Authorities are still looking for the pipe bombs a man claimed to have dumped in a rural Pennsylvania waterway before he set out to kill two popular TV hosts over their Jodi Arias trial coverage.
David Lee Simpson, of Bath, New York, has been jailed in Phoenix on five felony counts related to Twitter death threats against Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell. Both of the HLN commentators regularly covered the nearly five-month trial. Investigators say Simpson also threatened a Phoenix woman via Twitter, reports AZ Central.
Bath police investigator Heather Barry said that they are taking his pipe bomb comments seriously because bomb-sniffing dogs alerted on possible explosives residue in his vehicles.
"We don't think this is just a wild claim of his," Barry said, according to the AP. "Nothing has been recovered as of right now, but they're still working on it."
Simpson indicated he was in Arizona when he sent the threatening tweets in June, but investigators found he was still in New York at the time.
Arias was convicted of first-degree murder May 8 in the June 2008 death of her boyfriend Travis Alexander at his suburban Phoenix home. The same panel later failed to reach a unanimous decision on whether to sentence her to life in prison or death.
As a result, prosecutors now have the option of pursuing a new penalty phase aiming for the ultimate punishment, or avoiding it and leaving Arias with a life sentence.
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