Bomb suspect's husband arrested after device found outside Washington state hospital

KING-TV

The bomb was found Thursday morning in a car parked in front of the Harrison Medical Center emergency room in Bremerton, Wash., police said.

The husband of a Washington state woman accused of leaving a bomb outside a hospital has also been arrested, and both were due in court later Friday on explosives charges.

Krista Leeann Hendershot, 42, was arrested Thursday after the State Patrol bomb squad found an explosive device in the car in which a good Samaritan drove her to Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton, about 20 miles west of Seattle, police said.

A similar device was found in her mobile home in nearby Poulsbo, which police searched after questioning Hendershot. She was charged with felony possession of an explosive device and was held on $100,000 bond.

Late Thursday, Hendershot's husband, identified as Dennis Dale Hendershot Jr., 43, was also arrested. He, too, was charged overnight with a felony explosives count, as well as a misdemeanor count of violating a no-contact order, and was being held on $150,000 bond.

Hendershot, a felon with previous burglary and drug convictions, is suspected of having made the bombs, police said. Details of the second charge against him weren't immediately available Friday.

The Hendershots, who were being held in the Kitsap County jail, were scheduled for an initial court appearance at 3 p.m. local time (6 p.m. ET).

The man alerted hospital staff, who called Bremerton police at about 7:30 a.m.The bizarre story began early Thursday morning, when a motorist picked up Leeann Hendershot because she looked to be in "distress," police said. As he was driving her to the hospital, she told him she had a bomb, they said.

Police sealed off the area of the emergency room and called the State Patrol bomb squad, which found the device in the car parked out front, Bremerton police said in a statement. 

Officers described it as "an improvised explosive device" made up of an agricultural field bomb nestled in a ring of six carbon dioxide canisters.

After police questioned Hendershot, the bomb squad found a second device wrapped in tape at her home and immediately evacuated surrounding homes, Poulsbo police said. 

Deputy Police Chief Robert Wright told NBC station KING of Seattle that the bomb was "very similar in nature to the one they took in Bremerton."