A man who allegedly saw himself as a prophet and sent warning letters to President Clinton and the Texas governor was one of three people arrested on charges of plotting to build a fertilizer bomb.
Ray Willie Lampley, 65, his wife, Cecilia Lampley, 47, and John Dare Baird, 53, are charged with conspiracy to manufacture and possess a destructive device, assistant U.S. attorney Doug Horn said. The three were being held without bond and were scheduled to appear in federal court Monday.They were arrested by the FBI Saturday at the Lampleys' home in Vernon, 90 miles east of Oklahoma City. The arrests are not connected to the April 19 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, authorities said.
McIntosh County Sheriff Bobby Gray said the FBI recovered bomb-making materials from a back room in the Lampleys' house but apparently did not find an assembled bomb.
Federal authorities would not comment further.
Ray Willie Lampley is a self-proclaimed prophet who allegedly supports anti-government sentiments, FBI Special Agent Timothy Arney said.
Gray told The Sunday Oklahoman that Lampley has been sending letters "to certain people - the president, the governor in Texas, and even I got some - that we were going to be dead within a certain amount of time."
Gray said investigators told him that Elohim City, a white separatist religious community, was a purported target of the alleged bomb conspiracy. The community of about 100 people is in eastern Oklahoma near the Arkansas border.
Gray theorized that the Lampley group might have wanted to carry out a bombing and "try to lay it on to the federal government. That's just my thinking right now."
The Rev. Robert Millar, head of the Elohim City compound, told The Associated Press he was mystified by Lampley's arrest because Lampley has supported and visited the religious community in the past.
Millar said Sunday that at the time of the federal building bombing "there was a lot of concern that government agents would stage a raid (here) and he was empathizing for our welfare."
"I would say we are more concerned (about) illegal acts by government agents than we are by bombing threats from right-wing groups," he said.
Last spring, Millar's group was inundated with journalists following reports that federal building bombing suspect Timothy Mc-Veigh had twice called the community in the weeks prior to the explosion. Millar said at that time that "if he phoned here, no one has any knowledge of talking to him."