FBI Mystery Starts At Agent's Home -- Fire Guts House Filled With Ammo After His Arrest

CATLETT, Va. - A domestic-abuse call to sheriff's deputies ended with the arrest of an FBI agent after a five-hour barricade, the seizure of 100,000 rounds of ammunition and 35 guns, and a suspicious fire that destroyed the agent's Fauquier County, Va., home yesterday morning - setting off all the ammo.

Ammo came from FBI school

Authorities said most of the ammunition, as well as stun grenades and tear-gas canisters found over the weekend at the house, came from the FBI's training academy in Quantico, Va., where the agent was a firearms instructor for 11 years.

The blaze, which injured no one and which officials believe was set, gutted the two-story brick house of Halbert Gary Harlow, 48, a 25-year FBI veteran who is assigned to do background checks on high-level government appointees.

Fauquier sheriff's deputies first went to Harlow's house Sunday evening to arrest him on a domestic-assault charge after a complaint from his wife, Barbara. His wife also told authorities that Harlow had a cache of ammunition and weapons inside, according to an FBI official.

Thinking the house might be booby-trapped and that Harlow was inside, sheriff's deputies surrounded the house but did not enter, said Col. Warren Jenkins of the Fauquier sheriff's office.

Suspect drives up

The barricade ended early Monday when Harlow drove up and was arrested on the assault charge. Jenkins said deputies don't know if Harlow was away from home during the five-hour incident or managed to get out and then returned.

After his arrest, Harlow agreed to let FBI agents inside the house, where they found several hundred boxes of ammunition, grenades, tear gas, night-vision goggles and gun holsters taken from the FBI training academy, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court. They returned to the house late Tuesday night with a search warrant and stayed until early yesterday. Jenkins said he was told by federal agents that they seized about 100,000 rounds of ammunition.

Ammunition is given to FBI special agents, "usually only one box at a time," the affidavit said. "This quantity of ammunition far exceeds what any FBI special agent should possess at home."

Harlow, who was released on $1,000 bond Monday morning, was home with his wife when the search concluded at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to court documents. At 5 a.m., the local volunteer fire company received the first reports of a fire at the property, about 50 miles southwest of Washington.

Firefighters were kept a mile away from the house until mid-morning because of exploding ammunition, said Vernon Ball, a member of the Catlett Volunteer Rescue Squad. It was unclear why that ammunition had not been confiscated in the search.

Neighbors said they heard several rounds of ammunition explode before flames erupted from the attached garage. Within minutes, they said, the house was ablaze and the sound of firecracker-like explosions filled the air.

By noon, firefighters had extinguished the last embers in the wooded, secluded lot, where only a brick chimney was left standing. FBI agents, Virginia State Police investigators, local fire marshals and sheriff's deputies then descended on the house to look for clues.

Couple say they weren't there

Gary Harlow and his wife told investigators they left the house between 3 and 4 a.m. and did not know how the fire started.

As a firearms instructor at Quantico from 1980 to 1991, Harlow would have had access to much of the equipment found in his home, the FBI affidavit said, but it is normally used only in training situations and not kept in agents' homes.

Andrew Edwards, 58, a next-door neighbor, said Harlow regularly fired a gun in the back yard. "You'd hear guns going off now and then."

FBI officials would not comment on Harlow's record with the bureau. He has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated in connection with both the fire and the government property found at his house, law-enforcement officials said.

The Harlows could not be reached for comment yesterday.