After hearing testimony about Mark David Uhl's affinity for Nazis and gangs, and how he'd bombed his high school with homemade tear gas, a federal judge ruled today that Uhl will remain behind bars while awaiting trial on a charge of possessing explosives on the eve of Jerry Falwell's funeral.

Given the nature of the case and that Uhl, a 19-year-old from Amissville, was attending Liberty University in Lynchburg, it is difficult for his situation to escape "the penumbra that flows from what happened in Blacksburg," Magistrate Judge Michael Urbanski said, referring to the deaths of 33 people during an on-campus shooting rampage last month at Virginia Tech.

Uhl's case is related not to the Tech shootings, but to another recent national news story from Southwest Virginia, the death of Falwell.

Uhl was arrested on the eve of the funeral, which drew thousands to Lynchburg, and charged with possessing an unregistered explosive device. The arrest followed a call to police from his brother-in-law, who had grown uneasy about Uhl's talk of bombs and of turning the brother-in-law's house into "a gas chamber," agent R.A. Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said at Uhl's detention hearing today.

Police said last week they thought Uhl planned to go to the May 22 services for Falwell. They said they did not think he planned to disrupt the event, but also said he had a problem with protesters who were present.

Uhl told investigators he didn't intend to hurt anyone and planned to detonate five cannisters he'd filled with a napalm-like mix of Styrofoam and gasoline in a field.

In court today, Anderson said Uhl had told his relatives he would set off the bombs in the parking lot of a Mormon church, use them to kill cows, "or something to that effect."

Most of today's testimony revolved not around Uhl's plans, but around his past.

Anderson said a search of Uhl's computer found 25,000 stored images, about half of them pornographic. He said there were pictures of Hitler, of young people giving Nazi salutes, a picture of Hitler with a gun in his mouth and the caption "Follow the leader," and another simply captioned "I love Hitler."

Anderson said there were pictures of Uhl and others giving what he described as gang signs, and said there was a picture of a six-pointed blue star captioned "If you're not blue, you're not true" -- a reference, Anderson said, to the national Crips gang.

Uhl's attorney, Craig Tiller, noted that someone else could have put the images on the computer.

Anderson also said Uhl had once participated in an attack on his former high school in Northern Virginia. He and several friends made a tear-gas-like bomb using Tabasco sauce and a heater from a military Meals Ready to Eat ration. They planned to throw it from the roof at prom-goers as a prank, Anderson said Uhl had told him, but got scared and instead tossed it into a ventilation shaft.

Uhl boasted "He'd saved a lot of people from losing their virginity that night," Anderson said.

Communications extracted from Uhl's computer and a friend's Myspace site also contained references to smoking marijuana, to blowing things up, and to celebrating Uhl's first year at Liberty by covering a junk car with homemade napalm, igniting it and driving it into a body of water -- with Uhl planning to leap out and "swimming into the lake of fire," Anderson said.

An online exchange Uhl had with a friend was paraphrased as saying "napalm plus car plus weed ... I can taste blood."

Uhl's step-father, Frederick Fithian, said he was hearing the allegations about Uhl's interests for the first time in court.

"I don't know what the deal is with the Hitler thing. That staggers me," Fithian said. "Teenagers do dumb things. It seems out of character for the person I know."

He said that if Uhl were released into his custody, he'd limit his access to computers and notify authorities if he did anything wrong. "The first time he breathes out of time, I will not hesitate," Fithian said.

"His mother needs him. His grandfather need him. We'll keep him busy at home," Fithian said.

He and Tiller said Uhl's former employer, a restaurant, was ready to re-hire him if he were allowed out on bond.

Tiller emphasized that Uhl did not tell investigators he planned to harm anyone with the bombs.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis said too much is unknown about the case. Letting Uhl await trial at home could be "releasing a ticking time bomb onto the streets," he said.

Urbanski said Uhl's lack of prior criminal record and his step-father's statements were in his favor, but that Uhl's "secret history and characteristics" made it impossible not to see him as a possible threat to the community.

The judge said there would be no bond for Uhl, and returned him to the custody of U.S. marshals. A date for his next hearing has not been set.