EDWARDSVILLE Ill.
A Southern Illinois University student accused of writing a
note threatening a “murderous rampage” similar to the April one at
Virginia Tech may innocently have been mimicking what he’d seen on a cartoon, a
fraternity adviser of the suspect said.
Olutosin Oduwole, an aspiring rapper, was charged Tuesday
with attempting to make a terrorist threat in the note that police say was
found in his disabled car on the university’s Edwardsville campus July 20,
shortly before his arrest on unrelated computer fraud and felony theft charges.
About a week earlier, a gun dealer had notified federal
authorities that Oduwole seemed overly anxious to get weapons he had recently
ordered online, according to an affidavit filed in court by a police detective.
Investigators said the note demanded payment to a PayPal
account, threatening that “if this account doesn’t reach $50,000 in the
next 7 days then a murderous rampage similar to the VT shooting will occur at
another highly populated university. THIS IS NOT A JOKE!”
Oduwole’s friends and family have called the case a misunderstanding,
and Oduwole has pleaded not guilty. He remained jailed here Friday on $1.1
million bond, awaiting an Aug. 3 preliminary hearing.
Police say that note scrawled on a sheet of paper that
included rap lyrics made no direct reference to targeting SIU’s campus.
