CLEVELAND — A Westlake woman made a potentially explosive discovery while clearing out her closet Thursday morning, police said.
According to the Westlake Police Department, officers were called to the home in the Courtyard condominium complex on Detroit Road at around 10:30 a.m. after a caller reported a "suspicious condition."
The woman told police she had been cleaning out her home after her husband died and found some old "souvenirs" her husband had collected in the closet. She told police she believed they were grenades.
The Westshore Enforcement Bomb Unit was called to the scene. Police say an "old Japanese mortar and grenade" were safely collected from the home.
Westlake police shared audio of the woman calling police to report finding the explosives with 3News. On the call, the woman told police that the mortar and grenade had once belonged to her husband's father, who took them into possession after World War II. The caller's husband ended up with the weapons after his father died, she said.
"I told him to get rid of it, and I thought he got rid of it," the caller told police. "And I don't know how he would've anyways, but now I have those two in my closet." She told police she was "scared out of my mind" after discovering the explosives.
A Westlake sergeant on the bomb squad identified the ordinance as a Japanese Type 89 Knee Mortar and a Japanese Type 97 Hand Grenade.
The explosives were taken to the bomb unit's storage bunker for destruction.
