U.S. & World

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ― The man at the center of a ricin investigation appears to be a drifter with financial troubles who wore out his welcome in Utah before moving on to Las Vegas, where he has been unconscious in a hospital for weeks.

Roger Von Bergendorff, 57, summoned an ambulance from his motel room near the Las Vegas Strip on Feb. 14, and authorities said ricin - so deadly even in minuscule amounts that its only legal use is for cancer research - was found at the motel in several vials.

In the room were firearms, a book described by police as anarchist - tabbed at a spot containing information about ricin - and castor beans, from which the poison is made.

Authorities said that there was no connection to terrorism and that they believed they had recovered all the ricin, but the FBI also searched a cousin's home in suburban Salt Lake City where Bergendorff once stayed and three storage units. The searches yielded no health threats, the FBI said.

A sample of the substance found in the motel arrived Monday at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said spokesman Von Roebuck, but he didn't know how long testing would take.

The cousin, Thomas Tholen, said Monday that he had not spoken with investigators and declined to comment to a reporter.

Public records show Bergendorff used at least six addresses between 1983 and 2007 in cities in Utah and California.

Neighbor Tammy Ewell said Bergendorff lived in Riverton for more than a year before moving to Las Vegas about a year ago. He spent his last three months in Utah in a camper belonging to a neighbor.

She described Bergendorff as an introverted man who wore down his hosts by living rent-free and taking advantage of their hospitality.

"He was just a quiet man who wasn't assertive enough to get a job, to put it kindly," she said.

Bergendorff wasn't social with neighbors and often didn't return a friendly wave, she said. But he went back to Utah several times after he moved to Las Vegas to search for a lost cat.

"We had a few more conversations about how much his cat meant to him, and how he would do anything for this cat," she said.

After leaving Tholen's house in June 2006, Bergendorff moved into John Walsters' camper. Walster told The Salt Lake Tribune that Bergendorff confided in him about overcoming a drug addiction.

He described Bergendorff as quiet and generally nice but said he could be inexplicably "vindictive." He told the newspaper that Bergendorff mentioned owning a gun but never acted violently, and declined invitations to Sunday dinners at the house.

Walster's wife, Carol, said she never felt comfortable around Bergendorff. In August 2006, John Walster asked him to leave. Eventually, he said, he had to pack up Bergendorff's things and put them outside. At that point Bergendorff left, saying he was taking a graphic design job in Las Vegas.

Bergendorff - who has been unconscious at Spring Valley Hospital in Las Vegas, according to police and the FBI - also has had financial problems, declaring bankruptcy in San Diego in 2000, court records show. In 1993, a civil judgment was entered against him for an unpaid auto loan of about $13,000 in Orange County, California.

Bergendorff, the middle of three sons, grew up in La Mesa, Calif, and attended Grossmont College. He moved back to La Mesa to take care of his mother, Lola, who died in 2001, according to the Tribune. Her obituary said Bergendorff lived in Reno, Nev., at that time. His father, Frederick, died in 1991.

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