(UPDATE: See below.)

Senate Leader Phil Berger announced today that House and Senate sergeants-at-arms have finally identified the person who put a letter denigrating former Gov. William Holden on Senate desks on the day last month that the Senate was to consider repealing Holden's impeachment.  

The story had turned out to be a real whodunit when it was discovered that Senate security cameras were not working that day.

Berger said today the culprit was a House legislative assistant who no longer works at the General Assembly.

Berger said he couldn't publicly identify the person for personnel reasons, but Senate members were told the staffer in question was Carlton Huffman, former assistant to freshman Rep. Jonathan Jordan, R-Ashe. 

Jordan wouldn't confirm Huffman was fired, saying only that they mutually agreed he should seek other opportunities after he learned what had happened. He said he didn't know about the letter or the investigation into it. 

Huffman's name also came up in this recent story at left-leaning NC PolicyWatch about a legislative email exchange mocking the spelling and grammar of students who wrote letters against the charter school bill.

Huffman hasn't yet responded to requests for comments, but you can get a sense of him at his MySpace page and his blog on ConservativeNC.com. According to a 2010 post at Katy's Conservative Corner, Huffman is a Campbell grad who worked on Pat Buchanan's "American Cause" and various Republican campaigns.

Update: 8:12pm: Huffman responded via Facebook with just three words: "Res ipsa loquitur," Latin for "the thing speaks for itself."