Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Police arrested a Sweet Home man Monday morning in connection with pipe bombs found in the Salem area in August.
A law enforcement task force of law enforcement agencies served a search warrant at the home of Lonnie Troy Glinski, 44, of 27475 Fern Ridge Road on Oct. 16 and arrested him on seven counts of attempted aggravated murder and four counts of possession of a destructive device. According to police, additional charges may be filed later in Linn County or by federal authorities.
The task force blocked off a portion of Fern Ridge Road Monday. The road closure was still in place at midday Wednesday.
The task force formed after four pipe bombs were found in the Salem-Dallas area on Aug. 10. Two of the bombs were found attached to cars, and two were found lying on streets after falling off moving cars. None of the bombs detonated, and no one was injured.
Two of Glinski’s neighbors told The New Era they didn’t really know Glinski. One had met him three times.
“We’ve never met the man, never saw him, nothing,” said Sharon Inselman, who lives across the street from Glinski. Monday morning, she found Fern Ridge Road blocked, but the neighbors say police let them through to go to town and get home.
“We just all of a sudden looked down there, and there were police and the bomb squad,” Inselman said. “We didn’t know anything till it came out in the paper.”
“They came up today and got some hay because they had explosives they wanted to set off,” Inselman said Wednesday.
“We knew him very well, and he’s a pain in the…,” a third neighbor, Hariett Peterson, said.
“We’ve had a roadblock for two days,” she said. “The bomb squad and an ambulance is here.”
By late Wednesday afternoon, the road was open and signs warning of the road block were face down, she said.
Neighbors reported they received no mail or newspaper delivery for two days.
Police detonated six or seven bombs, at least, at the Glinski residence, Peterson said. She doesn’t know how many because she and her husband were gone part of the time.
The detonations sounded like a big gun, Peterson said. The Petersons have been hearing “pretty near the same noise for a year.”
“He’s run one neighbor off just by being cruel and mean, unbending and unlistening,” Peterson said, adding that Glinski was involved in disputes over an easement with other neighbors.
“He’s not a good guy,” she said, but Monday’s arrest over the Salem pipe bombs “surprised us it was going on, and we never heard anything.”
The task force includes officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Oregon State Police, the FBI, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Marion County District Attorney’s Office, Dallas Police Department, Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Linn County Sheriff’s Office and Salem Police Department.
The task force has been working on the case since August and received a break in the case late last week when Linn County Sheriff’s Office relayed information to task force investigators.
“These random incidents caused quite a scare to the public,” said Kelvin N. Crenshaw, special agent in charge with the ATF. “Our aggressive joint law enforcement response has answered the community’s call.”
Police listed four victims in the case, including Glinski’s ex-wife, Stephanie Glinski.
One of the victims is unidentified because police have not been able to identify the owner of the vehicle that lost a pipe bomb on Lancaster Drive in Salem.
Glinski has been lodged at Marion County Jail with a standard bail of $390,000. The Marion County District Attorney’s Office plans to ask the court to hold Glinski without bail pending disposition of the charges.
The aggravated attempted murder charges are Measure 11 offenses and carry a minimum sentence of 10 years on each count. Possession of a destructive device is a class C felony carrying a maximum punishment of five years in prison.
He was scheduled to appear in Marion County Circuit Court on Oct. 18.
Glinski’s girlfriend, Laurie Girtman, 50, was charged with hindering prosecution, a class C felony. She was cited to appear on Oct. 18 at Marion County Circuit Court.