3 Charged With Plotting To Build Fertilizer Bomb

The FBI has arrested three people on charges of plotting to build a fertilizer bomb that authorities believe would have been targeted at a white separatist religious community.

Ray Willie Lampley, 65, his wife, Cecilia Lampley, 47, and John Dare Baird, 53, were arrested Saturday at the Lampley’s home in Vernon, 90 miles east of Oklahoma City.

The arrests were not connected to the April 19 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, authorities said.

McIntosh County Sheriff Bobby Gray said investigators told him that Elohim City was a purported target. The white separatist community of about 100 people is in eastern Oklahoma near the Arkansas border.

Gray said the FBI recovered bomb-making materials from a back room in the Lampleys’ house but apparently did not find an assembled bomb.