Man Accused of Possessing Lethal Toxin Hangs Himself : Arrest: Suspect was charged with having ricin, which has no antidote.

A man arrested on a biological weapons charge for having a lethal extract of the castor bean plant committed suicide Saturday in his jail cell.

Thomas Lewis Lavy hanged himself sometime overnight, said his attorney, Sam Heuer, who did not give any details. He was pronounced dead at 7 a.m. CST at University Hospital.

Lavy, 54, was arrested Wednesday at his farm in northern Arkansas. He had been indicted in Alaska on a federal charge of possession of a toxic substance, ricin, with intent to use it as a weapon.

Ricin is ranked third in toxicity behind only plutonium and the botulism toxin, FBI Agent Thomas Lynch said. It has no known antidote. Ricin was identified as the poison used by Bulgarian secret agents to kill defector Georgi Markov in London in 1978. Investigators said he was stabbed in the leg with an umbrella tipped with a pellet dipped in the poison.

At a hearing Friday, Lavy was ordered held without bail.

Heuer said Lavy could have been driven to suicide by the possibility of life in prison, which was the maximum sentence if he had been convicted under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.

Prosecutors didn’t accept Lavy’s claim that he was trying to carry some of the poison from Alaska into Canada because he wanted to bring it to Arkansas to kill coyotes that threatened chickens on his farm.

“It would be tantamount to saying you can use a thermonuclear device to protect your property from break-in or burglary,” said prosecutor Robert Govar.

Canadian customs agents who searched Lavy’s car at a border crossing in 1993 found $89,000 in cash, four guns, more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition and a quantity of white powder, Lynch testified at the hearing. Analysis of the powder showed it was ricin.

Lynch said he didn’t learn of the Canadian border incident until earlier this year, and then had to trace Lavy to his farm.

Investigators searching Lavy’s farm in Onia found a copy of “The Poisoner’s Handbook,” which describes how to extract ricin from castor beans, a product of a commonly available ornamental plant, and “Silent Death,” which discusses ways to use toxic compounds to poison people.