More than three dozen letters sent to D.C. schools containing a suspicious white powder and references to al Qaeda are being analyzed at the FBI’s Virginia lab before officials ship them to Dallas, where a larger investigation is unfolding. In Quantico, Va., agents are conducting additional tests to identify the powder, which is apparently nonhazardous, that caused several District schools to evacuate or lock down on Thursday and Friday. Forensic analysts will review the 39 letters, postmarked from Dallas, before sending them to Texas.
“We would like to catch him yesterday,” said Mark White, a special agent in the FBI’s Dallas office. “The investigation here will look at [the letters] for similarities and try to match them up to letters of the same type, and find clues based on what’s on the letter itself and on the envelope.”
White said the FBI has been working “very closely” with the U.S. Postal Service since the letters first surfaced, but declined to give details.
Last August, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the sender’s capture after dozens of envelopes containing white powder and referring to terrorism were mailed to religious organizations and businesses around North Texas. Additional letters turned up in Austin and Lubbock in Texas, and Chicago.
In October, several D.C. schools and dozens in Houston received similar letters.
The Bureau is not sure when the spree began. “If they’re associated, we’re talking years, not weeks,” said White.
Lindsay Godwin, a spokeswoman for the FBI Washington Field Office, said D.C. schools are the only recipients the FBI was aware of on Thursday and Friday. No new letters were received Saturday, FBI and D.C. police officials said.
The sender typed the school’s addresses onto white seals and affixed them on envelopes with no return address. The letters read “AL AQEDA-FBI” and were coated in roughly two pill capsules worth of white powder, according to individuals who received them.
Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Thursday evening that “there is a plan in place” to keep these letters arriving at schools, but declined to elaborate on details.
After 29 letters sent D.C. emergency squads rushing around the District on Thursday, six more schools received letters on Friday, and the post office intercepted an additional four.
“We do not characterize it as a prank,” said James McJunkin, the assistant director for the FBI’s Washington office. “What they have done is commit a serious criminal offense.”
