Versailles man arrested at UK Chandler Hospital,Carroll faces weapons, explosives charges

Bryan T. Carroll was arrested Thursday, March 25, as he was attempting

to drive away from UK Chandler Hospital, but the work of federal, state

and local police and other agencies was just beginning.

Woodford County Attorney Alan George said Carroll had an outstanding

warrant for failure to appear for a felony drug charge in Woodford

Circuit Court. Versailles Police Chief Mike Murray said Carroll had told

multiple people that he wasn’t going back to jail, and that the

department had been keeping an eye on him. When officers learned Carroll

was going to the hospital to pick up his mother, they alerted UK police,

who arrested him – but for a few hours Thursday, the hospital was locked

down, and Lexington television stations aired footage of a

bomb-detecting robot.

Officers with the FBI, ATF, state and local enforcement agencies came to

Carroll’s residence at 218 Aberdeen Drive, where he lives with his

parents. They began searching the house and property, traffic was kept

away, and nearby residents were evacuated or told to stay inside.

According to the Woodford County Detention Center, from February 1996 to

September of 2019, Carroll was sentenced to a total of 164 days in jail

in Woodford, Fayette, Scott and Jessamine counties. He pleaded guilty to

or was convicted of a wide variety of criminal offenses, including

multiple counts of terroristic threatening, violation of a Kentucky

emergency protective/domestic violence order, fourth-degree assault and

one count of first-degree kidnapping in 2015.

Friday afternoon, Alicia Matthews, who lives about 175 yards away from

the Carroll’s home, said there was a heavy law enforcement presence

there the day before until late that night.

“And then this morning, when I got up, I looked down and the big

spotlights were down there. They had those shining in the house and

there was police tape all around …” Matthews said.

“It’s a very nice neighborhood – it’s very quiet,” she said. “All the

neighbors kind of keep to themselves, but everybody knows enough to know

if someone is going in to somebody else’s house, and I would just never

imagine anything like that going on in this street. But you never know,”

Matthews said.

Friday and Saturday, law enforcement officers asked nearby residents to

stay indoors, and as bomb experts swept the house and property, others

conducted several “controlled explosions,” according to the FBI’s

Louisville office.

“It’s a little unnerving, but I don’t feel a threat for my life, because

they know what they were doing and they’ve told us that we would be OK

as long as we stayed inside,” Matthews said. “I just hope that they

resolve it without anybody getting hurt and that the young man gets help

…” Matthews said, adding that Carroll’s parents were a super-nice couple.

Friday afternoon, members of the afore-mentioned law enforcement

agencies were there, along with the Kentucky National Guard’s 41st Civil

Support Team, a bomb unit from the Lexington-Fayette County Police

Department and Woodford County fire and EMS departments.

Carroll is being held in the Fayette County Detention Center. He faces

four counts of use of a weapon of mass destruction, five counts of

possession of a handgun by a convicted felon and one count each of

fleeing or evading police on foot, resisting arrest, unlawful possession

of a weapon on school property and first-degree possession of a

controlled substance.