A 40-year-old Harrison man being held in the Boone County jail on numerous felony charges was cited Friday with an additional charge of criminal use of a prohibited weapon after an apparent pipe bomb was found Thursday among his belongings at a rural Boone County home, police said.
Investigators with the Boone County sheriff’s office are trying to determine whether the case involving suspect Ricky Glenn Mathis is connected with an Easter day incident where a pipe bomb was found at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints south of Harrison, according to anews release from the sheriff’s office.
“At this time there is no substantial evidence to indicate the two cases are related,” the release said.
On Thursday, Gary Byerley and his daughter found what appeared to be a homemade pipe bomb while cleaning out the garage area of their home and took it to the Harrison Police Department at Harrison City Hall, 116 S. Spring St.
Assistant Police Chief Sam Martin described the device as a piece of standard white PVC pipe, 6- to 8-inches long, with a cap on each end. Martin said Byerley shook it, and “it sounded to them like there was some-thing inside.”
About 20 employees at City Hall and several more at a nearby auto-detail shop were evacuated until members of the Bentonville Police Department’s bomb squad arrived. The team removedthe device from Byerley’s car with a robotic device and then disarmed it using a water cannon.
“It could have definitely caused death or serious injury to anybody close to it,” said Sgt. Russell Hinds, commander of the bomb squad.
Boone County Sheriff ’s Capt. Bob King said Mathis had previously lived at theByerley residence and that he had left a number of possessions there. Byerley found the device on a bookshelf, behind some CDs hidden on a shelf, King said.
Mathis has been in jail since Aug. 11 on charges including aggravated robbery, kidnapping, second-degree battery, terroristic threatening, tampering with physicalevidence and engaging in violent criminal group activity.
When investigators interviewed him in jail for his possible connection with the discovery of the pipe bomb, Mathis said he had created the bomb with the intention of using it for fishing, King said.
Mathis remained in jail Friday in lieu of $250,000 bond.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/15/2012