NEWS 25 - WEHT: Evansville, Henderson, Owensboro-Pike Co, Man Arrested on Plot to Blow Up Courtroom
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story by Courtney Fischer
PIKE CO., IN - A Pike County man is in jail after police say he planned to blow up a county courtroom. Sheriffs deputies found bomb making material, drugs, and guns inside 46-year-old Kerry Thomas's home.
Explosives aren't the only thing police are searching for. NEWS 25 learns investigators think there are human remains inside the house.
Today officers literally dug through Thomas's walls, the floor, the basement looking for explosives and human remains.
Sunday night a warrant was issued to search Thomas's house. Sources tell sheriffs deputies Thomas threatened to blow up a Pike County courtroom. Thomas was due in court Wednesday on criminal confinement charges--deputies say they believe he would have gone through with his plan, finding homemade bomb materials inside the house.
"There are hidden areas throughout the house which makes it hard for us to do anything," says Pike County Chief Deputy, Jeremy Britton. "We want to make sure everyone's safe is the main thing, and the hidden areas that we've found... there could be more that we're missing."
Neighbors say loud drilling lasted through the night.
Detectives are being asked to look for hair, clothing, DNA, and as quoted in the search warrant, "any other instruments of the crimes of murder." The warrant specifically mentions a "gold colored belt buckle with the initials P.K. on the back."
"It's quite a lot of information that we got and putting it all together, we have incorporated it into one search warrant," Britton says.
Who is P.K.? We dug through our archives and found the name matched a missing man out of Gibson County. Pat King went missing in 1995. Investigators found his truck at the Patoka Lake Bottoms, but never found King's body.
"It's too early to know exactly what happened--and if he is for sure tied into this, we have a number of sources we've utilized and have continued to do that," Britton says.
Pike County Prosecutor Darrin McDonald will not comment on the case right now. The lead detective tells NEWS 25 officers will stay at the house until they're satisfied with the search.
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