Moore County substation attack docs show investigators found person of interest within 2 days of incident

There are about 400 pages of court documents that detail the investigation into the attacks at the Carthage and West End Substations from December of 2022.

These documents show investigators had identified a person of interest within two days of the attack. We are not naming him because he has not been charged.

It took less than an hour for someone to shoot Duke Energy's electric substations in Carthage and West End, knocking out power for 45,000 in Moore County.

A man called 911 - saying he was knowledgeable and willing to help with the Moore County outage.

Documents said he also told a coworker he had "been in communication with people connected with a group called the Moore County Patriots and that they had a plan to damage substations in Moore County."

The man also telling investigators his wife was in Charlotte the night of Dec. 3. But search warrants were issued for AT&T and T-Mobile for four phone numbers, one from Raleigh, another from San Antonio and two around Rocky Mount.

AT&T records show one of those numbers connected to an AT&T tower less than a thousand yards from the Duke Energy substation in Carthage.

The lieutenant who filed the search warrant says he believes the man was probably in communication with other unidentified persons specifically about planning to damage Moore County substations leading up to Dec. 3.

Documents also show investigators requested information from Duke Energy for records related to all employees involuntarily terminated, released or advised they would be fired between Sept. 3 & Dec. 3 along with all workers who worked for Duke in Moore County in those time frames.

Shell casings analyzed by the FBI at both Carthage and West End substations were fired by the same weapon.

One investigator says the precise nature of the damage makes them believe the person who caused the damage had intimate working knowledge of the substations far beyond that of the average person. It is likely that that person or persons responsible for damaging the Carthage and West End substations had first-hand experience working with the components on the Moore County, NC Duke Energy power system."

No arrests have been made in the attacks.

WRAL News reached out to Moore County Sheriff's Office for more information. They did not get back to us.