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 Adding to the mystery, police said firearms and an "anarchist type textbook" were found in the same room where the ricin was discovered two days later.
Capt. Joseph Lombardo said at a news conference late Friday that the book was tabbed at a spot with information about ricin. Police found the firearms and books on Tuesday after a manager at the Extended Stay America motel called police upon discovering weapons, he said, without elaborating.
After authorities seized the book and weapons, tests for ricin were conducted but came back negative, Lombardo said.
He said a 53-year-old friend or relative of the sick man contacted motel management on Feb. 22 to inform them about pets in the room.
Earlier Friday, police Deputy Chief Kathy Suey said the friend or relative found two vials of ricin on Thursday after going to the motel to retrieve the hospitalized man's belongings. Authorities on Friday confirmed that the vials contained ricin.
It was unclear how long the vials were in the unoccupied motel room, and whether they might have been overlooked when ricin tests were conducted on Tuesday. Lombardo did not address such questions during the brief news conference.
"The only positive tests (were) on the powder in question" in the vials, he said.
Authorities said there was no apparent link to terrorist activity, and no indication of any spread of the deadly substance beyond the vials.
The 57-year-old man was the last to stay in the room, and has been in critical condition since calling an ambulance on Feb. 14 complaining of respiratory distress.
Authorities offered little more about the man's identity: He left pets in the room and was not considered a suspect. A dog was found dead, but the animal had gone at least a week without food or water, Suey said.
"We don't know an awful lot about him," she said. "We don't even know that it was him that was in possession of the ricin." Suey said she could not say how much ricin was in the vials.
Lombardo said precautionary tests were also done in a room at the Excalibur hotel-casino, on the Las Vegas Strip, where the friend or relative had been saying. He said they came back negative.
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 The only legal use for ricin is cancer research. A pinprick is enough to kill.
Police, National Guard, Homeland Security and FBI officials responded when the substance was found Thursday.
Seven people, including the man who found the ricin, the manager, two other motel employees and three police officers, were decontaminated at the scene and taken to hospitals for examination. None have shown any signs of being affected by ricin, Suey said. All have been released.
Along with the ricin, police found castor beans possibly used to make the substance. Suey said the manufacture of ricin is a crime.
Greg Evans, director of the Institute for Biosecurity at Saint Louis University in Missouri, said the man's respiratory illness suggested he was exposed to a powder fine enough to float in the air.
"If he went to the hospital with difficulty breathing, he actually inhaled it," Evans said. "For some reason, he opened the vial and it must have been aerosolized."
Multiple vials would probably contain enough ricin to sicken many people if it was spread, for example, around a buffet table or sprayed in a closed room.
"If it was aerosolized in a confined space then it certainly could harm dozens of people," he said.
As little as 500 micrograms of ricin, or about the size of the head of a pin, can kill a human, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
In March 2003, a Las Vegas man committed suicide by injecting himself with liquid ricin. He was a retired gaming executive and former chemist.
For the most part, however, the toxin has more of a cloak-and-dagger reputation linked more closely to spies and assassins.
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Associated Press writers Noaki Schwartz in Los Angeles and Kathleen Hennessey in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
[Associated
Press; By KEN RITTER]
Copyright 2008 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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