SP man arrested in suspected bomb threats

Published 9:37 am Tuesday, April 6, 2010

(MCT) CHARLESTON, W.Va. — South Charleston police arrested a man Thursday suspected in a string of bomb threats to the Southridge Centre Wal-Mart.

Jonathan Edwin Adams, 30, of South Point, was charged with a felony count of making false bomb threats.

Police say they tracked bomb threats to the Wal-Mart to a cell phone Adams bought in Lexington, Ky.

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According to a criminal complaint on file in Kanawha County Magistrate Court, Adams allegedly called in a bomb threat to Wal-Mart on March 25. The same phone was allegedly used to make several threats to the same store over the past several weeks.

Adams was also charged with making threatening phone calls to Kanawha County Metro 911 dispatchers last year. Police stormed into an East End apartment building looking for Adams last summer after he allegedly threatened to kill Charleston police officers.

South Charleston Police Chief Brad Rinehart said Adams allegedly made 70 threatening calls to the 911 center last summer, including one in which he allegedly said he killed two people and left them in a trash can. Adams allegedly called in bomb threats to Wal-Mart eight times.

Rinehart believed the store was evacuated at least four times.

Adams was in South Central Regional Jail on Thursday in lieu of a $50,000 cash only bond.