Man arrested for sending Obama a poisonous letter

A 45-year-old father of four from Mississippi was arrested on Wednesday in a scheme to kill US President Barack Obama with a poisoned letter.

The letter to Obama contained deadly ricin, according to a preliminary test of the granular substance.

Paul Kevin Curtis is an Elvis impersonator on cruise ships and gambling boats, his old man said.

 "You can't imagine what a shock it is," a baffled Jack Curtis Sr. said in a telephone interview Wednesday night, not long after federal agents arrested his son.

"I don't ever believe he would do that. How would he even be able to get a hold of ricin?"

 The father said the suspect in the letter plot was nabbed while pulling out of his Corinth, Miss., driveway, on his way to pick up his children and take them to an evening church service.

"It's a sad state of affairs," Curtis said.

"I literally detest Obama. I hate that he was even elected to start with and I certainly can't believe he beat Romney.

 "But I can't think of any rhyme or reason why Kevin would do anything like that," he added. "I've never talked to him about Obama and Wicker, I don't know. I know very little about him."

The dad said his son, who goes by Kevin, at one point owned an office cleaning business in Tupelo but quit that several years ago to focus on his Elvis act.

 "He's really good at what he does," the father said, noting that his son once finished seventh in an Elvis impersonation competition in Memphis. "I'm shocked as all get-out."

The potentially deadly letter addressed to Obama and mailed to the White House was one of three that were intercepted Wednesday, the same day three suspicious packages led to a partial lockdown of a Senate building.

 U.S. Capitol Police lifted the security restrictions about 1 p.m. after the parcels proved to be harmless.

The apparent attempt on the President's life and the other suspicious packages that turned up across the U.S. Wednesday heightened tensions created by the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday.

The FBI announced its arrest of Curtis in a statement Wednesday night, but the mailings were not believed to be related to the terror attack in Boston.

The letters, postmarked April 8 in Memphis, were caught at offsite screening facilities before they reached the White House, the district office of Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and the office of a Mississippi judicial official.

A screed posted to the consumer advocacy website Ripoff Report and signed by a Kevin Curtis of Booneville, Miss., a town near Corinth, hinted at why the suspect might have harbored anger toward Wicker.

The writer of the complaint claims to have owned and operated a cleaning business that did work for the North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo.

The rant, which appears to have been written several years ago, details the writer's treatment by the hospital and mentions letters sent to, and not returned by, Roger Wicker, who the writer refers to as a state representative.

It also mentions rebuffs by politicians Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, and ends with the sign-off, "This is Kevin Curtis and I approve this report." The line is similar to one that reportedly ended the letters mailed to Wicker and Obama this week: "I am KC, and I approve this message."

The discoveries coincided with scares created by three suspicious packages at a Senate office building. Part of a Senate building was put into lockdown when the suspicious par, but U.S. Capitol Police lifted the security restrictions at about 1 p.m. after the three packages at the Capitol complex proved to be harmless.

The letters to Obama and Wicker contained a threatening message: "To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance," according to an FBI bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. They were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message."

Authorities were awaiting the results of more thorough analysis of the letter because quick field tests are notorious for returning false positives for ricin, a byproduct of processing castor beans that is lethal if inhaled or ingested.

The fact the scare resulting from the potentially deadly letters followed so soon after the Boston attack was eerily reminiscent of the anthrax mailings that came on the heels of 9/11.