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Thursday, June 4, 2009

News Was This Guy The Ricin Queen?

Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 5:46 PM

Hm...

The FBI said this afternoon that they have "a strong suspicion" that an Everett man had the deadly poison ricin in his home office, and a specially trained hazardous-materials team — including experts flown in today from Washington, D.C. — have locked down the home.

"I wonder if this could be the same guy sending threatening letters to our gay bars a few months back," says Slog tipper Ryan. Now I'm wondering the same thing. If this guy is the Ricin Queen, well, then it kills my theory that the dude was openly gay. This guy has a wife and a teenage son.

Comments (11) RSS

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Doesn't mean he's not gay, Dan. Lots of closet cases live their whole lives being homophobic assholes. A lucky few give up the charade and come out.

Posted by Hawke on June 4, 2009 at 5:54 PM

No word from the press on his name, but I think it's Jeffrey C. Marble, wife Catherine C. Dunne-Marble. It looks like they have some recent mortgage trouble; I found a cached ad for a trustee's sale at auction of the house, 1208 50th St SW, Everett, WA 98203 (the address mentioned in the news article) for May 22, 2009, less than two weeks ago:

http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:ZJLk…

The house last sold for $219,000 in 2000, but the note that they appear to have defaulted on was dated 2004, which would have been about the peak of the market, or at least considerably higher than today, which suggests they might have gone underwater. Financial crisis is a common proximate cause of domestic violence, and quite possibly anti-gay craziness as well.

Posted by Fnarf

on June 4, 2009 at 6:23 PM

Here I'm seeing a scheduled bankruptcy hearing for Jeffrey C. Marble in US Bankruptcy Court, Western WA division:

http://www.wawb.uscourts.gov/341/Everett…

Case number 09-14978-TTG, hearing set for July 2, 2009. He may be busy that day.

I know that if this is all tied together, he's a threatening creep, but I still feel sorry for people whose lives completely fall apart like this.

Posted by Fnarf

on June 4, 2009 at 6:27 PM

This doesn't kill your theory, Dan, it kills your pulled-it-out-of-my-ass-pure-speculation.

Posted by BLUE on June 4, 2009 at 7:01 PM

The Marbles have (or had) a sixteen-year-old son. Maybe he's gay. Maybe the dad freaked out. Maybe he got the news the same day he found out he was foreclosed on his home and his wife wants a divorce. Pure speculation, but whatever was happening in that house is a tragic story.

Posted by Fnarf

on June 4, 2009 at 7:32 PM

Conjecture fest is rolling ...

Posted by Alex la Rouge on June 4, 2009 at 8:11 PM

Are they any relation to Connie and Raymond Marble?

Posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay

on June 4, 2009 at 8:49 PM

Why would the ricin queen actually have ricin and not use it?

Posted by w7ngman

on June 4, 2009 at 11:14 PM

Oh, my God, Catalina, that's right. I had forgotten that. Now that's an American family.

Posted by Fnarf

on June 5, 2009 at 3:37 AM

Their son is a very good friend of mine. He's not gay. Jeff is a very mellow guy and this seems extremely out of character for him. I would say that it is at least as likely that Karen is lying and is the criminal in this situation.

Posted by Korhyan on June 6, 2009 at 4:20 PM

I know the family, too. Jeff ~could~ be a gay-basher, but doubtful. I've seen the bruises, and have a hard time thinking that Karen is a liar. They seem like Mr. and Mrs. Normal. Before I think Karen is a liar or Jeff is the gay bar ricin queen, I would say that he had Munchausen by Proxy. Karen has been ill for months, and Jeff the doting husband has been taking care of her, all while having some mysterious eye disease in which he needs to take copious amounts of Visine to remedy. Hmmmmmm.......

Posted by Karma Kat on June 8, 2009 at 7:59 PM