How a Live Grenade Got to the Strongsville Police Station

Cindi and Joseph Terwoord spent Sunday morning helping Cindi's mother move from her Heather Lane home.

Then they spent the afternoon at the Strongsville police station while the Bomb Squad delicately disposed of a live grenade the couple found in the attic.

"They called and asked if we could take a look at a hand grenade," said Detective Lt. John Janowski, who is also a member of the Southwest Enforcement Bureau's bomb squad.

Officers did -- and told everyone to back away from the Terwoords' truck.

'I Think the Pins are Still in It'

Cindi Terwoord said that while cleaning out her mother's attic, her husband came across a box of stuff her father brought home from World War II, including his jacket, some Japanese knives and the grenade.

She had no idea her dad, Lloyd Goodwin, who served in the Philippines in World War II and died in 1997, had kept an explosive all these years.

"My husband brought it down and said, "There's a grenade in here, and I think the pins are still in it,'" she said.

They decided to have Strongsville police look at it. On the way, Cindi called dispatchers to tell them they were coming.

"I didn't think they'd appreciate us walking in with a grenade," she said with a laugh.

She was right. In fact, the dispatcher told them not to move the device -- officers would come to them.

But she said they were already on Pearl Road near the station.

"They told us, "Just pull up in the Commons. Do not come in," Cindi said.

Lt. Mark Stepanovich greeted them in the parking lot, peering in at the grenade on the front seat of their truck.

"He said, 'Don't touch that,'" Cindi recalled. "I was like, uh, we already did."

Playing it Safe

Janowski, who was called in to handle the situation along with another bomb technician, Bruce Merwin, a former Berea officer, said he took one look at the grenade and decided to "play it by the numbers."

"I didn't like the way the pin looked," Janowski said.

Japanese grenades are made with picric acid, which can deteriorate and become touchy, he said.

He and Merwin used poles and special tape to lift the grenade out of the truck and put in a specially designed bomb box that is built to contain an explosion.

The box is now in an undisclosed location and will be detonated at the Bomb Squad's next training session.

Cindi Terwoord said officers told her old grenades can be handled a few times, then suddenly explode.

She now regrets that her family handled the grenade, but said she's looking at the episode as an adventure.

"I posted it on Facebook," she said.