Land dispute, pressure incites ‘suicide attack.’
Lloyd Cantrell told a neighbor lawyers are “just a bunch ofcrooks.” Shortly before 10 a.m. Friday, he threw a bomb into a law firmon West Crawford Street causing a horrific explosion.
Cantrell was killed, and four people were injured.
“Itwas the most horrible sound I have ever heard,” said Beth Thurman, whowas working at a law firm across the street from the McCamy, Phillips,Tuggle and Fordham firm. “I ran to the door and I saw smoke coming fromthe building. You could see the windows blown out.”
The bombingwas apparently the culmination of a simmering legal feud betweenCantrell, 78, of 1180 Beaverdale Road, Varnell, and his son, Bruce.
“Thisis not an act of terrorism,” said Steve Sweetow, assistant specialagent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms andExplosives (ATF). “It is a depraved individual, by all accounts, whodecided to launch a suicide attack for reasons we are stillinvestigating.”
A search of Lloyd Cantrell’s home late Friday did not turn up anyevidence that may have indicated a motive for the bombing, said DaltonPolice Chief Jason Parker.
Cantrell was found lying in the backof the McCamy building. He died at the scene, said Vernon Keenan,assistant director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. His body wasfound about six feet behind the building, Parker said. The body hasbeen taken to the GBI crime lab in Decatur for an autopsy, Keenan said.
Lawenforcement officials said Cantrell attempted to ram his SUV into thelaw firm. As a Dalton police officer responded to a 911 call, a bombexploded at the back of the building. The officer was not injured.
JimPhillips, 79, an attorney at the firm, suffered burns and was flown byairplane to the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta Fridayafternoon, officials said. A hospital spokeswoman said she had noinformation. A family member said he was in stable condition and hadsecond degree burns on a third of his body. The family member said hisvision is fine and his hearing is expected to return. One of his sonswas in Augusta on business.
Teresa Stinnett, a secretary forattorney Robert Smalley, suffered a shoulder injury, Smalley said. Thenames of the other two injured or the extent of their injuries was notreleased. Two people were released from Hamilton Medical Center, Parkersaid. The other person was admitted to the hospital.
WhoCantrell was targeting at the law firm was not known by police lateFriday evening. Bruce Cantrell was represented by Sam Sanders, anattorney at the firm, in a land dispute, said David Blackburn, LloydCantrell’s attorney. Sanders was seen running to the firm from theWhitfield County Courthouse shortly after the blast.
“I don’tthink Sam was really the object of Lloyd’s great displeasure. I thinkLloyd just had a lot of frustrations,” Blackburn said.
Sanders did not immediately return a phone call Friday evening.
Lloyd Cantrell had also been a client of Phillips for 30 or 40 years, said Lloyd Cantrell’s daughter, Susan Crowder.
AlfredSutton, a neighbor who said he had known Cantrell for 25 years, saidCantrell “said the lawyers were all just a bunch of crooks. It justbuilt up in his head until he couldn’t bear it no more, I guess.”
Lawenforcement officials were still searching the law firm and the SUV,which contained a propane gas cylinder and at least one other gascylinder, Friday night, Parker said.
Dalton Police and the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office searched Cantrell’s Beaverdale Road home Friday evening.
“Wedid not find anything of any evidentiary nature,” Parker said. “Whenyou have explosive damage, you’re always concerned there is a seconddevice.” He said it was “too early to know what the nature of theexplosive (at the law firm) was.”
The first call to 911 from thefirm Friday morning indicated a man was causing a disturbance andattempting to ram his SUV into the business, Parker said. “As theofficers came on the scene, there was an explosion at the rear of thebuilding,” he said.
Small streams of smoke poured from the building during the first few minutes after the blast.
Linda White was working in Dalton Public Schools’ administration building on Thornton Avenue.
“We heard an explosion and felt the whole building shake,” she said.
Thebuilding caught fire about an hour and a half after the initialexplosion, Parker said. Firefighters were able to get that fire outpretty quickly, he said.
Throughout the day, officers with theATF used a mechanical robot to see if any more explosives were insideor around the building.
Smalley was asked if the firm had received any threats.
“Notsince I’ve been here for the last 16 years,” he said. Smalley left theoffice at 9:35 a.m. and said he learned later through Stinnett that theemployees locked the doors when they realized someone was trying todrive a truck into the building. He estimated there were “between 10and 15 people” in the building at the time of the explosion.
“We’ll take today with our families and try to regroup,” he said when asked about the future of the firm.
Crowder watched from a parking lot across the street as smoke billowed from the law firm Friday afternoon.
“I am sorry for the families that this hurt,” Crowder said. “He was a good man. He just snapped.”