GRANT, Mich. — The West Michigan man who police said had plans to use homemade bombs to blow up the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts has been found competent to stand trial.
The suspect underwent a mental competency exam and the court found him competent to more forward with the case.
Luke Terpstra, from Grant, was in court Thursday and remains behind bars with a $1 million bond.
Investigators said they received a tip back in January from Tepstra's mother that he had made bombs and attempted to put them in the garbage outside his Grant home.
His mother told officials her son was experiencing "mental issues."
Terpstra's mother told a Kent County deputy her son was being evicted from his home when the explosives were discovered. His stepfather came over to his home to help him pack when Terpstra commented that "he needed to disarm and dispose of some explosives that he had."
Terpstra's stepfather saw the explosives in a box and photographed them before he tried to throw the evidence away.
Documents show he was asked by his stepfather about the explosives. Terpstra then revealed that he was thinking about using them on a Satanic temple in Massachusetts, saying he had already driven there to scope out the location.
Terpstra allegedly told his stepfather he was targeting the temple because "there are pedophiles there and they're bad people."
Michigan State Police used robots to search through garbage cans and found what the bomb squad referred to as improvised explosives with the intent to harm people. They say some of the devices were wrapped in shrapnel. One of the jars even had ammunition wrapped around it in tape so that when it exploded, rifle rounds would go through the air.
It was not immediately clear when Terpstra would be back in court.
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