Investigators are trying to determine if a mysterious "Fallen Angel" who sent two threatening letters containing ricin last fall is responsible for the deadly poison that turned up in the Senate this week. The earlier typewritten letters addressed to the White House and Transportation Department warned that more ricin would be used unless new federal trucking regulations were scrapped. The change in 60-year-old rules governing how often truck drivers must rest went into effect Jan. 4.
Three senior federal law enforcement officials said the FBI and Capitol Police Department were investigating the possibility that the same person or persons sent ricin-laced mail to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said investigators have found "no obvious direct connection" between the Frist incident and the letters signed "Fallen Angel." Those letters were discovered in mail facilities that serve the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina and the White House. They were found Oct. 15 and Nov. 6, respectively, though the existence of the White House letter was not disclosed by the Bush administration until Tuesday. The letters, described as nearly identical, claimed that the author owned a tanker truck fleet company and demanded that hours of service rules for drivers remain unchanged, according to the FBI. The FBI said the South Carolina letter was contained in an envelope with a typewritten warning "Caution RICIN POISON." The letter included claims that the author could make much more ricin and would "start dumping" if the new regulations weren’t abolished. The envelope contained no delivery address and no postmark. |