A Wauconda man faces felony weapons charges following a late-Thursday incident that found investigators searching his home for explosives after fielding a report that a subject wanted to lure police to his residence with the intention of setting off explosives and blowing them up, authorities said.
Andreas Stachel, 49, was charged Friday after authorities recovered four illegal explosive devices, numerous firearms and ammunition, and a “large quantity of cannabis,” according to a press release from Wauconda police. Stachel is being charged with unlawful possession of explosives or incendiary devices, unlawful use of weapons and unlawful possession of cannabis.
Stachel was taken to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation at 2:30 a.m. Friday. He will appear before a judge in bond court once he is released, according to the press release.
Friday afternoon’s statement from police added that the incident began when an employee at Super Pawn in Round Lake reported Stachel for allegedly saying he was planning on luring police to his Lake Shore Boulevard home with the intention of blowing up the residence and the police with 20 pounds of C-4, an explosive clay-like material often referred to as plastic explosive.
Authorities assumed the threat was credible because the suspect gave a “pretty specific” description of the explosives he said he had, Wauconda police spokeswoman Heather Cognac said.
Police cleared a 1,400-foot perimeter around the 400 block of Lake Shore Boulevard, Highland Avenue and Hill Street and closed Route 176 between Main Street and Fairfield Road as the Wauconda Police Department, the Waukegan Bomb Squad and the Illinois State Police SWAT team searched the home. Agents and dogs from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also were brought in, Cognac said.
Also assisting Wauconda officers in the incident were the Wauconda Fire Department, Wauconda Public Works, the Lake County Metropolitan Enforcement Group, Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS).
According to police, ATF agents located a powder they are classifying as flash powder or black powder. Both substances are legal, but it is illegal to have more than one quarter of one ounce of them, and authorities found four separate containers of over one quarter ounce of that powder, according to Cognac.
Cognac added that Stachel possesses an Illinois Firearm Owner’s Identification card, making it legal for him to own the guns found in his home. Police confiscated them for “safekeeping at this point due to his mental status,” according to Cognac. The unlawful use of weapons statute pertains to the explosives found, not the firearms.
Authorities lifted the evacuation order just after midnight, allowing residents who left some three hours before to return home. Investigators continued to process the scene overnight and kept Lake Shore Boulevard closed to through-traffic between Illinois Route 176 and Hill Street. They also kept Highland Avenue closed between Lake Shore Boulevard and Clearview Avenue, though all roads reportedly were reopened before noon on Friday.
On Friday morning, a neighbor across Lake Shore Boulevard from the home searched overnight said Stachel recently has talked to him about having a hatred for “cops, politicians and people in general.” He said the suspect talked about this as recently as four days ago and two weeks ago.
A Wauconda police statement posted on social media late Thursday also reported that “the suspect said he is terminally ill and hates politicians and the police.”
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“He said (that) he had the house wired, stuff like that,” the neighbor said.
The neighbor said Stachel talked about having explosives like C-4 and “heavy duty” guns in the house, but he never took him seriously because he thought he was harmless and just needed some mental help.
“I still don’t think he had anything in there,” the neighbor said.
Ryan Ewald, a next-door neighbor, didn’t talk to the suspect “all that much.”
“He was quieter, so I don’t know. It all came kind of, I guess, out of the blue,” Ewald said. “I didn’t know he would be doing anything.”
Sharon Mason, who lives down the street, said some neighbors called him “machine shop guy” because he ran a machine shop out of his house. She and her family were asked to evacuate at 6:30 p.m.
The one neighbor said he watched undercover officers stake out the suspect’s home around 4 p.m. and waited until he left to pick up his wife from work at 6:30 p.m., which the neighbor said he does daily. Police report Stachel was taken into custody without incident during a subsequent traffic stop.
The neighbor chose not to evacuate and watched investigators. He said the bomb squad arrived to the home at approximately 10 p.m. and left around midnight.
Following the threat, police encouraged evacuated residents to gather at Federation Church of Wauconda on Barrington Road.
Judy Reimer, who turns 89 next week, was in her pajamas and walking to her bedroom when her neighbors came to tell her about the evacuation, she said. Minutes later, she said, the police came to her house and she did not have time to change before heading to the church.
“I could see all the squad cars and everything and somebody shot off a couple of firecrackers and I thought it was guns,” Reimer said. “I knew there was something going on with all the police cars. I didn’t know what, though.”
Lenn Neubauer saw squad cars near his home before getting a call on his landline about the evacuation, he said. His home is about six blocks from the residence in question, and he called his parents, who live down the street but do not have a landline. The three followed police orders and went to the church.
“We weren’t that nervous, but it’s better safe than sorry,” Neubauer said.
Not everyone in the neighborhood got the information.
Brenda Logothetti lives a few blocks down from the house being searched, but said no one came to alert her and her husband who were in bed when the evacuation began.
Their neighbor, Dan Miroballi, heard a helicopter circling over the area and wondered what was happening. He said he searched Google for the phrase, “why is there a helicopter over Wauconda,” and saw news reports of the bomb search. He then went to tell Logothetti and her husband.
“I’m just hoping, I worry over the holiday weekend,” Logothetti said. “I don’t know what people will do.”
Angelica LaVito is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.