There’s been a new development in that story about the guy who was playing with the deadly toxin ricin in a Vegas hotel room, which I first wrote about here. The short version: an indictment has been issued in the case, but surprisingly not for Roger von Bergendorff, the man who was apparently brewing the stuff for god-only-knows-why and who fell into a coma after handling it. The indictment was actually for his cousin Thomas Tholen, the man who owns the house here in my hometown of Riverton where von Bergendorff lived for a time. Tholen is alleged to have known that his cousin was making the shit but he failed to report it and, further, made an “untruthful statement” in order to conceal it.

Authorities still won’t say what they found in the Riverton house, or what von Bergendorff was planning to do with the ricin.
I understand, of course, that they have to remain mum until charges are brought — if there are charges forthcoming, of course — but I’m feeling very frustrated by the silence. After all, this was going on right in my own back yard; I’d like to know what was happening and why. The media seems to have all the details — not to mention a conviction, at least as far as public opinion is concerned — within hours of some perv killing a little kid, but when it comes to something that could have potentially sickened or killed half a damn town, nobody’s saying a word. (That’s not to say the death of a child is insignificant, only that there’s a real disparity in what the public hears about and what it doesn’t, and I don’t really understand why. It seems like somebody’s priorities are out of whack to me.)

I’ll continue to impatiently monitor the news feeds for any new details on this… I don’t really have much choice, do I?