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HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The Latest on a fugitive arrested in Kansas and an investigation into a series of bank robberies. (all times local):
2:55 p.m.
A jailhouse phone call transcript shows that a man suspected in a string of bank robberies and of shooting at a police officer asked his mother to clear his Montana home of guns after his arrest.
The transcript of the call between 39-year-old Richard Gathercole and his mother, who is unnamed, was submitted to a judge by federal officials seeking a search warrant for the Roundup, Montana, home.
Authorities found numerous homemade explosives inside the home on Saturday. Gathercole is in jail in Nebraska and is accused of shooting at a Kansas state trooper with an AK-47 rifle a week ago.
According to the transcript, Gathercole tells his mother to get all the guns out of the house. She agrees, then reminds him that the call is being recorded.
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1:05 p.m.
Federal agents say a weekend search of a south-central Montana residence that turned up homemade bombs was connected to a bank robbery investigation.
FBI Los Angeles spokeswoman Laura Eimiller says numerous agencies were investigating whether evidence found in the search in Roundup, Montana, was connected to a series of bank robberies in California, Washington state, Idaho and Nebraska.
In 2012 and 2014, a man the FBI called "the AK-47 bandit" robbed several banks. The robber shot and wounded a police officer in Chino, California.
Officials with the Musselshell County sheriff's office in Montana say the weekend search was linked to 39-year-old Richard Gathercole, who was arrested last week in Nebraska. He was wanted after someone fired shots at a Kansas trooper. The trooper wasn't injured.
Officials did not say how Gathercole was connected to the residence where the bombs were found.
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11:10 a.m.
Montana authorities say they found homemade bombs in a home after the arrest of a man accused of shooting at a Kansas state trooper.
Richard Gathercole of Roundup, Montana, was arrested Tuesday at a gas station in Lexington, Nebraska, a day after a man fired at the trooper on Interstate 70. The trooper wasn't injured.
The Musselshell County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Monday that deputies assisted FBI agents and officers from California and Idaho in searching a Roundup home on Saturday.
They found numerous improvised explosive devices that were removed by a bomb squad.
A dispatcher who answered the phone at the sheriff's office's Monday could not immediately confirm that it was Gathercole's home.
Gathercole is being held in Nebraska on charges of theft and possession of stolen firearms.
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