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Bank-bomb suspect held

SALEM, Ore. - A former Navy serviceman was charged with murder and other crimes after a bomb explosion at a bank that killed two law enforcers and critically injured a third, officials said yesterday.

Turnidge
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SALEM, Ore. - A former Navy serviceman was charged with murder and other crimes after a bomb explosion at a bank that killed two law enforcers and critically injured a third, officials said yesterday.

Joshua A. Turnidge, 32, was arrested Sunday after police released surveillance photographs of him, the Marion County district attorney's office said. Officials did not identify him until yesterday.

The announcement didn't say what led officers to Turnidge but said it had not been the "direct result" of a tip from the public. Investigators have not disclosed information about a motive.

Turnidge was arrested in Salem, where he lives, about 20 miles south of Woodburn, where the bomb exploded Friday at a West Coast Bank branch office.

The manager of the bank branch found the device Friday after a call about a bomb threat to a nearby Wells Fargo bank turned up a harmless device. The bomb at West Coast was found outside, but officers took it inside, where it exploded.

Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell was still in critical condition yesterday at a Portland hospital as a result of the blast, which killed Woodburn police Capt. Tom Tennant and Oregon State Police Senior Trooper William Hakim, a bomb disposal technician.

Public records show that Turnidge is divorced, served at Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois and was working in Salem as a steelworker in December 2006. He has lived in various Oregon communities, as well as in Nevada and Washington state. *