40 Homes Evacuated Due to Bomb Threat

[Misty]

Via the Walton Sun..

Posted Oct. 13, 2015 at 12:00 PM
Updated at 12:29 PM

The area near Mack Bayou is currently blocked off due to a bomb threat. Public Affairs Coordinator Corey Dobridnia from the Walton County Sheriff's Office said the bomb squad is en route to a home on Loblolly Lane.A student at a Walton County school received a text from an anonymous source stating there was a bomb inside of his house. The bomb squad has evacuated surrounding houses to safely secure the area.More information on this incident will be updated when it arrives.

 

[Misty]

Walton County Sheriff, Michael A. Adkinson, Jr.
17 mins · Edited ·
WALTON COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE INVESTIGATING BOMB THREAT: Bay County Sheriff's Office Bomb Squad is en route to Driftwood Estates to investigate a bomb threat. Loblolly Drive is closed off from Red Bay Court to Harbor Mist Lane. Approximately 40 houses have been evacuated. Please stay away from this area unless you're a resident and we will set up a staging area. We hope to clear the scene before school gets out. We will continue to update the public as to the situation through social media and our news outlets. Please allow investigators to do their jobs and stay clear of the area while we decide the scene.

 

[sunspotbaby]

anonymous text? Surely there is a party in custody for this hoax?

 

[Matt J]

Haven't heard anything since the initial notice went out.

 

[Misty]

Haven't heard anything since the initial notice went out.

The Sheriff's office had a small blurb that the scene had been cleared yesterday which I missed.

I heard that there is a mentally ill woman involved who has been in and out of institutions and telling children in the neighborhood they are possessed by the devil that was responsible for the threat.

 

[Misty]

A Walton County teenager has been arrested for threatening to bomb his own place of residence after Walton County Deputies uncover the plot happening inside the home on Loblolly Court in Santa Rosa.

Landon Lawrence, 18, was arrested this week following an investigation into a bomb threat the morning of October 13th at 150 Loblolly Court. The home’s owner stated her son was receiving threatening text messages while at school; one of which stated there was a bomb inside the house. She told WCSO she believed someone had been in the home, because her son received a text saying the person had taken an item from inside and that item was missing.

Deputies evacuated all other houses on Loblolly Bay from Red Bay court to Harbor Mist drive and the Bay County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad was notified and responded to the scene as well as South Walton Fire Rescue.

Since that day multiple text messages were sent from an unknown phone number to the home’s residents. In these text messages was specific information unique to the residence as well as unique to all the parties receiving the messages. At times “play by play” information was provided and certain details about sleeping arrangements and other activities that, according to both adults in the home, no one outside of the residence would know or be able to have knowledge about. That led investigators to Landon Lawrence, a nephew of the home’s owner.

After being read his Miranda Rights, Lawrence admitted to investigators, to sending the text message to one of the resident’s phones stating his house would go “boom” as well as creating multiple “Pinger” accounts with no legitimate purpose other than to send all the messages from unknown numbers.

“A lot of resources were used during this incident,” said Sheriff Michael Adkinson. “We treat every threat as legitimate. This man wasted the time of multiple agencies while causing unneeded panic to the neighborhood.”

He was subsequently arrested and charged with Cyberstalking and Making a False Report of a Bomb Threat (Violation of Florida Statute 790.163).

Courtesy WZEP