Man accused of threatening president is caught in Nevada
» Secret Service and Las Vegas police arrest Daniel Murray!
The Salt Lake Tribune
By Nate Carlisle
06/06/2009 @ 6:37 PM MDT
Federal agents have arrested the man who went to a St. George bank and allegedly made threats against President Barack Obama.
Daniel James Murray was arrested at 7 p.m. PDT Friday in Laughlin, Nevada, by the U.S. Secret Service and Las Vegas police, said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the Secret Service. Wiley said agents and police apprehended Murray in the parking lot of the Riverside Casino without incident.
Terry Donaho, director of security at Riverside Casino, said Murray was never inside the casino. Neither Donaho nor the Secret Service gave further details.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah filed a criminal complaint Thursday charging Murray with one count of threats against the president of the United States.
According to a Secret Service affidavit filed with the complaint, Murray talked about the bad state of the economy as he opened a savings account at a Zions First National Bank branch in St. George on May 19 with an $85,000 check from a credit union.
The affidavit says Murray returned May 27 to withdraw $12,698 in cash and became upset when a teller said he lacked the proper identification to complete the transaction. He allegedly said that "if I don't get this money, someone is going to die."
After a bank manager agreed to allow the transaction, Murray allegedly said, "The banking system will fail and people will die," then later, "We are on a mission to kill the president of the United States."
He returned on May 28 and withdrew the remaining money in his account, which was then closed, the complaint says.
A former neighbor of Murray's, in Rexford, N.Y., where he lived with his parents said Murray appeared to be mentally ill. Leighann Nastasia said Murray used to walk down the street waving his arms, talking to himself. "He wore a cape," she said.
****D.K. note: some of last night's commenters on Crooks and Liars (see my post below) had guessed Murray might try to disappear in Vegas even though he had last been spotted heading north and east. Good guess! He must have zipped south through Vegas and headed to that back-water bilge on the Colorado River known as Laughlin, where the down-n-outers and never-wuzzers seem to find refuge. As he parked his 8-yr old Buick in the Riverside Casino lot, probably hoping to increase his $85K by playing a little Blackjack before crossing the Colorado into the dusty Tim McVeigh white power area of Kingman AZ, Murray found out you can run but you can't hide from the combined dragnet of Vegas Metro PD and the US Secret Service! Now let's get Murray some serious psychiatric help and let him spend his days contemplating the distance from the sun to the moon as traversed by eagles. I know I feel much safer tonight!****
14 comments:
I want to know where he got all that money?
And- a counterpoint--
If we arrested everyone that wore a cape, what would have become of Superman, Batman, etc????
Huh???
I am glad this dude is no longer at large.
Fran:
I hope the money was something legal like maybe he cashed in a 401K which was probably worth 3x that a year ago. Legal = papertrail. No trail = job for the feds.
Did you notice they actually apprehended him LAST NIGHT? No wonder the feds wouldn't talk about it late last night or even earlier today. They must've been grilling him hard, looking for accomplice connections/etc, and didn't want to jeopardize that effort until they were good and ready to release the info.
Still, yeah, that cape. Picture him flapping around in it, mumbling about eagles and chaos as he crossed the Riverside Casino parking lot clutching his $85K, when he runs smack into ... dum-da-dum-dum, da feds! Holy Batshit!
At least now he's in a safe place, hopefully getting the psycho care he so obviously needs.
Yes, I am glad they caught him.. it is such a scary thought people like him running around with that much money and that many guns, cape or no cape...lol
I am with Fran.. the money trail bothers me.. where did he get it, why Utah, and I want details in the open... lol Quit hiding stuff..
Still you'd think they would have been at the ready when he pulled the first stunt of "Give me some of my money or someone is going to die", when he showed up w/o proper ID & against the bank's deposit waiting policy.
They have silent alarms... when he set foot in the bank the very next day to withdraw all the money, he should have been apprehended right then.
I would think for their own safety, manager & employees, they would not find personal death threats acceptable.
Strange.
I have to wonder if he has other accounts elsewhere?
So, Annette and Fran, to recap, here are just some of the unanswered questions:
1. follow the money ... how and when did he acquire those funds? what other bank accounts does he have across the country?
2. why was that particular money in an account here in utah? as he traveled to other states, did he also have access to money stashed in banks in those states?
3. when he left NY on his cross-country travels, did he take his guns with him? did he follow a path that put him near the president? cuz his big trip coincides with O's presidency.
4. when did this guy first come to the notice of secret service? was it only when he went bugshit at Zions Bank or has he been a person of interest for some time?
5. why did the US Magistrate take a week to decide he was a threat after his threatening rant at the bank, his money & guns, and his wierd pattern of behavior? Did Zions follow homeland security procedure or not?
6. who are his friends, who does he talk to, what has he written or said to them that might tie into his flipout at the bank? where did he stay on his trip around the US? do any of those places or people have connection to white supremacy groups or other extreme haters?
7. and finally, did his St George flip-out coinciding on the same day as an Obama-attended publicized-event in Nellis, a 90-minute drive from St George, raise anyone's eyebrows? I've not seen anyone else picking up on this. Most sites are wrong on the timeline, stating that this guy was no danger to a president who was 2,000-miles away when the warrant was issued ... but Obama was very close by Murray the day of his bugshit flip-out, an hour and half drive on I-15. Then he comes raging back into the same bank the next day, closes his account, takes his money & runs. And as Fran points out, when Zions saw this wacko come back in the door, they could've triggered a silent alarm which would've brought the police in minutes (nothing is farther than 10-minutes away in this town). How did they know he wouldn't flip out on them again, only this time for real? Scary!
Have I missed anything?
That's what I don't understand.. first, why didn't they hit that silent alarm the first time they threatened them? That didn't make sense to me, then to let him come back and take the rest without blinking an eye it seems, no something doesn't add up to all of it.
Again, I keep going back to the question, if he was walking around with a cape, no job, where did he get the money, and why Utah? What were his ties to the area?
There has to be a lot more that just isn't being told and someone I would think is supporting him. Does his family have money and did they give it to him? Or is it from some group that has put him up to all of this?
OT but still did you see that Dr. Tiller's assassin has called the AP again and said there will be more violence and killings? Is it possible there is a connection?
Inquiring minds want to know...lol
Yeh, Annette, who knew all it takes is some wierdo rant to get your money out of Zions, even if it's newly deposited funds on hold and you have no proper ID. The teller couldn't deal with him. It was the bank manager who apparently made the managerial decision that the guy was a harmless nut & just gave him the $, probably glad to see the backside of him. But that was the first day, May 27th. There's no excuse for them not hitting the silent alarm when he showed up again the very next day. Surely they couldn't have already forgotten what he looked like or how he'd acted the day prior.
The money trail will show a lot, but we'll probably never find out. Who would we ask, Homeland Security? Napolitano was right but the ring-wing thought she was picking on them, even calling for her resignation, so now she'll be leery of implicating the haters.
Re: the Tiller killer ... why does he have phone access to the AP? I'll have to read more.
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our local newsrag today makes it seem more like a turf war over who gets custody of Murray. UT always feels so left out when NV or AZ gets to prosecute what UT considers a territorial case. They were never happier at our local courthouse than when we were in the national news for the Warren Jeffs trial & they could show everyone some rooftop swat sniper team. Here's a snip:
"Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Bearnson said Murray was in federal custody in Nevada and likely will get a court date there Monday. Neither Bearnson nor the Secret Service would discuss whether Murray was considered to be a serious threat."
I would think he had to be a serious threat or they wouldn't have put out an arrest warrant.. There are threats against the president all the time. Or at least that is what we are told..remember even during the campaign they said he got more threats than ever before?
I can understand Utah is feeling like the unwanted stepchild...lol All the crimes were committed there but the trials are being held elsewhere, that's not really fair..
I guess if it comes to a trial we might learn more..but that may be years down the road.. still wonder about the money...something just seems off there.
Good coverage DK. Personally I suspect the money was payment, but a wild guess given I've only read your reports.
Cart:
Are you saying my reports are wild guesses?!? (big smile) ...
And since I live in Laughlin, you can imagine this was 'big stuff' in our town.
The story has been on the local channels, and will probably be headlined in our Thursday's weekly paper.......
Diane - Laughlin, NV 89029
Happy in NV:
so between you & I we had mr buick at the beginning and end of his short-lived desert excursion, LOL! have you posted what your local news reported? I bet they had more info than we saw nationally. I'll have to check your blog later tonight. I'm having incredible trouble with my computer right now.
Hi - re your question to me, no I haven't posted on it because we've been on vacation these past few days and with so much on our local channels, I was pretty tired of it.
When I get time, I might go through some of the newspapers and check to see if there's anything that might be added to your post.
You've done a good job of summing it up, and I'm a person who prefers nice summaries like yours and not a lot extraneous details.
To top it off, maybe I should add this:
The local headlines actually had the banner as:
MURDER SUSPECT ARESTED
Three murders, tow states - suspect caught in Meadview home.
This one is all about an anti-illegal immigration activist committing murers; found and arrested by Mohave County police, etc. etc.
Then the big story you posted runs down the side of the newspaper.
I guess the Bullhead City Police had been put on the alert because he'd opened an account with a bank there just 2 hours before he was taken into custody, so he apparently didn't have all the 'cash on hand', that we all thought he did. When he made the deposit; his name put through the system, etc., because they were already looking for him, I guess this kind of sealed his fate because it surely gave the SS and police a radius to work with.
Our paper says he invoked his 6th amendent rights to a speedy trial. He's in the North Las Vegas Detention Center and will be transferred to Salt Lake.
Then our paper pretty much winds it up with the homicide in Lake Havasu City, and the normal local blah blah of no interest to anyone, really...........
Have a Sunday and week. Diane
Whoops - sorry for typo'...... I'll correct it here:
MURDER SUSPECT ARESTED
Three murders, two states - suspect caught in Meadview home.
This one is all about an anti-illegal immigration activist committing murders; found and arrested by Mohave County police, etc. etc.
Guess the guy had been shot while breaking into a home in Arizona; just 10 miles from the Mexican border, and high-tailed it up through the state.
I spent 22 years living in California before we retired to Laughlin. Believe it or not, there are nice retirement areas and we can keep away from the 'never wuz' and 'wanna be' people that you referred to in your post.
Granted, I miss Orange County, but not the traffic and high cost. Around here it's beautiful; we spend time at Big Bend Park; Kathryn's Landing, Davis Dam, and the many national parks we have.
Currently, we're on vacation at the Grand Canyon where we go to get away from the heat.
We live in a gated community; it's quiet, and we avoid the down-town bars and smaller casinos; the larger ones have lots of security, so there's rarely a problem with the law and when it does happen, it's usually people from out of town that are passing through or come to gamble.
Guess that's enough........
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