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Utah man charged in threats on LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley
Deseret News, Feb. 21, 2003
http://deseretnews.com/
By Angie Welling, Deseret News staff writer
A man accused of threatening the lives of high-ranking leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apparently posted a menacing Internet message just hours before his arrest.
Jay Richard Morrison was picked up by Nevada police late Wednesday night at a rest stop in Elko, Nev., on an outstanding warrant.
About noon Wednesday, a posting to an Internet news group under the screen name prosecutors say is registered to Morrison stated: “Of course, our efforts to bring the cowardly, insane, Satanic filth at the head of the LDS Church to justice is continuing on schedule also . . . Let’s see, conference is when?”
The LDS Church hosts a semiannual gathering of church leaders and members in Salt Lake City. The next general conference is April 5 and 6.
In other messages found during a Deseret News search of the news group, the writer claims at least twice that he, not LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, is the true prophet. The author also speaks out against the federal government and the state of Missouri, where prosecutors say Morrison used to live.
Federal prosecutors last week secretly charged Morrison, 57, with two counts of sending threatening interstate communications for two separate postings, one in July and another earlier this month. The allegations were made public Thursday, shortly before the Tremonton man made his first court appearance.
In the earlier posting, Morrison allegedly writes, “So I have been thinking how I am going to kill Gordon Hinckley. (I pray that he does not die before I get the privilege of killing him),” adding he plans to behead the 92-year-old church leader.
A Feb. 6 message states: “I have been given the moral right to kill them, not only Gordon Hinckley but the entire first presidency and Quorum of the Twelve . . . These men are corrupt, totally and completely insane, completely evil. They deserve to be killed, they need to be killed and now they are going to be killed.”
Church spokesman Dale Bills had no comment on the case.
U.S. Attorney for Utah Paul Warner said law enforcement officers have been monitoring Morrison for some time. LDS Church security notified Salt Lake City police of the postings, and the police asked the FBI to assist in the investigation.
FBI agents went to Morrison’s Tremonton home earlier this month, Warner said, but Morrison did not answer their knocks.
“It appears that the threats and communication were increasingly becoming more specific,” Warner said. “It appeared his attitude was changing and the danger of the statements were more imminent.
“There has been no indication that he considered this to be a joke,” he said.
Warner said he will ask a federal grand jury next week to indict Morrison on other, unspecified charges.
Morrison faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the counts. When informed of the possible penalties in court Thursday, Morrison told U.S. Magistrate Samuel Alba, “I think it’s excessive.”
Warner said his office takes all Internet threats seriously, not just those against high-profile community members.
“We basically have zero tolerance for this kind of thing,” Warner said. He said he wasn’t going to find out the hard way that someone wasn’t kidding when he made a threat like this.”
Morrison will return to court Monday for a detention hearing, where prosecutors plan to ask for a mental evaluation. Meantime, he will remain in federal custody.
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