James Sever taken into custody months after alleged lawnmower explosion
By Caitlyn Scott
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GREENSBURG, Pennsylvania (WTAE) — Pennsylvania State Police said after a months-long search, they have arrested the man accused of making threats towards his landlord and later causing a lawnmower to explode in Westmoreland County.
Officials told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 that James Sever, 54, was taken into custody without incident Tuesday night.
According to a release from state officials, multiple officers were called to the Hoodlebug Trail in Indiana County after an off-duty trooper reported a possible sighting of Sever.
A responding on-duty trooper saw Sever riding an e-bike along the Hoodlebug Trail, and Sever was taken into custody without incident, police said.
Authorities said Sever had been on the run for months after officials were called to a rental property on July 20 following reports of an explosion in Salem Township.
The man, identified as Sever’s landlord, called authorities and said he started his lawnmower, resulting in an explosion underneath it. He told police he believed it may have been a bomb.
Investigators learned a month prior that the man had evicted Sever from his property.
State officials said Tuesday that an arrest warrant for criminal attempted homicide was issued against Sever following the July 20 investigation.
On Aug. 22, police responded to a fire at the same home in Salem Township and later said they believed it was arson. They said it is unclear if Sever had any connection to the fire.
“We still believe (the fire) is suspicious in nature. Can we say he’s the one that committed that crime right now? We don’t have the ability to say that,” Trooper Steve Limani, a state police spokesman, said Wednesday. “If you have information, if you saw some unusual activity and you did not come forward, maybe because you were afraid, and now the person that we have behind bars maybe is the person you might have been afraid of, you can obviously call us if you have viable information that we can utilize. But we don’t specifically have evidence that we can say is directed to one individual or another.”
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