FBI pursues leads on ricin, 'Fallen Angel'

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FBI officials said investigators have not determined how ricin got on a mail-opening machine in the mailroom of U.S. Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee after three days of searching.

"At this point, we're not in any position to make a connection between the ricin we have down here and that which was discovered up there," said Tom O'Neill, a spokesman for the South Carolina office of the FBI.

O'Neill said there are no new developments in the South Carolina case.

"No one has received that $100,000 reward so we're still looking for help from the public," he said.

O'Neill said investigators were not concentrating on any particular area, "going wherever the investigation takes us." He said he could not discuss details of the investigation, which began Oct. 15.

In recent days, federal officials have revealed that a letter containing ricin was sent to the White House in November and was similar to a letter addressed to the Department of Transportation containing ricin sent or delivered last October to a mail center serving the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport.

Both were signed "Fallen Angel," the FBI said. The typewritten Greenville letter threatened to dump large quantities of the poison in water supplies unless officials repealed a new federal trucking rule requiring more rest.

O'Neill said the FBI has heard all sorts of theories about what the name Fallen Angel might mean, ranging from a television show to a pornographic movie.

"Obviously, we're not going to limit it to any one area," he said. "Anyone who wants to provide information, we're going to follow up on it."

None of the ricin discoveries have been tied to any illness. The poison, in some forms, can be more lethal than nerve gas or cobra venom. There is no known antidote.

The FBI has distributed fliers in hopes of catching a suspect in the Greenville case.

They've been aided in their efforts by the American Trucking Association, which alerted members last fall to look for anyone or anything suspicious. The group alerted its members again this week because of the Senate ricin scare, asking anyone with information to contact its security office.

"It's very tough," said Mike Russell, a spokesman for the association. "We don't know what we're looking for until we see it. It's not like looking for a particular motor vehicle that's easily identifiable."

The letter to the White House was postmarked in Chattanooga, according to a law enforcement source who did not want to be identified. The letter found in Greenville did not have a postmark, officials have said.

Officials believe it is possible the Greenville ricin was delivered rather than mailed because it did not have an address. Whoever took the ricin to the mail center may know the Greenville area well because the mail facility off Pelham Road was not open to the public, according to the FBI.

The White House-bound ricin, intercepted by the Secret Service at an offsite mail facility, was of low potency, officials said. O'Neill said he did not know the potency of the Greenville ricin.

The handling of the ricin case in South Carolina was criticized by residents and lawmakers, in part because the public and local health officials were not told of the package until a week after it was found. The mail center remained opened for that week, processing as many as 20,000 piece of mail a day for nationwide distribution. It was closed after the material tested positive for ricin.

The criticism prompted officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to say they would change procedures, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham told The Greenville News last December.

A spokesman for the FBI said Wednesday that the White House ricin letter was not publicly disclosed until this week because the substance was not deemed a public health threat and because the public already knew much of what was contained in the letter because it was similar to the Greenville note.

Monday's discovery, unlike the Greenville case, resulted in an immediate response. Tests were done to confirm the ricin, the floor was sealed off and workers near the office were decontaminated.

Three Senate office buildings were closed, one of which was opened on Thursday. A postal facility used to process Capitol mail also was closed and was reopened Thursday morning.

Officials said Thursday all air and environmental samplings in Capitol offices have tested negative for ricin.

John Osterloh, chief medical officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Environmental Health Lab, said he has not seen any indication that any of the ricin discovered thus far was aerosolized, a fine powder engineered to disperse in the air and be inhaled. Ricin can be far more toxic, he said, if injected or inhaled. He said descriptions of the ricin found in Greenville are "not in a fine enough state to be aerosolized."

Osterloh said animal studies have shown inhaling or injecting the poison is far more deadly than eating it.

"When you look at the inhaled dose of ricin, the dose is much smaller than the dose one would need for the same level of toxicity when compared to an ingested dose," he said. "In fact, it's on the order of 100 to 1,000 times smaller."

He said it would take a lot more effort to produce ricin in a form that could be dispersed by air than other forms that could be eaten or placed in liquid.

"While castor beans are highly available and ricin is from castor beans, to produce an inhaled form it does take some work," he said.

Sgt. Contricia Sellers-Ford, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Capitol Police, said investigators are still going through the mail. She said no threatening letters had been discovered nor any trace of ricin outside the mailroom.

None of the workers near the mailroom at the time the poison was found have shown any signs of illness, she said.

A biological response team from the U.S. Marines continues to check unopened mail in the Capitol, she said. Sellers-Ford said the reopening of one of the three Senate buildings went smoothly Thursday. Another is to be opened Friday and the last Monday.

"Everything is getting back to normal," she said.

Tim Smith can be reached at 803-256-7367.