KNOX, NY (WTEN/CNN) - After a woman reported to police that her husband might be mentally unstable, officials discovered an immense arsenal of weapons and explosives that the man had been stockpiling. Then, they went on a manhunt to track him down.
“Assault rifles, 50-round magazines, bullet-proof vests, trip wires, enough explosives to do some serious damage,” said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple. “Some of the devices, even some of the bomb experts were like, ‘I have no idea what that is. We’re going to have to blow it up and see what it does.’"
Apple said they were all found in a room inside of 43-year-old Edward Reis’s home. Local law enforcement had been searching for Reis for the better part of Sunday after his wife called police saying her husband, who is a military veteran, was suffering from PTSD.
She said she feared he intended to harm himself.
“Does he go off on his own, or does he look to take others with him? Who knows?” Apple said.
The sheriff said things became even more tense when Reis’s wife searched a room that she told investigators had been off-limits to her. That is where they found the weapons.
Police searched an apartment complex where Reis was known to frequent, but they came up empty-handed. They finally got a break when East Greenbush Police located him at a local America’s Best Inn.
“One of our crisis negotiators was able to get him out of the motel room,” Apple said. “When officers when in the motel room, he had a chair against one door and a loaded AR-15 with a 50-round magazine laying on his bed.”
Apple said Reis did not indicate to investigators what he planned to do with the weapons.
Reis faces felony charges including criminal possession of a weapon and forging a pistol permit.
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