New Ricin Suspect And Accused Child Molestor Even Whackier Than The Elvis Impersonator

The new ricin suspect, 41-year-old J. Everett Dutschke, is a hissable villain who has been accused of pretty much everything up to and including molesting a seven year old. He’s so well-liked around Tupelo that one neighbor said, “I don’t care how they got him, I’m just glad they got him,” as FBI agents hauled him off to face federal charges on Saturday morning. Yikes.

And now new details are emerging about Dutschke’s background that help us understand why.

The previous ricin suspect, Kevin Curtis, may be the Elvis impersonator, but Dutschke is the king when it comes to being just flat-out stone-cold weird.

As followers of the bizarre story already know, in mid-April, two mail-sorting facilities intercepted ricin-laced letters sent to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and President Barack Obama. A third letter was later discovered that had been mailed to Lee County Justice Court Judge Sadie Holland.

Each letter was signed with the initials “KC” — which led federal investigators directly to locally notorious conspiracy theorist and Elvis impersonator Kevin Curtis.

But there was no trace of ricin in his Corinth home, and he was ultimately released. When asked who would want to frame the colorful if kooky character, Curtis and his attorney Christi McCoy pointed to Dutschke.

Curtis and Dutschke have been enemies for years. You see, Dutschke is a wanna-be musician himself, and he has apparently boasted that his band would put Curtis out of business.

The new ricin suspect was already in hot water because of allegations that he molested three girls when he was working as a taekwondo instructor — one of them as young as age seven. J.Everett Dutschke was indicted in January for child-molesting and out on bail when the FBI arrested him for the ricin charges.

Dutschke has previously served six months in jail in Tupelo on an indecent exposure charge.

It’s quite a comedown for a man who once ran for a seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives. Despite an amazing string of vicious attack ads from Dutschke, the voters preferred incumbent Democrat Steve Holland.

Steve is the son of Judge Sadie Holland, one of the victims of the ricin mailer. During the election, she went public with a demand that Dutschke apologize for some of the awful, over-the-top things he was saying about her son during the campaign. Hmm.

The federal investigators have hinted that the method of manufacturing the ricin may have been as crude as mixing the beans from the castor bean plant in a blender — a method easily detectable by investigators but (fortunately) unlikely to cause serious harm to anyone who received the letters.

New ricin suspect Everett Dutschke is expected to appear in federal court in Oxford, MS on Monday.

[castor bean plant, natural source of ricin, photo by CC-BY via Wikipedia Commons]