Former Grandfather Mountain Highland Games employee sentenced to prison for making 'destructive device'

A former employee of Grandfather Mountain Highland Games (GMHG), accused of attempting to damage the GMHG office building, has been sentenced to prison.

Thomas Taylor, Jr., of Newland, previously pleaded guilty to attempting to damage and destroy a building used in interstate commerce by fire and explosives, possession of a weapon not registered under the law National Firearms Act and manufacturing a destructive device.

Today, he was sentenced to 97 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, according to Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

On September 27, 2021, Taylor disabled the GMHG office's alarm system, then turned off the main circuit breaker and hid a destructive device in a closet, according to court records.

The district attorney's office said the device consisted of “a 48-liter cooler housing fuses grouped together and attached to an electric hot plate,” with fuses going to fireworks and containers of liquids that could easily burn. A glass pitcher containing rocks and a PVC pipe bomb were found inside the cooler, according to the prosecutor's office.

The device was designed to ignite when the main circuit breaker was activated, according to court records, and would have exploded in a manner that could have killed or injured nearby people in addition to damaging property.

Taylor is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service until he is placed there by the Bureau of Prisons.