PRESQUE ISLE – Investigators with the Presque Isle Police Department were still working Monday to apprehend whomever was responsible for a series of bomb threats that sparked alarm and cost police and the city time and money during the last few months of 2006.

“It has been hard,” Detective Sgt. Wayne Selfridge said Monday. “It really could have been anyone. The cases remain active, and we are still investigating.”

Local police responded in November to three bomb threats in two weeks at Presque Isle High School.

A bomb threat also was scrawled onto the wall of the men’s restroom at the local Wal-Mart store in mid-December.

All of the bomb threats turned out to be hoaxes, although local officials treated each one as the real thing, evacuating the buildings until a meticulous search of the premises had been completed.

The police’s suspect in the Wal-Mart hoax – Gabriel Lilly, 20, of Presque Isle – was charged with terrorizing in late December.

Police allege that Lilly, who was a cashier at the store at the time of the Dec. 16 incident, reported finding an “intimidating” note indicating that a bomb would go off in the store at midnight.

The threat led to an evacuation and three-hour closure of the store. Lilly was charged after a detailed investigation of the incident, and will appear in Aroostook County Superior Court in Caribou on Feb. 23 to answer the charge.

The person or persons behind the bomb threats at the high school have not been found. Police said there is no connection between the Wal-Mart bomb threat and the bomb threats at the high school.

Witnesses in the cases, Selfridge pointed out Monday, have been difficult to find. In some cases, the threats were scrawled inside restroom facilities, where perpetrators typically are alone.

City officials, in concert with the SAD 1, have taken action to catch whoever is responsible for making the bomb threats.

City councilors voted during a special meeting late last month to approve a $1,000 reward – to be taken from the city’s unclassified contingent account – which will be added to a $1,000 reward the local school district established for information leading to an arrest related to the bomb threats.

The city’s reward – for information from the general public leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone who has made a bomb threat anywhere in Presque Isle – will apply to any such activity in the past six months, as well as for any bomb threats made in the next six months.

Anybody arrested in connection with the crimes faces a charge of terrorizing, a Class C felony, which is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and time in jail up to five years.

Anyone with information about the bomb threats is asked to call the Presque Isle Police Department at 764-4476.