FBI releases how man who plotted to bomb KC area hospital died in battle with agents
The FBI said on Friday that a Cass County man alleged to have plotted an attack on a Kansas City-area hospital during the coronavirus pandemic committed suicide as agents sought to arrest him in March.
In a statement, the FBI field office in Kansas City said that an autopsy revealed that Timothy Wilson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head on March 24 as agents attempted to arrest him in the 100 block of Wilbur Parish Circle in Belton.
FBI agents sought to arrest Wilson, who was the subject of a long-running domestic terrorism investigation, because they believed he was preparing to commit a bombing attack on an area hospital. Search warrant documents released last month showed that Wilson had been communicating with a confidential informant and an undercover FBI agent, and alleged that Wilson had conducted a dry run of a plan to bomb the Belton Regional Medical Center.
The Frontier Forensics Midwest Morgue in Kansas City, Kansas, ruled Wilson’s death a suicide, the FBI said. Wilson did suffer gunshot wounds to his upper and lower extremities from shots fired by FBI agents on the scene, but those were not deemed fatal, the FBI said.
The FBI had started tracking Wilson as far back as September 2019, right around the time agents arrested Jarrett Smith, a U.S. soldier at Fort Riley, Kansas, accused of discussing various mass bombing plots, including one of a major news network headquarters.
Wilson took up discussions with an FBI informant and undercover agent about an array of alleged bombing attacks, including Islamic centers in Missouri, a synagogue and a nuclear power plant.
Wilson had traveled to Pennsylvania to meet with an informant and is alleged to have discussed an idea of a shooting at a predominantly black elementary school. Wilson, according to the FBI, had shared ideas and phraseology that aligned with extremists and told an undercover agent at one point that his plans for mass violence were meant to “to create enough chaos to kick start a revolution.”
FBI records describe Wilson becoming more agitated as the coronavirus pandemic reached the Midwest in March, having expressed concerns about stay-at-home orders that local officials started contemplating.
As hospitals in the Kansas City area started taking COVID-19 patients, Wilson is said to have shifted his attention to a bombing attack on a hospital as a means to gain widespread exposure.
Wilson is alleged to have purchased explosive precursors and stored them in a public storage facility leased by an undercover FBI agent.
Wilson and the agent met in Belton on March 22 and the two traveled to Belton Regional Medical Center to explore the site as Wilson discussed his plan for how to attack the facility with a car loaded with explosives and a timing device.
It was two days after that meeting that FBI agents sought to arrest him at a location in Belton that was near a storage facility.
Wilson was married in 2013, according to a marriage license on file in Jackson County. The couple adopted four children and lived in Gladstone before they separated on Feb. 3, 2019. They filed for divorce on June 4, 2019.
Wilson worked at Catholic Charities when the divorce was filed.
This story was originally published May 15, 2020 at 11:45 AM.
