Fireworks not bombs? Lawyer for man accused of planting explosives in downtown Brevard says his client is a harmless "eccentric."

Accused man, Terry Lee Barham, is no "Unabomber," his lawyer said. But court documents detail incriminating evidence, more of which is still being gathered, said the Brevard Police Chief.

By Dan DeWitt

Brevard NewsBeat

BREVARD — The explosives that forced the evacuation of a church and the closure of several streets in downtown Brevard on March 14 were not bombs but fireworks, said Sean Devereux, the Asheville lawyer representing Terry Lee Barham, who faces 10 charges ranging from manufacturing weapons of mass destruction to terrorism.

Barham, 64, did not mean to “intimidate an identifiable group of the civilian population,” as the terrorism charges state, but wanted to connect with his teenage son, who has an interest in powerful fireworks, Devereux said.

Barham is not a member of a violent political group, the lawyer added, but an “eccentric” landscape architect who “doesn’t have a destructive bone in his body.”

“The Unabomber he is not,” Devereux said, referring to the infamous domestic terrorist. 

Barham appeared in Transylvania County District Court on Thursday, and though his case was continued, Devereux pushed back against the accusations against his client in an interview outside the courtroom.

Court documents, meanwhile, provided more details about the explosive devices and the basis for the charges against Barham, who was released from the Transylvania County Detention Center this week after posting $280,000 in bail.

And though Brevard Police Chief Phil Harris was unavailable for comment Thursday, he said in an interview earlier in the week that investigators are still gathering evidence that may bolster the charges.

The department is awaiting the results of lab tests on the explosives and fragments being conducted at a Federal Bureau of Investigation lab in Quantico, Va.

These, he said, should give detectives more information about the power of the devices and the danger they represented.

His department has been careful not to overstate the threat posed by the explosives, which it has consistently “used three words to describe: small, simple and homemade,” he said.

Investigators are also examining a computer hard drive and other electronic devices seized from Barham’s home or car for evidence of his political ideology.

Harris said that he didn’t know that any such evidence had been discovered, but said that he is not briefed of all the details of the case and that digital searches can be time-consuming.

“It could be that we just haven’t gotten to that part of the evidence,” he said.

A probable cause affidavit said that an intact device, found at First Baptist Church of Brevard, included an ignition system made of a cut-up Pellegrino sparkling water can and a fuse. This was connected to a cardboard tube that contained what appeared to be explosive powder.

The document also described it as “similar to a bomb,” which is one of the items listed as a weapon of mass destruction in state law. The affidavit identified a total of 18 devices made with either cardboard or PVC tubing, but Harris said that the others were later determined to be fragments of devices that had been detonated.

A search of Barham’s home revealed many potential components of the devices, including tubes and chemical ingredients. He was also caught on security cameras walking through the neighborhood on the Sunday morning the explosives were discovered.

Harris said that he did know if investigators had determined a motive, but charging documents on the terrorism charges highlight the locations of both the explosive and the fragments.

These included the property of the Baptist Church, Transylvania County office buildings and an American Legion hall, which is used on Sundays as the meeting place for Grace Brevard, a church affiliated with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church Denomination, according to its website.

The affidavit said the device at the Baptist church was found and extinguished by “a pastor.” Senior Pastor Jeff Maynard is on vacation this week and not available for interviews, a staffer at the church said Thursday.

Devereux said that proving the terrorism charge requires intent and his client did not mean to frighten church members or the general public. He is a “highly regarded landscape architect,” who worked for most of his career in Memphis, Tenn., but moved to Brevard more than a decade ago and has completed several projects locally.

He was recently divorced and was seeking ways to connect to his 13-year-old son, said Devereux, who compared the devices to M-80 firecrackers that Barham remembered from his childhood.

He watched an online video to learn how to replicate them, his lawyer said, and placed them in open spaces near his home on 171 S. Johnson St. They were near buildings, Devereux said, because “a rock wall or a brick wall will broadcast the sound and make it a little bit louder.”

These walls faced away from Johnson's residential neighborhood. Though M-80s are illegal in North Carolina, Barham’s replicas do not meet the definition of a weapon of mass destruction, Devereux said.

“It’s our contention that nothing he had qualified under that statute,” Devereux said.

“You have guys walking around in Asheville with an AR-15 and (this) guy shoots off a firework.”