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FBI conducting tests to verify substance found in UT dorm

By LIZ AUSTIN
Associated Press Writer

AUSTIN — The FBI said Saturday it was conducting further tests to verify if a powdery substance found in a University of Texas at Austin dormitory was the potentially deadly poison ricin.

The Moore-Hill dormitory's roughly 400 residents were evacuated Friday night while hazardous materials crews cleaned and sanitized the dorm room and laundry room where the substance was found. They were back in their rooms by Saturday morning, and school officials said no students have shown symptoms of exposure such as dizziness or respiratory problems.

Kelly Heinbaugh, a 19-year-old freshman, said the powder spilled onto her hands as she unwrapped a roll of quarters to do her laundry on Thursday. She said she'd used five other rolls of quarters her mother had gotten from the same bank and none had powder in them.

"I guess you can say I was just weirded out," said Heinbaugh, a kinesiology major who walked on to the school's track and cross country teams. "It seemed out of place ... I figured I'd rather be safe than sorry." She said she got checked out at a hospital on Friday night but hasn't shown any symptoms. Her roommate, whom she declined to name, also was evaluated and cleared.

Because people with ricin poisoning develop symptoms within a few hours of exposure, university officials are confident all the students will be fine, said Dr. Theresa Spalding with UT student health services.

"We feel like we have taken every precaution possible to assure the safety and health of our students," university spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said.

The university said preliminary test showed the substance to be ricin but the FBI was conducting further tests, FBI spokesman Rene Salinas said. Salinas said there was no indication of terrorism.

"There is nothing to lead us to believe that it is in fact a terrorist act," he said. "There's no link to any terrorism."

Heinbaugh said she called her mother, who told her to wash her hands and tell the dormitory manager. The manager called the university police, and environmental health and safety crews cleaned and sanitized the areas.

Heinbaugh was home for the weekend in the Houston suburb of Pearland when university officials called and told her the test results. She said she wasn't worried because she felt fine but agreed to go to the hospital as a precaution.

Heinbaugh's mother, Eileen, said she was shocked to hear the quarters she'd gotten her daughter were contaminated. She declined to say where she got them, other than that it was a national bank that her family has used for years.

"It's kind of indicative of the world that we're living in right now," Eileen Heinbaugh said. "You'd like to think you can go get quarters from the bank and not have poison in them."

Residents of the coed dormitory a block from UT's football stadium seemed mostly unconcerned about the episode Saturday, with most of them going about life like normal. A police officer was stationed outside the laundry room, which was cordoned off with yellow police tape.

Resident Daniel Gentener said he was "never really worried."

"I thought they did things appropriately," he said. "I don't feel nervous about anything."

Deadly and easy to produce, ricin is extracted from castor beans. It can be added to food or water, injected or sprayed as an aerosol. A small amount of ricin that is inhaled, injected or ingested can kill a person within 36 hours.

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