Ricin | featured news

After keeping Elvis impersonator James Kevin Curtis in jail for a week, interrogating him while he was chained to a chair and turning his house upside down, federal authorities had no confession or physical evidence tying him to the ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and other public officials.

A dust mask and other items linked to a Mississippi martial arts instructor contained ricin, a deadly poison found in letters sent to President Obama, a U.S. senator and a state judge, according to an FBI document released Tuesday.

Of three ricin-laced letters mailed this month to public officials, only one made it into the hands of an intended target, 80-year-old Mississippi judge Sadie Holland. Investigators are working to piece together what motivated someone to send the letters to her, President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker. Holland is a common link between two men who have been investigated in the case. Holland presided over a 2004 assault case against Paul Kevin Curtis, an entertainer who had been the top suspect in the case until prosecutors dropped charges against him Tuesday.

A court filing says charges have been dropped against a Mississippi man accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and others.

Investigators haven't found any ricin in the house of a man accused of mailing poisoned letters.

Federal agents arrested a Mississippi man suspected of sending letters that showed evidence of ricin in initial testing to President Obama and a Republican senator, according to two officials.

A letter addressed to President Obama, containing a suspicious substance, was intercepted at a screening facility outside the White House, officials said on Wednesday. The letter was intercepted at a screening facility outside the White House, the Secret Service said.

Powder on a letter for Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi at a mail center in Washington tested positive, but was undergoing further F.B.I. analysis.