CLAY BOMB MAKER PLEADS GUILTY - Sheriff Holcomb Target Because Of His "Meth War"

(08/23/2006)

A Clay County man has pled guilty to a federal bomb charge related to a conspiracy to kill or injure the Clay County sheriff Randy Holcomb. Thirty-seven-year-old Samuel Todd Murphy admitted that he conspired with at least one other person to build a bomb and place it in a wooded area near the Town of Clay. The box bomb had a pressure switch that would detonate the device when the box was opened. Investigators say Murphy and the other person, who wasn't identified, planned to lure Sheriff Holcomb to the site with a phony anonymous tip about a meth lab. Holcomb was targeted because of multiple arrests he had been making on meth labs. The plan went awry in August, 2005, when a man looking for items to recycle found the bomb before Holcomb received the tip and detonated it. Murphy pled guilty to possession of an unregistered destructive device and an unrelated charge of use of a communication facility to facilitate a conspiracy to distribute marijuana. He faces up to 18 years in prison and a $750 thousand-dollar fine when he is sentenced November 9th.

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