Texas man arrested for sending death threats to UF faculty member

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Connor Scott Brockenbush, 35, of Grapevine, Texas, has been arrested for allegedly sending emails with death threats to a UF faculty member.

The victim told a University of Florida Police Department officer that she received four emails on May 17 from the same email address; the emails contained racial epithets and death threats, and they made references to her research. Three of the emails linked to material from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” with one showing the murder of a female actress and the other two showing a picture of the villain in that movie next to a superimposed photo of the victim’s head.

Among other references to the victim’s death, one email said, “I’m gonna cut your head off and consume you for nutrients.”

The victim did not know who sent the messages, so the officer obtained a search warrant for the email account and found that the recovery email for the account was in Brockenbush’s name, with a location in Texas.

The officer reached out to a detective in Texas and learned that Brockenbush lived in Grapevine, Texas.

The officer reported that the initial search warrant results had no data for May 17, but upon further review, the officer found a spreadsheet in the results with a list of messages and web searches from May 17 that had been deleted. Some of these searches were for the victim’s name, and other searches were for clips from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

The account’s YouTube search history reportedly showed searches for “Melody’s death,” which corresponded to the clip that was attached to one of the emails.

The victim told the officer that she did not know Brockenbush.

Brockenbush has been charged with sending a written threat to kill. His criminal history is unavailable because those documents are not posted on weekends. Judge Sheree Lancaster ordered him held without bail pending a hearing on a motion from the State Attorney’s Office to hold him without bail until trial; if the judge denies the motion, bail will be set at that hearing.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.