By Billy Davis
and Rita Howell

The Batesville Police Department has not made any arrests following a pair of bombs threats in  early January, but police are reporting at least some progress in one of the cases.

Police “have an idea” about the identity of the person who phoned in a bomb threat to Batesville’s Wal-Mart, BPD Deputy Chief Don Province said Monday.

The Wal-Mart bomb threat was made January 4, two days after a note was left on the door of Brasell’s service station in an apparently unrelated threat aimed at an unnamed local bank.

A third bomb threat, which did lead to an arrest, was phoned in to Murphy USA, the Wal-Mart gas outlet on January 9. Police quickly arrested and charged Cory Mays, 22, of Coldwater for the gas station threat.

Judge Jay Westfaul referred Mays’ case to a grand jury during a January 14 session of Batesville Municipal Court. Mays is out on bond.

Regarding the Wal-Mart bomb threat, Province said a subpoena for phone records was met with some success.

“We’ve had two or three companies respond to the subpoena,” he said.

But the portability of cellular phone numbers, and the myriad of companies that offer service, has created a technology web that police are still trying to untangle.

Province said a polygraph test has also been scheduled but he did not know if it has been administered.

The note left at Brasell’s, and discovered by Kenneth Brasell on the day after New Year’s, caused the most commotion in the Batesville area. The note’s scribe threatened to detonate a bomb by January 7 at 2 p.m. at a bank which was not named.

What ensued was a search by law enforcement officials of every bank in the county. No bombs were found.

State and federal agencies assisted the Batesville Police Department, and the handwritten letter was sent to an FBI lab for analysis. No fingerprints were found on the document, police said at the time.