Home has proclivity for crime

LR address sees lawmen regularly

The recent theft of a stove, a weight bench, and a washer and dryer set from a Broadmoor home is just one more addition to the strange saga of a home that has been the site of a suicide, numerous police calls, and a recent visit from federal investigators that yielded an assortment of modified weapons and explosives.

Ricky Taylor, the owner of the modest, single story home at 107 Broadmoor Drive, was already in the Lonoke County jail -- and still remains there on a parole violation -- when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were summoned to his home June 5 after local police went there for a routine call.

Taylor, 45, will likely face federal charges, according to ATF officials, after police and fire officials found body armor, a flare gun modified to fire shotgun shells and several pipe bombs that day.

Grover Crossland, special agent in charge and spokesman for the Little Rock-area ATF office, declined to get specific about what agents recovered from Taylor's home, but he said that his investigators are working to see that Taylor is prosecuted for violating federal explosive and weapons' statutes.

"It's anticipated we'll file charges. That's our intention at this point, " Crossland said. "It could be months and months down the road before [they're filed] though."

The pipe bombs, which led some of the adjacent homes to evacuate, were a "startling" development in a house known in the neighborhood for odd events.

The most recent incident was on June 15, when the caretaker for the home during Taylor's incarceration, Donald Pitts, came to visit for the first time since the explosives call.

When Pitts arrived, he noticed that the old, black Chevrolet pickup was no longer parked in the modest one-story home's drive.

The front door, according to police, was also unlocked.

Pitts told police that he discovered that the same window broken prior to the June 5 call had never been properly secured.

Along with the truck went a refrigerator, a stove, a 6-foot toolbox, a "plastic bow and arrow case," clothes and a Coleman grill, which one neighbor reported seeing being loaded into a truck on "several occasions" in the days leading up to Pitts' call for police.

The total value of all the missing items amounted to $6,400, according to police.

Neighbor Nikki Long said, that on several occasions she noticed some men loading big items into a pickup in broad daylight. Given the history of the home, she didn't think much of it, until police came back to investigate the burglary.

Crossland said his agency was unaware of the recent burglary, and Little Rock police officials said that there is no way to tell if the recent thefts were at all related to prior incidents or just a random burglary.

Long, 32, has lived next door to Taylor's home for the past three years and had to evacuate when bomb investigators set about safely detonating the discovered explosives.

It was Long who triggered the arrival of police after she discovered that someone was running a power cord from her home into Taylor's house, which she thought suspicious since she knew Taylor was in jail.

Police detained Branson Pearce and Erica Craig from Taylor's home but later released them without charges.

Over the past three years, Long has watched a lot of traffic coming in and out of Taylor's home, as well as put up with parties and loud music that have gone on nonstop for three or four days at a time.

"They were never too disruptive. I mean people are going to live their lives, so long as it doesn't affect you, it's no problem. ... [Taylor] was a humble guy," Long said. "He had a lot of stuff going, but I never in a million years would have imagined he was making bombs."

Taylor bought the home from his wife, Lindsey Herring, in May 2013. Months later, their divorce was finalized, according to court records, though there were several domestic disturbance calls to the house over the next year.

Since March 2013, nine police reports have been filed at that address.

So far this year, there have been 20 total calls to the 100 block of Broadmoor, seven of those for events at Taylor's home.

In early September 2013, police went to the home for a suicide call and found 25-year-old Melanie McElrath, who lived in the house with Taylor, unconscious and "purple" in the face, according to reports.

Taylor told officers that McElrath and he got into an argument earlier that day, that she had been depressed over losing custody of her kids, and that she went off alone to the bedroom.

An hour later, he found her passed out and he tried giving her CPR to get her breathing again. McElrath died, according to police, and the death was ruled a suicide, involving a bottle of prescription drugs.

In April, police went to the home because they were told that Herring, Taylor's ex-wife, had tried killing herself at the residence.

When they arrived, they found only Taylor, who notified officers that his ex's erratic behavior stemmed from a "mental problem."

Taylor, who has a history of drug convictions, has been in the Lonoke County jail since his arrest for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Metro on 06/23/2014

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