CZM Rewind: Magic Beans
Weird Little Guys
iHeartPodcasts and Cool Zone Media
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2017, a man showed up at the emergency room and confessed that he'd accidentally poisoned himself with homemade ricin. He was federally charged with possessing a biological agent, but his case was dismissed on almost unbelievable technicality. But he's not the only man who thinks he can create the perfect weapon from nothing but a handful of beans.
Original Air Date: 7.31.25
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Leo J. Schep, Wayne A. Temple, Grant A. Butt, Michael D. Beasley. Ricin as a weapon of mass terror — Separating fact from fiction. Environment International, Volume 35, Issue 8, 2009
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.0 | Quarzo Media. |
| 0:11.8 | On the morning of February 2nd, 2017, |
| 0:15.4 | William Christopher Gibbs had just finished his overnight shift |
| 0:18.3 | as a forklift operator to poultry processing plant |
| 0:20.8 | in a small town in North Georgia. It was, technically, 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning, but he'd just |
| 0:28.2 | gotten off work, and he wanted to relax and have a few beers with a friend. Around noon, he got a |
| 0:34.7 | phone call from another friend who wanted to join them, |
| 0:38.9 | but he needed a ride. |
| 0:43.1 | Gibbs agreed to drive down to the gas station to pick him up, |
| 0:46.4 | but he'd need to rearrange some things in his car first. |
| 0:49.8 | As he was cleaning out the front seat of his car, |
| 0:52.2 | he touched something wet. |
| 0:57.2 | A bottle he'd left on the floor of the passenger side was leaking. |
| 0:59.6 | He panicked. |
| 1:06.3 | He spent four hours considering his options before finally driving himself to the emergency room. |
| 1:08.8 | He had to tell the truth. |
| 1:13.8 | He was sick, and if he wanted help, he'd have to tell them. |
| 1:15.9 | He'd been making ricin. |
| 1:19.4 | It looked like a slam dunk case. |
| 1:25.4 | But less than two weeks before his trial was set to begin, a judge dismissed the indictment. |
... |
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