Nail Bombs

## Design and Function

The homemade nail bombs crafted by John Kramer, better known as the Jigsaw Killer, and his apprentices, Amanda Young and Detective Mark Hoffman, consisted of ordinary glass jars which were filled with nails. The actual explosive charge, made of C4, was attached to the jar's lid. Every bomb was connected to a timer. In a few cases this timer was directly attached to the jar as well. Most of the time however, the timer was positioned somewhere else in the room and was connected to the bomb with a cable.

## History

### Troy's Test

One nail bomb was used in the game of Troy, a young drug addict who had been sent to prison multiple times throughout his life and was therefore targeted by John. However, John was severely weakened and bedridden due to an inoperable brain tumor and therefore ordered Amanda Young to set up the game to test Troy's will to survive. After abducting him, Amanda took Troy to a classroom at the school. She took most of his clothes off of him and sat him on a chair in the middle of the room. Then, she attached eleven chains to him by piercing the metal chain rings through several parts of his body. Ten of the chains pierced his hands, shoulders, Achilles tendons, arms and external obliques while the ring of the last chain was pierced through his lower jaw. Afterwards, Amanda cut a jigsaw piece from his skin and placed a TV and a nail bomb on a table right in front of him, before she left the room. However, as she started to doubt her and John's work, she decided not to give Troy any chance to survive and welded the door of the room shut.

Shortly afterwards, Troy woke up. Immediately frightened by the situation he was in, he jumped to his feet and started to scream in fear and agony when he saw the chains attached to him. Moments later, the TV in front of him suddenly turned on. On the screen appeared a frightening, mechanical ventriloquist puppet. The puppet greeted him and informed him about the situation. As he had been chosen for this test due to his repeated prison sentences, he should now get the chance to "break his chains" once and for all in order to survive and finally learn from his mistakes. When the TV turned off again, Troy noticed the nail bomb and immediately began to panic again. However, as he desperately wanted to survive, he eventually started to rip the chains out of his body. Despite his initial hesitation and the immense amount of pain, Troy managed to free himself from all the chains except for the one attached to his lower jaw. With only a few seconds left, Troy desperately tried to remove it but was eventually killed and ripped up by the explosion of the bomb. When the Metropolitan Police Department arrived shortly afterwards, the crime scene was found by a SWAT team led by Officer Daniel Rigg and the remains of the bomb were secured by Detective Hoffman.

### The Fatal Five's Trial

Following John and Amanda's death, Mark Hoffman became John's successor and continued his work. At the day of his death, John had told him to set up another game for five new test subjects, Ashley Kazon, Charles Salomon, Luba Gibbs, Mallick Scott and Brit Stevenson, who were all in some way involved in a case of arson in which eight people were killed. After subduing them, Hoffman took all of them to an underground catacomb area at 1293 Sandburst Drive. There were four rooms each containing a different test for the Fatal Five, additionally there was homemade nail bombs in each of the rooms which were connected to a second timer. These bombs would detonate after this 15-minutes-timer ran out and kill everyone who was still in the room at this point, thus forcing the victims to progress onward in the Game to the next test.