EDWARDSVILLE, Ill.
He seemed in many ways a typical
college student — president of his fraternity at Southern Illinois University,
an aspiring rapper who wrote about finding a girlfriend who could cook. He
said his favorite book was the Bible.
But Olutosin
Oduwole also had not-so-typical interests, like buying and selling guns on the
Internet. He allegedly sold a fully automatic M-16 assault rifle he never
owned. And a court document says he was seen walking around campus wearing a
bullet-resistant vest in May.
Then came the
news this week: Police said they found a handwritten note inside his car
threatening a “murderous rampage” similar to the one at Virginia Tech that left
32 people and the gunman dead.
On Wednesday,
Oduwole’s 22nd birthday, he pleaded not guilty to making a terrorist threat, a
felony. He was being held Thursday on $1.1 million bail.
While Oduwole’s
friends and others say the purchase of weapons and his sometimes-violent rap
lyrics add up to a misunderstanding, police suspect he had violence on his
mind.
“The note was
just one piece of the puzzle,” says Otis Steward, an investigator who says
Oduwole’s allegedly fraudulent sale of a gun he never owned and his recent
quest for more firepower raised the level of police concern.
