New in SpyWeek: Murders Most Foul

Curious details behind the tragic events in New Orleans and Las Vegas and a strange case of explosives in Virginia lead this week's intel roundup

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ASSASSINATION PREPPER?: It’s been overshadowed by the terrible events in New Orleans and Las Vegas, but a recent arrest in Virginia deserves more attention.  

On Monday, Dec. 30, federal prosecutors asked a judge to revoke an order releasing a man at whose home FBI agents made “the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history.” The FBI found 150 pipe bombs on Brad Spafford’s 20-acre home near Norfolk, Va. Some were marked “lethal.”  The defendant also acknowledged keeping in his freezer a jar of HMTD, a highly sensitive explosive made from easily obtained compounds, the feds say. He lost fingers on his hand in 2021 when one of his homemade concoctions went off. Spafford was arrested in December on one charge of possessing an illegal, unregistered short-barrel rifle.

Brad Spafford (Western Tidewater Regional Jail photo)

Prosecutors wrote that a friend of Spafford’s who served as an FBI informant “noted that the defendant was using pictures of the President for target practice at shooting at a local range” and “stated that he believed political assassinations should be brought back.”

Spafford also allegedly believed that children reported missing in the news had been taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooters. Sounds nuts, but we were surprised to find that there’s a basis for what sounds like an unhinged conspiracy theory. In 2018, federal prosecutors in New Mexico accused five members of an extended family of training 11 children to commit school shootings. All five were convicted at trial of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and other charges and conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death and were sentenced to life in prison. 

Spafford allegedly kept unsecured pipe bombs in his bedroom in a backpack #nolivesmatter. According to the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, No Lives Matter, which primarily operates via the social media site Telegram, “follows an accelerationist extremist ideology and promotes targeted attacks, mass killings, and criminal activity, and has historically encouraged members to engage in self-harm and animal abuse.”

Prosecutors say Spafford poses “an extreme danger” to the community. The government’s informant told a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force that “Spafford and his friends are preparing for something that Spafford would not be able to do alone,” and that Spafford was making about 50 rounds of ammunition per day, according to local TV station WAVY.