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(DELPHIA, Ind.) — Delphi, Indiana, double murder suspect Richard Allen allegedly confessed to the killings several times in a jail phone call with his wife in April, according to newly unsealed court documents.

Allen, a Delphi resident, was arrested in October 2022 and charged with two counts of murder for the deaths of Abby Williams, 13, and Libby German, 14. The best friends were enjoying a day off from school when they were killed on a Delphi hiking trail in February 2017.

While in custody, on April 3, Allen was on a call with his wife and allegedly admitted “several times that he killed Abby and Libby,” according to a court document released on Wednesday.

His wife ended the call abruptly, the document said.

The document was filed April 20 by the prosecutor requesting to obtain Allen’s mental health records during his time as an inmate, as well as video and logs that recorded his behavior to refute defense claims regarding the Westville Correctional Facility.

“Soon after” that call with his wife, Allen’s attorneys filed an emergency motion saying his mental state had declined and he should be moved, alleging Westville Correctional Facility was unfit, the document said.

Allen was refusing to eat, refusing to sleep and “was wetting down paperwork he had gotten from his attorneys and eating it,” the document said.

Allen broke the tablet he used for phone calls, the document said, and went from making two phone calls a day to making no calls.

Defense attorneys did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on Wednesday. But at a June 15 court hearing, defense attorneys said any confessions made by Allen are unreliable due to his deteriorating mental and physical health.

On April 14, Allen was evaluated by two psychiatrists and a psychologist to see if he needed involuntary medication or to be moved to a different unit, the document said, and they determined Allen didn’t need involuntary medication and didn’t need to be moved. After that meeting, Allen started eating and sleeping again and his behavior “began to return to what it was prior to making the admission on April 3,” the document said.

Allen has pleaded not guilty to the two murders. According to court documents, Allen admitted to police to being on the trail that day but denied any involvement in the girls’ murders.

Allen’s trial has been scheduled for January 2024.

In a document filed by the prosecutor on June 13, in another effort to obtain Allen’s mental health records, the prosecution alleged that Allen admitted to the killings “no less than 5 times while talking to his wife and his mother on the public jail phones.”

The April 20 document filed by the prosecutor also noted that “investigators believe they hear the sound of a gun being cycled” on the video recovered from Libby’s phone.

According to video recovered from one of the victim’s phones, Abby or Libby mentioned “gun” as a man approached them, according to the probable cause affidavit. A .40-caliber unspent round was found less than 2 feet away from one of the girls’ bodies, and that unspent round went through a gun that Allen owns, according to the probable cause affidavit.

Another document released Wednesday mentions the involvement of a knife in the killings.

Authorities believe a gun was used in the girls’ abduction and murders due to the unspent round found by their bodies, the prosecutor said, and authorities believe a “knife was used in the murder of Abigail Williams and Liberty German.”

This document was filed June 13, objecting to the defense’s motion to suppress evidence seized in a search warrant at Allen’s home.

The June 13 document filed by the state objecting to the defense’s motion to suppress also notes “articles of clothing from the girls were missing from the scene” where their bodies were found, “including a pair of underwear and a sock.”

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(BOSTON) — A 32-year-old Boston woman is facing criminal charges for allegedly enrolling and posing as a student in three Boston high schools, court records show.

Shelby Hewitt, of Canton, Massachusetts, reportedly went by the name Ellie and had recently enrolled at English High School, before school administrations uncovered issues with her enrollment paperwork in mid-June, according to a police incident report.

Administrators began investigating the case after a man who claimed to be the father of Ellie said he was withdrawing her due to bullying, according to the police report. The administrators found that “odd” because she had enrolled the week prior and were “concerned that there may be some sort of custodial issue with the parents,” according to the report.

School administrators uncovered that a social worker listed on her enrollment paperwork did not appear to exist and called 911, according to the report.

A search of Hewitt’s bedroom allegedly uncovered multiple forged documents, including ones from the Department of Children and Families, the report said. Investigators believe she falsely represented herself as another person to “obtain services from the Boston Public Schools” at three high schools between Sept. 7, 2022, and June 14, 2023, the report stated.

Hewitt was charged with six counts, including forgery and identity fraud, according to a criminal complaint filed on Tuesday in Boston Municipal Court.

She has not been formally taken into custody, Boston police said.

It is unclear if she has an attorney who can speak on her behalf. The woman’s father told Boston ABC affiliate WCVB she is receiving mental health treatment.

The school district alerted families to the incident last week amid the criminal investigation. In a letter to families on June 20, Boston Public Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper said an adult woman used falsified identification and paperwork to register as a student this academic year.

Skipper said the adult woman was “discharged” and is being ordered to stay away from BPS facilities.

“At various points during the 2022-2023 school year, this individual attended the Jeremiah E. Burke High School, Brighton High School, and English High School utilizing the student transfer process and enrolling under multiple pseudonyms,” Skipper said.

“While the investigation is in its early stages and remains ongoing, school officials have not identified any incidents of harm to students or staff. At this time families of students who may have interacted with this individual are being contacted directly by school staff and investigators,” Skipper said.

In a statement earlier this month, Skipper praised district staff who “caught” this after identifying irregularities with the student’s enrollment and reported it to Boston police.

“I am deeply troubled that an adult would breach the trust of our school communities by posing as a student,” Skipper said. “This appears to be a case of extremely sophisticated fraud.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu told reporters following the discovery that there did not appear to be any “harm or risk” to students.

“You think you’ve seen everything,” Wu said. “We’re looking into [making] sure we can find out all the details of what happened here and what the motivation might have been.”

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(ALBANY, N.Y.) — The owners, operators and landlords of four nursing homes in New York for years misused more than $83 million in taxpayer money, leaving elderly people in their care dead, neglected or humiliated by sitting in their own urine and feces, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday in a new lawsuit.

The lawsuit accuses the executives and the corporations behind nursing homes in the Bronx, Queens, Westchester and Buffalo of enriching themselves by diverting Medicare and Medicaid funds away from residential care.

The nursing homes, owned and operated by Centers Health Care, include Beth Abraham Center in the Bronx, Buffalo Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, Holliswood Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Queens, and Martine Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Westchester County. Residents at these facilities suffered from severe dehydration, malnutrition, and increased risk of death, developed infections and sepsis from untreated bed sores and inconsistent wound care, sustained life-changing injuries from falls, and died, the lawsuit said.

Responding to the filing on Wednesday, Centers Health Care spokesperson Jeff Jacomowitz said in a statement to ABC News they would fight the allegations.

“Centers Health Care prides itself on its commitment to patient care. Centers denies the New York Attorney General’s allegations wholeheartedly and attempted to resolve this matter out of court. We will fight these spurious claims with the facts on our side. Beyond that, Centers Health Care will not comment on ongoing litigation,” the statement read.

This is the fourth – and largest – enforcement action the attorney general’s office has taken in recent months that aims to stop fraud in nursing homes. The nursing home issues were first raised during the COVID-19 pandemic though the lawsuit claims the alleged horrors preceded the pandemic.

Just two months into the pandemic, 70 residents – nearly a quarter of Holliswood Center’s population – had died from COVID-19. More than 400 residents died across all four nursing homes in 2020.

“Nursing homes are meant to be safe spaces where the most vulnerable members of our community receive the care and dignity they deserve. Instead, the owners of Centers Health Care allegedly used these four nursing homes – and the vulnerable New Yorkers who lived there – to extract millions of dollars for their personal use, leading to elderly residents and those with disabilities suffering unconscionable pain, neglect, degradation, and even death,” James said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

According to the suit, due to insufficient staffing, staff members were often unable to assist residents with basic activities of daily living, such as help using the bathroom, getting in and out of bed, eating, and maintaining personal hygiene. Call bells were routinely ignored or unanswered, meals were not provided in a timely manner and personal belongings were lost or stolen, including hearing aids, dentures, clothing, and even an electronic piano, the suit alleges. Residents, family members, and staff reported unsanitary conditions, including neglected food trays, vermin, flies and persistent smells of human waste.

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(NEW YORK) — Marine veteran Daniel Penny’s comments to police following the fatal chokehold of Jordan Neely in a New York City subway have been released in new documents.

“He came on and he threw s—, he’s like ‘I don’t give a s—, I’m going to go to prison for life’ and stuff, so I just came up behind him and put him in a chokehold. He was threatening everybody,” a court filing accompanying Penny’s indictment quoted him telling officers on May 1.

“We just went to the ground. He was trying to roll up, I had him pretty good. I was in the Marine Corps,” he told officers.

Penny was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide Wednesday in connection with the May 1 chokehold death of Neely aboard a New York City subway train.

“Daniel Penny stands indicted for manslaughter after allegedly putting Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold for several minutes until and after he stopped moving. I hope Mr. Neely’s loved ones are on the path towards healing as they continue to mourn this tragic loss,” said District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Penny, 24, pleaded not guilty to the charges and is free on $100,000 bail. His next court appearance is October 25.

Penny was indicted by a grand jury on June 14.

According to court documents and statements, Neely entered the train at the 2nd Avenue station and began making verbal threats to passengers. Less than a minute later, Penny put Neely in a chokehold, which lasted for several minutes.

Police sources told ABC News that Penny was not specifically being threatened by Neely when he intervened and that Neely had not become violent and had not been threatening anyone in particular.

Neely was homeless at the time of the incident.

Members of Neely’s family sat in the second row during Penny’s court appearance. Penny’s relatives sat in the row behind them.

Outside court, defense attorneys spoke confidently about Penny’s ability to be found not guilty.

“We are a long way off from trial, but all the evidence we’ve seen is that our client acted under the law,” defense attorney Thomas Keniff said.

Neely’s family and supporters denounced Penny and expressed their hope for justice.

“Daniel Penny did not have the courage to look Mr. Jordan’s father in the eye,” said attorney Dante Mills, who is representing the Neely family.

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(NEW YORK) — The U.S. could soon be paying an additional $1 billion in healthcare expenses each summer due to forecasts of continuing waves of extreme heat in the near future, a new report has found.

The additional cost in heat-related healthcare will stem from 235,000 visits to the emergency room and more than 56,000 additional hospital admissions across the country each summer, the research, conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University and the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, found.

An increase of prolonged periods of heat has coincided with the rise of incidences in heat-related illness, the report, which studied data from Virginia-based weather stations and Virginia medical insurance claims, found.

“The resulting increases in visits to physicians, visits to emergency departments, and admissions to hospitals will inflate U.S. health care costs,” the researchers said.

Currently, heat events result in nearly 400 additional ambulatory — or outpatient — care visits for heat-related illness, almost 7,000 additional emergency department visits and about 2,000 additional heat-related hospital admissions, mostly for heat-adjacent illness, according to the report.

The report was published as record heat has spread across the country. Heat indexes are measuring in the triple digits from California to Florida and expanding north into Colorado, Kansas, Indiana and Kentucky.

Emergency room visits and 911 calls for heat-related emergencies in Texas have increased in the past month due to the weeks-long heat dome sitting over the region, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.

The researchers urged lawmakers at all levels of government, as well as those in the private sector, to confront the climate crisis by severely reducing greenhouse gas emissions, establishing and strengthening federal, state, and local governmental responsibilities for extreme heat protection and improving data surveillance and prediction capabilities.

It will also be imperative to raise public awareness surrounding the risks of extreme heat and protective measures, the researchers said.

Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the world, with more than 600 people dying from heat-related illnesses every year in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Extreme heat, which climate scientists say will grow more frequent and intense due to global warming, is already costing the global economy trillions of dollars. An increasing number of heat waves between 1992 and 2013 caused an estimated $16 trillion loss in the global economy due to the effects of high temperatures on human health, productivity and agricultural output, a 2022 study by Dartmouth University found.

Global warming “statistically coincided with variations in economic growth” during that time period, the researchers found.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, 70% of the population in several countries most at risk for extreme heat will require air conditioning by 2050 in order to stay safe from the heat, researchers at Harvard University found in 2022.

ABC News’ Tracy Wholf contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The watchdog report released Tuesday that revealed how some $200 billion in COVID-19 aid was potentially misspent threw into sharper relief how one pandemic-era program emerged above all others as a magnet for fraudsters: the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, or EIDL.

Launched in March 2020, at the outset of the pandemic, EIDL was designed to distribute fast loans to help small businesses retain employees and stay on top of bills as the economy sputtered. By all accounts, it worked, rescuing jobs and businesses across the country.

But the program was also plagued by fraud. Of the $400 billion in taxpayer money doled out as part of EIDL, more than a third — some $136 billion — might have gone to fraudsters, according to the report published this week by Hannibal “Mike” Ware, the Small Business Administration’s inspector general.

The sizeable figure seems to justify Ware’s projection in a 2021 interview with ABC News that, “in terms of the monetary value, the amount of fraud in these COVID relief programs is going to be larger than any government program that came before it.”

“It is a shockingly high level of potential fraud and one that should have been reduced greatly,” said Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan government watchdog group.

All told, the federal government flooded the economy with some $5 trillion to support companies and individuals as the COVID-19 pandemic bore down on the country, including more than $1.2 billion specifically earmarked for small businesses.

To help expedite the relief funding, the Small Business Administration “lowered the guardrails,” the agency’s watchdog later said, opting to drop burdensome and time-consuming internal controls and accepting some amount of fraud — then pledging to recover squandered funds on the back end.

“The allure of ‘easy money’ in this pay-and-chase environment attracted an overwhelming number of fraudsters to the programs,” according to the inspector general’s new report.

Fraudsters used a myriad of tactics to manipulate the program, the report said.

Many fraudsters took advantage of EIDL advances, which allowed applicants to apply for $1,000 per employee — up to $10,000 total — in grants that would not need to be repaid. The advances were self-certified, meaning the number of employees “was not vetted by SBA,” the watchdog wrote — a loophole that many fraudsters exploited.

Other fraudsters used scams to steal victims’ identities, and then used their personal information to file fraudulent EIDL claims.

The “easy money” in EIDL was so lucrative that it prompted the creation of a cottage industry: The inspector general’s report highlighted a perpetrator who “took his talents to the web, schooling other would-be fraudsters on how to rip off programs meant for struggling entrepreneurs during a crisis.”

Another duo pleaded guilty to “perpetrating a vast nationwide scheme to help others submit fraudulent COVID-19 EIDL and PPP loan applications” for a fee, the report said.

The SBA, in a response included in the report, pushed back on some of the inspector general’s findings, saying that it welcomed the review but believes the report “contains serious flaws that significantly overestimate fraud.”

The inspector general’s review allowed for “a high percentage of false positives,” or potential fraud cases that, upon further inspection, were not fraud, Bailey DeVries, Acting Associate Administrator of the SBA, said in the response.

Since launching its investigation, Ware’s office has managed to claw back around $30 billion in funds, according to the report, and their efforts have led to “1,011 indictments, 803 arrests, and 529 convictions related to COVID-19 EIDL and PPP fraud as of May 2023,” the report said.

Ware will appear before Congress in July to discuss his findings under oath.

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(BOSTON) — Shockwaves from the gruesome home-invasion slayings in the Boston area of three elderly members of a devout Catholic family have reached Pope Francis at the Vatican, a priest told grieving parishioners at a service held for the victims.

During a Tuesday night Mass of peace at the Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Newton, Massachusetts, Rev. Dan Riley said Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Boston, called him from Rome to inform him that he is praying for the victims’ family with the pope.

“He was about to go into a meeting with the pope and he promised that he would inform the pope of what happened and that he and the pope would pray out loud together, specifically for the family,” Riley said.

Bruno and Gilda “Jill” D’Amore and Jill’s 97-year-old mother, Lucia Arpino, were found stabbed and beaten to death Sunday morning by a church parishioner who went to their home to check on them after the D’Amores failed to show up at a service commemorating their 50th wedding anniversary, officials said.

Terrance Donilon, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that O’Malley and Pope Francis prayed together for the victims of what O’Malley described in a statement as “brutal and senseless murders.”

“They loved Christ and the Church. On the day of their murders, Gilda and Bruno were to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary at Our Lady Help of Christians. They lived their Catholic faith proudly and in service to the Church,” O’Malley said in a statement, adding that he plans to offer Mass for the victims at St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Mass Tuesday night in Newton drew hundreds of community residents and was held just after the suspect in the triple homicide, 41-year-old Christopher Ferguson, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment in Newton District Court to one count of murder and two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury.

The single murder count is based on an autopsy by the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which ruled 73-year-old Jill D’Amore’s death to be a homicide, Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Nicole Allain said in court. The autopsies for Jill D’Amore’s husband, 74-year-old Bruno D’Amore, and her mother, 97-year-old Lucia Arpino, were expected to be completed Tuesday and prosecutors said they anticipate filing two more murder counts against Ferguson as early as Wednesday.

A motive in the case remains under investigation though police have said the home invasion and killings appeared to be a possible “random” act of violence.

Ferguson attended the hearing via Zoom. His attorney, Dmitry Lev, did not object to the prosecution’s request to hold Ferguson without bail.

Middlesex County District Attorney Ryan disclosed at a news conference this week that the autopsy performed on Jill D’Amore determined she suffered more than 30 stab and blunt force trauma injuries, primarily to the upper part of her body and head. The prosecutor also said investigators found obvious signs of an intense struggle in one of the bedrooms of the D’Amore home, including broken furniture and a crystal paperweight covered in blood.

A friend who went to the D’Amore’s home just after 10 a.m. on Sunday discovered the bodies of the three victims in the same bedroom, Middlesex County Assistant District Attorney Nicole Allaine said at Ferguson’s arraignment.

Police found signs of a forced entry in the basement of the D’Amore’s home and bare footprints matching those of Ferguson on the tile floor of the residents, Allain said.

Ryan said video surveillance footage from a home near the D’Amore residence captured Ferguson in the neighborhood at 5:20 a.m. on Sunday. He was shirtless, barefoot and walking with a staggering gait.

Ryan said several Newton police officers recognized Ferguson from prior contact with him. She said Ferguson is believed to live at a residence four-tenths of a mile from the D’Amore home.

A neighbor of the suspect told ABC Boston affiliate station WCVB that Ferguson “struggles with mental health issues.”

Ferguson’s next court date is scheduled for July 25.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Wednesday announced a nationwide health care fraud crackdown that resulted in charges against 78 defendants in separate schemes that totaled more than $2.5 billion in alleged fraudulent billings, marking what Attorney General Merrick Garland called “one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever prosecuted by the Justice Department.”

The charges across 17 separate federal districts include cases against at least 24 doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals accused of various schemes defrauding programs in which the victims largely included those in vulnerable populations — including the elderly, disabled, pregnant women and those with HIV.

As part of the coordinated law enforcement actions between the DOJ, FBI, DEA, HHS Inspector General and other agency partners, the operations also resulted in seizures of more than $10.3 million in assets that included bank accounts, cars, a boat and several homes.

“These enforcement actions, including against one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever prosecuted by the Justice Department, represent our intensified efforts to combat fraud and prosecute the individuals who profit from it,” Garland said in a statement announcing the charges. “The Justice Department will find and bring to justice criminals who seek to defraud Americans and steal from taxpayer-funded programs.”

The cases unsealed over a two-week period this month included “one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever prosecuted” by the department, in which two top executives and a former executive of an internet platform were charged for submitting roughly $1.9 billion in fraudulent claims to Medicare, officials said Wednesday.

The three individuals are alleged to have used their platform DMERx as a means to connect pharmacies and medical equipment suppliers to telemedicine companies who would in turn accept kickbacks and bribes on orders for orthotic braces and prescription pain creams that were not eligible for reimbursement from Medicare. They allegedly programmed the platform to generate templates of false doctors’ orders for the products that were hawked to elderly and disabled people as part of a massive telemarketing operation, resulting in more than $1.96 billion in false claims to Medicare.

In another case announced Wednesday, an owner and corporate officer from a pharmaceutical company were charged for a fraud scheme alleging the company repackaged more than $150 million worth of HIV medication on the street and from patients and then unlawfully resold that medication to pharmacies in order to dispense to patients in need. In some cases, bottles of that medication included wrong or broken pills and even pebbles.

Earlier this month, a person was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in a related scheme where he repackaged drugs and tried to sell them to wholesale companies, using the proceeds to buy things like a $280,000 Lamborghini, a $220,000 Mercedes and three boats.

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(NEW YORK) — The hundreds of wildfires burning in Canada are continuing to cause poor air quality conditions for millions of residents in the U.S.

On Wednesday, the National Weather Service issued air quality alerts for at least 20 states from Minnesota and as far south as Georgia. The unhealthy air quality alerts even extended to the Northeast including all of New York state and New Jersey.

The smoke will linger over Minnesota to Washington, D.C., and down to Carolinas on Wednesday afternoon.

By Thursday morning, cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Pittsburgh will be affected by smoke, forecasts show.

The smoke will linger from Detroit to Atlanta and east to Washington, D.C., and near Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon.

The poor air quality is not expected to affect New York City, but will stay in western New York, Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, forecasts show.

Smoke from the nearly 500 wildfires burning in Canada has been making its way to the U.S. for more than a month, after an unprecedented start to the season in which a record 19.5 million acres has already burned. Canada has also broken its record for annual wildfire smoke emissions.

There is no end in sight for the wildfires due to dry conditions and extreme heat in the region.

Some regions in the Midwest measured at the lowest air quality in the world on Tuesday morning, including regions surrounding Minnesota, according to IQAir, which monitors air quality worldwide.

Chicago air quality hit the “very unhealthy” category on Tuesday afternoon as the Air Quality Index soared to 250. Any number over 100 is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, and 250, or “Code Purple,” is considered very unhealthy for all groups.

Once the AQI reaches 151 and above, breathing the polluted air could cause a host of symptoms — even in healthy people with no preexisting conditions — including weakening the immune system and causing damage to the body, including the lungs and heart.

Exposure to concentrated amounts of PM2.5 can cause short-term effects such as irritation of the eyes, nose and throat; coughing, sneezing and shortness of breath, and long-term effects such as worsening of conditions including asthma and heart disease, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

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(TOPEKA, Kan.) — While the mysterious white powder inside scores of envelopes sent to Republican lawmakers and officials in at least three states has been deemed harmless, investigators say the mailings could still get someone killed.

“This isn’t just a statement that somebody is trying to make. This is costing us the ability to save lives in Kansas,” said Tony Mattivi, director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which led what Mattivi called the “unprecedented investigation” when more than 100 envelopes containing the powder and a threatening note were discovered this month in Kansas.

After more letters were sent to officials in Tennessee and Montana — and even to Donald Trump, according to federal officials — the FBI took over the case.

In an interview with ABC News, Mattivi described how for four days the Kansas Bureau of Investigation was forced to focus nearly all of its resources on responding to the letters.

“We just don’t know at the early stages how much of a threat it is … We have no choice,” Mattivi said.

At one point, “every single bomb squad [and] every single hazmat unit in the state of Kansas, whether federal, state or local” was dealing with this case, Mattivi said. “This was a massive resource drain.”

According to Mattivi, his agency was stretched so thin responding to the letters that it was unable to intercept a substantial shipment of fentanyl that agents knew was coming.

When the agency did try to grab the shipment, it was too late — and having another law enforcement agency take action earlier wasn’t an option because that would have required “significant coordination” and time, which the agency didn’t have, Mattivi said.

“We have no idea how many overdoses and deaths are going to take place when we had a realistic likelihood of being able to intercept that shipment in the first place,” Mattivi said of the missed fentanyl bust.

“This threat, it was not harmless,” Mattivi said of the mailings.

The letters obtained so far appear to be largely the same: They come in standard white envelopes with false return addresses, and contain a white powder along with a cryptic letter telling recipients, “It is important not to choke on your ambition,” according to officials and a copy of one letter posted online.

One Kansas state lawmaker who received a letter said it had a fake return address for a local church — a ploy he believes was designed to make it appear it was from a constituent. In at least some cases, names on the return addresses were believed to be those of transgender people who had died, recipients told ABC News.

“Someone put a lot of thought and a lot of effort into the research that they did,” Kansas state Rep. Stephen Owens said.

Asked if whoever’s sending the letters is specifically driven by politics, considering that so many recipients are Republican, Mattivi said: “We’re looking at a wide range of motives. Nothing’s off the table at this point.”

The FBI, in a statement, said, “Law enforcement and public safety officials are working to determine how many letters were sent, the individual or individuals responsible for the letters, and the motive behind the letters.”

Mattivi expressed confidence that those responsible will be caught.

“I’m optimistic that we’re going to make an apprehension here,” he said.

ABC News’ Jay O’Brien contributed to this report.

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