Las Vegas Ricin Case Update
The weirdness continues in the Las Vegas ricin case. The discovery of a large amount of the deadly toxin a while ago was strange even then. Now the man who had the poison in his room and who had been in a coma has woken up. He appears to have told his brother that he did, indeed, have the ricin. But not why he had it or what he intended to do with something so deadly.
Roger Bergendorff regained consciousness on Wednesday but remains in critical condition at a Las Vegas medical center.
His younger brother, Erich Bergendorff, told The Associated Press that they spoke briefly on the telephone Sunday for the first time since the ricin was found, and said Roger claimed he had never had any intention of endangering anyone with the toxin.
"He did mention that he would have never done anything to anybody," said Erich Bergendorff. "He himself is under the impression he was contaminated by it — he did mention the ricin and seemed to say something like, 'Gee, it sure worked on me.'"
Erich Bergendorff said his brother told him the ricin was easy to make. But he added that his brother, who was on a ventilator until last week, still had a hard time speaking clearly, so it was not clear whether Roger Bergendorff made it himself or watched someone else manufacture the powder.
"He did talk as thought he just had it there, he was almost kind of casual about it," said Erich Bergendorff, who talked to his brother on the phone from his home in Escondido, Calif., north of San Diego. "It's almost as though in his own mind it wasn't that big of a deal."
Officials are still not saying much about this and the media appears less than curious about that. While they are calling the amout of ricin found "large" there still is nothing approaching an explanation of why Bergendorff had it.
By Neo, Monday, 17 March , 2008 @ 3:55 pm
‘Gee, it sure worked on me.’Now this is the first piece of "settled science" I’ve come across in a while.