Man held on federal complaint
A convicted felon suspected of stashing stolen weapons and almost 11,000 bullets in a Norman storage locker is being held in the Oklahoma County jail on a federal complaint, officials said.
John Melvin Davis, 53, was arrested June 19 outside a trailer home at 12101 Village Dr. in Noble.
He is being held without bail and faces a complaint of possession of ammunition after a prior felony conviction. According to a federal detention order, Davis has past convictions on eight federal offenses and received five separate sentences totaling more than 20 years in prison.
Bob Troester, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Oklahoma City, said Davis is likely to face more than the ammunition complaint. He said his office will seek an indictment within 30 days.
According to a search warrant return filed Wednesday in Cleveland County District Court:
June 16, Davis’ estranged wife told the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that Davis had broken into her Colorado storage unit and stolen “several assault rifles, hand guns, some gold, silver and other ... items.” She said Davis, who has at least eight aliases, stored most of the loot in Norman.
An Oklahoma woman told agents that she let Davis stay with her until he found the Noble trailer home and a storage unit at Summit Storage, 2100 24th Ave. SE, in Norman. She said Davis made “numerous comments” about not going back to prison, claiming he would “disrupt the economy by poisoning the water supply and knocking out the communication system.”
The woman also said Davis, who has lived in Oklahoma for only a few months, had begun having packages shipped to her address, including a box of incomplete firearms frames that he planned to sell with directions on how to convert them into functioning weapons.
June 19, agents searched Davis’ trailer home. Davis was detained after entering a van, and a .22 caliber pistol and several rounds of ammunition were recovered from a canvas bag he’d been carrying.
Agents later searched the Norman storage unit and seized a 9 millimeter pistol, a .22 caliber pistol, a .45 caliber pistol, a .223 caliber rifle, a Colt pistol, possible silencers, gun parts and more than 10,900 bullets of various calibers. Neighbor Tim “Tiny” Walters watched June 19 as federal agents swarmed Davis’ trailer home, one of about 30 in a rural park just north of Maguire Road on 120th Avenue NE..
“I counted five unmarked cars pull up before it was over,” Walters said. “They dragged him (Davis) out and arrested him.”
Agents searched the trailer home “from top to bottom for two days,” Walters said.
Ron Berry, the park’s assistant manager, said Davis moved in a few months ago.
“He was quiet and kept to himself,” Berry said. “He always waved when I walked by, but never said much.”
