Top US scientist commits suicide?

[William Kelly]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-anthrax25-2008sep25,0,1098188.story

Ivins claimed he knew who sent anthrax

Unsealed documents indicate that the suspect was consumed with the criminal case closing in on him.By David Willman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 25, 2008 WASHINGTON -- On Sept. 7, 2007, as investigators were building the case against him for the deadly anthrax mailings, Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins sent himself an excited e-mail titled, "Finally! I know Who mailed the anthrax!"

The e-mail -- along with other correspondence showing that Ivins more recently mused about how to blind or kill a reality TV participant -- was among previously confidential investigative documents unsealed on Wednesday by a federal judge.

Ivins, 62, a microbiologist who specialized in handling anthrax at the Army's biological warfare research facility at Ft. Detrick, Md., died July 29 in a suicide. Justice Department prosecutors were preparing to charge him in connection with the anthrax mailings, which in 2001 killed five people and sickened or injured 17 others.

The unsealed documents had originally been submitted by investigators last month to win the judge's permission to search seven e-mail accounts that Ivins had maintained. Federal officials declined to comment on the newly unsealed e-mails, which had remained under wraps while investigators combed through Ivins' correspondence.

At face value, the new e-mails reinforce the view that Ivins was consumed with the criminal case closing in on him and, in the final months of his life, behaved in a way that suggested madness.

By early September 2007, the FBI had determined with the help of outside experts that the anthrax used in the mailings originated in a flask of material maintained by Ivins at Ft. Detrick.

But the bureau had not yet done all of the investigative work necessary to exclude as suspects colleagues of Ivins at Ft. Detrick and scientists elsewhere who also had worked with or had access to the material, labeled RMR 1029.

It was against that backdrop that Ivins, at 5:49 p.m. EDT on Sept. 7, sent the e-mail to himself, proclaiming that he had solved the case. Sent from one of the addresses he had registered, KingBadger7@aol .com, Ivins wrote:

"Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!!!! I finally know who mailed the anthrax letters in the fall of 2001. I've pieced it together! Now we can finally get all of this over and done with. I have to check a couple of things to make sure ... absolutely sure . . . and then I can turn over the info. I'll probably turn it over to my lawyer, and then he'll turn info over to the authorities."

Ivins added -- in an apparent reference to his colleagues at Ft. Detrick:

"I'm not looking forward to everybody getting dragged through the mud, but at least it will all be over. Finally! I should have it TOTALLY nailed down within the month. I should have been a private eye!!!!"

Paul F. Kemp, a lawyer whom Ivins had hired to represent him, said that the e-mail "was a note with himself to discuss with me certain information that he wanted to pass on to the FBI. He did, and I passed it on. It was an attempt to say who might have had access to the beaker" containing the RMR 1029 anthrax.

Officials from the FBI and the Justice Department have said that their investigation determined that Ivins, alone, perpetrated the anthrax mailings. Kemp has said that he would have won Ivins' acquittal had the case gone to trial.

Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) introduced legislation Wednesday calling for a "9/11-style" commission to investigate the anthrax mailings.

Holt does not have any co-sponsors for his bill, an aide said.

As for the e-mails in which Ivins discussed the TV participant, federal officials said they brought these to the attention of the judge because they wanted to search for any evidence that Ivins had targeted witnesses in the anthrax case, according to the court documents. In the e-mails, Ivins focused on Kathryn Price, who appeared in 2001 in episodes of "The Mole," an ABC-TV reality series.

The FBI, after searching Ivins' trash outside his home, found mentions of addresses that enabled investigators to trace to him this e-mail, discussing how another participant in the "The Mole" could have detected Price's arranged role as the show's spoiler from within.

"He should have taken the hatchet and brought it down hard and sharply across her neck, severing her carotid artery and jugular vein," Ivins wrote in early July. "Then when she hits the ground, he completes the task on the other side of the neck, severing her trachea. . . . I personally would have paid big money to have do[n]e it myself."

Ivins also wrote, "The least someone could do would be to take a sharp ballpoint pin or letter opener and put her eyes out, to complete the task of making her a true mole!"

david.willman@latimes.com

New York Times Story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/us/25anthrax.html?ref=us

Link to Unsealed Records:

http://www.usdoj.gov/amerithrax/

Edited September 25, 2008 by William Kelly

[Michael Hogan]

Panel: Dead researcher not only source of deadly anthrax spores

By Dan Vergano

USA Today

February 15, 2011

Excerpt:

A science panel found Tuesday that the FBI's evidence in the anthrax mailings in 2001 shows "genetic similarities" between the bacteria used in the

mailings and a strain first grown at a federal biodefense lab.

The National Research Council panel notes that it "cannot rule out" that there were sources of the deadly anthrax spores other than the late federal

researcher Bruce Ivins. Ivins, 62, committed suicide in 2008 when the FBI began to focus on him as the suspect in the case that left five people dead.

Full story: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2011-02-15-anthrax_N.htm

[Len Colby]

FBI's anthrax suspect is likely killer, panel concludes

By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins engaged in a decades-long pattern of "concealment and deceit," pretending to be a comical juggler who played the organ in church on Sundays, while his dark side drove him to mail anthrax-laced letters that killed five people, according to an analysis of his psychiatric records.

The conclusion by a nine-member panel of psychiatric and forensic experts in an unusual 285-report released Wednesday lent support to the FBI's controversial finding that Ivins was the culprit in the infamous 2001 anthrax attacks made after Ivins' 2008 suicide.

"Dr. Ivins was psychologically disposed to undertake the mailings; his behavioral history demonstrated his potential for carrying them out, and he had the motivation and the means," the panel wrote.

[...]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/23/110965/fbis-anthrax-suspect-is-likely.html

Edited March 24, 2011 by Len Colby

[Michael Hogan]

From wired.com

Anthrax Redux: Did the Feds Nab the Wrong Guy?

By Noah Schachtman

March 24, 2011

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_anthrax_fbi/

[Len Colby]

From wired.com

Anthrax Redux: Did the Feds Nab the Wrong Guy?

By Noah Schachtman

March 24, 2011

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_anthrax_fbi/

Interesting article, thanks for that Mike. The author's brief answer to his own question would be 'probably not'. he concluded:

But despite all these flaws, the circumstantial evidence remains compelling. It could just be a coincidence that the killer spores were ultimately traced back to a single parent flask and that this flask just happened to be overseen by a depressed scientist with occasional violent fantasies. It could just be a coincidence that this same scientist screwed up his anthrax submission to the FBI—even though he helped develop the submission protocols. It could just be a coincidence that his after-hours work spiked right before the mailings. But put all of those coincidences together and something stronger than happenstance emerges. For the Justice Department, it’s enough to prove Ivins was the anthrax mailer.

There’s an irony in the fact that the culprit was likely a top government anthrax expert: Since 2001, the US has built dozens of labs, spent just under $62 billion, and hired an army of researchers to prevent a second bioterror attack. In effect, Washington has devoted the past decade to training and equipping hundreds of people like Ivins.

It’s an unnerving scenario. But there’s something much scarier to contemplate. There’s still the possibility that the government was as wrong about Ivins as it was about Hatfill. If that’s the case, the anthrax mailer is still at large. And that means someone launched the deadliest biological attack in the history of the United States—and got away with it.