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Mississippi man charged in ricin case

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:35:00 +0000

BRANDON, Miss. (AP) — An ex-martial arts instructor made ricin and put the poison in letters to President Barack Obama and others, the FBI charged Saturday, days after dropping similar charges against an Elvis impersonator who insisted he had been framed.

The arrest of 41-year-old James Everett Dutschke early Saturday capped a week in which investigators initially zeroed in on a rival of Dutschke's, then decided they had the wrong man. The hunt for a suspect revealed tie after small-town tie between the two men and the 80-year-old county judge who, along with Obama and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, was among the targets of the letters.

Dutschke's house, business and vehicles in Tupelo were searched earlier in the week often by crews in hazardous materials suits and he had been under surveillance.

Dutschke (pronounced DUHS'-kee) was charged with "knowingly developing, producing, stockpiling, transferring, acquiring, retaining and possessing a biological agent, toxin and delivery system, for use as a weapon, to wit: ricin." U.S. attorney Felicia Adams and Daniel McMullen, the FBI agent in charge in Mississippi, made the announcement in a news release Saturday.

Possible suspect in ricin case goes into hiding

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:28:00 +0000

SALTILLO, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man whose home and business were searched as part of an investigation into poisoned letters sent to the president and others has dropped out of sight in order to escape the news media spotlight, but is cooperating with authorities, a friend and his attorney said.

Everett Dutschke, 45, had his home and former business in Tupelo, Miss., searched in connection with the letters, which allegedly contained ricin. They were sent last week to President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and earlier to an 80-year-old Mississippi judge, Sadie Holland.

Charges were initially filed against an Elvis impersonator but then dropped. Attention then turned to Dutschke, who has ties to the former suspect and the judge and senator.

Dutschke (pronounced DUHS'-kee), who previously had kept in touch with reporters from The Associated Press, did not answer or return calls to his cellphone Thursday, a day investigators spent searching a different home where he had spent time a day earlier about 20 miles from Tupelo.

He just needed to get away from all the news media attention, his friend Kirk Kitchens told the AP. "I just helped him get out of the spotlight," Kitchens said at his home in nearby Saltillo.

Family claims accused ricin mailer is mentally ill

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:17:00 +0000

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — The stories from family and acquaintances of a Mississippi man charged with sending ricin-laced letters to the president and other officials describe a caring father and enthusiastic musician who struggled with mental illness and pursued a conspiracy theory to its farthest reaches.

Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, wrote numerous Web posts over the past several years describing the event he said "changed my life forever": the chance discovery of body parts and organs wrapped in plastic in small refrigerator at a hospital where he worked as a janitor more than a decade ago.

He tried to talk to officials about and publicize what he claimed was an elaborate conspiracy theory to sell body parts on the black markets, but he thought he was being railroaded by the government. Authorities say the efforts culminated in letters sent to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a judge in Mississippi. "Maybe I have your attention now even if that means someone must die," the letters read, according to an FBI affidavit.

"He is bipolar, and the only thing I can say is he wasn't on his medicine," his ex-wife, Laura Curtis, told The Associated Press.

Mississippi man arrested in ricin case

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:18:00 +0000

CORINTH, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man accused of mailing letters with suspected ricin to national leaders believed he had uncovered a conspiracy to sell human body parts on the black market and sometimes performed as an Elvis Presley impersonator.

Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested Wednesday at his home in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line about 50 miles north of Presley's birthplace in Tupelo.

Authorities were waiting for definitive tests on intercepted letters that were addressed to President Barack Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Preliminary field tests can often show false positives for ricin. Ricin is derived from the castor plant that makes castor oil. There is no antidote and it's deadliest when inhaled.

An FBI intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press said the two letters were postmarked Memphis, Tenn.

Both letters said: "To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance." Both were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message."

The letters had Washington on edge in the days after the Boston Marathon bombing. As authorities scurried to investigate three questionable packages discovered in Senate office buildings Wednesday, reports of suspicious items also came in from at least three senators' offices in their home states. The items were found to be harmless.

Openly gay Mississippi mayoral candidate’s body found, homicide suspected

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:31:00 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. -- Whatever his prospects for winning the coming mayoral election in his hometown of Clarksdale, Miss., Marco McMillian was considered by many to be a man on the rise. So word spread fast when his SUV was involved in a wreck this week, and he was nowhere to be found.

The discovery of the openly gay candidate's body near a Mississippi River levee Wednesday stunned residents of Clarksdale, a Blues mecca in the flatlands of the Mississippi Delta.

Authorities were investigating McMillian's death as a homicide, and said a person of interest was in custody, but released few other details.

"There's a lot of people upset about it," said Dennis Thomas, 33, who works at Abe's Barbeque.

"Why would somebody want to do something like that to somebody of that caliber? He was a highly respected person in town," Thomas said.

The 34-year-old Democrat wasn't running what many would consider a typical campaign for political office in Mississippi, which is known for its conservative politics.

Campaign spokesman Jarod Keith said McMillian's campaign was noteworthy because he may have been the first openly gay man to be a viable candidate for public office in the state.

Weird news: Four elephants OK after circus truck crash

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:57:00 +0000

JACKSON, Miss. — A circus official says a truck pulling a trailer full of elephants ran off an interstate in southern Mississippi over the weekend, but the four pachyderms and the driver weren't harmed.

Renee Storey, an executive with Cole Brothers Circus of the Stars, said the elephants were being transported from Alabama to Louisiana on Sunday night when the truck went off Interstate 10 and ran down an embankment.

Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman Johnny Poulos said the truck driver reported another vehicle forced him off the interstate. The truck was disabled, but the trailer wasn't seriously damaged and later was towed it to its intended destination at circus grounds in Hammond, La.

Storey says the four elephants were calm and playful on Monday after their arrival in Louisiana.

Judge throws out suit against “The Help” author

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:52:00 +0000

Did Kathryn Stockett use her brother's African American maid as the basis for a character in the bestselling novel-turned-movie "The Help?"

For now, that question may go unanswered, by a court anyway.

A Mississippi judge threw out a lawsuit Tuesday in which Ablene Cooper alleged Stockett used her likeness without permission in a book about relationships between white families and their black maids in the segregated South of the 1960s.

Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green granted a motion for summary judgment, dismissing the case because a one-year statute of limitations elapsed between when Stockett gave Cooper a copy of the book and when the lawsuit was filed. The lawsuit sought $75,000 in damages.

Stockett was not in court in Jackson, the same city where the book is set.

Cooper wiped away tears leaving the courtroom and launched into a tirade outside the courthouse.

"She's a liar. She did it. She knows she did it," Cooper screamed.

The judge did not make any determination on whether Cooper was the basis for the character, Aibileen, saying the statute of limitations trumped those matters.

Historic flood begins to abate, but far from over

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 16:33:00 +0000

The Mississippi River flood of 2011 may seem like a thing of the past for people who fled rising waters that never came, yet the final toll is shrouded in murky water for thousands of people devastated as the flood made its way from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico.

Thousands of acres of crops, timber and catfish farms are still flooded, mostly by tributaries that backed up because the Mississippi River was so high. Hundreds are still displaced from flooded homes. Some people had nothing to go home to.

In the Mississippi Delta, Tim Saxton is still praying for the levees to hold -- not the levees on the Mississippi River, but the ones on his 500-acre catfish farm. Saxton is not sure how bad Five Mile Fisheries was damaged because it's still under water. So he waits. And wonders.

"It's going to be tough on a 60-year-old man to start over, but I'm sure going to try," Saxton vowed.

The levees divided the farm into dozens of small ponds for different-sized fish. If he has to rebuild all of those levees, the financial blow will be crippling. Even if the levees survive, it could take Saxton a year or more to get back into production.

Louisiana readies to open spillway, flood Cajun country

Sat, 14 May 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Army engineers prepared Saturday to slowly open the gates of an emergency spillway along the rising Mississippi River, diverting floodwaters from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, yet inundating homes and farms in parts of Louisiana's populated Cajun country.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm's way when the Morganza spillway is unlocked for the first time in 38 years. Sheriffs and National Guardsmen were warning people in a door-to-door sweep through the area, and shelters were ready to accept up to 4,800 evacuees, Gov. Bobby Jindal said.

Some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside -- an area known for small farms, fish camps and a drawling French dialect -- have already started fleeing for higher ground.

"Now's the time to evacuate," Jindal said. "Now's the time for our people to execute their plans. That water's coming."

Opening the spillway will release a torrent that could submerge about 3,000 square miles under as much as 25 feet of water in some areas but take the pressure off the downstream levees protecting New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi.

Emotional toll for survivors of BP oil rig blast

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:07:00 +0000

A boom from the speakers at church was all it took to send Paula Walker back to that moment of horror on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

"I freaked out," Walker said. "I huddled up on the pew and wouldn't put my feet down because the floor was blue and I thought it was the water."

Members of the congregation rushed to hers side and desperately tried to convince the 56-year-old laundry worker that she wasn't back on the rig. She says she had a similar flashback when a car backfired near her home.

The April 20 explosion and fire killed 11 co-workers. Walker got off the rig with just some bruises but, like several other survivors, says she's haunted by memories of that night. Although the environmental toll has dominated headlines, survivors say they suffer a more personal -- and private -- burden.

"When you go to sleep, you wake up crying. You wake up with nightmares, thinking the building is exploding," said Walker, who worked on the rig for three years and was in her room watching TV when the blowout occurred.

"It's hard coping with the situation I'm in, not going to work, thinking about the guys that lost their lives. It was like a family out there," she said.

BP, scientists try to make sense of well puzzle

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:50:00 +0000

In a nail-biting day across the Gulf Coast, engineers struggled to make sense of puzzling pressure readings from the bottom of the sea Friday, trying to determine whether BP's capped oil well was holding tight or in danger of springing a new leak.

No immediate leaks were spotted, which was encouraging. But midway through the testing period on the new temporary cap that was bottling up the crude inside the well, the pressure readings were not rising as high as expected, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man on the crisis.

Allen said two possible reasons were being debated by scientists: The reservoir that is the source of the oil could be running low three months into the spill. Or there could be an undiscovered leak somewhere down in the well. Allen ordered further study but remained confident.

"This is generally good news," he said. But he cautioned, "We need to be careful not to do any harm or create a situation that cannot be reversed."

He said the testing would go on into the night, at which point BP may decide whether to reopen the cap and allow some oil to spill into the sea again.

BP’s shocking, spurious action “plan”

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:42:00 +0000

Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005.

Under the heading "sensitive biological resources," the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.

The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.

BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have pretty much been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one.

"BP Exploration and Production Inc. has the capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge, or a substantial threat of such a discharge, resulting from the activities proposed in our Exploration Plan," the oil giant stated in its Deepwater Horizon plan.