Insets: Brandon McQuillen, left, and John Thomas McQuillen (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office). Background: A bomb squad specialist works to detonate a bomb at under a car near Louisville, Kentucky (WLKY/YouTube).
A 43-year-old Kentucky man allegedly planted a bomb under his father’s car before he shot him to death.
Brandon Thomas McQuillen is facing a murder charge in the death of his father, 65-year-old John Thomas McQuillen, who served for a decade as a reserve deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in Louisville, jail records show.
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The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department said in a press release that cops in Middletown responded around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday to the 1200 block of Winter Springs where they found a man shot. Paramedics rushed the man to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead. While on scene, officers located a “suspicious package.”
LMPD’s bomb squad responded to the scene and detonated the package in question. Cops also tracked down an old ambulance vehicle they believed the suspect used in the murder.
Local Fox affiliate WDRB obtained a criminal complaint that said cops located the bomb under the elder McQuillen’s vehicle. Cops also reportedly found a AR-15 rifle, along with “multiple items consistent with manufacturing explosives were found” in Brandon McQuillen’s vehicle and home. In addition there were several hand written notes revealing he was “intent on killing his father.”
Two workers installing fences witnessed cops arresting the younger McQuillen in the former ambulance truck less than two miles from the murder scene, local ABC affiliate WHAS reported. The workers said they noticed the vehicle and a man got out and asked if he was in the way, saying he was having engine trouble.
“The part that stands out the most is that he was parked in here and if anybody is in that state of mind, what could he do to a stranger?” worker Greg Whitaker wondered.
Neighbor Wendy Wilburn told WDRB she witnessed cops take the suspect into custody.
“They broke a window on the back of the vehicle and shot smoke bombs inside of the window, and a few minutes later, a fella [came] out of the window through the smoke,” she told the TV station.
The father and son had previously taken out emergency protection orders against each other in the last several years, the affidavit reportedly said.
Brandon McQuillen was previously convicted of kidnapping and other charges when he chained an ex-girlfriend to the ceiling of a home for 12 hours, WDRB reported. During that time, he used a Taser on her several times, punched her and beat her with a pool cue. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
In addition to the murder charge in his father’s death, he’s also facing felon in possession of a firearm and violation of an emergency protection order. He is in the Jefferson County Jail on a $1 million bond.
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