Possible Breakthrough in Jan 6th Fake Pipe Bomb Suspect has Washington Buzzing
by Steve Baker & Joseph M. Hanneman, The Blaze.com, November 8, 2025
A forensic analysis of a female former U.S. Capitol Police officer’s gait is a 94%-98% match to the unique stride of the long-sought Jan. 6 pipe-bomb suspect, according to a Blaze News investigation confirmed by several intelligence sources.
A source close to a congressional investigation of Jan. 6 additionally told Blaze News evidence has emerged recently that pointed toward law enforcement possibly being involved in the planting of the pipe bombs.
A software algorithm that analyzes walking parameters including flexion (knee bend), hip extension, speed, step length, cadence, and variance rated Shauni Rae Kerkhoff, 31, of Alexandria, Va., as a 94% match to the bomb suspect shown on video from Jan. 5, 2021. The veteran analyst who ran the analysis for Blaze News said that based on visual observations the program can struggle with, he personally pegged the match at closer to 98%.
Kerkhoff, who was a Capitol Police officer for four and a half years, left the department in mid-2021 for a security detail at the Central Intelligence Agency, sources told Blaze News.
CIA spokeswoman Liz Lyons stated that the subject worked in campus security.
Kerkhoff’s residence in Alexandria, Va., appeared to be under the watch of law enforcement officers on Friday night. Blaze News editor in chief Christopher Bedford was pulled over by local police after stopping to observe the home. He was then allowed to leave.
Close to bomb suspect
The FBI, which failed to solve the case in nearly five years of investigation but indicated that it was closing in after Blaze News brought its investigation to intelligence sources, was feet from the Falls Church address of the pipe bomb suspect days after Jan. 6, according to the Blaze News investigation.
Former FBI Special Agent Kyle Seraphin realized Friday that he was doing surveillance next door to the woman now suspected of being the Jan. 6 pipe bomber.
“The FBI put us one door away from the pipe bomber within days of January 6, and we were deliberately pulled away for no logical or logically investigative reason,” Seraphin told Blaze News Friday. “And everything about that tells me that they were involved in a cover-up and have been since day one.
“They were f**king in on it,” Seraphin said.
Seraphin proposed doing a “knock and talk” at the door of an Air Force civilian employee whose address was tied to a vehicle that picked up the bomb suspect in Falls Church, Va., on Jan. 5, 2021.
Seraphin’s team spent two days watching the man, but Seraphin’s request to go face-to-face with the person of interest was denied. The team was pulled off the case the same night, he said.
Seraphin said he has given the same details publicly since 2021.
“There’s a personal reaction to it, which is the complete vindication that the things I’ve been saying and my recollection of being briefed on this stuff has been accurate for years and I’ve never changed my tune,” he said.
The FBI tied a DC Metrorail SmarTrip card allegedly used by the pipe-bomb suspect to an Air Force civilian employee but determined that while the man purchased the card, he did not use it. The suspect allegedly used the card to travel from D.C. to a stop in Falls Church after planting the pipe bombs. The Air Force civilian employee had purchased the SmarTrip card a year earlier.
Gait analysis
The forensic study, arranged by Blaze News, revealed that Kerkhoff is up to a 98% match to the gait of the pipe-bomb suspect. The findings were confirmed by several current intelligence sources who viewed the study results.
The source who did the comparison said the software rated the match at 94%. He put the figure at closer to a 96%-98% match, including a combination of human intelligence and the software analysis.
Samples of Kerkhoff’s gait were taken from Jan. 6 Capitol Police CCTV security video and compared to unedited video of the hoodie-wearing suspect walking through an alley near C Street to place an alleged pipe bomb behind the Capitol Hill Club about 8:16 p.m. on Jan. 5.
Two other sources familiar with gait analysis who viewed the video comparison and the software analysis told Blaze News they concurred that the video samples matched the gait of the gray-hoodie-wearing suspect.
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The mystery of the pipe bombs has hung over Jan. 6 for nearly five years. The FBI said an unknown subject placed pipe bombs under a park bench at the DNC and the Capitol Hill Club near the Republican National Committee building between 7:54 and 8:16 p.m. the night before the riot.
Discovery of the devices between 12:40 and 1:05 p.m. respectively on Jan. 6 drew already depleted police resources away from the Capitol just as a huge crowd breached the grounds at 12:53 p.m. A joint session of Congress convened at 1 p.m. to take up challenges to the certification of the Electoral College vote from the 2020 presidential election.
Kerkhoff was a Capitol Police officer from 2018 until mid-2021. She was a member of the department’s Civil Disturbance Unit and a training officer on the use of “less-lethal” crowd-control weapons that were extensively used on the Jan. 6 crowds.
Using lethal force Jan. 6
Blaze News reported Wednesday on Capitol Police surveillance video showing Kerkhoff and other CDU officers repeatedly using lethal force on the Jan. 6 crowd using “less-lethal” weapons. At least 16 members of the early crowd on the Capitol’s West Plaza were shot above the waistline with kinetic-impact projectiles fired from above on the Lower West Terrace.
Blaze News approached numerous intelligence officials two weeks ago with questions about findings from its investigation, which suggested that Kerkhoff matched the description and behavior of the suspected bomber, based on her distinctive walk, slight limp, 5'7" frame, and other factors.
‘We have conducted all logical investigative steps.’
Footage of the pipe-bomb suspect walking with a backpack on the night of Jan. 5 was compared to Jan. 6 security video of Officer Kerkhoff in various places on Capitol grounds and footage of her playing professional soccer in Columbus, Ohio, in 2017.
The pipe-bomb video that Blaze News used in its analysis was not the footage released by the FBI. A video sleuth who embarked on a more than yearlong investigation told Blaze News the footage made public by the FBI was manipulated to downsample the frame rate. Although it shows the same scene as the FBI video, the clip used by Blaze News came from another source and is demonstrably clearer with much smoother motion.
Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told Blaze News he is eager to learn the results of the pipe-bomb investigation. But he said he had no awareness of any Capitol Police officer involvement in the pipe-bomb planting.
“I had no knowledge that it was being carried out, nor were they carrying it out with any authorization from the chief's office,” Sund said. “I’m unaware of any legitimate reason that any Capitol Police or other law enforcement officer would be involved in the planting of those pipe bombs.”
The possible solution to the pipe-bomb mystery could have far-reaching reverberations.
Several officials familiar with the government’s investigative efforts said a new work is urgently needed to determine whether there were co-conspirators who aided and abetted the crimes, and to learn if federal agencies or employees knew who was involved in the bomb hoax and participated in a nearly five-year cover-up.
The FBI has faced questions over its failure to make meaningful investigative progress despite offering a $490,000 reward with the ATF, along with a $10,000 reward from the Metropolitan Police Department. Former FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed the bureau conducted an exhaustive investigation.
In congressional testimony, Wray said Jan. 6 was an indictment of right-wing domestic violent extremists. He said white-supremacy-fueled domestic violent extremism is one of the major threats to the nation.
The prospect of a Capitol Police officer being the perpetrator, if confirmed, could recast the entire story of Jan. 6. It could start to unravel the carefully crafted, zealously defended Democrat narrative that massive crowds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as part of an insurrection to keep Trump in office and deny Joseph R. Biden Jr. the presidency.
At the same time the FBI was not solving the pipe-bomb mystery, it was carrying out the largest investigation in its history to hunt down the thousands of Americans who went to the Capitol after Trump’s Jan. 6 speech at the Ellipse. The FBI under Wray worked in concert with the Biden Department of Justice to put hundreds of Trump supporters in prison.
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