Man dies after lighting truck on fire and driving it into law firm
Updated: A man died last Friday evening after lighting his pickup truck on fire and driving it into the offices of a law firm in Moyock, North Carolina.
The truck crashed into the Twiford Law Firm, report News Channel 3, the Outer Banks Voice, the Virginian-Pilot and Wavy.com.
The driver who died was later identified as Alan Boyd Lanier, 56, of Amelia Court House, Virginia, near Richmond, according to a press release emailed to the ABA Journal by the Currituck County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Office.
“After detectives examined the truck,” the press release said, “it was apparent that Lanier had also manufactured an explosive device that did not detonate. … After the truck was cleared and removed from the building there were several propane tanks, 30 gallons of gas in the bed and 10 gallons inside the cab of the truck as well as several propane tanks.”
Edward O’Neal, a lawyer at the Twiford Law Firm, told News Channel 3 that the incident was “very unnerving.”
“He got out of the truck in that parking lot and went back and lit the bales of hay that were in the back of that truck and they were flaming,” O’Neal said. “The truck was fully engulfed and he got back in it and drove it into the building. It almost went completely through the building.”
Witnesses said the man had circled the complex before the incident and waited until the last employee left before he drove into the law firm.
Lanier was unemployed and depressed before the incident, his brother, Bobby Lanier, told the Virginian-Pilot in a later story.
The Twiford Law Firm had represented Lanier’s girlfriend, a Ukrainian woman who later obtained a $3 million settlement from her ex-husband, the Virginian-Pilot says. The woman returned to the Ukraine two months ago, Moyock Sheriff Susan Johnson told the newspaper.
Alan Lanier felt his girlfriend had been unjustly treated by lawyers at the Twiford Law Firm and by a nearby lawyer who later represented the Ukrainian woman, Bobby Lanier said.
The nearby lawyer was Darlene Chambers, who told the Virginian-Pilot that Lanier was combative when he accompanied his girlfriend to the lawyer’s office. “I banned him,” she said. “He was argumentative. He was too disruptive.”
The Twiford Law Firm continued to represent a daughter of the woman when Chambers took over the case. Chambers said Alan Lanier may have targeted the Twiford law offices because they were in a building that was easier to penetrate. Chambers has offices is in a block building.
Updated at 8:40 a.m. to identify the driver and add information from a press release. Updated on Oct. 24 to add new information from the Virginian-Pilot.
