A young Ohio couple who had corresponded with Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof was indicted in federal court Thursday for their roles in planning to bomb one of their workplaces.
Elizabeth Lecron and Vincent Armstrong, both 23, were indicted on one count of conspiracy to transport or receive an explosive with intent to kill, injure, or intimidate any individual and maliciously damage or destroy by fire or explosive; conspiracy to use a destructive device during and in relation to a crime of violence; conspiracy to use firearms during, and in relation to, a crime of violence; and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
Lecron was also charged with transporting explosives over state lines, and Armstrong faces another charge for making false statements to investigators.
“According to the allegations in the indictment, this pair obtained firearms and components to make explosives as part of a plot to kill and maim others,” Justin E. Herdman, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said in a statement.
The pair first came under the radar of federal agents in 2018. Lecron regularly posted images and writing on social media sites that celebrated mass murders, including the June 2015 incident in which Roof fatally shot nine people at the historic African-American Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina.
When her Tumblr account was deactivated due to her offensive content, Lecron created a new one: CharlestonChurchMiracle.
Last August, the two took a trip to sites associated with the Columbine High School shooting, where two students shot and killed 15 students and faculty in April 1999.
Undercover FBI agents connected with them and pretended to be interested in helping them around that time. She said the couple wanted to carry out an “upscale mass murder” at a local bar in Toledo. She said the bar was a prime target because it had two exits that they could maintain control over.
That same month, she also began writing Roof in prison and tried to mail him Nazi literature. She also told the FBI agents she wanted to damage a farm so that the animals could be set free.
Lecron met with FBI agents again in September and said she and a friend had starting making a pipe bomb and she was considering her workplace because she believed the facility polluted a nearby body of water.
In December, she agreed to buy black powder needed for the bomb from the undercover agent. That same month, she bought two pounds of Hodgson Triple Seven Muzzleloading Propellant and 665 screws of various sizes that she could use in the pipe bomb.
She told the agent, “So I guess I’ll talk to you when the deed is done?” She later said: “I’m very excited … stick it to him man … be safe.”
The couple was arrested in December. During a search of the Toledo home they shared, investigators found an AK-47, shotgun, several handguns, ammunition, and end caps that Armstrong had bought.
Armstrong’s car contained two loaded magazines for an AK-47, two loaded magazines for a pistol, a gas mask, and paper instructions for how to build various bombs.
“These arrests should send a sobering message to everyone that there is no city, large or small, that is immune to these types of hate-filled attacks,” said Toledo Police Chief George Kral.
