Quantcast wmbb.com - FDLE Closes Investigation Into Anthrax Hoax Letter
Click Here

--- Advertisement ---

Members: Login | Register | Contact Us
FDLE Closes Investigation Into Anthrax Hoax Letter
07/09/09 - 02:35 PM
Associated Press
 RSS Feed
click for larger image Tallahassee, Fla:

Police have closed the case of a bizarre and threatening letter to Gov. Charlie Crist that included white powder intended to look like anthrax.
   
The handwritten letter was sent to Gov. Crist last August and included a return address of a former St. Petersburg police officer, who told investigators any number of old girlfriends might have set him up. The man was not considered a suspect.

Investigators used every tool at their disposal, including DNA analysis of the document, but could not determine who was behind the hoax.

They did find out the white powder was just the sugary substance glucose.

The letter was isolated at the state’s mail-sorting facility in Tallahassee. Every single piece of state mail comes through this facility before it’s delivered. The facility handles about 3.5 million pieces of mail a year and all of it goes through a radiation-sensing machine, as well as x-ray equipment.

The governor receives thousands of letters a year and each one is opened by hand here.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Heather Smith says the agency takes any threats to the governor very seriously and investigates them thoroughly.
   
“DNA is one investigative tool and in this particular case, we did use DNA and it did point us to some folks that our investigators spoke with, but they were ultimately not involved with the case. In addition, we did use some other forensic techniques. We did some handwriting analysis on the letter and we also ran the letter for latent prints to see if there were any fingerprints on the outside as well,” Smith said.
   
“We take any kind of threat very seriously and we are going to go out and do a very thorough investigation. We’re going to talk to anyone who might be involved, any of their associates, family members, any kind of forensic evidence that we have, we’re going to make sure we analyze it.”
   
Anyone who sends a letter with threats to kill or harm another person can face up to 15 years in prison under Florida law and more penalties under federal law.

User Comments
WMBB.com requires that you be a registered site member to post comments and content.
Why Register?
First, we are not being sneaky and gathering your email or other information to sell to telemarketers or e-mail spam companies.

Registration on this site is required simply to allow us to keep people who would post discriminatory, threatening and harassing messages and comments from doing it again.

By having user registration, we hope to provide you with a better user experience. Please view WMBB.com's full Terms & Conditions