Bank takes threat seriously

Herald staff

A Seattle lawyer got upset about the service she was getting at an Edmonds bank.

A little too upset, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Chris Dickinson said.

Dianne Marie Ward-Turk was charged Friday with one felony count of telephone harassment for allegedly making a threatening call to a bank employee in October.

The defendant had been unhappy with the service she had received at the bank. A financial adviser and others had been attempting to work with Ward-Turk to address her concerns, "but have found her to be abusive and insulting," Dickinson said in charging papers.

Dickinson said the financial adviser at the Edmonds branch of Washington Mutual arrived at work Oct. 9 and played telephone messages left over the weekend. On one of them, the defendant complained about not getting some bank statements that she wanted.

According to Dickinson, "the defendant concluded her message in a very calm and emphatic voice stating: ‘I want you to please let (a co-worker) know I’d like to receive those statements by the end of the week at the latest. If I don’t, I will make a trip out there with a gun and shoot either you or (the co-worker) right between the eyes, and I mean it. I’ll blow your head off. I want my statements. Goodbye.’ "

Ward-Turk could not be reached for comment late Friday afternoon.

Dickinson said the bank employee was terrified and called police immediately. The bank responded to the threat by bringing in armed bodyguards to protect the financial adviser, Dickinson said.

The defendant lives and practices law in Seattle, Dickinson said. Police found a firearm at her residence when they obtained a warrant and searched it, Dickinson added.

Meanwhile, the bank employee received a protection order against Ward-Turk in South District Court, Dickinson said.

No court date for arraignment was set immediately.