ISLE OF WIGHT, Va. — An Isle of Wight man was arrested earlier in December after investigators discovered he possessed potentially hundreds of explosives, which the FBI said it believes might be the largest cache of explosives they have confiscated in their history.
Court documents filed on Monday say that Brad Kenneth Spafford, 36, was first investigated in January 2023 after his neighbor and friend reported that Spafford had lost three fingers on his right hand in July 2021 while working with a homemade explosive device and was stockpiling weapons and homemade ammunition. The informant, who had a prior career in law enforcement, the documents say, observed Spafford with what appeared to be a short-barrel rifle in 2023.
According to the documents, the informant told FBI investigators that Spafford had used pictures of President Joe Biden as target practice at a local shooting range, said political assassinations should be “brought back,” and that missing children in the news had been “taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooters.”
Additionally, several weeks after the assassination attempt of then-candidate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Spafford told the informant that he hoped the shooter “doesn’t miss Kamala.”
The informant visited Spafford’s home in Isle of Wight wearing a wire in October 2024. Then, Spafford said that he possessed the short-barrel rifle which was unregistered because “he does not believe in registration.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told the FBI that Spafford does not have any registered short-barrel rifles on file, according to the documents.
The informant additionally spoke to Spafford’s wife, who inquired about Spafford storing bomb-making materials, including hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD) — a material so unstable that changes in temperature can cause it to detonate — in a freezer accessible to her and their two children.
The FBI obtained a criminal complaint and a search warrant in early December after learning about the unregistered gun and the potential presence of the highly explosive material. On December 17, the search warrant was executed, where the FBI searched Spafford’s 20-acre property, vehicles and person. Spafford admitted to having the short-barreled rifle and HMTD but repeatedly denied possessing any explosive materials. His wife said her husband had firearms but they were all legally registered and denied any knowledge of his possession of explosives.
In addition to the short-barrel rifle, the FBI uncovered over 150 explosive devices on the property, “preliminarily assessed as the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history.” FBI bomb technicians determined they were pipe bombs on the scene. Most of the pipe bombs were discovered in a detached garage, organized by color, the documents say. Some were labeled “lethal” by hand. More pipe bombs were found “completely unsecured” in a backpack in the home’s bedroom that had a label that said “#nolivesmatter.”
Additionally, FBI agents found a jar marked “Dangerous” and “Do Not Touch” in a freezer in the garage next to food items, matching the description of the HMTD.
The FBI also discovered a notebook with his employer’s logo, Collins Machine Works — a machine shop in Portsmouth — that contained “recipes” for explosive materials and devices, including grenades, and inventories of materials that can be used to make them.
Spafford is currently being held at Western Tidewater Regional Jail. He was originally charged in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia with one count of possession of a firearm in violation of the National Firearms Act.