AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Austin Police say a concerned citizen reported possible explosives in a South Austin home Tuesday evening, leading to an investigation that led to an arrest and a detonation of those materials Wednesday evening.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said the department's bomb squad was on the scene within a few hours of receiving that call, in addition to agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
During a press briefing Thursday, Davis said that officers arriving at the home in the 2400 block of Vintage Stave Road quickly discovered possible homemade bombs and an amount of bomb-making materials - enough material that officers felt it posed a threat to neighbors, prompting evacuations.
Davis detailed the process that officers and investigators had to go through, including obtaining search warrants and vacating neighboring homes.
Officers took 66-year old Steven Aldrich into custody. He's now facing a third-degree felony charge of possessing "components of explosives." Davis said he had previous arrests in Williamson County for explosives-related charges in 2018; after being sentenced to six years in prison, he had been paroled in 2022 and had only about two weeks left on his parole.
"Our SWAT team and our EOD is familiar with him, and his bomb-making shenanigans from the past," Davis said.
After continued investigation, the bomb squad determined that removing the materials from the site would not be safe. That prompted teams to plan a controlled blast for Wednesday evening, which completely destroyed the house and caused minor damage to a neighboring home.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said the incident had no connection to a house explosion in Northwest Austin on Sunday.