FULL MOON RICIN
Ah yes, the full moon. Full moon rising. It conjures up images of werewolves, the inviting night for all things super-natural. In Salt Lake City last week, it was not the "risin'", it was the "ricin", that sent chills up the spines of investigators. This story has received surprisingly little press. Remember when a tiny amount of ricin was found in an envelope mailed to a federal building? In fact, I don't even remember if it turned out to be ricin or not. I do remember that this chemical struck fear in everyone involved, that it is considered the chemical of choice for terrorists, and that an amount the size of the head of a pin can kill a human almost instantly. It can be spread many ways in a city, it could be spread from the air in by any kind of aircraft. Remember the crop-duster scare a few years ago, when a few of our Muslim friends were shopping around for used Air-Tractors, the famed aircraft built and used for crop-dusting? Considering all this, I thought it odd that the Salt Lake City story slid under the radar. Expect that radar blip to grow, the story has taken a turn.
Originally, when Roger Bergendorff, who had been staying at a motel near the Las Vegas strip, fell ill, there was nothing in particular to be alarmed about. Just another lost soul biting the dust in a Vegas carpet joint. But then, investigators found vials of a strange white powder in the room, and not the white powder that is routinely found in Las Vegas motels. This stuff turned out to be the real deal. Ricin. No wonder they're keeping this under the radar. Bergendorff has been in the Spring Valley hospital since February 14th, unconscious. Not surprisingly, as investigators dug deeper, they discovered the trail of a deeply disenfranchised man. It's always the same isn't it? "He was a quiet man...", or, "he kept to himself.." Not because he was a poet, apparently.
Public records show Bergendorff used at least six addresses between 1983 and 2007 in cities in Utah and California. He moved to Vegas about a year ago, and had been living in a camper in the driveway of a friend. A former neighbor, Tammy Ewell, described Bergendorff as an introverted man who "wore down his hosts by living rent-free and taking advantage of their hospitality." She said that although he was "awkward" around people, he loved animals and had returned to Utah several times to search for his lost cat. You know, this might be considered a red-flag for most of us. I'm trying to imagine my response if a friend told me he was going back to Minnesota again to look for his hamster. We all have to get on our game here, folks. Consider the guy who strode into a Wendy's in West Palm Beach a few days ago and shot and killed a father who had just returned to swap a toy for his son. No connection, completely random, just another "quiet guy" who made that sometimes speedy journey from disenfranchised to homicidal.
Las Vegas police said that firearms and an "anarchist-type textbook" were found in the motel room. The book was tabbed at a spot containing information about ricin. What the book didn't say was how a guy with no means, no money and no cat, gets his hands on vials of ricin. The police are about to investigate three storage units rented by Bergendorff. Expect a laundry list of sociopathic belongings. I can hardly wait for that story.
I've written about it before, we've all talked about it with our friends and neighbors. Every time someone has a mental implosion we all gasp and shudder, shake our heads and wonder, and then...we forget about it. That may work for a while longer, but I believe we have a trend here. At some point, we all have to take notice of the clearly imbalanced and as a society, find a way to head them off at the pass. That poor father in West Palm Beach, whose wife and son were waiting for him in the car, and whose son will never forgive himself for asking his Dad to exchange the toy that came with his meal, deserve our attention. It's no longer a case of being in the "wrong place at the wrong time". Soon, with the full moon rising, we will all be in the wrong place...all the time.