Marine's Wife & Her Lover Foiled in Plot

[Dvan]

Friday, January 09, 2004

SAN DIEGO — A Marine's wife and another woman were arrested with the deadly poison ricin, and authorities said the pair planned to kill the husband to get insurance money.

No terrorism was involved, the FBI said.

Authorities said Astrid K. Tepatti and Ebony Wood, both 21, were lovers who used a recipe obtained on the Internet to cook up a small amount of the poison out of castor beans.

Highway patrol officers said they found the ricin in a bag in a car the two women were riding in Sunday near Winterhaven, about 150 miles east of San Diego.

The officers also found a pistol, a handwritten recipe for the poison and a container of castor beans, and authorities said the women were wearing clothing -- with sales tags still attached -- they had shoplifted from a department store.

Tepatti and Wood were being held in a federal detention center in San Diego on charges of attempted murder. It was not immediately clear whether they had lawyers. Tepatti's husband is a Marine at Camp Pendleton, authorities said.

[USMC-FO]

Hmmmm......pretty kinky !

Obviously if these two were wearing stolen clothing with the tags still on, well then you can assume you're dealing with a couple of dykes who can out of the shallow end of the gene pool.

[Sparrowhawk]

You just can't trust them wimen!

They smile real pretty, but some have an ugly heart.

LOL

[Barrio_rat]

Just another example of why a Marine should never be married - DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!

Remember, if the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife, they'd issue you one. Of course, if the Marine Corps did issue wives, they'd be Army and Air Force hand-me-downs or just obsolete.

[thedrifter]

Officials say Marine was target of violence




Wife, her associate held in poison find

By Shannon Tangonan
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

January 10, 2004

OCEANSIDE – A Camp Pendleton Marine survived a stabbing in August. On Sunday, he escaped injury in a close-up shooting attempt. Now authorities believe they may have foiled his wife's plot to poison him with ricin, a potent toxin classified as a biological weapon.

Yesterday, Astrid Tepatti and Ebony Wood, both 21, remained behind bars on suspicion of attempted murder and the manufacture, possession and transportation of a biological weapon.

When the women were pulled over Sunday near Winterhaven, authorities found a pistol, a plastic bag with a white powdery substance inside, a container of castor beans and a handwritten recipe for ricin, according to the FBI.

Federal, state and local authorities are investigating whether Tepatti and Wood were conspiring to use the ricin to kill Tepatti's husband.

Tepatti, with Wood's assistance, also is under investigation for firing a gun at her husband, Stephen Tepatti, at close range Sunday at Camp Pendleton, using a potato as a silencer. The women also are being linked to the August stabbing of Stephen Tepatti at the Oceanside Pier. They were being held in a San Diego jail.

Stephen Tepatti, reached yesterday by phone, declined to comment. Officials say he was not injured in Sunday's shooting. Oceanside police said he made a full recovery from the Aug. 16 stabbing.

Following the shooting incident, Astrid Tepatti and Wood were stopped by California Highway Patrol officers and taken into custody. The material found in their vehicle tested positive for ricin toxin, the FBI said.

Ricin, when purified, is an extremely dangerous toxin, said Partho Ghosh, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California San Diego.

"Only a few molecules are necessary to kill a cell," Ghosh said.

A Centers for Disease Control Web site says ricin can be made from the waste left over from processing castor beans.

"What you have to be careful about is not killing yourself while you're doing it," Ghosh said.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI, San Diego County Hazardous Incident Response Team, California Highway Patrol, Yuma fire and hazardous materials crews and the Oceanside police are involved in the ongoing investigation.

Camp Pendleton base officials referred questions to the FBI and Navy investigators.

In the stabbing incident, Stephen Tepatti and his wife were sitting on the beach near the Oceanside Pier about 1 a.m. Aug. 16 when he was stabbed in the back of the neck by an unknown man, said Karen McDonough, a police spokeswoman.

The man ran off and Stephen Tepatti left the beach and summoned help, McDonough said. He was airlifted to a hospital and underwent surgery to remove the tip of the blade, which was imbedded in his neck, she said.

An investigation was begun, then closed because of the scarcity of leads in the case, McDonough said. The case was reopened in light of the recent developments.

"Now it turns out there is more to the case," said Oceanside Police Capt. Dave Heering.

Detectives are expected to meet with prosecutors to determine what charges will be filed, he said.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shannon Tangonan:
(760) 737-7567; shannon.tangonan@uniontrib.com


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/n...mi10ricin.html


Sempers,

Roger

[Devildogg4ever]

A face only MaMa can love!! I thought the rest of the branches were made, just to be our wives??

[Barrio_rat]

A good deal can be read into your statement there Devildogg4ever... But I'll just leave it be.

Though, and I just can't help but bring this up, Sparrowhawk has stated many a time how he just loves red heads - this must be a picture of one (one of many) of his darlings.

[Phantom Blooper]

By: North County Times wire services

SAN DIEGO - The wife of a Camp Pendleton Marine and her lesbian lover pleaded innocent in federal court today to a charge of attempted murder for allegedly trying to kill the Marine on a number of occasions.

Astrid Tepatti and Ebony Woods, both 21, were informed of a one-count indictment against them in a hearing before Magistrate Judge Leo Papas.

He ordered the defendants -- who are held without bail -- to next appear Feb. 26 before U.S. District Judge John Houston for a motions and trial- setting hearing.

Tepatti and Woods were arrested Jan. 4 near Winterhaven after a traffic stop by the California Highway Patrol, authorities said.

A gun, castor beans, a small amount of white powder and a recipe for the poison ricin were confiscated from the vehicle the defendants were in, authorities said. Ricin is a poisonous protein made from castor beans.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Shanna Dougherty told Papas last week that Woods and Tepatti could each face 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiring to kill Tepatti's husband.

More charges could be filed against the women, Dougherty said.
The prosecutor said both defendants told authorities after their arrests that they tried to hire a "hit man" for $10,000 last August to kill the victim so they could collect on $500,000 in life insurance policies.

The "hit man" did stab Tepatti's husband in the neck, but the victim survived, Dougherty told the judge.

"It was a plan they concocted together," the prosecutor said of the defendants.

Dougherty said the defendants next drove to Mexico, where they acquired Valium and the date-rape drug Rohypnol and unsuccessfully tried to poison the victim's food, Dougherty said.

Next the defendant got a recipe for ricin on the Internet and planned to poison Tepatti's husband, the prosecutor said.

"They never ultimately were successful," Dougherty told the judge.

The defendants tried to build a gun with materials purchased from Home Depot, but abandoned the project, the prosecutor said.

They then bought a revolver for $450 which Tepatti allegedly used to try to shoot her husband on Jan. 4, using a potato as a silencer, Dougherty said.

Woods was in a van with Tepatti's young child when Tepatti tried to shoot her husband, the prosecutor said. Tepatti came out to the van and told Woods that she failed because the revolver was too heavy, Dougherty told the judge.

Defense attorney Mark Fleming told the judge that Woods had no criminal record and that statements made by his client after her arrest should be called into question.

But Papas ruled that Woods was alleged to be part of a ongoing plan to "extinguish another's life" and that she was in fact a danger to the victim.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004...0421_45_04.txt

[Toby M]

Hey, I like redheads-is she married? She's a purty one...