A man from Ohio, who played the live role-playing game Dagorhir, dropped a pipe bomb to seriously wound the boyfriend of a woman who had neglected his romantic interest, authorities said Thursday.
Clayton Alexander McCoy, 30, a Chesterland resident, has been arrested and charged with transporting an explosive device with the intent to injure a destructive device and use it in a violent crime, according to a federal criminal complaint .
The victim was seriously injured after he opened a parcel bomb in his home in Manchester, Maryland, on October 30, authorities said.
Shrapnel hit his “chest, legs and front of (his) body” and the victim was only released from the hospital on November 17, although he is still undergoing rehabilitation, said Dawn Machon, a special agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, said, Firearms and explosives, in the complaint.
The victim’s girlfriend “has known McCoy for about seven years since McCoy became a member of the Dagorhir community,” according to Machon.
Dagorhir is a lively role-playing game of disappointment with full contact between players wearing medieval clothing and weapons using foam or other lightweight, harmless material.
Carroll County, Maryland, Sheriff Jim DeWees compares Dagorhir to the staging of the Civil War.
According to the complaint, McCoy and the victim’s girlfriend were nearby and even planned a camping trip. But around Oct. 12, McCoy told her “he had feelings for her,” but she “did not feel the same way and was in a relationship” with the victim, Machon wrote.
After the blast, the friend told investigators that McCoy, like most members of the Dagorhir, was proficient in wood and metal and that he had the ability to detonate the device that exploded, according to the complaint.
The victim also knew the suspect through Dagorhir, but “did not think McCoy would be responsible for this incident,” Machon wrote.
The data from Google and Verizon linked mobile devices owned by McCoy to a nearly seven-hour journey that began at 1:24 a.m. in Chesterland and ended on October 30 in Manchester, federal investigators said.
McCoy’s devices entered the victim’s neighborhood around 8:18 a.m. just before the victim’s grandfather spotted the package to his grandson outside their home at 8:30 a.m., federal authorities said.
Records also show that accounts linked to McCoy used Google Maps to request directions from his home in Ohio to the victim’s Maryland address about 360 miles away, the complaint reads.
“We felt early on, we believed the device was not delivered by UPS, FedEx or traditional party,” Sheriff DeWees told reporters on Thursday. “But based on what we learned from the package, it probably had to be downloaded by a third party, delicately, or by the person who wanted to cause harm.”
The timing of the bombing, just before the holiday, was particularly nerve-wracking, officials said.
“We showed up at Christmas and the fear that packages would appear on the front porches and explode” had neighbors on the run, DeWees said. “The family and the community above are very relieved that we have reached this conclusion and an arrest.”
During a brief virtual trial before a federal judge in Youngstown, Ohio, on Thursday, McCoy did not dispute his identity as the man named in the criminal charge, according to court records, the way for his transportation to Maryland.
McCoy’s federal public defender declined to discuss the case Friday and members of the suspect’s family did not immediately return messages to comment.
According to federal authorities and Geauga County, Ohio, prosecutors, McCoy was convicted in 2013 of sharing child pornography online with a secret investigator.
He was sentenced to four years in prison and forced to register in the register of sex offenders in the state. The local prosecutor said the federal arrest has no bearing on his previous case in Ohio.
