02.03.11
Posted in Ricin Kooks, Stumble and Fail at 2:00 pm by George Smith
From Ohio newspapers:
Ricin suspect Jeff Boyd Levenderis will continue to be held on suicide watch in Summit County jail at least until a Feb. 15 federal court hearing when his lawyer will resume trying to get him released on bond.
Federal and local authorities arrested him last week after the deadly toxin ricin was found in his former residence in Coventry Township.
Levenderis pleaded not guilty Thursday to indictments of possession of a biological toxin and making false statements to the FBI. His attorney, Edward G. Bryan, said in U.S. District Court in Akron that he didn’t pose a threat and said he should released …
Before his arrest last week, Levenderis was staying in a Tallmadge nursing home where his attorney said he was being treated for mental illness and a thyroid condition. Bryan said Levenderis might go back there if released.
Bryan said Levenderis’ health improved dramatically after being placed in the nursing home in November and he expressed concern it might deteriorate in jail. He said Levenderis’ suicide watch includes being held naked in a cell under constant watch from deputies.
Everyone knows being banged up on what almost always means prison time and being held naked in a cell improves the mental outlook.
A wise judge would release the man on bail as soon as possible.
In a better world there would be no book in prosecuting people like Jeffrey Levenderis. Prison time for crap in a jar in the refrigerator?
It’s ludicrous, cruel and unusual punishment.
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02.02.11
Posted in Extremism, Ricin Kooks, War On Terror at 12:57 pm by George Smith
The altie Cleveland Scene published this photo plus caption of Jeffrey Levenderis, the castor seed pounder. It’s a bit of piling on; almost all the white guys banged up over powdering castor seeds for the sake ricin over the past ten years have been generally pathetic down-and-out individuals. Levenderis is no different.
But this is what passes for journalism, particularly at the altie news blogs. Something sarcastic, meant for a cheap laugh, no interest in bringing light to a subject, even for a paragraph.
Then move along to the next something or someone else to be given a gratuitous kick down for the sake of shits and giggles.
The history of ricin arrests in the US during the war on terror years is worth telling for its illustration of the intersection of the ginned up fear of biological and chemical terrorism and how that has resulted in a process that regularly grinds up and spits out weak and confused people from the fringes of society. And that process is totally unique to America. We own it.
And if you were the survivalist he-man Kurt Saxon and had written the Poor Man’s James Bond — from which Levenderis’ ricin recipe ultimately derives — and your primary legacy was that your idiotic books had contributed to putting a noticeable amount of people in jail, what would you think of yourself?
That you were somehow stubbornly demonstrating the right to freedom of the press? And that this was a shining example to the kinds of people who actually credulously read the stuff?
“A federal grand jury in Cleveland indicted 54-year-old Jeff Boyd Levenderis of Tallmadge near Akron on Tuesday on one count of possessing a biological toxin and one count of making false statements,” reads the Dayton Daily News today.
There’s a book in this and other perplexing and common-sense defying stories unique to the American condition but connected to the war on terror.
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01.31.11
Posted in Ricin Kooks at 9:13 am by George Smith
UPDATED
Over the course of the war on terror DD has seen US white men banged up regularly for the sin of being ricin kooks.
No matter how much print is on the web indicating that it’s unwise, from a legal standpoint, to pound castor seeds, they do it.
And if they then run into the law in any way, even though they’re not really interested in terrorism — just fools, they get sent over for it.
Just before the weekend, this sad item from exurban Ohio:
The FBI has announced the substance found in a Coventry Township home was ricin.
The Akron office of the FBI received a tip on Monday about a possible hazardous substance at a house in the 2000 block of South Main Street. The next day, the FBI’s Hazardous Materials Response Unit from Quantico, Virginia and the FBI’s Pittsburgh Hazardous Response Team searched the home.
According to a news release from the FBI on Friday, FBI labs confirm the hazardous substance was ricin, which can be deadly if ingested or inhaled . The toxin is derived from the castor bean.
The FBI said during a news conference Friday that an arrest has made and 54-year-old Jeffery Levenderis, of Coventry Township, will appear in Akron federal court on Friday.
Levenderis used to live at the house and another person was in the process of moving in. He faces one count of having a dangerous or toxic substance. Authorities do not believe this has any connection to terrorism.
Castor seed powder in a jar, no matter how small or old, means a prison sentence.
The prosecution generally argues that turning castor seeds into powder is a significant step in trying to make a ricin weapon, even though it only changes the state of the stuff, not being any kind of purification.
Juries accept it. Judges accept it. Go to jail, hopefully for not too long.
There was a time in this country, not really too long ago, when the castor seed mill was a part of renewable industry.
Castor seed mills were not regarded as things turning out potential stock for WMDs. And they were not lethal places to work.
The war on terror rewrote that history in the US. Castor seeds are now a fearful evil unless they are attached to the decorative plant.
White guys, here is a public service announcement:
Don’t pound those castor seeds. Whether it’s intellectual curiosity or a desire to arm yourself in self-defense via a stupid recipe found on the Internet or in The Poor Man’s James Bond, if the police run across you, the FBI and/or Homeland Security get called. Local hazmat teams show up. Then it gets really ugly.
Thanks and a tip o’ the hat to RMS.
White US ricin kooks are deadeningly predictable. To a man they seem to believe the’ve found something really interesting on the Internet. However, what they’ve actually found is a terribly stupid way to guarantee jail time.
From the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper:
A federal affidavit alleges Jeffrey Levenderis boasted of making ”weaponized” ricin 10 years ago and told FBI agents he took up the challenge because he heard ”90 percent of persons who tried to make ricin died trying and he wanted to see if he could do it.”
The affidavit says officials were tipped off about the ricin by Robert Coffman, a former police officer who is buying Levenderis’ foreclosed home and became the suspect’s confidant …
”Levenderis stated that he used acetone, as well as coffee filters and turpentine, to make the ‘poison,’ ” according to the affidavit. ”Levenderis further stated that he used a plant extract that was green with seeds on it while wearing yellow dish-washing gloves.”
The affidavit said he also used plastic sheeting, a mortar and pestle, protective clothing and glass jars. He got the plant from a local nursery.
The document said ”he had produced a high-grade, weaponized ricin. When asked what made the ricin ‘weaponized,’ Levenderis stated that the ricin had been ground down to a fine powder for airborne delivery.”
This is the famous Internet/Kurt Saxon recipe from The Poor Man’s James Bond, one that’s been responsible for sending white guys over for pounding castor seeds and washing them with acetone for virtually twenty years.
On the back of Saxon’s book:
“It is your right to share with enemies, the knowledge contained in this wonderful book. It is completely legal to sell it or buy it. If it were not so, I would have told you.”
To which one might add: If you’re a reader acutely interested in the stupid ricin recipe, you’ll be completely legal when you’re sharing a jail cell. If it were not so, I would tell you.
Again, thanks to RMS.
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11.03.10
Posted in Extremism, Ricin Kooks at 9:32 am by George Smith
From the Ricin Kooks newsline:
The West Toledo man whose home contained hundreds of hallucinogenic mushrooms had amassed a cache of eight firearms and had told his wife that he hates government, especially the IRS and law enforcement, according to a newly obtained FBI affidavit.
Toledo police arrested Thomas D. Wineinger, 51, of 4716 Douglas Rd., on Oct. 26 and seized the illegal mushrooms, firearms, and more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition.
Also seized were castor beans, the basic ingredient for ricin, which has application as a biological weapon.
You really have to click through to the Toledo Blade to see the photo.
More gems, at the foot of the piece:
He routinely buried waste from his illegal mushroom-growing operation in the backyard, and threw castor beans in the yard too because he wants to “kill people,” [his wife] told agents.
Authorities also seized the following items last week from Wineinger’s property:
• Plastic bread racks containing 916 jars of mushrooms.
• Numerous pressure cookers with jars containing possible drug residue.
• A cooler with 41 spore petri dishes.
• Alleged drug paraphernalia including a scale, pipes, and knife.
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09.07.10
Posted in Bioterrorism, Ricin Kooks at 8:23 am by George Smith
Ricin is a poison. Since 9/11, the now turned parasitic US bioterror defense industry, which runs on taxpayer dollars, has worked hard to convince that it’s a horrible threat in the hands of terrorists.
It’s not. And while nuts from the neo-Nazi survivalist right to the occasional jihadist have always attempted to grind castor seeds to powder, no one except the Bulgarian agency that killed dissident Georgi Markov back in the 1978 has ever wielded it successfully as a weapon.
Ricin, while very toxic, simply isn’t quite poisonous enough. And it isn’t a cake walk to purify it from castor seeds, although making castor mash is a fairly common activity.
DD has written about this at length previously. Just see the “Ricin Kooks” tab at right.
Historically, the only people in the US who fiddle with castor seeds are nuts from the extreme right fringe — neo-Nazis and those endeavoring to turn their living rooms into bunkers lest the tyrannical government come for them — to those harboring the impulse to destroy their spouses.
Two recent cases in the news, the first from Everett, WA, where a man named Jeffrey Marble had it in for his wife. He beat her with a barbell and was convicted and sent over on that charge.
His wife survived:
A jury on Wednesday quickly convicted an Everett man in the barbell beating of his wife last year.
A Sept. 8 sentencing date was set for Jeffery C. Marble, 49. He faces a standard sentencing range of 11 to nearly 14 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Federal agents weren’t far behind after ricin was found in the home and tests later showed the woman had been exposed to the toxin.
That information didn’t reach jurors. Any testimony about the ricin would have been too prejudicial to the defendant, who was on trial for an assault, Superior Court Judge Gerald Knight ruled earlier in the trial.
It’s against federal law to possess or manufacture ricin. FBI agents and federal prosecutors continue to investigate.
“It’s still pending with the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Shapiro said.
Marble allegedly told police he’d looked up recipes to turn castor seeds into ricin. He used a mortar and pestle to grind up the seeds in the family home but denied using it on his wife, according to court papers.
Marble told investigators he used the seeds to poison mountain beavers and moles, but it didn’t seem to be working.
Another case involves the typical perpetrator, this time from a suburb of Chicago. Edward Bachner will eventually be sent over for buying up purified tetrodotoxin, a nerve poison extracted from puffer fish.
This, also in a case seemingly aimed at poisoning his wife, coupled with the white kook’s fetish for accumulating weapons — including castor powder.
One reads:
The FBI arrested Bachner June 30, 2008, after he arrived at a UPS Store to pick up vials of TTX he had ordered from a company in New Jersey. Authorities said a search of his home on the 5700 block of McKenzie Drive later uncovered 45 full or partially full vials of the poison along with evidence he had obtained at least 19 more vials that were missing. Agents also found a handgun, more than 50 knives, five garrotes, a phony CIA badge, a precursor to the poison Ricin and books on how to poison people, make gun silencers and hand-to-hand combat, a federal prosecutor said. Bachner also faces charges he tried over the Internet to hire someone to kill his wife in 2005. Authorities questioned Bachner about that incident in 2006, but did not press charges at the time.
Ricin will never be used as a WMD. While there may be wishful thinking in this matter, it just isn’t going to happen. Science, history and precedent don’t support the conclusion. The castor plant has co-existed with man for a long time, not only as a renewable crop but also as a decorative ornament.
People who have castor plants don’t have WMDs in the garden. And castor oil pressing plants aren’t biochemical weapons depots.
Nevertheless, the US government sends taxpayer money to a small portion of the bioterror defense industry every year — for the purpose of defense against ricin.
Most of it goes to a virtually valueless company known as Soligenix, part of the infamous Alliance for Biosecurity.
Soligenix, which used to known as DOR Biopharma — the name change presumably made to camouflage it from potential investors — has been working on a ricin vaccine ever since 9/11.
And it regularly tries to pump its worth by issuing press releases on its products, which have never quite made it to market.
Indeed, the only people who actually may need a ricin vaccine are those who do research on ricin. And — perhaps — the US kooks who try to make it, along with anyone in their households.
From a recent Soligenix press release:
There are currently no effective means to prevent the effects of ricin intoxication. The successful development of an effective vaccine against ricin toxin may act as a deterrent against the actual use of ricin as a biological weapon and could be used in rapid deployment scenarios in the event of a biological attack. RiVax™ would potentially be added to the Strategic National Stockpile and dispensed in the event of a terrorist attack.
Think of it as a type of scientific corporate welfare work for the few and privileged. Perhaps the company will go out of business some day. But don’t bet on it.
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05.17.10
Posted in Ricin Kooks, War On Terror at 12:39 pm by George Smith
“The amount of ricin Ian Davison produced could have killed thousands,” wrote someone for the BBC over the weekend.
A picture is worth a thousand words in this case.
Accompanying the piece here was a photo, reproduced above, of neo-Nazi Davison’s castor powder mess in a jar.
General common sense would tell most people that a mess in a jar isn’t a weapon of mass destruction. However, when reporters write from a script – one in which they’ve looked up the theoretical lethality of ricin on the Internet, common sense gets tossed out the window.
A good time ago, the US had mills which processed castor seeds for their oil. In fact, Castrol, originally marketed as a fine racing engine oil was castor oil.
“For many decades the fine-scented castor oil flavoured the racing paddocks everywhere from Assen to the Isle of Man, from Brooklands to Monza,” reads the official history of Castrol at the company site here.
The byproduct of castor oil production is castor mash, or powder. It is obviously not a weapon of mass destruction, although it contains ricin.
In the United States, use of castor was also widespread.
A newspaper article from late last year reads:
Over the course of a decade, from 1959 until 1970, Plainview was considered the hub of domestic castor bean production with the local office of Baker Castor Oil ultimately contracting for 70,000 acres of production annually.
However, the crop’s success ultimately worked against it with practically no significant domestic production recorded after 1972. Since that time, the United States has been forced to turn to producers in India and Brazil to supply the majority of its needs.
Plainview Mayor John C. Anderson has a unique perspective on the local castor industry, having served as general manager of Baker Castor Oil’s local operations from August 1959 until December 1970.
“During most of that time Baker was the dominant player in the United States with about 75 percent of the castor oil production,??? Anderson recalled last week, “and the Plainview facilities accounted for virtually all of that.???
The oil derived from castor beans is used in a vast array of products, ranging from paints, varnishes and lacquers to lipstick, hair tonic and shampoo. Since it does not become stiff with cold nor unduly thin with heat, castor oil is an important component in plastics, soaps, waxes, hydraulic fluids and ink. It also is used to make special lubricants for jet engines and racing cars, and during World War I, World War II and the Korean War it was stockpiled by the federal government as a strategic material.
Bayonne, N.J.-based Baker Castor Oil Company already was a major importer and processor when it embarked on a plant breeding program in the late 1950s centered in Plainview in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“Baker needed a dependable domestic supply of castor beans since the government was building up its strategic reserve,??? Anderson explained. “Baker at the time was having to primarily rely on what was being harvested by hand in Brazil and India from plants growing wild.???
Not only were there concerns about production and price volatility, the imported oil had a tendency to turn rancid during transport, Anderson said. A domestic source would reduce transportation costs while substantially improving quality. And, Plainview was a logical choice since the harvested crop could be shipped to crushing facilities on both East and West Coasts.
One observes from the history of castor seed milling in the US and elsewhere, that the product is not particularly hazardous to workers. These companies did not produce large quantities of dangerous waste. Quite the contrary, they were very green industries.
But somehow this history has been long forgotten. In its place — a nonsensical one in which a toxic protein in the castor plant is always alleged to easily furnish white survivalist neo-Nazi kooks and others with a weapon of mass destruction.
Only theoretically.
What the nuts who grind castor seeds to a mush can’t get through their heads (and — by extension — the news media which reports on them) is that castor powder containing ricin is not a practical weapon. It degrades, becomes rancid. It might poison a dog if they put it in the pet food. Or it even might accidentally sicken the maker, if he somehow mysteriously consumes it.
The grinding of castor seeds into powder is neither a refinement nor a purification of ricin.
Another discussion of ricin as a threat is here.
Sampling its most relevant part:
On the world wide web page of an American animal feed and fertilizer company, it said, “In 1857, “H.J. Baker & Bro., Inc., [built] the Baker Castor Oil Company in Jersey City, New Jersey.” “… Of great importance [was castor seed oilcake] … This material [was] the first fertilizer product offered …”
This being the case, castor seed oilcake and seeds containing ricin would have had to travel the roads of the country. If one searches further, reference to it can be found in municipal codes for the transporting of “hazardous materials” via trucking. Castor seed oilcake is a material that does not require a 24-hour emergency phone hotline listed on the shipping manifest. In the Texas city of Laredo’s municipal code, the materials, referred to as “castor bean,” “castor meal,” “castor flake,” and “castor pomace” are things deemed of the same hazard, or lack of it, as “dry ice,” “fish meal,” “fish scrap,” “battery powered equipment,” “battery powered vehicle,” “electric wheelchair” and “refrigerating machine.”
Castor seed powder was frequently used as fertilizer in this country. In the periodical called Timely Turf Topics, the publication of United States Golf Association Green Section, an issue from November 1942 reported that the country was using over 80,000 tons of castor seed mash as fertilizer annually. The Golf Association Green Section periodical was devoted to providing information to golf green managers on the maintenance of beautiful grass turf. During World War II, nitrates were diverted for the war effort, necessitating use of alternative fertilizers, of which castor seed mash was one.
In the November 1941 issue of Timely Turf Topics, the association grapples with the problem of controlling mole crickets in southern golf courses.
“It is reported that turf in some sections of Georgia and Florida has just experienced the worst infestation of mole crickets in a number of years,” reads the issue. “Attempts to eradicate them from turf by the use of well-known poison bait as well as by treatments with arsenate of lead, ground tobacco stems and castor meal have not been successful in several localities this fall.”
The point to be made is that people once worked with large quantities of the grind of castor seeds in this country without dropping like flies. Castor beans were considered a renewable resource, used as a source of lubricant and fertilizer. Even golf course gardeners worked with castor mash, noting that it wasn’t so hot as an insecticide, being ineffective against mole crickets.
There has been a collective loss of memory of such practical information in this country. In its place, emergency news erupts a couple of times of year in which ricin and castor seeds are discovered in someone’s possession, with everyone near it having to be decontaminated and their clothes thrown into a bag for disposal. Photos of hazmart workers in plastic isolation suits multiply. The real-time imagery is of the kind one sees in sci-fi movies devoted to various biological end-of-the-world themes.
But back to the BBC article on neo-Nazi Ian Davison:
The discovery of ricin at the home of Ian Davison convinced detectives that the white supremacist was a “serious terrorist”.
Found in a jam jar, the cloudy liquid had been extracted from castor beans.
An amount roughly equivalent to a grain of salt is enough to kill an adult, making it 1,000 times more poisonous than cyanide.
Experts admit the toxin is relatively easy to produce, but police are unsure exactly how Davison intended to use it.
The ricin discovered at his house in Burnopfield, County Durham, could theoretically have been used to kill thousands.
Common sense thinking left town for good years ago. And nothing seems capable of bringing it back.
Davison and his father were given ten year sentences.
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05.03.10
Posted in Crazy Weapons, Extremism, Ricin Kooks at 8:00 am by George Smith
DD’s artist’s conception of how ricin is recommended for use in the Poor Man’s James Bond.
England has neo-Nazis, too.
And one in the news now, Ian Davison, is an average example of a similar genus found in the US: A white supremacist who trolls the net for mayhem manuals, cobbling together home-made weapons based on notes from old US neo-Nazi/survivalist literature.
The Northern Echo newspaper reports in ‘Keyboard warriors or threat to the republic’:
IAN and Nicky Davison posted offensive racist material on their website over a long period of time, but it was when they showed footage of a homemade bomb being detonated that police moved in to arrest them.
It was only then that the potentially deadly store of ricin was found in Ian Davison’s home.
The trial at Newcastle Crown Court heard much debate about whether the pair were simply “keyboard warriors??? or whether they posed a genuine threat to the public.
=========
In public, Ian Davison was an unemployed lorry driver and part-time pub DJ.
In private, he was the founder and leader of the Aryan Strike Force, described in court by Matthew Feldman, of the University of Northampton, as believing itself to be: “The pinnacle and most uncompromising of the neo- Nazi groups in the UK.???
Police believe the pair were in touch with about 300 neo- Nazis across the globe, as far afield as Canada and Australia.
Davison posted racist messages on his website and also placed several videos on You Tube, including a four-and-ahalf minute tribute to Adolf Hitler, who he described as “a true hero of the white race???.
But the posts on the Aryan Strike Force website were becoming more sinister.
One showed footage of what appeared to be a paramilitarystyle training camp in a forest in Cumbria, which featured men wearing balaclavas and combat fatigues, parading through the woods carrying swastikas.
=========
When police raided Nicky Davison’s home in Annfield Plain, County Durham, they discovered a number of terrorist manuals on his computer, including the Anarchists’ Cookbook, which detailed how to make bombs, and the Poor Man’s James Bond, which included details on how to make incendiary devices, poisons and even napalm.
There was also evidence the pair had researched the creation of an electromagnetic pulse bomb, which disables computer systems
========
THE ricin discovered in Ian Davison’s home was an unrefined sludge [the grind of castor seeds] but, say police, was still capable of killing up to 15 people.
Traces of the deadly toxin were discovered in a sealed jam jar inside Davison’s Myrtle Grove home in June last year – the only time the poison has been discovered in the UK.
It is thought the ricin had been produced in 2006 and had remained undisturbed in Davison’s kitchen ever since.
Although it was fairly crude and had not undergone the purification necessary to turn it into an effective weapon [and so on]…
Ian and his father face a long time in prison.
Definitive posts on this subject, published in the past on DD blog include:
From the Poisoner’s Handbook to the Botox Shoe of Death
The Jailbird Bookshelf
The A-to-Z of ricin crackpots
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03.15.10
Posted in Ricin Kooks, War On Terror at 7:46 am by George Smith
“What and when MI5 knew about torture” is the headline of a story in the Guardian here.
The introduction reads:
Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5 throughout most of the years of the so-called war on terror, insisted yesterday she had not known that Khalid Shiekh Mohammed was being waterboarded.
In a response to the appeal court’s judgment that MI5 officers had a “dubious record” on torture, she sought to blame the US and maintained that only after she retired in 2007 did she discover that the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks had been waterboarded 160 times. “The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing,” she said. Critics, though, said it was stretching credulity to claim surprise.
However, British intelligence and anti-terrorism police regarded information extracted under torture as worthy of consideration, no matter the source or procedures used to extract it.
This pertained to the the infamous London ricin trial in which the government’s chief informant was an Algerian named Muhammad Meguerba.
When this writer was contacted by the UK defense for the accused Algerians in the “ricin case” in 2004 — a group that had been dubbed an infamous “UK poison cell” linking al Qaeda in Iraq with the west by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his infamous speech to the UN — most of the UK government’s case was said to rest on the information provided by Meguerba.
However, as time went on, Meguerba’s material could not be brought as evidence. And this was said to be because it had been made in a confession extracted under torture while in Algeria, a confession that was later recanted.
A London jury eventually concluded there had been no UK poison ring, just one loner with wild plans — Kamel Bourgass, a very bad man who had been convicted in a previous trial of murdering a Manchester police office during his capture.
The Guardian piece continued:
Eliza Manningham-Buller spelt out her position in written evidence to the law lords in 2005: “In some cases, it may be apparent to the [security and intelligence] agencies that the intelligence has been obtained from individuals in detention … though even then the agencies will often not know the location of details of detention,” she said.
Though she added that detainees could “seek to mislead their questioners”, she said: “Experience proves that detainee reporting can be accurate and may enable lives to be saved.”
She referred in her statement to the “ricin trial” and the Algerian supergrass in the case, Muhammad Meguerba. “Questioning of Algerian liaison [security service] about their methods of questioning detainees would almost certainly have been rebuffed and at the same time would have damaged the relationship to the detriment of our ability to counter international terrorism,” Manningham-Buller said.
Lord Bingham, the senior law lord, said in the ruling that intelligence extracted by torture was not admissible in British courts: “I am not impressed by the argument based on the practical undesirability of upsetting foreign regimes which may resort to torture.”
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06.10.09
Posted in Ricin Kooks at 7:06 am by George Smith
Traces of ricin were found in the urine of ricin kook Jeffrey Marble’s wife, reported the UPI.
“[The Washington State] man suspected of trying to poison his wife [also] had traces of the deadly toxin ricin in his home, authorities say.”
Oof. Along with everyone else in his platter, that’ll earn a couple decades of state and federal hospitality.
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06.05.09
Posted in Ricin Kooks at 2:04 pm by George Smith
Updated
It’s part of the mythology of the war on terror that jihadists and al Qaeda men are always waiting to strike with ricin. The reality is far more dull. The guys who are most interested in ricin have traditionally been white American kooks.
The definitive piece on American ricin kooks is here at el Reg. But every few months, one can add another eccentric to the list. The new candidate is a man in Washington state, written about in the news yesterday here.
“The FBI Thursday was investigating ‘a strong suspicion’ that an Everett man had the deadly poison ricin in his home office, and a specially trained hazardous-materials team — including experts flown in from Washington, D.C. — locked down the home,” reported the Seattle PI. (And see here in a later story where the man, Jeffrey Marble, is accused of trying to poison his wife with “eye drops and Ricinus communis and lye and rat bait.”)
The first story intimated that either a small number of castor seeds or a bit of castor powder was found, both enough to have the owner quickly sent over for a few years at the bighouse, regardless of intent or lack of one.
And despite the great amount of literature now on the Internet about the great foolishness in pounding castor seeds into a powder — there are pages and pages on DD blog here, here, here and here — American eccentrics and nutcases continue to show a fetish-like obsession with it.
Credit it to a peculiar mania associated with old white rural America — the whimsy that someone, or the government, is plotting to get you — and that it might be a good idea to have some exotic poison powder handy, just in case you need to defend yourself, assassinate an acquaintance … or rub out a family member.
All ricin poison recipes (now they come complete with Google Adsense), aren’t worth the electrons used to preserve them on the Internet. They stem from Americans: Kurt Saxon and his “Poor Man’s James Bond” series of pamphets and books, and Maxwell Hutchkinson, author of a similar piece of nuisance publishing, “The Poisoner’s Handbook,” and teenage copyists who put them on bulletin board systems in electronic form a couple decades ago.
Many men have been sent, and will be sent, to jail for being hypnotized by the trivial scribble of basically only two people. It’s quite the rich legacy.
The
English ricin kook, similar to US counterpart.
“A father and son are being held under the Terrorism Act following the discovery of possible traces of the deadly poison ricin at the house of a suspected white supremacist,” reported Sky News.
“Police said the suspected ricin was found in a sealed jam jar kept in a kitchen cupboard, apparently for up to two years.”
“Ricin was used by the Aum cult on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 in an attack that left 12 people dead,” Sky adds.
Um, no. That was sarin, the nerve poison.
Ricin confirmed, kook eyes long sentence.
Over at Armchair Generalist. Don’t tell the newsmedia ricin kooks are from the far right, the GOP will protest it’s being persecuted.
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