Deputies, Federal Agents Find ‘Pipe Bomb’ In Payne County Home After Anonymous Tip

PERKINS, Okla. – 

An anonymous tip to the Perkins Police Department led local authorities and federal agents to a home where they found explosive materials and make-shift devices resembling a pipe bomb and grenade.

On Tuesday, Payne County prosecutors charged Cade Wells, 19, with manufacturing an explosive, which carries a sentence up to 10 years in prison.

Wells’ attorney, Luke Anthony, said Wednesday they do not have a comment on the charge.

After receiving the tip, Perkins police referred the case to the Payne County Sheriff’s Office because the home lies outside city limits.

Deputies, troopers with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Bomb Squad, and agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Wells’ home on S. Bushcreek last week.

After Wells agreed to let the authorities search the home, deputies found “material(s) consistent with explosive devices and explosive device-making material(s),” according to a probable cause affidavit written by PCSO Investigator Brandon Myers.

Myers then obtained a search warrant for the home and later found a “pipe bomb” made of PVC pipe and filled with “a mixture of gunpowder and potassium nitrate.”

Authorities also found a training grenade that had been “filled up” with a similar mixture as the pipe, said Rockford Brown of the PCSO.

“Any type of tip of this magnitude, concerning bomb-making materials, is going to be taken very seriously,” Brown said.

Deputies also found notebooks inside the home that contained a “goodbye letter,” according to the Myers affidavit.

The department is in the process of testing the materials found inside the devices and in the home, Brown said, and looking into whether there was any intent to use the devices.

“At this time, we have not found any criminal intent to use the explosives in a criminal manner,” Brown said.

Wells has been released on bond under certain conditions, including not possessing any firearm or explosive device, as well as granting law enforcement access to his home and vehicle. The next court hearing in his case is set for mid-September.