A Cody man is in jail on charges of stalking, violating a protection order and interfering with police after a warrant search of his home revealed homemade explosives, authorities say.
Randall Bailey, 64, was charged this week with one count of violating a protection order and another of interfering with police — which are both misdemeanors — plus two felony counts of stalking and burglary.
He is in the Park County Detention Center as of Friday.
Hyperventilating
The investigation started Sunday morning, when Cody Police Officer Rachael Boydston was sent to a report of a protection order violation at a home in Cody. The woman who reported the violation, Bailey’s ex-wife, was hyperventilating during her emergency call, says an affidavit by Boydston, filed in court this week.
Boydston arrived, met with the ex-wife and found the woman taking shallow, labored breaths, speaking tearfully about being “tired of dealing with this,” the document says.
The woman collected herself and explained that she has cameras on the outside of her home, at least one of which faces her vehicle’s parking space.
The night before, she watched the video, which depicted Bailey walking up to her boyfriend’s vehicle, grabbing the door handle, then walking to her vehicle, the woman told Boydston, according to the affidavit.
The woman said she had to stop watching the video because it shocked her. She gave it to Boydston.
The Officer’s View
Boydston documented what she saw on the video.
At 5:32 a.m. Sunday morning, a van reported to be Bailey’s pulled up behind the woman’s boyfriend’s vehicle, Boydston related from the video.
A man got out of the van and approached the vehicle, checked the door handle, then proceeded on to the ex-wife’s vehicle, the officer wrote. He opened the front door of her vehicle, shut it, then opened the rear driver’s side door.
Every time he opened a door, the dome light flicked on, Boydston wrote.
He leaned in through the rear driver’s side door and rummaged around in the back of the vehicle for about 20 seconds, grabbed something, closed the door and started walking back to his own van, looking at the new object in his hand, wrote Boydston.
Then he drove away.
The woman told Boydston that from his appearance and demeanor, she knew the man to be Bailey.
The Stakeout
Monday morning before school, Boydston and Cody Police Department Officer Daniel Villalobos were conducting surveillance near the ex-wife’s house, waiting for Bailey to drop his children off there, so they could catch up to him after that and arrest him for the alleged burglary — once his children were no longer with him.
Another officer told Boydston through the radio that he saw Bailey’s vehicle, a gold Chrysler van, traveling north on the 17th Street Hill, says the affidavit.
Boydston wrote that Bailey made an unsafe U-turn, had a bike rack obstructing his license plate and ran a stop sign, and that she pulled him over.
The Commands
Bailey pulled into a business parking lot on 17th. Boydston told him he was being arrested for violating a protection order.
“I just dropped the kids off,” said Bailey, according to the document.
Boydston said they’d go over the details of the case at a later time, and either she or Villalobos asked Bailey to get out of his vehicle a combined total of six times, as the situation escalated, Boydston wrote.
“He turned his steering wheel to the left,” she wrote, adding, “Officer Villalobos placed his left hand on the driver’s side window and told Randall to stop.”
The two officers were on the brink of breaking Bailey’s driver’s side window, the affidavit says.
One or both of them asked him a seventh time to get out of the vehicle, and he did, but was “passively non-compliant” with their search efforts, Boydston wrote. He was handcuffed and placed in the police car.
Van Search
Wednesday at 1:12, Boydston and Villalobos executed a search warrant on the Chrysler, says the affidavit. Inside it, they found the ex-wife’s work identification badge, Boydston added.
They also found a functioning stun gun that they had already unearthed themselves from Bailey’s jacket during his arrest. They found the stun gun in the glove compartment because they themselves had put it there, the officer noted.
In the back tire-jack compartment, officers found a loaded Ruger .357 revolver with six live hollow-point rounds loaded in its cylinders, Boydston wrote.
The affidavit says they also found several keys which appeared to mate with “a safe of some sort,”
For Boydston, everything added up to “a strong propensity there would be additional evidence of stalking, harassment and the implements thereof” in Bailey’s home.
She applied for a search warrant. In her rush she applied first to one judge, then to another when the first judge did not quickly get back to her. Both judges ended up signing the warrant, Boydston wrote.
The Raid
Cody detectives and Park County Sheriff’s Officer personnel joined Boydston for the search Wednesday at 10:24 a.m., the document says.
Park County Sheriff’s Detective Clayton Creel found two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along the east wall of Bailey’s garage, wrote Boydston, observing that they were made with grey PVC, had white caps on the end and a green fuse coming from the device, and were about 6 inches in length.
At that point, everyone paused the search, cleared out of the garage and called their supervisors, the affidavit says.
Cody Police Department Patrol Lt. Beau Egger called the Natrona County bomb team and K-9 unit to help collect the devices, says the document.
Amid more search, agents found 10 firearms total, eight rifles and two handguns, Boydston wrote. One of the handguns had a “homemade suppressor type item” on it, she added. One provision of the protection order against Bailey forbids having guns, the affidavit says.
Agents also found a dash camera, a pocket recorder camera, Apple Air Tags, tile trackers and game cameras, the officer wrote.
Boydston wrote that agents swabbed the IED for DNA at 6 p.m., then they removed it from the scene.
The Tally
If convicted of the charges filed so far this week, Bailey could face up to 21.5 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.
Felony stalking and burglary each carry maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. Police interference is punishable by up to one year in jail and $1,000 in fines when charged as a misdemeanor (which it is here); and violating a protection order carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and $750 in fines.
Bailey's file in the Park County Detention Center roster indicates that police have also recommended a charge of possessing explosives. That charge has not appeared formally in his court file.
At this juncture it is unclear from Bailey’s file who will be representing him in court. The Park County Public Defender’s office did not immediately respond to a phone message request for comment.
Bailey’s ex-wife declined Friday to comment.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
