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Friday, April 25, 1997

Neighbors wary after learning of bomb plot targeting gas processing plant

By TERRY WALLACE

Associated Press Writer

BRIDGEPORT, Texas (AP) - The sprawling industrial target of a bombing allegedly planned for next week stands just 300 yards from Dawn Fuller's front door.

Until this week, when the FBI accused four people of scheming to blow up the natural gas processing plant as cover for an armored-car heist, the mother of three was never afraid of the tank farm.

"Now, we will be," she said Thursday. "What bothers me the most is they (the suspects) should have known that children live here. There are toys in the front yard. If I could, I would move."

Ms. Fuller was one of many residents on edge in this town of 3,800 people a 90-minute drive northwest of Dallas.

On Wednesday, the FBI said the three men and one woman planned to bomb the Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. gas processing plant to divert attention from their robbery of an armored car they believed would be carrying $2 million to a bank in nearby Chico. As described by a confidential informant, the attack would take place on May 1, the FBI said.

Authorities said at least one of the four arrested Tuesday, Edward Taylor Jr., was a known member of a faction of the Ku Klux Klan.

The four, who were ordered held without bail, planned several secondary explosions to kill law-enforcement officials responding to an initial bomb threat, FBI agent Robert Garrity said.

The suspects had already collected bomb-making materials and had set off trial explosions, the FBI said.

Authorities refused to describe the political bent of the group, which had been under surveillance for about six weeks after police received a tip from the informant. Agents decided to act Tuesday when the informant reported that the group planned to rob a drug dealer, and the FBI feared the dealer might be killed.

Taylor, 34; Shawn Dee Adams, 37; his wife, Catherine Dee Adams, 35; and Carl Jay Waskom Jr., 34, were charged with federal conspiracy to commit robbery. Further charges are possible, officials said.

Few details about the four were available on Thursday.

Adams had worked at Nemo's Tattoos and Piercing in Arlington for three years, said Ray Angel, the shop's owner.

He said he was shocked to hear the allegations about his employee, whose forearms Angel had tattooed with a bronze bracelet and a dragon wrapped around a dagger.

"This guy knows how to get along with people," said Angel, who met Adams 15 years ago when the two were high-school students attending "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Adams had served in the Air Force and Mrs. Adams had worked at United Parcel Service, he said.

Outside Bridgeport in the nearby town of Boyd, neighbors of the Adamses described them as quiet, with Mrs. Adams a pleasant woman who volunteered to baby-sit.

"She was pleasant, but I only saw her husband once," said a woman who lives across the street from the couple's double-wide trailer.

However, none of the neighbors would identify themselves. Some feared reprisals.

"I think this thing is a lot bigger than we've heard," said a next-door neighbor. "I think they mean business."

In town, people said the Adamses and Waskom were strangers to them.

Tom Willis, a longtime Boyd resident, said neither he nor other residents he had talked with knew the Adamses.

Waskom, a plumber who lived in Boyd but who had a Breckenridge address on his driver's license, is not licensed by the State Board of Plumbing Examiners, a board spokeswoman said.

Wise County Sheriff Phil Ryan said the KKK made a stab at organizing in Boyd with rallies 1993 and 1994.

"Instead of getting support they got heckled and booed," he said. "It sort of faded."

The sheriff, who identified Taylor as "one of our open Klan members," said local Klan members are "not a criminal problem, they're an aggravation."

In Bridgeport, the True Knights of the Ku Klux Klan conducted a July 1994 rally in a city park before about 150 spectators - some amused, some hostile.

One former True Knights member told KXAS-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth that Taylor and the Adams couple were high-ranking members of the white supremacist group.

Whether Bridgeport residents were in as much danger as the FBI suggested was still a question Thursday.

FBI agents said the group was targeting tanks containing hydrogen sulfide, in a plot they believed could "wipe out half of Wise County."

Bill Ainsworth, a spokesman at Mitchell Energy headquarters, said the tanks at the 20-acre plant contained only "propane, butane, natural gasoline and condensate, also known as crude oil."

If ignited, the liquid chemicals would explode and burn, but would not release noxious gases, he said.

There is no hydrogen sulfide, or sour gas, in the underground formations drilled in the area, he said. Any explosion and fire, he said, "would endanger the employees at the plant," but not other people in the area. Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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