It’s been around a month since authorities found an apparent incendiary device underneath a FOX 13 news truck in Salt Lake City, Utah. Per reports this week, the suspect in the case has been charged with arson.
At around 7 a.m. Sept. 12, the 2.5-gallon gas can with a “multi-foot-long fuse” was found underneath the local news station’s truck, according to a Salt Lake City Tribune report citing court records. In those documents, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent wrote that the can was placed there at around 4:15 a.m.
Before any damage was caused, the fuse reportedly “self-terminated” and never reached the gas can. Footage of the scene showed the fuse burning for around one minute before fizzling out. Surveillance video taken at about 3:14 a.m. also showed a person placing the device while wearing a backpack and carrying both a red gas can and something that looked like a “long, dark umbrella” around the vehicle.
That figure can be seen placing the has can under the FOX 13 truck and lighting the fuse at approximately 4:10 a.m. They can then be seen jogging out of view.
“In the aftermath of the discovery, an FBI Special Agent bomb technician and others determined the gas can to constitute an incendiary destructive device,” FOX 13 reported.
An investigation of the gas also revealed three DNA profiles, including one that matched 45-year-old Christopher Solomon Proctor, and two other undisclosed people per court documents cited by the Tribune. Proctor’s DNA was also found in the State DNA Index System database due to his conviction of burglary and theft in 2015. FOX 13 noted that Proctor has been convicted on multiple burglary and attempted burglary charges dating back to 1998.
Authorities moved to learn more about Proctor and found a vehicle registered to him through Salt Lake City’s license plate reader system. That very vehicle – identified by FOX 13 as a Honda CR-V – had been traveling near the area where the device was placed at about 4:30 a.m., court documents indicate. It also showed up near proctor’s home and at an auto dealership a few days later, on Sept. 17, according to FBI surveillance.
Then, on Sept. 19, FBI surveillance saw Proctor return to the location where the device was placed in a different vehicle. That vehicle was registered to a person who Proctor lived with. He was seen “driving slowly past the FOX 13 – Salt Lake City building several times” before he returned home, investigators said, per the Tribune’s report.
More information about Proctor came through records from online retailer Amazon. Tactical gloves and split-toe boots were purchased through the account in August, per the court filing cited by the Tribune. Those boots allegedly match what the suspect was wearing in surveillance footage.
When FBI agents executed a search warrant at Proctor’s home and in his vehicle on the morning of Sept. 20, “investigators said they seized boots, tactical gloves, an empty gas can with a hole carved into the top and a ‘multicolored fuse’ similar to the one recovered from underneath the news truck,” the Tribune said. Court documents also said they found other items, including a blond curly wig and a black skull mask.
An acquaintance of Proctor’s who was interviewed as part of the investigation said the suspect has told them he set a “destructive device” under a “fox news” vehicle and lit the fuse, said charging documents cited in both FOX 13 and the Tribune’s reports. Per the Tribune’s, the interviewee said Proctor admitted the device didn’t blow up.
According to the court documents, Proctor was initially charged with possessing ammunition as a felon but that charge was dismissed on Sept. 26. That day, he was charged instead with attempted arson in interstate commerce (FOX 13 does business with out-of-state companies) and possession of an unregistered destructive device. Proctor was being held at the Salt Lake County Jail without bail as of Tuesday. The Tribune also said two other men were arrested during the investigation last month.
“FBI investigators identified the men through unspecified investigative efforts, and they were charged in state court in a separate case after investigators said they found two ‘hoax weapons of mass destruction’ at the men’s home in Magna, along with two handguns and marijuana,” said the outlet. They were not named in the Proctor charging documents.