formidable arms cache discovered in his home after his arrest included crossbows, plastic explosives, hand grenades, night-vision scopes and semiautomatic rifles. Said Yarbrough: "The Bible tells me to prepare for the day of destruction." -