she built a good life in schenectady, a city in upstate new york.ed this man, john amos. they had a lot in common. they were both volunteering with inner city youth and both recovering from alcohol and drug abuse. >> my past came to visit me again after rehab. my brothers wanted me to go see these detectives. so i went down to new jersey. i braved it out. my husband was right there with me. >> susan had to relive that painful night all over again. >> we put her at ease, that listen, it's okay to talk with us. >> but when susan started telling her version of events, the detectives noticed a startling discrepancy. >> you get this chill that runs through your body, like she's messing up over here and she don't even realize she's messing up. >> what was not consistent about what she was saying? >> the fact of this car pulling off. >> remember, back in 1971 susan told police that she had seen a car speeding away from the house. >> she forgot to put that part in there. >> during this interview, her demeanor changed. she became nervous. >> and in their min

first, when the naturalized american expressed radical views in upstate schenectady and later when he returned home to harlem. >> the nypd has been keeping track of pimentel since may of 2009 and more intensely in recent weeks as he acted on violence. >> officials say pimentel was a follower of radical cleric anwar al awlaki and became angry over his killing in september. pimentel's defense lawyer says his client may have radical views, but was no threat. >> and that was wnbc's jonathan dientz reporting. >>> elsewhere, it appears that lawmakers tasked with slashing more than $1 trillion from the nation's deficit are throwing in the towel. after months of partisan disagreements on tax cuts and spending, it looks like the so-called supercommittee has failed. nbc's brian mooar reports. >> reporter: with a deadline looming, members of the congressional deficit-cutting supercommittee seem to have agreed there will be no agreement. and the other side is to blame. >> nothing new came out of this from the democratic side, it was the same thing, raise taxes, pass the president's jobs bill. no

before returning to washington heights last year, he lived in schenectady for about five years, wherehis like-minded friends nervous by his extremism. he talked about changing his name to osama hussein, to celebrate his heroes, osama bin laden and saddam hussein. piment pimentell talked about killing u.s. service men returning from iraq and afghanistan, particularly u.s. army and marine corps personnel. he talked about bombing post offices in and around washington heights and police cars in new york city, as well as a police station in new jersey. as in other terrorist cases, pimentell's behavior morphed from simply talking about such acts to action, namely bomb building. pimentel followed instructions from anwar al awlaki's "inspire" magazine, to first acquire the bomb-making materials and then assemble them. he relied on a particularly notorious article called "how to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom." pimentel acquired the readily available ingredients from home depot and other stores, being careful not to make all of these purchases from any one location at the same time. he

he went up to schenectady, new york, upstate new york, for about five years.ere that he belonged to a mosque there and that's when this whole radicalization took place. it does not appear he belonged to any mosque here in the new york city area. we are told though that his views became very extreme, very quickly and also he actually had a website, truismwon. there is a lot of talk about jihad and striking out against the united states. there's a lot going on there. whether this pipe bomb would have actually exploded is the big question. jim? >> all right, deb feyerick in new york, thanks very much for following that. again the suspect is charged with state crimes as deb mentioned, not federal. listen to what cnn national security contributor and former homeland security advisor fran town sen had to say about this two-year long investigation. >> i'm a little troubled by the fact that the fbi was not involved. after all, this was a targeting of the u.s. service members, among others. he was inspired by anwar al awlaki, the man now deceased, inspirational leader