By Clair McFarland, Cowboy State Daily
clair@cowboystatedaily.com
A package sent last month to a staff member of U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney which was initially feared to be a bomb actually contained one book on witchcraft and another on absolute power, according to a police report released Tuesday.
The package was sent by a Montana resident described as “crazy,” by law enforcement authorities in his county.
Cheney’s Riverton employee on June 30 received a package addressed to Cheney, according to a report by the Riverton Police Department. The employee, whose name is redacted from the report, originally thought nothing of the package, until she noticed a strange message scrawled on its outside.
“Pelosi/Cheney 2024 ‘To win a sword fight you must not care if you live or die’ Lancelot-First Knight Movie released 1995,” read one of the cryptic, hand-written messages on the package.
“A Special 4th of July Surprise. Pitcher Get Ready, Batter up. Not Guts No Glory AOC Knows!” the writing also said.
Cheney’s employee brought the package, which had been in the back of her car, to the police department. Adjacent businesses were evacuated.
‘Crazy’
RPD redacted the sender’s name from the police report but included a harsh assessment of him from Montana law enforcement.
“(Law enforcement) advised that (redacted) was ‘crazy’ and had a history of sending threatening mail and making threatening calls,” the report said.
None of the man’s threats had ever come to fruition, however, according to Montana police quoted in the report.
Bomb Squad
Still, concerned by the writing on the outside of the package, authorities called a bomb squad to the scene, as well as a bomb dog who did not appear to detect explosives.
A Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation agent removed the package from the car and placed it on the blacktop parking lot in front of the station.
DCI agents opened the package and found inside two books, a newspaper article and several handwritten letters.
The books were “The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World” by Dara Cooney, and “A Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft” by Lee Morgan.
The newspaper was the June 17 edition of the Miles City Star, a Montana newspaper.
“Remember when Ready Genisis (sic) Chapter 19 That in Roman Times Salt was worth its weight in Gold,” read one of the letters.
In Genesis Chapter 19 the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, which celebrated homosexual rape, were divinely destroyed. A good man named Lot escaped the city but his wife, who looked back at the city as they fled, was turned to salt.
The FBI took the package contents as evidence, according to the RPD report.
