Timothy L. Wyrick, 33, was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for making a series of threatening calls to the trooper. At the time of the crimes, Wyrick was a motorist assist technician with the Kansas Highway Patrol.

Wyrick pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan, to five counts of communicating a threat by interstate commerce. According to court records, in March 2009 a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper began to receive anonymous phone calls from a male who made threats of bodily harm against the trooper. The trooper received calls both on the trooper’s cellular phone and home phone.

According to James Cross, a spokesman for Lanny Welch, the U.S. Attorney for Kansas, , the caller left this message on one of the calls:

“You got to leave too early from your traffic stop! Had you in my scope! Well, gonna be some good things happen tonight. Oh, I got your burial site all done, ready for you. Bye, bye.”

The calls, which continued from March through Sept. 15, 2009, made repeated threats of bodily harm, described what the trooper was doing, how the trooper looked and where the trooper had been while on duty. The caller indicated he knew where the trooper lived and where the trooper’s mother lived.

Cross said some of the calls came from a pay phone at the Walmart in Paola. Other calls came from a Tracfone with a number that investigators were able to identify.

On Sept. 15, 2009, investigators watched while Wyrick used a cellular phone to make a call from the Tracfone number while he was sitting in a Kansas Highway Patrol work truck parked at the side of U.S. Highway 69, just north of a cell tower at 103rd Street and U.S. 69 in Overland Park. He was arrested and investigators recovered the cell phone from his boot.