A Georgia man who blew up a woman’s home and planned to sic a python on her child will spend 20 years in federal prison.
Stephen Glosser, 38, of Savannah, was sentenced last week to 240 months behind bars after pleading guilty to stalking and using an explosive to commit another felony offense, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia announced. He’ll serve an additional three years of supervised release, and must pay $507,781 to the two victims, as ordered by District Court Chief Judge R. Stan Baker. The federal system does not allow for parole, prosecutors said.
Glosser admitted plotting with housemate and co-conspirator Caleb Kinsey, 34, to kill the unidentified woman, whom Glosser had previously dated, and her child.
Mother and daughter had just moved into the Richmond Hill home the day before a Jan. 13, 2023 explosion destroyed a portion of it around 5 a.m., the Bryan County Sheriff’s Office said at the time. They escaped without injury. Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King said the blast was caused by a homemade “IED comprised of a binary explosive compound,” and the sheriff’s office handed the investigation over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
An investigation quickly led authorities to Glosser and Kinsey. Kinsey had fled and was arrested in Louisiana on other charges, while Glosser was picked up in Georgia.
In his guilty plea, Glosser said he and Kinsey had communicated to “create a plan to kill, intimidate, harass, or injure” the homeowner, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. “This included conspiring to acquire and shoot arrows into the victim’s front door, acquire and release a large python into the victim’s home to eat the victim’s daughter, acquire and mail dog feces to the victim’s home, acquire and mail dead rats to the victim’s home, to scalp the victim, and to blow up the victim’s home.”
The pair surveilled the intended victim from December 2022 to January 2023, the indictment said.
“The level of malevolent violence in this case is astounding, and it’s truly fortunate that there were no deaths as a result of this horrific crime,” said Tara Lyons, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, in the prosecutors’ statement. “This successful prosecution is a credit to the outstanding investigative work of the ATF and our state and local law enforcement partners.”