Larry Donnell Thomas
By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A convicted child molester charged with calling a bomb threat to Stillwater High School by using computer software was arrested Tuesday at his Tulsa residence by the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, according to a police news release.
Larry Donell Thomas, 60, who has also been known as Garland Deverm and Larry D. Garland, was ordered held on $50,000 bail pending his arraignment in Payne County District Court.
Due to his criminal record, Thomas could be given a prison term ranging from four years to life if convicted of threatening a violent act by using access to a computer, court records show.
An investigation began when a bomb threat was called in to the Stillwater High School at 12:09 pm on July 18, according to an affidavit by Stillwater Police Detective Mary Kellison.
A school employee answered the phone, could not hear anyone, and disconnected — immediately after which another call came from the same number, the affidavit alleged.
“When she answered the second phone call, she heard what she described as a raspy male voice,” yelling, rambling incoherently and difficult to understand, the affidavit said.
“The caller told her he was going to ‘blow that mother f….. up,’ yelled that either his kids or the kids had been taken away, and then the caller disconnected,” the affidavit alleged.
“Stillwater Police Officers evacuated the high school of all staff and students. After an extensive search of the building, nothing suspicious was discovered. However, the remainder of the activities for the day were cancelled,” the affidavit said.
During the investigation, the detective identified the phone number as coming from Thomas’s internet account, the affidavit alleged.
Thomas had been convicted of three counts of child sexual abuse in 2010 in Tulsa and was required to register as an aggravated sexual offender in Tulsa County, the affidavit said.
According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Thomas’s criminal record in Tulsa County consisted of:
* robbery or attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon in 1980 for which he was placed on probation for five years in 1980;
* drug possession in 1987 for which he was given a three-year prison term in 1988 and released in 1991;
* larceny in 1998 for which he was given an eight-year prison term in 1999 and paroled in 2001;
* escape in 2003 for which he was given a nine-year prison term in 2003 and released in 2008;
* child sexual abuse, three counts, in 2008 for which he was given three concurrent three-year prison terms in 2010 and released in 2012;
* failure to register as a sex offender in 2014 for which he was given a two-year prison term in 2014 that he discharged in 2015;
* drug possession in 2014 for which he was given a concurrent six and one-half year prison term in 2014 that he discharged in 2016;
* failure to register as a sex offender in 2019 for which he was placed on three years of probation on which he remains.
