A 30-year-old Michigan man traveled to the Satanic Temple headquarters in Salem with guns, ammunition and homemade “bombs,” according to U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Mark Totten.
Luke Terpstra, of Grant, Michigan, was indicted Tuesday. He has been charged with transporting an explosive with the intent to kill, injure, or intimidate individuals or to unlawfully damage or destroy a building. He also faces a separate charge that he illegally possessed a destructive device.
Officials said Terpstra traveled to Massachusetts with the weapons in September 2023. He had built several devices that he characterized as “bombs,” according to the indictment charges.
The Salem Police Department said the fall trip might’ve been for “planning purposes.” As of January, there was no indication that he had any local help or that he acted with any accomplices, police said.
In December, Totten’s office said Terpstra was telling others he had the “bombs” because he wanted to “blow up” the Satanic Temple. Officials found Terpstra had items used to make improvised explosive devices in January, including plastic container with coins attached to it and a piece of cannon fuse coming out of the lid; numerous metal carbon dioxide (CO2) cartridges; PVC pipe; ammonium nitrate; and hobby fuses.
“On the one hand it is gratifying that our federal and local partners were able to thwart Terpstra. On the other, it is terrifying that he walked in our midst planning such violence,” the Salem Police Department wrote in January, adding that“an attack such as Terpstra was planning keeps us up at night.”
The Satanic Temple, which opened its first official headquarters in Salem in 2016, and its members don’t view Satan as an evil figure, but as one who dared question authority. The group mostly advocates for the separation of church and state and is known for attempting to get its one-ton goat-headed idol statue put next to the 10 Commandments monument on public grounds.
Another man, Sean Patrick Palmer, 49, of Perkins, Okahoma, was arrested and charged in April after officials said he threw a pipe bomb at the temple’s main entrance.
