Lonnie Coffman, the man accused of driving a pickup truck filled with Molotov cocktails and other deadly weapons to the nation’s capital, lives in a brick ranch house in the backwoods of Alabama.
Coffman had no criminal record. No apparent social media accounts. And no city officials or law enforcement in the area had ever come into contact with him.
“I don’t know him, never heard of him and I haven’t heard of anybody that did know him,” said Ken Winkles, mayor of the 1,300-person town of Falkville, where Coffman’s mail is delivered.
Coffman’s face was not among those that have gone viral, and it’s not even clear if he breached the building. But he stands out for the sheer amount of weaponry he brought to Washington.
The 70-year-old Alabama man with no criminal history or known extremist ties represents the worst nightmare for law enforcement, experts say — an apparent lone wolf who operated completely under the radar.
“These are the people who keep law enforcement up at night,” said Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI criminal profiler and an NBC News analyst. “I used to go to bed thinking, ‘Did I do everything I could? Have I looked for this? Have I looked for that?’ But what do you look for in a guy like this?”
The rise of right-wing groups like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters has become a focus of federal authorities in the era of President Donald Trump. The existence of people like Coffman, loner types who amass large collections of weapons and who may become motivated to act on calls to overthrow the government, pose an even greater challenge for law enforcement.
“When you tell no one what you’re doing and do it yourself in a complete void, the only way we find you is, like this guy was found, we’re awful lucky and stumble upon you,” said Van Zandt, who was among a team of investigators that worked to identify the “Unabomber,” Ted Kaczynski.
Police officers happened upon Coffman’s truck after the authorities received reports of possible explosive devices in the vicinity of the National Republican Club and the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
While sweeping the area with police canines, two Capitol Police officers spotted what appeared to be the handle of a gun on the front-right passenger seat of a red GMC Sierra pickup truck, federal prosecutors said.
The vehicle was parked in the heart of downtown Washington, just a couple of blocks away from the Capitol.
Officers searched the truck and discovered it was equipped for war. Among the weapons found inside the interior and truck bed were: three guns, including an assault-style rifle; hundreds of rounds of ammunition; several machetes; camouflage smoke devices; a stun gun; a crossbow with bolts; and 11 Molotov cocktails in the form of canning jars with gasoline inside and a hole punched at the top.
The officers quickly determined through a vehicle registration search that the truck was registered to a Lonnie L. Coffman of Falkville, Alabama, prosecutors said.
Surveillance camera footage recovered later in the day showed Coffman parking the vehicle around 9:15 a.m. Prosecutors said he stepped out of it five minutes later and headed directly toward the Capitol with a crowd of people. A Trump rally was set to begin nearby at 11 a.m.
When Coffman returned to his vehicle around 6:30 p.m., he was stopped by police manning the security cordon and found to be in possession of two handguns, according to federal prosecutors.
Asked about the contents of the jars, Coffman told the officers they contained “melted Styrofoam and gasoline,” according to a Justice Department detention memo. The products created an explosive mixture that has the effect of napalm in that it causes the flammable liquid to better stick to objects it hits upon detonation, the memo says.