Co-owner of shuttered Arkansas bagel shop kept jailed; arson suspect may have 'lost all reason,' judge says

Man deemed an ‘imbalanced’ danger

Robert David Tackett
Robert David Tackett

Citing recent indications that Robert David Tackett may have "lost all reason," a federal judge refused Thursday to release the co-owner of the now-closed Morningside Bagels in Maumelle from jail pending the resolution of charges that he tried to burn down his house after destroying the bakery's equipment with an ax.

Tackett, 63, is going through a divorce from his wife of 36 years, Roxane Tackett, with whom he co-owned the bakery. On April 5, he was arrested while on his pontoon boat on Lake Ouachita on a warrant charging him with attempted arson of the couple's house at 105 Creek Valley Lane in Maumelle, two days after his wife opened the front door and smelled a strong odor of gasoline.

In three closets and on an upstairs landing, police and firefighters found homemade incendiary devices that each consisted of a 5-gallon can of gasoline, halogen light-bulb filaments, newspaper and steel wool, and were connected to automatic lamp timers and plugged in, David Oliver of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives testified Thursday.

Oliver, a certified fire investigator, said police arrived at the house about 10 a.m., and the timers were set to go off at 5 p.m. He said at least one of them had already been activated, possibly at 5 p.m. the previous day, as indicated by the presence of some charred newspaper, but that they hadn't worked as intended.

He said the devices would have kept going off at 5 p.m. every day as the paper dried out, and may have caused "a very large and fast-moving fire" that could have destroyed the Tackett house and others nearby.

Tackett's missing truck and boat trailer were found two days later at Lake Ouachita, Oliver said. He said that with the assistance of the Montgomery County sheriff's office, the Arkansas State Police and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and the use of a helicopter and boats, Tackett was tracked to an island and chased down, "Miami-Vice" style, until he was taken into custody.

Officers found blood in Tackett's boat that they determined came from a cut on his wrist, Oliver said. He noted that a shotgun loaded with four rounds was also found in the boat.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens, Oliver said Tackett admitted creating the explosive devices, saying his intention was to kill himself in a hot tub by slashing his wrists while the house burned down around him. But, Oliver said, Tackett had a "change of heart" and decided to let the house burn while he was at the lake, so his wife wouldn't receive any money from the sale of it.

Tackett and his wife, who had moved out of the house, had just had a long meeting with attorneys during which he found out he was $100,000 further in debt than he realized, Oliver said, adding, "He was frank about it. He lost his mind. ... He was losing everything and didn't want her getting more money."

Tackett also acknowledged destroying the bagel business he and his wife had operated for 12 years so that she couldn't get any money from selling it, Oliver said.

Roxane Tackett testified that the day after the meeting, she found her estranged husband at the bakery, where equipment had been damaged with an ax, booths had been slashed and holes had been drilled in basins. She said she later went to the house, fearing she might find him there dead, only to be met by the smell of gasoline.

David Tackett is charged in a federal criminal complaint with possession of an unregistered destructive device.

Defense attorney Molly Sullivan asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Tom Ray to release Tackett into the custody of his brother, who lives in Georgia, until his trial, but Ray said he couldn't ensure Roxane Tackett's safety even if her estranged husband was on home arrest in Georgia under electronic monitoring.

"It would take hours for alerts to go out" if Tackett violated the house arrest, the judge said.

Ray said he was especially concerned that David Tackett had recently bought a new shotgun, a type of gun that "is not generally used for suicide, but to kill someone else."

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Metro on 04/20/2018

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