Arkansas man arrested for trying to crash through South Carolina nuclear plant gates, police say

An Arkansas man was arrested after he allegedly tried to crash his vehicle into the Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina, officials said. 

Officers with the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office took Doyle Wayne Whisenhunt, 66, of Lockesburg, Arkansas, into custody on Friday after finding him in an abandoned home, and he was transferred to the Oconee County Detention Center and booked into jail there, the Oconee County Sheriff's Office said. 

Whisenhunt is charged with attempted murder, malicious injury to personal property and trespassing in connection to the incident. 

Whisenhunt had accelerated his 2002 Toyota Camry toward a security officer at the nuclear plant on Thursday evening with the intent of causing "great bodily harm or death," according to an arrest warrant. 

He damaged the gates and fencing by hitting them with his vehicle and he trespassed onto the nuclear station's property, authorities also said. 

Officials found the Camry Friday afternoon in Pickens County before finding Whisenhunt later that day. 

Authorities haven't released any information regarding Whisenhunt's motive, according to CNN. 

Whisenhunt, whose criminal history dates back to the 1990s, is also currently charged in another county with possessing weapons, drug paraphernalia and meth with purpose of delivery, and in 2021, he was charged with terroristic threatening, and intimidating a witness, though the victim later recanted her statement and the charges weren't processed.

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