MOUNT VERNON – A suspect who died after an officer-involved shooting near his property last month was more a threat to law enforcement seeking to apprehend him than the public, Knox County Prosecuting Attorney Chip McConville told the Mount Vernon News.
Randy Wilhelm, 56, died along with Bradley Wilhelm, 53, on Aug. 20 in an officer-involved shooting after a standoff with deputies from Knox County Sheriff’s Office. The pair allegedly drove a side-by-side vehicle toward officers after 9 a.m. on Aug. 20.
Local law enforcement had responded to a shots-fired report at 11:30 p.m. the night before when a bail bondsman had sought to apprehend Randy Wilhelm over a failure-to-appear warrant.
McConville said the roots of this case went back to November 2020 when Randy Wilhelm was indicted. He spent a long time in jail at the front end of the case before being given bond until May 2021.
“He went through a string of lawyers. There were seven if you count one who was fired and then rehired and fired,” he said.
His attorney filed a motion in March of this year to withdraw. A hearing was scheduled in April that his attorney personally notified Wilhelm he was required to attend – but he wasn’t there, McConville said. He had been on an ankle monitor.
“Shortly thereafter, the ankle monitor stopped functioning. And then the judge issued a warrant for his arrest,” he said.
The judge sealed that warrant initially to give authorities an opportunity to pick him up before he knew of the warrant. But the judge then decided to order forfeiture of his bond, which got the bondsman involved in trying to apprehend him also.
“He had been observed a number of times, usually on his own property. And it was not lost on law enforcement that Randy Wilhelm had as many firearms as many third world countries,” McConville said.
A search warrant served by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation at his request discovered 1,250 firearms, some of which were fully automatic, he said.
“So, this is not your run-of-the-mill warrant,” he said.
“The people who were really in jeopardy, the people that he had made threats to, were people in law enforcement who were going to try to apprehend him,” McConville said.
He made threats to the bondsman in recorded telephone calls.
“One of the factors that got this case started was a threat, a set of threats he made to the sheriff on the sheriff's tip line when the case was still a misdemeanor in Municipal Court, saying that ‘I have skills and if you come to get me, I'll protect myself,’” McConville said.
Wilhelm was a world-class trap shooter, he said. (Wilhelm was inducted in the Ohio State Trapshooters Association Hall of Fame, Knox County's Wilhelm among 2020 Buckeye Big Buck Club Special Award winners).
McConville said the threats being made were to the people who were trying to apprehend and prosecute.
“So as far as danger to the general public, that was probably minimal, unless they [were] bystanders for some firefight between Randy Wilhelm and people trying to apprehend him,” he said.
Wilhelm kept a truck containing two large propane tanks on his property. He had threatened that he could easily detonate the two tanks by shooting them with a large enough caliber weapon to ignite the propane, McConville said.
The prosecutor confirmed that statewide and national warrants were issued for Wilhelm. Usually, the statewide warrant will suffice, but for somebody with the means and ability to travel perhaps out of the country, then the net is cast wider.
The word was that Wilhelm was largely on his property on Monroe Mills Road. Local law enforcement had many considerations in dealing with that property, including the propane tankers and that there were three residences on it.
“Knowing where someone is in a situation where you're going to arrest them is really important knowledge to have, especially when you know that that person's got access to lots of firearms,” McConville said.
He said it’s a fair assessment to say officer-involved shootings are rare in Knox County and having two occur in close proximity, as Knox County had recently, was unusual. (Suspect dies after firing shotgun at Knox Sheriff’s deputies.)
McConville said other officer-involved shootings go back to 2014 or 2015 when officers had to shoot a young man who had his grandmother at knifepoint.
“Then there was the incident a couple years ago with the Fredericktown patrolman who shot at somebody who had pointed a gun at him,” he said. No one was actually shot in that incident.
