A Davenport man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for trying to turn his apartment into a bomb. Forty-four-year old John Scott Garrow pleaded guilty to attempted arson for the incident in February of 2006.
Police say Garrow had confrontations with them during the day and that evening Garrow pulled the stove in his apartment away from the wall and punctured the natural gas line leading to the back of stove, releasing the natural gas at a high rate.
Police say Garrow then tried to booby-trap his apartment for responding police and firefighters, Garrow stripped the ends of electrical cords, and put the bare ends of the wires on the backs of metal door knobs for both the rear and front doors entering into the apartment from outside. Garrow connected the wires together in a circuit and plugged the wires into an electrical outlet, thereby charging the wires with electricity.
Other residents of the building said Garrow told them as he was leaving the building that police and firefighters would be blown up when the entered the apartment. Firefighters were able to vent the gas out of the building without problems, but a federal expert says the gas reached a concentration high enough that it could have ignited and destroyed the entire building.