After several months of searching, Gilmer County authorities arrested a man wanted in a 2015 burglary after a tip that the man wanted to blow up the Gilmer County Courthouse.
According to a post on the Gilmer County Sheriff's Facebook page, on Saturday, deputies received information that Travis Thomas, 23, had fled the state following a burglary in the fall of 2015, but was back in the county, possibly using methamphetamine heavily and that he had intentions of blowing up the courthouse.
Deputies, along with detectives and DNR officials, tracked Travis down and took him in to custody without incident.
Meanwhile, deputies contacted the Zell Miller Mountain Parkway Drug Task Force after receiving information about a possible meth trafficking operation.
Authorities executed a search warrant at a home off of Clear Creek Road, according to the Facebook post, and located half a pound of meth and items resembling pipe bombs.
With the information about Travis's reported interest of blowing up the courthouse and the association of the suspects involved, the GBI Bomb Squad was called in, the post says. The devices were cleared as non-explosive.
The residents of the Clear Creek Road home, Joseph Cain, 26, and Kiera Morgan, 30, were arrested for methamphetamine tracking. Travis also faces six outstanding warrants for theft by receiving stolen property in the burglary last year.
“This has turned out to be a very substantial investigation. We took the courthouse threat very serious," said Gilmer County Sheriff Stay Nicholson in the Facebook post. "My Detectives were able to validate that Travis Thomas did have ammonia nitrate buried at a location. I can promise you that whatever his purpose for that was, it wasn’t to grow corn. As always, I am extremely proud of the diligent work my ‘guys’ did on this case.”
Tuesday
April 16th, 2024
7:30AM
