via Burke County Sheriff’s Department
Justin Sullivan, the Morganton, North Carolina ISIS suspect who pleaded guilty to attempted terrorism, was sentenced to life in prison in federal court on Tuesday, June 27.
Sullivan, 19, pleaded guilty last year. He was arrested on June 19, 2015, and charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIL, transporting and receiving a silencer in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony and receipt and possession of an unregistered silencer, identified by serial number.
Furthermore, a new federal indictment says Sullivan robbed and murdered his elderly neighbor, John Bailey Clarke, then planned to use the stolen money to buy an assault-style rifle to commit mass murder.
Sullivan, 19, was arrested last June and is accused of plotting to kill up to 1,000 people in support of ISIS, an Islamic terrorist organization. A newly unsealed federal indictment against the Morganton man links him directly to the previously unsolved 2014 murder of John Bailey Clark, 74, a neighbor of Sullivan and his parents on Rose Carswell Road.
Clark was found in a shallow grave near his home. The indictment says Sullivan stole a gun from his stepfather, broke into his elderly neighbor’s home and shot him three times in the head in December 2014.
“Justin Sullivan had elaborate plans to kill hundreds of innocent people to show his support for the terrorist organization, ISIL,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge John Strong. “During the course of our investigation, evidence was uncovered linking Sullivan to John Bailey Clark’s murder six months earlier.”
After Sullivan was arrested, FBI agents found a .22-caliber rifle, a black ski mask, muddy clothes and a lock pick kit in the crawl space of the Sullivan home.
Sullivan is one of 56 United States citizens arrested on ISIS related charged since 2015.
