The FBI and Crawford County authorities are investigating allegations that a Cedarville man said he would “shoot everyone” in the LeFlore County, Okla., courthouse, “even the judge,” if his two sons are given the death penalty on charges that they murdered a Fort Smith woman in 2010.
Gerry Lynn Thacker, father of Elvis and Johnathen Thacker, reportedly made the threats at the home of a family member in the presence of the ex-husband of the murder victim, Briana Ault.
The Thacker brothers are charged in LeFlore County District Court with first-degree murder in Ault’s death. Her nude body was found by a fisherman in a pond off Texas Road in Pocola, Okla., on Sept. 13, 2010. Court documents say Ault’s throat was cut. She was 22.
Ault’s mother, Bethany Ault-Pyle, went to the Crawford County sheriff ’s office with word about Gerry Thacker’s threats. A report by Crawford County sheriff’s investigator Patti Stroud said she interviewed several witnesses who heard the threats and that Thacker told them he “could make a bomb out of a cleaner called ‘The Works,’ aluminum foil and a bottle.”
“He also stated to them that [if ] they thought the Oklahoma City bombing was bad, they hadn’t seen anything yet,” Stroud said in her report.
Gerry Lynn Thacker also threatened to blow up the Cedarville Police Department because officers there had taken guns from his home, and it had cost him $750 to get them back. At least one witness told Stroud that Thacker sits in his recliner and watches vehicles driveby on Arkansas 59 through the scope on his rifle.
“He was drinking and getting drunk and shooting off his mouth, trying to be a big shot,” Crawford County Chief Deputy Jimmy Damante said of Thacker’s threatening behavior. “But it was enough to warrant an investigation.”
As of Friday, Thacker, 50, was not charged in connection with the threats. He’s being held inn lieu of $25,000 bond in the Sebastian County jail on a petition to revoke a suspended sentence on drug charges from 2011. The cause for revocation, according to the court records, was that Thacker was found to be a felon in possession of a firearm, he made terroristic threats, and he “threatened to cause a catastrophe in Crawford County, Arkansas,” all a violation of his suspended sentence.
LeFlore County District Attorney Jeff Smith said Friday that he’ll wait until after the Thacker brothers’ preliminary hearings to decide whether to seek the death penalty in the Ault case.
Elvis Thacker, 24 and Johnathen Thacker, 23 - two of Gerry Thacker’s six children - are already serving prison sentences in Arkansas after pleading guilty to kidnapping a then-40-year-old Fort Smith woman just 10 days before Ault’s death. They were originally charged with rape.
The two also pleaded guilty in the stabbing of a Fort Smith detective when he and a partner went to an apartment where the brothers had been staying to question them about the rape and Ault’s death. The partner of the stabbed officer shot Elvis Thacker twice in the stomach, which landed him in the hospital for six weeks.
Because Smith’s office had the Thackers transferred to Oklahoma from the Correction Department in Arkansas, they must be tried within 120 days of extradition.
Johnathen Thacker’s preliminary hearing is set for Nov. 16. Elvis Thacker is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation, as well as testing for incompetence “due to mental retardation or other developmental disabilities,” according to information in his court file. Criminal proceedings against him are put on hold while his mental state is evaluated.
“I’m sure the court would like to see them tried together,” Smith said of the brothers. “But it’s been two years. We need to get this matter on down the road.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 10/27/2012