Homemade explosives found in Westmoreland County house as police execute search warrant

SALEM TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Police serving a search warrant at a suspect’s home in Westmoreland County found much more than they were looking for Wednesday.

Police said they discovered not only guns and ammunition inside the home of Roger Williams, but also found dozens of homemade explosive devices.

Williams was already under investigation for a theft case in Salem Township, but is now accused of having dozens of homemade explosive devices, powerful enough to have leveled his home, police said.

“These are going to be a homemade device and they were done in a nature that they would have or could have the capability of being detonated and causing a lot of damage,” Trooper Steve Limani said.

Roger Williams was charged by state police after they served that search warrant at his Penn Manor Road home.

Inside, investigators said they found a shotgun, an AR-15 rifle and three handguns.

Williams is not allowed to have any guns because he is a felon.

In proximity to those guns, police said they also discovered a box of 48 homemade improvised explosive devices.

“One of the things you get concerned about is how delicate they are, could they detonate without being touched appropriately, so we had to have our bomb squad go out there analyze these IEDs,” Limani said.

Defense attorney Duke George is representing Williams on another case where he is accused of stealing 34 catalytic converters off Schwann trucks from a Salem Township parking lot last year.

A witness allegedly told police Williams had the stolen parts stored in his garage.

George told Channel 11 he was made to believe that what police had found were homemade firecrackers inside Williams’ home, not necessarily IEDs. Williams is out Thursday night after posting 10% of a $50,000 bail.

He is due in court on both cases in the coming weeks.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

Pittsburgh police investigating back-to-back carjacking incidents on same block

©2022 Cox Media Group