A western New York man who tweeted his plans to murder controversial TV personality Nancy Grace was apparently in the process of taking his threats to the next level when he was arrested last week on his way out of town.

David Lee Simpson, 48, had apparently taken issue with comments Grace made during the trial of Jodi Arias.

The Bath resident had become "infatuated" with Arias, and tweeted that he wanted to strap Grace and her colleague Jane Velez-Mitchell to a tree naked and then "slit their throats."

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County became aware of Simpson's tweets in June and sent a deputy to New York to track him down.

After word reached Arpaio that Simpson quit his job at an auto-repair shop and was allegedly on his way "south" to exact his vengeance on Grace and Velez-Mitchell, the sheriff asked local authorities to monitor the situation.

Simpson was subsequently pulled over by a Bath Police Department investigator, and a search of his car turned up at least two guns and a knife as well as "ammunition, handcuffs, zip-ties, binoculars, a knife and a police radio."

"This suspect was on his way south with enough weapons in his car to do serious harm to someone," said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. "Fortunately, we acted quickly enough, and in doing so, were able to stop him before anything could transpire."

A grand jury in Phoenix later indicted Simpson on three charges of computer tampering and two charges of stalking — all felonies.

[H/T: The Daily Dot, screengrab via ABC News, mug shot via Maricopa County Sheriff Office]