More information has been released regarding the bomb threat called into an area hospital in late December.
According to court information filed last week in Independence County Circuit Court, authorities responded to White River Medical Center around 6:30 p.m., Dec. 29, 2021, on a report that a caller had told a phone operator at the hospital: “I’m going to come up there and blow up the place.”
Batesville Police and hospital security personnel immediately locked down the hospital, not admitting anyone. The court documents say investigators eventually discovered the phone number belonged to a female who had made previous complaints to the hospital using that same phone number.
A short time later, investigators followed information they had obtained to a west Batesville location and found the suspect, identified as Krystal Lynn Searcy (pictured below), 32, according to Searcy’s arrest affidavit.
The affidavit said investigators checked the phone in her possession and saw a call was made to the hospital that matched the time the threatening call was received. When Searcy was asked about the call, she first said that someone had borrowed her phone, but later stated that she had made the call, according to the affidavit.
Searcy, a probationer, was taken into custody without incident, and the cell phone was confiscated as evidence.
She has been charged in circuit court with first-degree terroristic threatening, a Class D felony. A Class D felony in Arkansas is punishable by up to six years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
Searcy’s bond was set at $20,000.
Image via Independence County Sheriff’s Department
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