It looks like someone here in Amarillo has gone off the deep end, and it's not something that makes the decent citizens of our fair city very proud. Some nut is mailing threatening letters containing a white powdery substance all over the country, and the letters were all postmarked from Amarillo.
So far, there have been dozens of the letters, and they have been sent to Texas, New York, New Jersey, District of Columbia, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado, Oklahoma, Georgia, Virginia and California. And that may not be the end of it. More letters show up each day.
The sender seems to be upset by the banking crises. Most of the letters have been sent to Chase Banks, in addition to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of Thrift Supervision (both of whom oversee financial institutions).
Frankly this whole thing is a bit scary. Both my daughter and I do our banking at Chase Bank in Amarillo. What if this nut escalates his criminal behavior. I don't particularly want to be in the bank when he decides to drop off a bomb or decides to go postal on bank employees and customers.
That may sound silly, but who knows what a nut-job like this will decide to do? A $100,000 reward has been offered for his/her arrest, and the FBI is investigating. I hope the culprit is quickly apprehended and severely punished.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time this type of incident has been connected to Amarillo.
ReplyDeleteBack in August 2002, a letter containing a "white, powdery substance" was mailed to Federal District Judge Mary Lou Robinson. The culprit was later tried and convicted. Here's a link to the appeal of his conviction, which lays out the circumstances of the incident. (Fortunately, the conviction was affirmed).
I personally know the employee who was exposed to the substance, and even though it proved to be a hoax, the horror that she endured was very real indeed.
Like you, jobsanger, I sincerely hope that the person who perpetrated this latest hoax is tried, convicted and sentenced to some serious prison time. This is no laughing matter.
Oops! My earlier link didn't have anything to do with the 2002 anthrax hoax; it serves me right for leaving too many browser windows open at the same time!
ReplyDeleteHere is the link I meant to post earlier.