No Health Threat At Ricin Suspect House
The FBI said Monday that no health threat was found at the home or the storage units linked to a man possibly sickened by the deadly toxin ricin.
Authorities searched a Utah home and three storage units linked to Roger Von Bergendorff, who has been hospitalized since Feb. 14.
Health officials are still trying to confirm whether Bergendorff's respiratory ailment stemmed from ricin exposure.
He has been unconscious, so police and the FBI have not been able to question him about the ricin that was discovered in his motel room.
FBI special agent Juan Becerra gave no further information about Sunday's searches, during which nearby homes had been evacuated as agents in hazardous-material protection suits checked the property for ricin.
Authorities believed they had recovered all of the ricin found last week in several vials in the Las Vegas motel where Bergendorff, 57, had stayed. But they wanted to check the home in Riverton, where Bergendorff had lived with a cousin, Thomas Tholen.
Tholen, 53, said Monday he had not spoken with investigators, but declined to comment further.
"He's a cousin and he's holding his own," Tholen said in a brief telephone interview. "He's just in the hospital in intensive care. I really don't want to say any more."
Authorities have said there is no indication of any terrorist act or activity, and no evidence that the deadly substance had spread.
"At this time, there is no indication of any threat to the public or individuals residing in the (Salt Lake) area," said Special Agent in Charge Timothy J. Fuhrman.
Ricin is made from processing castor beans, and can be extremely lethal. As little as 500 micrograms - an amount about the size of the head of a pin - can kill a human, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The only legal use for ricin is cancer research.
In recent years, terrorists have used ricin, reports CBS News correspondent Drew Levinson. In 2003, the Secret Service intercepted an envelope filled with the substance that was addressed to the White House. It was also found in the Senate mailroom and a postal facility in South Carolina.
It was unclear if the FBI suspected Bergendorff had manufactured or stored the ricin, but investigators were trying to figure out why Bergendorff would have the toxin.
Las Vegas police said that firearms, an "anarchist-type textbook" and castor beans were found in the motel room. The book was tabbed at a spot containing information about ricin.
Former neighbors and acquaintances in Utah and California described Bergendorff as a hotheaded child who grew up to be an introverted adult who loved animals.
Bergendorff also has been beset by financial problems, filing for bankruptcy in 2000.
He had lived in the Riverton house for more than a year before moving to Las Vegas about a year ago, said Tammy Ewell, who lives across the street.
She described him Monday as an introverted man who drove his hosts to their wit's end by living rent-free and taking advantage of their food and computer services.
"He was just a quiet man who wasn't assertive enough to get a job," she said, "to put it kindly."
Bergendorff wasn't social with neighbors and often didn't return a friendly wave, Ewell said. When she and Bergendorff did talk, it was usually about the weather and frequently because he was walking his German shepherd up and down the street.
What Bergendorff lacked in human social graces, he made up for in affinity for animals, she said. She said he returned to Utah several times after he moved to Las Vegas to search for a lost cat.
"We had a few more conversations about how much his cat meant to him, and how he would do anything for this cat," she said.
Tholen contacted motel management Feb. 22 to inform them about pets in the room, and Las Vegas Humane Society officials took custody of a dog and two cats. The dog, which officials said was mortally ill after going at least a week without food or water, was euthanized.
Bergendorff, the middle child of three sons, grew up in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa.
"He used to be a hothead," former neighbor Paul Slade told The San Diego Union-Tribune. "When we played football he'd always be the first to get in a fight. When he got older he kind of calmed down."
Slade attended Grossmont College with Bergendorff.
Bergendorff would move back to the La Mesa house to take care of his mother, Lola, the newspaper said. She died in 2001. Her obituary said Bergendorff lived in Reno at that time. His father, Frederick, died in 1991.
Another neighbor, Steve McNulty, told the Union-Tribune that Bergendorff kept to himself while he was caring for his mother.
Mike Massaglia and his wife, who now own the family home, told the newspaper they bought the house from a bank last year and had not heard of Bergendorff.
Bergendorff declared bankruptcy in San Diego in 2000, court records show. The filing was discharged in about 3.5 months. In 1993, a civil judgment was entered against him for an unpaid auto loan of about $13,000 in Orange County, Calif.
Public records show Bergendorff used at least six addresses between 1983 and 2007 in cities Utah and California.