National

Suspect in Blast Near NAACP Office: Target was Accountant

Published

11 years ago

February 21, 2015

Investigators look over the aftermath of a homemade explosive, which was placed need the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP, January 6, 2015. (Christian Murdock/The Colorado Springs Gazette/AP)

Sadie Gurman and Nicholas Riccardi, ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The man accused of setting off a small explosion last month that rattled nerves because of its proximity to a Colorado NAACP office says he was in a rage over his financial problems and was actually targeting his accountant, according to court documents filed Friday.

Thaddeus Murphy, 44, told federal agents that he made the pipe bomb out of a shotgun shell and fireworks fuses, the records said.

He said he was angry because the accountant wouldn’t return his phone calls or give him back his tax records. It was unclear whether Murphy knew that the accountant, Steve DeHaven, died in June in Mesa, Arizona.

DeHaven pleaded guilty in 2010 to filing false tax returns and was released from federal prison in April 2013.

A sign for an accountant’s business was still on the wall of the building, but it has been closed for 20 years, according to the president of the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP. The NAACP, which has been at the site since 1985, and a barbershop are the only tenants in the building.

Henry D. Allen Jr., president of the local NAACP chapter, expressed skepticism Friday about the accountant version of the story, but he would not say whether he believed his organization was the target.

“He targeted somebody in this building, and in my estimate it was not the tax people,” Allen said. “Does anyone really think this guy is going to admit to this?”

Murphy has been charged with arson of a building and being a felon in possession of a firearm. DeHaven’s death will not likely affect Murphy’s prosecution, said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Denver.

At a hearing Friday in Denver, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Hegarty ordered him held without bond pending another hearing next week. Murphy, wearing a white T-shirt, said nothing. He will be appointed a federal public defender.

Dorschner said investigators determined the bombing was not an act of terrorism. But, he added, “We’re also continuing our investigation to determine whether that confession is true.”

On Friday afternoon, Murphy’s weathered pickup truck and trailer still sat outside the duplex where he lives on a winding street of modest apartment buildings in northern Colorado Springs. No one answered the door at his apartment.

Nobody was hurt in the Jan. 6 explosion adjacent to a wall of Mr. G’s Hair Design Studios, a barber shop that also shares the building with the NAACP in a mostly residential neighborhood.

The crude device caused minor damage, failing to ignite a canister of gasoline set next to it. Even if the canister had ignited, the damage likely would have been minimal, the FBI said at the time.

Still, the explosion gained widespread attention due to its closeness to the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, and the FBI investigated it as a possible hate crime.

National NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said his organization appreciates local and federal authorities’ swift efforts in arresting and charging a suspect.

“We seek a continued investigation into the motive of the alleged suspect, and we look forward to the culmination of his criminal trial,” he said in a statement. “We will remain vigilant as we continue fighting for civil and human rights in Colorado Springs and throughout the country.”

Murphy told investigators he made the pipe bomb in his garage the night before the blast, using instructions he found online and materials from his work as a carpenter, according to court records.

Murphy believed the accountant intentionally destroyed his tax records, and he told investigators he “flipped out” because of his financial problems, the documents show. He said he wanted to send the accountant a warning.

“Murphy admitted the rationale for the pipe bomb was rage,” the documents say. According to court records, Murphy owed state taxes.

Investigators searched his house and found at least seven firearms, which he is barred from having because he is a convicted felon. They also found a pack of road flares with one missing, a hobby fuse and 3 ½ pounds of commercially available explosive.

Witnesses told investigators they saw a white Ford pickup near the scene of the blast.

A Colorado Springs police detective spotted a matching vehicle Feb. 10, which led authorities to Murphy. They watched him for several days before arresting him Thursday, according to the documents.

Among other evidence, Murphy’s cellphone records showed he had been close to the crime scene, and authorities found dog hair inside the pipe bomb that matched a brown pit bull living in Murphy’s home, the documents show.

Court records show Murphy’s criminal history includes a felony theft conviction for which he was sentenced to five years in prison in 2009.

___

Associated Press researcher Monika Mathur in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

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2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.