Feds charge Marietta man in explosives case
Suspect allegedly dropped homemade devices from bridges
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MARIETTA -- A Washington County man allegedly purchased components to build homemade bombs at a local hardware superstore then dropped them from area bridges onto passing boats, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in federal court.
Nathaniel Blayn Becker, 42, of Marietta, was arrested Wednesday evening on Pike Street in Marietta by an agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
He's being held without bond at the South Central Regional Jail in Charleston on a charge of possession of one or more unregistered explosive devices, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of West Virginia.
The complaint ties Becker to three incidents over the last week in which explosive devices were found on towboats traveling the Ohio River.
On Oct. 21, a deckhand on the Janis R. Brewer towboat found what he believed to be a pipe bomb in an empty barge attached to the vessel as it headed upstream just north of Parkersburg, the complaint says.
The boat stopped near Davis Nurseries on North Pleasants Highway, just south of the Pleasants-Tyler County line. West Virginia State Police bomb technicians x-rayed the device and determined it contained a powder filler consistent with an explosive, the complaint said. With the assistance of an ATF special agent, the bomb was disassembled and tests indicated the filler was ammonium nitrate, a chemical compound used in both fertilizers and explosives.
Four days later, the captain and deckhand on another boat, the Connie K., reported hearing a clanking sound as the boat went underneath the Interstate 77 bridge between Marietta and Williamstown. They saw two devices, which they believed to have been dropped from the bridge, land on the deck, the complaint said. State Police and ATF responded to the call around 8:30 p.m. Monday.
The devices recovered were smaller than the 24-inch pipe discovered on Oct. 21, the complaint said, but both were filled with a suspected similar mixture as the first.
State Police and the ATF agent responded around 10 p.m. Oct. 26 to the discovery of two more smaller devices aboard another boat, the MV Findlay, shortly after it passed under the I-77 and Williamstown bridges.
Believing markings on the devices' components indicated they'd been purchased from Lowe's, investigators tracked the purchases to the Marietta location, the complaint said. Records and surveillance camera footage from the store indicated the same white male visited the store four times from Oct. 20-26 and purchased, with cash, items similar to or matching exactly those used in the recovered devices.
Investigators with agencies including the ATF and FBI set up surveillance of the Marietta Lowe's on Wednesday and observed a red Ford Escape like the one the suspect had been seen driving in one of the videos, the complaint said. The vehicle was pulled over and the ATF agent determined the driver, later identified as Becker, matched the suspect from the security footage.
A search of the Escape revealed two 1-by-3-inch pieces of pipe and clothing Becker had been seen wearing in the surveillance footage, the complaint said.
"The cooperation of Lowe's was instrumental in Becker's arrest, and I thank them for their assistance," U.S. Attorney Will Thompson said in the release. "I commend the many law enforcement agencies for their swift investigation leading to Becker's arrest."
The release noted the U.S. Coast Guard, Parkersburg Police Department, Wood County Sheriff's Department and Washington County Sheriff's Office assisted in the investigation. The Pleasants and Tyler County Sheriff's offices and St. Marys Police Department also responded to the initial incident on Oct. 21.
A preliminary hearing for Becker is scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
Becker is in the midst of a three-year period of community control after pleading guilty in 2020 to a third-degree felony count of failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer. He was arrested in February of that year following a standoff in Devola after he brandished a knife and screwdriver at a Washington County Sheriff's deputy then barricaded himself in a house. His defense attorney said Becker was off medications for bipolar disorder at the time.
The discoveries of the devices resulted in Ohio River traffic being halted three times as the Coast Guard set up safety zones.
On Oct. 21, they established a safety zone from mile marker 145-151 near the Pleasants/Tyler County line along the Ohio River after the first device was discovered. It was lifted later that day, after the device was disassembled.
On Monday, the Coast Guard closed the river from mile marker 170-174 near Williamstown after the second report. The river was re-opened to vessel traffic at 2 a.m. Tuesday.
The river was closed again around midnight Tuesday after the third report, from mile marker 175-179 near Marietta. It reopened to vessel traffic on Wednesday at approximately 5:20 a.m., according to the Coast Guard.
Staff reporters Brett Dunlap and Michele Newbanks contributed to this story.
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.