Case closed?
Salem man held on multiple charges after bank bombing
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 9:59 AM PST
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| West Coast Bank is shown Monday in Woodburn. Many questions remain in a bombing that killed two officers and critically injured a police chief at an Oregon bank. Authorities think they have solved the most important one. Authorities arrested a suspect late Sunday, just hours after releasing surveillance photos of a ‘person of interest,’ according to Sheriff Russ Isham of Marion County. The man, Joshua A. Turnidge, was set to be arraigned this morning. |
SALEM (AP) — Joshua A. Turnidge’s landlord calls the 32-year-old Salem man ‘‘a hardworking, upstanding guy,’’ a good tenant who refinished hardwood floors and did other renovations for reduced rent.
Prosecutors were ready to paint a different picture of Turnidge at an arraignment today where they will assert he is a cold-blooded killer responsible for a bomb explosion at an Oregon bank that killed two law enforcement officers and critically injured a third.
Turnidge, who was arrested Sunday after police released surveillance photographs of him, was being held on multiple charges including murder, manufacturing and possession of a dangerous device, assault and conspiracy.
The Marion County district attorney’s office hasn’t said yet what the motive might have been for the bombing at the West Coast Bank branch office in the agricultural community of Woodburn, about 20 miles north of here.
Among friends and acquaintances who were interviewed Monday was his landlord, Randy Jacobsen of Keizer. He said he met Turnidge about a month ago. The two had gone out to dinner, Jacobsen said, and become friends.
He said Turnidge watched football every Sunday and was trying to build an alternative-fuel business.
‘‘We’re just shocked if this ends up being true,’’ he said.
The district attorney’s office didn’t say Monday what led officers to Turnidge, but said it wasn’t the ‘‘direct result’’ of a tip from the public.
Bombings are rare in Oregon, and the double killings from the blast Friday evening in Woodburn has saddened the law-enforcement community and resulted in outpourings of sympathy from civilians.
The bomb went off after police officers arrived at the bank to check on a suspicious object and then — for reasons that have not yet been explained — brought it inside the bank.
Turnidge was arrested in Salem, where he has lived at various residences over the past few years.
Authorities have said they believe the bomber is skilled in welding and electronics.
But they weren’t saying much Monday about Turnidge.
Court records show no serious offenses in Oregon — mainly traffic violations such as driving without a seat belt.
Public records show that Turnidge is divorced, has worked as a steelworker and has lived in various Oregon communities as well as in Nevada and Washington state. The records show he served in the Navy at Great Lakes, Ill.
Neighbors said he recently lived about a month in a north Salem neighborhood with a woman and a girl, in a camper trailer at the home of the woman’s mother, and he hoped to start a business using cooking oil to fuel cars.
One neighbor, Ray Daniel, said the three kept to themselves and recently experienced a death in the family.
‘‘It’s been a tough year for the family,’’ Daniel said.
Another neighbor, Bruce DeForest, said the three had been in and out of the neighborhood several times over the last three years and moved out recently. On Monday, police sealed off an area in another Salem neighborhood where Turnidge had just moved.
He has relatives in the Salem area. One, Pat Turnidge, interrupted a conversation with detectives Monday to tell The AP that he had been asked not to discuss his nephew.
Other close relatives did not return phone calls.
Investigators say cell phones and items that might have been used to make the bomb were bought in the central Oregon city Bend last month. Authorities are not yet saying how cell phones might have been used. Marion County Sheriff Russ Isham said Monday that investigators are not saying whether a cell phone was ‘‘part of the device.’’
Deputy District Attorney Courtland Geyer said revealing anything about the ‘‘manner and build’’ of the bomb would hurt the investigation.
The manager of a Woodburn branch of West Coast Bank found the device Friday after a call about a bomb threat to a nearby Wells Fargo bank branch turned up a harmless device. The bomb at West Coast Bank was found outside, but the officers took it inside, where it exploded. Investigators have said they do not know why it was taken inside.
Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell was still in critical condition Monday at a Portland hospital as a result of the blast that killed Woodburn police Capt. Tom Tennant and Oregon State Police Senior Trooper William Hakim, a bomb disposal technician.
