Substance recovered from Everett home likely deadly toxin, FBI says

The FBI Thursday was investigating "a strong suspicion" that an Everett man had the deadly poison ricin in his home office, and a specially trained hazardous-materials team — including experts flown in from Washington, D.C. — locked down the home.

Although the amount of the suspected ricin was enough to raise red flags, an FBI spokeswoman said agents have no fear that the substance poses any risk to the public or to neighbors, and no one has been exposed or evacuated.

The situation began with a domestic-violence call to a home on the 1200 block of 50th Street Southwest at about 5 p.m. on Monday. Everett police found a bleeding 43-year-old woman in her front yard. They went inside and found her husband, 48, unresponsive with some kind of medical emergency, said Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz.

The couple were both taken to the hospital, Goetz said. The husband is still there. His medical problem was not disclosed.

The wife was released later Monday night, Goetz said.

Then on Wednesday, while home alone, the woman went into her husband's private home office, which she had never entered before despite years of marriage. There, she found a suspicious substance, and she called Everett police, who identified it as possible ricin, Goetz said.

The house was locked down.

The FBI applied for a federal search warrant Thursday morning and summoned the experts from Washington., D.C., to join the local hazmat team, said FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs.

When the team finally entered the home, they determined the substance was very likely ricin, Burroughs said, but they won't know for sure until laboratory tests are done.

Ricin is an extremely powerful biological toxin extracted from castor beans. An amount even smaller than a grain of sand can kill an adult.

Burroughs stressed, however, that the substance had been securely contained. For ricin to be deadly, she said, it requires very close contact — inhaling it, ingesting it or getting it into the blood through a puncture wound.

Burroughs said the FBI has no idea what the man planned to do with the suspected ricin.

"We have no reason to believe he had ties to terrorism or had any big plans," she said.

The husband has been informed that when he is released from the hospital he will either be taken to the Snohomish County Jail on domestic-violence assault and unlawful-imprisonment charges, or handed over to the FBI for federal charges related to the substance in his office, Goetz said.

The wife and the couple's teen son are staying at an undisclosed location.

Thursday evening, access to 50th Street Southwest was restricted to people who lived there. The FBI was still inside the split-level brick house investigating, assisted by Everett police. Burroughs said agents have to follow a protocol in such situations, and they hoped to be finished by midnight.

The FBI has investigated a couple other ricin cases in the region over the past few years, Burroughs said.

"It's certainly rare, but it's not unprecedented to see the possibility of ricin."

Returning home from work to the Seahurst-Glenhaven-Harborview neighborhood Thursday evening, neighbors Michael Barthol and his wife, Teresa, found their street lined with police cars, firetrucks, an ambulance and hazmat teams.

"This is pretty traumatic." she said.

Ian Ith: 206-464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com. Charles E. Brown: 206-464-2206 or cbrown@seattletimes.com.