Sounak Sengupta
Investigation Discovery’s ‘Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry? F. B. I Do’ follows the story of Shannon Richardson, who sent letters laced with hazardous substances to eminent personalities, including the President, and blamed it on her husband seeking a divorce. The mother of six sent the letters on May 20, 2013, from her home in Texas.
Who is Shannon Richardson?
Shannon Guess Richardson was born to Terry Rogers in Bowie County, Texas, on August 31, 1977. According to reports, her mother abandoned her when she was only two. Shannon’s father raised her, working at General Motors in Doraville, Georgia. She was intelligent and gorgeous and caught the fascination of Nathaniel “Nathan” Richardson, an Army Veteran working as a Mechanic in a military depot. He was in Kuwait for work-related matters, and he caught a glimpse of Shannon, a relative of one of his colleagues.
The relative set Nathan and Shannon up, and soon the two exchanged emails regularly, learning about each other’s lives. According to the Army Veteran, she told him she had been married twice and was a divorced mother of five children. Shannon was also an aspiring actress, having been featured in minor roles in popular television series such as ‘The Vampire Diaries,’ ‘Franklin & Bash,’ and ‘The Walking Dead.’ Nevertheless, Nathan was smitten by her, and the two met in a restaurant halfway between Texas and Georgia in April 2009 after he returned from Kuwait.
The two quickly hit off and tied the knot on October 8, 2011. While they were in love, Nathan rushed the marriage when Shannon told him she allegedly had a brain aneurysm. Concerned about her health, he moved her from Atlanta to Texas and officiated their relationship. However, he claimed Shannon changed after the wedding, occasionally acting controlling and pushy. The situation got so out of hand that he began considering separation within a month of their marriage.
According to the show, Shannon dropped an unexpected bombshell that she had been diagnosed with brain cancer. Nathan was not ready to desert his partner in her illness and started caring for her. According to him, she regularly visited the doctors and even went to Georgia for some chemotherapy procedures but never allowed him to accompany her. Though mildly suspicious of the odd behavior, Nathan tried to shed all doubts and cared for Shannon, who seemed quite sick.
In the 2012 spring, Nathan’s life took another dramatic turn when a credit card company called to inform him he had amassed around $6,000 in credit card bills. The executive disclosed the card was opened in February 2012 and had already maxed out. According to the show, he did a credit report and discovered there were allegedly six other cards to his name, and all of them maxed out. When he confronted Shannon, she made an absurd claim that it might be her ex-husband who did this.
Shannon Richardson is Still Behind Bars Today
Nathan wanted to divorce Shannon immediately, but she was pregnant with their child, and the Texas legislature did not allow divorces in such situations. His attorney, John Delk, explained that a partner couldn’t proceed with divorce proceedings before the child’s birth. Feeling trapped in his marriage, Nathan was in for a shock when the FBI arrested him at his workplace on May 31, 2013. According to reports, Shannon had called the authorities and accused him of sending ricin-laced letters to eminent personalities.
The actress had claimed she found a suspicious substance in her refrigerator and ricin-related Internet searches on the couple’s computer. However, the investigators soon found out Shannon had sent the ricin-laced letters to former President Barack Obama, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Mark Glaze, the former Director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. She confessed to mailing the letters on June 6, 2013, alleging Nathan forced her to do so. The FBI arrested her on June 7.
Shannon was indicted on three counts of sending threatening communication on June 28 and reached a plea agreement on all counts in November 2013. She pleaded guilty and was sent to the Texas State Prison System. By July 16, 2014, the prosecution dropped most of the charges, including making threats against the President of the United States and mailing threatening communications. She was convicted only of manufacturing and possessing a biological weapon and sentenced to 18 years in prison – the maximum term possible under her plea bargain.
In addition, the court ordered Shannon to pay $367,222 in restitution, a $100 special assessment fee (for psychological testing), and five years of supervised release. The order further required her to undergo psychological treatment in prison, which would continue even after her release. Shannon filed a civil suit in 2015, citing deprivation of rights while imprisoned, but the court dismissed it in March of the same year.
According to federal prison logs, the 45-year-old is incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell (FMC Carswell) in Fort Worth, Texas. Shannon’s inmate records state she will be released on November 18, 2028. In July 2013, she gave birth in custody to her and Nathan’s son, Brody. The child’s custody was eventually granted to his father.
