Bemidji man with history of terroristic threats charged with threats to kill children while armed

A resident of a Bemidji mobile home park called 911 last week to report that her neighbor, known as “Wild Bill,” was threatening to kill children outside her home.

William Winegar, 60, is accused of approaching two Black children while armed with swords and knives, saying he was going to “kill all Blacks” and “kill all you Blacks,” according to a felony terroristic threat charge filed this week in Beltrami County, where Winegar had been convicted of terroristic threats before his civil commitment for mental illness in 2012.

He remains in the county jail and no attorney for him is listed.

Beltrami County Attorney David Hanson said Winegar is well known to law enforcement and that while his behavior is abhorrent, it’s not a level of violence that will send him to prison.

“A lot of people with mental health issues say a lot of things and never act on them,” Hanson said.

Winegar spent time in the county jail over the years along with a six-month commitment for mental health treatment.

The civil commitment petition noted that Winegar is a veteran who was on an emergency hold at the hospital as he was “likely to cause serious imminent physical harm to self or others.”

Hanson said a mental health evaluation could come up in future court proceedings for the recent terroristic threat.

“The punishment for that crime is not very stringent. And on the mental health side of things, even if I were to simply commit him, I don’t know where he would go,” Hanson said. “I guess we put him in a group home? Where he also yells at group home staff? You know, I don’t know. There’s no place to put a person who’s angry and yells at people.”

In 2007, Winegar’s then-landlord reported to police that Winegar “was making disturbing statements to him and others about conducting a killing spree at Bemidji State University,” court records state. The day after a mass shooting at Virginia Tech, Winegar told his landlord that the Virginia shooting would be “nothing compared to what he planned for BSU.”

An acquaintance of Winegar’s told police he became more vocal about his “fantasies about carnage at BSU” after the Virginia Tech massacre.

He served a year in jail for the BSU threats.

In 1990, he was ordered to serve five years of probation for threatening to kill another victim, but he was discharged from probation in 1993 and the felony was reduced to a misdemeanor.

According to the recent terroristic threat case:

Around 9 p.m. Feb. 8, a woman at Secluded Acres told dispatchers that children were playing outside her residence. Winegar approached them “and told them he was going to ‘kill all the Blacks and pour salt into their wounds to make them suffer.’ ”

The children reported that Winegar had numerous swords on him and what appeared to be a long black gun across his back.

Before retreating back to his home and turning off all the lights, Winegar again threatened the children: “I’ll kill all you Blacks.”

Their mother said the children were shaken up and that it “caused several people to leave the area.”

Witnesses all described what they believed to be a firearm muzzle sticking out a small crack at the bottom of his window.

Police searched Winegar’s home and found several long black items “that could have looked like a firearm barrel.”

A number of swords and blades were found in Winegar’s living room along with a knife strapped to his right ankle and a pocket knife tied to his waistband.

Winegar will appear in court later this month.