This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Posted: 3:20 PM- BOUNTIFUL - The courthouse in Bountiful was evacuated Thursday afternoon after employees found letters and a letter tray sprinkled with a suspicious substance eventually identified as fine Styrofoam.
About 3:30 p.m., court administrators announced the material was not toxic, and a high-profile sentencing hearing that was underway at the courthouse would resume today.
The substance was reported about 1:30 p.m. by two employees who were sorting mail. They found what they described as something resembling Parmesan cheese, said Nancy Volmer, spokeswoman for Utah Administrative Office of the Courts. The employees informed police and the courthouse was subsequently evacuated. Firefighters erected an inflatable decontamination structure.
South Davis Metro Fire Deputy Chief Jim Rampton later said the Styrofoam came from a roller used to sort the mail and that the two employees had never before encountered the material.
Rampton didn't know how much of the powdery Styrofoam the roller produce, but said that before it was identified "there was enough to cause concern."
The evacuation came in the third day of a sentencing hearing for confessed rapist and murderer Robert C. Houston, 18. A jury is trying to determine if Houston's life sentence will include the possibility of parole.
On Feb. 15, 2006, Houston raped and killed his 22-year-old group home counselor, Raechale Elton, in Clearfield.
Volmer said the mysterious substance had "nothing to do with the trial. This is coincidental."