SALEM, Ore. – A jury Wednesday recommended that a father and his son be sentenced to death for planting a bomb that exploded inside an Oregon bank two years ago, killing two police officers and maiming a third.

In a trial that spanned three months, prosecutors portrayed Bruce and Joshua Turnidge as bigoted men who hated authorities, were desperate for money and feared that newly elected President Obama would take away their guns.

Both defendants stood with their lawyers and stared straight forward, showing no emotion as Marion County Circuit Judge Tom Hart read the jury’s decisions. Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed them with their hands in front of their bodies to be jailed until Hart formally sentences them Jan. 24.

“It’s all in God’s hands. We don’t know what’s going to happen eventually,” said Janet Turnidge, who is Bruce Turnidge’s wife and Joshua Turnidge’s mother. “We want to express our deep, deep sorrow for the loss that the victims’ families have endured. We have been praying for them.”

The same jury convicted the men Dec. 8 on 18 counts each of aggravated murder and other charges in the December 2008 bombing at the West Coast Bank in Woodburn. The homemade bomb killed state police bomb technician William Hakim, who was trying to dismantle it, and Woodburn Police Capt. Tom Tennant, who was helping.

“This is a murderer with no remorse,” prosecutor Matt Kemmy said in his closing argument of the penalty phase Tuesday.

Both men have maintained their innocence. Father and son turned on each other in trial, each pointing the finger at the other for building and planting the bomb, which prosecutors said was part of a plan to rob the bank.

Prosecutors urged jurors to sentence the men to death to prevent them from endangering prison staff or preaching their hatred for authorities to young prisoners who will someday be released. As convicted cop killers, the Turnidges will be popular in prison, they said.

Witnesses testified that Bruce Turnidge, 59, had previously hatched detailed plans to kill people he didn’t like and once fantasized about killing then-President Bill Clinton.

 

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