She Wrote Letters to Dylann Roof. Now, a 15-Year Sentence

Ohio's Elizabeth Lecron had pleaded guilty to plotting 2 terror attacks
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 22, 2019 12:42 PM CST
She Wrote Letters to Dylann Roof. Now, a 15-Year Sentence
Elizabeth Lecron leaves US District Court on Aug. 29, 2019 in Toledo, Ohio.   (Amy E. Voigt/The Blade via AP)

An Ohio woman fixated on the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School, as well as one at a historically black church in Charleston, SC, in 2015, now knows her fate for plotting two terror attacks herself. The US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio says that Elizabeth Lecron, 24, was sentenced this week to 15 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to terrorism charges in August. She had planned an attack with her boyfriend, Vincent Armstrong, on an unnamed Toledo bar, as well as purchased black powder and hundreds of screws to make bombs to destroy a Georgia pipeline. Per two USAO releases, Lecron and Armstrong started dating in mid-2018, and the two soon became "immersed" in an online extremist group called "True Crime Community," which obsessed over mass murders "and posted extremely graphic images, videos, and sayings."

The USAO says the couple started planning the Toledo attack, which they called "D-Day"; in a June 2018 journal entry, Lecron wrote, "D-Day will be my salvation." Lecron also became pen pals with Charleston gunman Dylann Roof, writing "numerous letters" to him in prison. In addition to the weapons, ammo, and pipe bomb materials the two purchased, they also bought clothing to wear while carrying out the attacks, investigators say. Per WTVG, Armstrong picked up a trench coat and a T-shirt that said "Society Failed Us," while Lecron bought combat boots she thought wouldn't slip on blood and a T-shirt that said "False Prophet." Armstrong also pleaded guilty in August to terrorism charges and will be sentenced on Dec. 10. After Lecron gets out of prison, she'll be subject to lifetime supervision, per Judge James G. Carr, who called Lecron's acts "monstrous." (More Dylann Roof stories.)

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