August 17, 2020 - 12:40 PM
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A Florida man arrested after police discovered more than two dozen pipe bombs near his home was found dead in his jail cell with a torn sheet wrapped around his neck, authorities said Monday.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that Gregory Haasze was found unconscious Saturday night and could not be revived. The county medical examiner will determine if the death was a suicide, the sheriff's office said.
Haaze had been jailed since Wednesday night after his arrest by Boynton Beach police officers.
They had been called to a dead-end street after reports of an explosion. Investigators found remnants of an exploded pipe bomb and several undetonated bombs along the roadway.
They sealed off the area and the Palm Beach County sheriff’s bomb squad disabled the devices. A neighbour told them a man named Greg who lived nearby makes bombs and sometimes detonates them in vacant lots. Officers also found a box in a trash bin with Haasze’s name on it and found several bombs and gunpowder.
They say Haasze soon approached officers and told them he was the reason they were there. Investigators say he told them he had been making bombs for years and had made some of the devices for this past Fourth of July. He said he never meant to hurt anyone, saying he put the screws, nails and pellets in the bombs to remove tree stumps.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had taken over the investigation.
Haasze had been charged with 26 state felony counts of making, possessing and placing a destructive device and held on $130,000 bond.
News from © The Associated Press, 2020