By Cindy Wolff
Knoxville News-Sentinel
MEMPHIS — A prisoner who sent a federal judge a letter with fake anthrax is allegedly at it again, according to Memphis police, this time using the U.S. Postal Service to send bomb threats.
Two Memphis businesses, two schools, the National Civil Rights Museum, a bank in Collierville, Tenn., and a store in Parsons, Tenn., all received letters Tuesday that said a bomb was hidden in the buildings.
All the buildings were vacated and searched by bomb-sniffing dogs that found nothing.
The incident report for the Memphis bomb threats names Marshall DeWayne Williams as a suspect. The report doesn’t say whether Williams signed the letters or if there was other evidence that indicated Williams was involved.
The federal Bureau of Prisons lists Williams’ status as “in transit.”
He left a penitentiary in Big Sandy, Ky., on Sept. 20 en route to an unspecified facility. According to the report filed by Memphis police, Williams is a prisoner at the West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason.
A spokesman for the Mason prison directed questions to Corrections Corp. of America, which owns and operates the prison. The Nashvillebased company was closed Wednesday for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The 48-year-old Williams was convicted in 2009 of sending a letter to U.S. District Judge J. Daniel Breen stating that a powdery substance inside was “powerful crystal anthrax.”
Breen was in Jackson, Tenn., at the time. His law clerk opened the mail to find the substance, which tests revealed was artificial sweetener.
Williams was convicted by a jury in 1984 of planting a pipe bomb in a newspaper vending machine in Mesquite, Texas, which exploded and killed his stepfather. He was sent to prison for life.
Williams sent an appeal to several districts including the one in West Tennessee, where Breen denied the appeal.
It wasn’t clear Wednesday what law enforcement agency would be filing charges in the bomb threat cases.
Copyright 2011 Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
All Rights Reserved