St. Lucie County detectives arrested a Fort Pierce man Wednesday for making explosive devices.
Detectives said 55-year-old Scott Wegener threatened to plant an IED under a neighbor’s home.
They also say he set off one in a neighbor's yard, trying to kill chickens.
An arrest report says someone first contacted Fort Pierce Police Wednesday, saying Wegener threatened to set off an explosive device.
Police responded to Wegener's home, but did not find any explosive materials.
The same person later that day called the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, which also sent detectives to Wegener’s home.
Deputies came across a witness, identified as Aaron Dehart.
Dehart said Wegener made an IED on the porch and that Wegener was having a dispute with a neighbor over the possible theft of a BB gun. Dehart said Wegener offered to pay Dehart to crawl under that person’s home and plant and IED.
St. Lucie County detectives and members of the bomb disposal team, along with FBI, ATF and Fort Pierce Police ultimately responded to Wegener’s home together and got consent to do another sweep of the property for explosives.
Dehart then told them to go to another home less than half a mile away where Wegener had detonated a device earlier in the week.
The home belonged to Charlie Childs.
Charlie said Wegener was at his home about four days ago.
“He just goes back and forth. He likes drinking his beer, he likes playing his dice,” Childs said.
But that day, he said he came with materials to make an explosive device.
“He just come over one day and threatened to kill my chickens, because they’re driving me nuts,” Childs said. “I didn’t think he would.”
However, Childs said he set off a device with a bottle, gun powder and a fuse.
“He left about a 3-inch hole in my yard ... I was pretty mad at him. I told him don’t do it again,” Childs said.
Childs said he left some of the explosive materials at Childs’ home, and they were taken away by law enforcement.
Neighbors are glad Wegener’s explosives were removed from their area, and that no other explosive materials were found.
“A little scared to be honest because you don’t know what people are up to these days,” said neighbor Daniel Perez.
Wegener is being held in jail on a $30,000 bond.
