The Elvis impersonator accused of mailing ricin-laced letters to Obama, senator also sang ‘Little Red Corvette’A Mississippi man accused of mailing letters with suspected ricin to national leaders believed he had uncovered a conspiracy to sell human body parts on the black market and sometimes performed as an Elvis Presley impersonator.
Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested Wednesday at his home in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line about 50 miles north of Presley’s birthplace in Tupelo. He has been charged with threatening President Barack Obama and others.
Curtis was to appear in federal court Thursday. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
An affidavit says the letters sent to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and a judge in Mississippi told the recipients: “Maybe I have your attention now even if that means someone must die.”
Authorities were waiting for definitive tests on intercepted letters that were addressed to President Barack Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Preliminary field tests can often show false positives for ricin. Ricin is derived from the castor plant that makes castor oil. There is no antidote and it’s deadliest when inhaled.
[...]
Both letters said: “To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance.” Both were signed, “I am KC and I approve this message.”
Curtis also had posted language similar to the letters on his Facebook page, according to the Washington Post.
[...]
Ricky Curtis said his cousin had written about problems he had with a cleaning business and that he felt the government had not treated him well, but he said nobody in the family would have expected this. He said the writings were titled, “Missing Pieces.”
A MySpace page for a cleaning company called The Cleaning Crew confirms that they “do windows” and has profile photo of “Kevin Curtis, Master of Impressions.” A YouTube channel under the name of Kevin Curtis has dozens of videos of him performing as different famous musicians, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Kid Rock.
[...]
Multiple online posts on various websites under the name Kevin Curtis refer to the conspiracy he claimed to uncover when working at a local hospital from 1998 to 2000.
The author wrote the conspiracy that began when he “discovered a refrigerator full of dismembered body parts & organs wrapped in plastic in the morgue of the largest non-metropolitan healthcare organization in the United States of America.”
Curtis wrote that he was trying to “expose various parties within the government, FBI, police departments” for what he believed was “a conspiracy to ruin my reputation in the community as well as an ongoing effort to break down the foundation I worked more than 20 years to build in the country music scene.”
[...]
Curtis appeared in a federal courtroom Thursday in Oxford, Miss., wearing shackles and a Johnny Cash T-shirt. His handcuffs were taken off during the brief hearing, and he said little.
His attorney, Christi R. McCoy, says Curtis “maintains 100 per cent that he did not do this.: She says she knows him and his family and that it is hard for her to believe the charges against him.
McCoy says she has not yet decided whether to seek a hearing to determine if Curtis is mentally competent to stand trial.
YouTube video