Federal and state law enforcement officials in southern California continue to investigate the strange case of a biomedical researcher who stored cholera and typhoid fever organisms at his home along with automatic weapons and explosives. Authorities are also looking into the researcher's past links to South Africa's military biological weapons program.

The physician–scientist in question, Larry C. Ford, committed suicide in March after a murder-for-hire plot he hatched against his business partner, James Patrick Riley, went awry. Riley survived after being shot in the cheek when arriving at Biofem, an Irvine-based biotechnology company that Riley and Ford co-founded. The two claimed to be developing a new type of female contraceptive and were reportedly testing it on prostitutes in South Africa. Irvine police have charged Dino D'Saachs, a long-time friend of Ford's, with the attempted murder of Riley. “It was a financially based motive and we're trying to find out whether there was a conspiracy or a plan to shoot him (Riley),” says lieutenant Sam Allevato.

In addition to a cache of illegal weapons and explosives in Ford's backyard, police found glass vials containing organisms that were later determined to be cholera and typhoid fever organisms. More than 200 residents of Ford's Irvine neighborhood were evacuated for three days during the search. On 1 May, however, local health officials announced that testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta had determined the organisms were not dangerous and that the local people were not at risk, says Hildy Meyers, director of communicable disease control for the Orange County Department of Health.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation would not comment on their investigation into what Ford was doing with the organisms. However, in the early 1990s he served as an unofficial, unpaid advisor to “Project Coast,” a biological weapons program run by the South African military, which operated from 1981 to 1992, according to reports in the South African press.