TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Explosives Found At Lakeland Alum's Home, Deputies Say

The Polk County Sheriff's Office released these pictures of items seized from Timothy Vaughan's home. More Photos

ADVERTISEMENT

By VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 4, 2007

Updated: 10/04/2007 01:26 pm

Video: Sheriff Talks About Threat

On a Web page preparing for their 20-year reunion this weekend, members of Lakeland High School's Class of 1987 wrote short blurbs about their children and jobs in architectural design, investment banking or the military.

Timothy Joseph Vaughn

Timothy Vaughn, 39, wasn't one of those who posted online. But what he said to a Polk County sheriff's detective visiting him Wednesday was "disturbing," a sheriff's spokeswoman said.

The detective met Vaughn at his home at 1045 Hallam Drive, Lakeland, about 4:20 p.m. to discuss an e-mail Vaughn sent to classmates.com. The e-mail threatened to "make Virginia Tech look like a birthday party" compared with the class reunion, which starts Friday, the sheriff's office said.

At his home, Vaughn said he has an IQ of 140 but is unemployed and lives with his parents, sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Rodgers said. He also said he takes medication for schizophrenia and likes firearms and pyrotechnics, Rodgers said.

"He said he is 'anticommunity' and wants to be left alone," Rodgers said.

After the detective placed Vaughn under arrest on an aggravated cyber stalking charge, Vaughn said he needed his medication before going to jail, an arrest affidavit states.

The detective accompanied Vaughn to his bedroom, where the detective saw a bottle labeled as gunpowder and several cardboard cylinders labeled as M-80s and M-100s, the affidavit states.

M-80s and M-100s are large firecrackers first manufactured by the U.S. military to simulate gunfire. They were outlawed in 1966. They are considered illegal explosives by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Detectives found a total of 178 homemade M-80s and M-100s and 700 additional devices under construction inside the house, authorities said.

1987 Yearbook Photo

Sheriff Grady Judd showed photographs of the recovered explosives this morning at a news conference in Bartow, where he also discussed Vaughn's comments to the detective.

Rodgers said the comments, coupled with the explosives, caused concern. "He's a loner. He doesn't like to be bothered or messed with," she said. "It's disturbing."

An M-80 is equivalent to a quarter-stick of dynamite, Rodgers said. Lighting 178 "could take the garage off a house," Rodgers said.

Vaughn told the detective he didn't intend to carry out his threat, Rodgers said. "He said when he typed the e-mail, he was drunk," she said.

He also told the detective he didn't even know where the reunion was this weekend, Rodgers said.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement records show Vaughn has no record of criminal charges of this severity. He served a year's probation in 1999 after a misdemeanor conviction for driving under the influence.

Class of 1987 member Raquel DeWitt, who works as a medical secretary, remembered Vaughn was in a few classes with her. They weren't close friends, but they chatted at the 10-year reunion, where Vaughn talked about earning lots of money, she said.

"At the end of the evening, he was extremely apologetic and said that he had lied to me about all of that, and that he was just earning a living and making average money," she wrote in an e-mail. "It was quite apparent that he was severely intoxicated, and I checked with someone (can't remember who) to make sure that a cab was being called to get him safely home."

DeWitt said that if she had bumped into Vaughn around Lakeland, she likely would have said hello and "caught up to see how life was treating him."

After his arrest, however, she said she is worried about attending the reunion. "At this point, my boyfriend has said we aren't going if he's out on bond," she said.

Danica Fields, a teacher at Dixieland Elementary School, said she, too, is concerned about her family's safety at the reunion but plans to attend anyway.

"I will not live in fear of what could happen," she wrote in an e-mail. "I was in shock and realized how terrorism can hit us in the blink of an eye. We just think about security under special circumstances like traveling, but it can hit us at any given moment when we least expect it. It hits even harder to know that I planned to bring my children to this event to meet long lost friends."

She did not know Vaughn but expressed sympathy for him. "Usually after 20 years, grudges have faded away, and it seems these reunions would be filled with reconnection and mending of fences. I don't remember this particular classmate, but I would expect that he has lived a very sad life," she wrote.

The reunion kicks off at 4 p.m. Friday with a barbecue tailgate party, then a football game at Bryant Park Stadium in Lakeland, according to a schedule of events.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT