PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The first American arrested in the deadly train bombing in Madrid is a former Army lieutenant and a convert to Islam who lives in a nondescript suburban home and faithfully attends a nearby mosque. Family members say Brandon Mayfield is innocent and has never even been to Spain. But law enforcement officials there said Friday that his fingerprints had been found on bags containing detonators of the kind used in the March 11 attack, which killed 191 people and injured 2,000 others. He is being held as a material witness, which allows the government to detain him without filing formal charges, to allow time for further investigation. Mayfield, 37, is an attorney who took low-income immigration and family-law clients at his practice in suburban Portland, once representing Muslim terrorism suspect Jeffrey Battle in a child custody case. Battle was among six Portland-area residents who were sentenced last year on charges of conspiring to wage war against the United States by helping al-Qaida and the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan. Mayfield was born in Oregon and grew up in Halstead, Kan., a small farming town about 30 miles northwest of Wichita. He joined the Army right out of high school and was stationed in Germany among other places. He earned a law degree several years later and settled down in Portland, where he and his Egyptian-born wife have three children. "He has always been a delight," said his stepmother, Ruth Alexander of Halstead, recalling a compassionate child who once kept a pet grasshopper. "This is positively unbelievable. He was never in any trouble growing up." Mayfield met his wife, Mona, while stationed near Tacoma, Wash., at Fort Lewis. Records from Washoe County, Nev., show the two were married in 1998. Mayfield converted to Islam after marriage, Alexander said. Mayfield comes from a family of non-church-goers, Alexander said. "When they started having children, he thought they should have some religion to have the family focus on," she said. Leaders at the Bilal Mosque in Beaverton, Ore., said he would show up regularly for prayer on Fridays, and that he helped congregants who needed legal advice. Mayfield lost one of his biological brothers to leukemia, Alexander said, while another still lives in Halstead, and teaches art at a public school. Mayfield's paternal grandmother, Lydia Mayfield, was well-known in Hutchinson for her plain-spokenness, Ruth Alexander said, and was once investigated by the FBI for a letter to the editor published in the local newspaper in which she threatened the president. Records show Mayfield spent a single semester at Lewis & Clark law school in Portland, but that he received his degree from Washburn University in Kansas, according to Dena Anson, the director of university relations at the Kansas school. He passed the Oregon bar in 2000. Neighbors said the Mayfields moved into a repossessed home in Aloha, Ore., fixed it up and then held a dinner party. The Mayfields had so little furniture then, neighbor Arlene Witt recalled, that she and her husband sat on the couch and Brandon and Mona Mayfield sat on the floor. Their three children -- Shane, Sharia, and Samir -- are 15, 12 and 10. ------ Associated Press writer Roxana Hegeman reported to this report from Halstead, Kan.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The first American arrested in the deadly train bombing in Madrid is a former Army lieutenant and a convert to Islam who lives in a nondescript suburban home and faithfully attends a nearby mosque. Family members say Brandon Mayfield is innocent and has never even been to Spain. But law enforcement officials there said Friday that his fingerprints had been found on bags containing detonators of the kind used in the March 11 attack, which killed 191 people and injured 2,000 others. He is being held as a material witness, which allows the government to detain him without filing formal charges, to allow time for further investigation. Mayfield, 37, is an attorney who took low-income immigration and family-law clients at his practice in suburban Portland, once representing Muslim terrorism suspect Jeffrey Battle in a child custody case. Battle was among six Portland-area residents who were sentenced last year on charges of conspiring to wage war against the United States by helping al-Qaida and the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan. Mayfield was born in Oregon and grew up in Halstead, Kan., a small farming town about 30 miles northwest of Wichita. He joined the Army right out of high school and was stationed in Germany among other places. He earned a law degree several years later and settled down in Portland, where he and his Egyptian-born wife have three children. "He has always been a delight," said his stepmother, Ruth Alexander of Halstead, recalling a compassionate child who once kept a pet grasshopper. "This is positively unbelievable. He was never in any trouble growing up." Mayfield met his wife, Mona, while stationed near Tacoma, Wash., at Fort Lewis. Records from Washoe County, Nev., show the two were married in 1998. Mayfield converted to Islam after marriage, Alexander said. Mayfield comes from a family of non-church-goers, Alexander said. "When they started having children, he thought they should have some religion to have the family focus on," she said. Leaders at the Bilal Mosque in Beaverton, Ore., said he would show up regularly for prayer on Fridays, and that he helped congregants who needed legal advice. Mayfield lost one of his biological brothers to leukemia, Alexander said, while another still lives in Halstead, and teaches art at a public school. Mayfield's paternal grandmother, Lydia Mayfield, was well-known in Hutchinson for her plain-spokenness, Ruth Alexander said, and was once investigated by the FBI for a letter to the editor published in the local newspaper in which she threatened the president. Records show Mayfield spent a single semester at Lewis & Clark law school in Portland, but that he received his degree from Washburn University in Kansas, according to Dena Anson, the director of university relations at the Kansas school. He passed the Oregon bar in 2000. Neighbors said the Mayfields moved into a repossessed home in Aloha, Ore., fixed it up and then held a dinner party. The Mayfields had so little furniture then, neighbor Arlene Witt recalled, that she and her husband sat on the couch and Brandon and Mona Mayfield sat on the floor. Their three children -- Shane, Sharia, and Samir -- are 15, 12 and 10. ------ Associated Press writer Roxana Hegeman reported to this report from Halstead, Kan.
