N.C. man waives hearing on bomb-threat charges
CARMICHAELS – A senior citizen from North Carolina who is a former Bobtown resident waived his right to a preliminary hearing Thursday on a series of bomb threats he allegedly made over six months in Fayette and Greene counties. Kenneth Paul Gould, 65, of 3218 Frostmoor Place, N.C., now faces trial in Greene County Court on 10 counts each of bomb threats, terroristic threats and harassment and stalking by communications. Nine of the 10 bomb-threat charges are felonies, while the rest are misdemeanors.
Gould arrived at District Justice Lee Watson’s office Thursday from Greene County Prison, where he remains incarcerated on $75,000 cash bond. State police trooper Andrew A. Zimmer of the Waynesburg station, who filed the charges, ushered Gould into a conference room and announced he waived the charges to trial. On March 24, Zimmer filed nine counts of each charge against Gould but explained Thursday that he amended the complaint to add one more count of each charge.
According to the criminal complaint and affidavit, Gould allegedly called the 911 emergency dispatch centers in the two counties and Mapletown High School directly with bomb threats between last October and March.
Zimmer said in the complaint that he assisted state police from the Uniontown station March 22 when the Greene County 911 center received a call that “time bombs” had been set at the Uniontown Wal-Mart, Super Kmart and Lowes plaza. The call came from the Sheetz store at the Paisley intersection in Carmichaels at 10:18 a.m. Zimmer said he listened to the call by someone using a high-pitched false voice. He said the voice and the term time bomb had been used in several calls logged in Fayette and Greene counties since August 2002.
Zimmer said a surveillance camera at Sheetz showed an older white man with white hair and mustache and wearing glasses at the pay phone where the call was made.
Sheetz employees could not identify the caller but said he came to the store often. However, Sheetz employees called police two days later at 8:15 a.m. to report the man was in the store. State police from Waynesburg and Cumberland Township police detained Gould at Sheetz and took him to the Waynesburg station, where Zimmer interviewed him and Gould reportedly confessed to making several bomb-threat calls in the two counties.
Zimmer alleged that Gould told him he would attempt to disguise his voice by talking in a high-pitched manner and that he listed the places he called.
Gould was arraigned before Watson on March 24, and Watson remanded him to Greene County Prison in lieu of $75,000 straight bond, which remained unchanged Thursday.
Zimmer, in the amended complaint, listed all of the calls, times and locations for which Gould is charged.
The list begins with two calls placed at Dilliner Convenience Store to Mapletown High School on Oct. 24-25 at 10:17 and 10 a.m. respectively. The next calls were made Oct. 29 at 11:12 a.m. to Greene County 911, targeting Bobtown Elementary School, and Oct. 31 at 11:11 a.m. to Fayette County 911, targeting Albert Gallatin High School. Two calls were logged in November from Sheetz to Greene County 911: Nov. 2 at 1:56 p.m. regarding Hatfield’s Ferry Power Plant and Nov. 12 at 3:36 p.m. regarding Shop ‘n Save in Carmichaels.
Three calls followed in January. The first was a call Jan. 5 at 11 a.m. from Shop n’ Save in Masontown to Fayette County 911, targeting the Shop ‘n Save, Dollar General and CVS stores in Masontown. The next was dated Jan. 9 at 12:45 p.m. from Dilliner Convenience Store to Greene County 911 for Point Marion Foodland. The third was made Jan. 16 at 9:42 a.m., again from Shop ‘n Save in Masontown to Fayette County 911 for the Shop ‘n Save, Dollar General and CVS stores in Masontown. The last call on the list was the March 22 call at 10:18 a.m. from Sheetz to Greene County 911 regarding Wal-Mart, Super Kmart and Lowes in Uniontown.