'Walking Dead' actress arrested in connection to ricin letters

A New Boston, Texas woman who played bit parts on TV shows "The Walking Dead" and "The Vampire Diaries" was arrested Friday for allegedly sending letters laced with the poison ricin to President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. According to NBC News, Shannon Rogers Guess Richardson was arrested in Arkansas on charges that will be filed Friday afternoon.

Officials said that it was Shannon Richardson who first contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, accusing her fourth husband, Nathaniel Richardson, of making the poison from castor beans and mailing the letters. As evidence, the mother of five, who is currently pregnant with her husband's child, said that she found a recipe marked "How to make ricin" in their house and a Tupperware container in the family refrigerator containing a substance that "looked like ricin."

Police arrested Nathaniel Richardson, a U.S. Army veteran, last Friday and questioned him extensively before releasing him. Officers found castor beans in his car, but had no other concrete evidence tying him to the letters.

Nathaniel Richardson argued strenuously that he was being framed for the crime, pointing out that the castor beans used in the poison had been purchased with a credit card, which he never uses. The couple, who married in October of 2011, have been in the process of getting divorced.

The letters were mailed from Shreveport, Louisiana, which is about a 40-minute drive from New Boston, and read, in part, "You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns. Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional God given right and I will exercise that right till the day I die." and "What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for you.”

[image via Facebook.com]