Federal investigators sought Tuesday to identify a letter or package that may have carried ricin into a leading senator’s mailroom as new links emerged between letters containing the deadly poison found in South Carolina and a White House mail facility. A senior law enforcement official said investigators had established strong links between the South Carolina and White House letters. What remained unclear, the official said, was whether those letters were connected to the substance found in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
Brilliant, Holmes!
The letter found in October in South Carolina signed by someone who called himself "Fallen Angel" and one found in November at a facility that processes mail for the White House both complained about new regulations requiring certain amounts of rest for truck drivers, the official said. Both also contained ricin. Investigators said Tuesday they had not identified the letter or package that might have carried ricin into Frist’s office. An initial check found no extortion, threat or complaint letter in the office, said a second law enforcement source. There also were no indications of involvement by foreign terrorists such as al-Qaida, which the FBI has said is interested in using ricin in an attack.
| It doesn't sound like there are. Here it is February 4th, and we're not all dead. I'm so surprised... |
The package found in a South Carolina mail facility had a letter claiming that the author could make more ricin and a threat to "start dumping" large quantities if his demands to stop the new trucking regulations were not met. The FBI offered a $100,000 reward in that case but no arrests have been made. The White House letter, intercepted in November, contained nearly identical language but such weak amounts of ricin that it was not deemed a major health threat. That letter’s existence was not publicly disclosed before Tuesday. In Connecticut, a coarse gray powder found at one of the state’s postal facilities tested negative for ricin, said Mark Saunders, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service. The material was leaking out of a letter addressed to the Republican National Committee. Saunders said officials also are testing a material found at a Washington, D.C., postal facility on V Street "out of an abundance of caution." Government mail is sorted at that facility, which was closed Tuesday. At the Capitol, an FBI hazardous materials team was helping police isolate and examine the mail in Frist’s office and will in the coming days collect other unopened mail in the Capitol complex, said FBI spokeswoman Debra Weierman. The FBI also will do forensic analysis at its laboratory in Quantico, Va., checking evidence for fingerprints, fibers, hair and the like. |