COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — A man who police say was suffering a mental health crisis is facing criminal charges accusing him of trying to make a weapon of mass destruction in his apartment.
“Had there not been police intervention, the defendant could have followed through on his plans, and could have without warning, caused untold damage and substantial/serious harm to others,” prosecutors wrote in charging documents.
Taylor McHenry Hill, 34, of Cottonwood Heights, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with making a terroristic threat, a second-degree felony; and theft by receiving stolen property, a third-degree felony.
On Nov. 9, Cottonwood Heights police were called to the Shadow Ridge Condominiums, 7180 S. 1300 East, after other tenants heard Hill “smashing things” and screaming, “You all are gonna die,” according to the charges.
Officers discovered that Hill had barricaded himself inside his apartment and was yelling “nonsensical things, made comments about the recent election, the LDS church (and) claimed he was Jesus. The defendant commented about the federal government, the president, the CIA, and other organizations ‘spying on him’ and ‘wanting to kill him,'” the charges allege.
While trying to negotiate with Hill, he told police that “he had severed a gas line inside the home and put batteries and other flammable items/liquids in the microwave that he was going to blow the building up and kill everyone,” according to the charging documents.
Officers evacuated all 24 units in the building and turned off all the gas meters. While doing so, they “found one that appeared to be allowing an abnormal amount of gas into the connected residence in comparison to the others,” the charges state.
After about an hour of talking to Hill, he agreed to surrender but could not open the door because of the damage he caused to it. Officers rammed the door open and took Hill into custody. Inside the apartment, officers found “it was in complete disarray. There was feces stuffed into the peep hole, and officers could not walk in the unit without stepping on drywall, trash, and doors that appeared to be ripped from their hinges,” according to the charges. “Inside the kitchen area, officers found the natural gas line fitting had been unscrewed/loosened to allow for natural gas to enter the unit.”
A cardboard box containing a 12-volt lithium battery was also found in the microwave.
Police say Hill’s behavior is “alarming” and “unpredictable,” particularly since he has no recent significant criminal history.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
