CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. -- Federal agents say a truck driver with ties to Southwest Florida warned that he would commit a mass shooting at a church in Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday.
Court records filed Monday say 38-year-old Thomas Matthew McVicker was apprehended in Indianapolis before the plan could be carried out.
Court records list McVicker's address as Punta Gorda, Florida.
An FBI special agent says in an affidavit that McVicker made "credible threats to conduct a mass shooting and suicide."
McVicker's friend in southern Alabama this month told a Florida FBI agent that McVicker was considering "shooting a church up" or killing people on the street.
The affidavit doesn't specify a motive, nor does it identify a specific Memphis church. In a series of text messages that began August 9th, McVicker wrote "I was thinking about shooting a church up but I'm afraid how it will affect my family in the flesh after I'm gone. So I think I'm just gonna kill some people on the street and get away with it then kill myself."
McVicker also wrote of evil "entities" entering his body and torturing him. He told his friend that he has been in a mental hospital three times and has been told he is delusional.
McVicker's mother confirmed with investigators that he is under treatment for schizophrenia and on medication.
On August 14th, the friend told investigators that McVicker had requested a leave from work as a truck driver on August 22nd in Memphis, and that he claimed he was going to "shoot up" a church.
