Dr. Bruce Ivins is dead. Dr. Ivins probably killed himself by an overdose of Tylenol. What makes this newsworthy is that Dr. Ivins was repotedly about to be indicted for the murders iof 5 people by Anthrax poisoning. Yep, he is the one.

The anthrax attacks started 2 weeks after 9/11. Someone sent letters containing powdered anthrax, from a New Jersey post office to various media outfits. Five letters are believed to have been mailed although only 2 were actually found. The other three were assumed because of anthrax infections elsewhere.

Three weeks later, two more letters were sent, also from NJ, addressed to Sen. Tom Daschle (D- SD) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D - VT). The letter to Daschle made it to his office and was opened by an aide. Leahy's letter was discovered in a mailbag before it could be delivered.

At least 22 people developed anthrax infections and five died.

The anthrax was determined to be a specific strain - called the Ames strain, and it was first researched in Fort Detrick, in Frederick MD. Ft. Detrick is home to the "United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases" (USAMRIID). According to reports the Ames strain anthrax was distributed to as many as fifteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and six locations overseas.

In 2002, one of Fort Detrick's employees, Steven Hatfill, was publicly called a "person of interest" in the case. Hatfill vehemently denied the charges, and refused to cave in to the intense pressure of FBI harassment. He later sued everyone and their brother, and recently was awarded a reported $5.8 million settlement. I doubt if what he went through was worth even that chunk of money. Regardless, after years of horror, he was finally cleared.

Fast forward to last week. Another scientist at the Ft. Detrick lab passed away in a local hospital. The cause of death was listed as suicide, by ingestion of Tylenol (possibly with codeine). This scientist was Dr. Bruce Ivins. Once the FBI had finished running Hatfill through the wringer, they apparently decided that THIS TIME they knew it was Ivins. For sure. Absolutely. No questions. So they started the same harassment techniques on him that hadn't worked on Hatfill. They staked out his home to the point that all of the neighbors were aware of it. (Not who or why someone was watching, but they knew that someone was being watched.) The FBI questioned and re-questioned Ivins. They searched everything. And they got some super-cool new equipment that supposedly was able to test the DNA of the mailed anthrax, and match it to a flask that Ivins "had" in the lab.

Mind you, dozens of people had access to this stuff. That was one of the problems that was discovered during the beginning of the investigation - security was pretty lax back then.

Since Ivins suicide, he has been villified by the media. The finger is very strongly pointing in his direction, and the FBI is talking about closing the file. Blaming the dead guy who can't defend himself. He killed himself from a guilty conscience, right? Or maybe not.

As soon as the story of Dr. Ivins' suicide hit, there was this very strange comment, that Dr. Ivins therapist had filed court documents stating that Dr. Ivins was a homicidal sociopath, that he was a revenge killer who had tried to poison many people since the year 2000. This story has been bandied around ever since. Here is the REAL story:

The "therapist" is a woman by the name of Jean Duley. She is apparently an addiction counselor in Frederick Maryland. She is NOT a doctor or even a Licensed Social Worker, from what it appears. It seems that she runs group therapy sessions, and Dr. Ivins, for some reason, was a client.

It seems that about a month ago, Ms. Duley made some accusations against Dr. Ivins. She claimed that he had gone ballistic in a group therapy session, had claimed that he had a gun, was going to go take out his coworkers, and go out in a "blaze of glory". Ms. Duley notified the local police, who came and escorted him out of the lab, and right to a psychiatric hospital. This was "his therapist" after all. A few days later, Dr. Ivins was released from the hospital and apparently contacted Ms. Duley several times - leaving messages on her machine. He was extremely upset, and apparently told her that she had ruined him. There was no reports of threats against her on the tapes, just angry, frustrated messages.

What happened next was unbelievable. Ms. Duley swore out a peace warrant on Dr. Ivins. Thats not the incredible part. The incredible part is what she SAID in the documentation. The Smoking Gun has a copy of the document here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0801081anthrax1.html?link=rssfeed

"Duley referred to Ivins as a "client" who "has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, actions, plans, threats & actions towards therapist." Duley added that Ivins's psychiatrist called him "homicidal, sociopathic with clear intentions," and that "FBI involved, currently under investigation & will be charged w/ 5 capital murders. I have been subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury August 1, 2008 in Washington, D.C."

Please take a look at this document. It is shocking both in the written content and by the glaring misspellings, grammatical errors and lack of structure. (I believe this matters, I am not just being a language snob.)

Most of the media reported the content of this document as straight-up fact, and let the readers believe that she was reporting information that she knew firsthand. This could almost certainly not have been the case.

This is one of the weirdest cases I have ever seen. Not only is there this whole business of Duley, which has been explored pretty thoroughly here, but get a whiff of THIS: apparently, unnamed officials say that the motive for the anthrax attacks is (I am not making this up)obsession with a sorority from 30 years ago. (which fits nice and neat with Duley's odd "going back to his graduate days" statement.)

Here's the deal - the anthrax was supposedly mailed from a mailbox on campus in Princeton NJ. This mailbox sits about 100 yards away from a Kappa Kappa Gamma storage facility. (There is no actual sorority house on campus.) So, Ivins was reportedly spurned by a sorority girl at HIS college, 30 years ago, prompting him to send the poison from that location. I know - WUT?

There is no mention of why the anthrax was mailed to media sources and politicians rather than hot college girls (incidentally - Hood College is right down the street from both his house and Ft. Detrick, and full of them), but that's not important. (The *officials* did not mention it, but Ivins' DAD was actually a Princeton guy! That is proof, for sure.) Ivins' has no apparant personal history with Princeton.

Now get this: The *officials* say that there is no proof that Ivins was in NJ, but that he "could have gone after work". Put this in context. The first mailing was postmarked a week after 9/11. Yes, THE nine-eleven. NJ is about a 3-4 hour drive from Frederick MD, at best. What do you suppose the possibility is that Ivins could show up 6-8 hours late from work, and that his wife would not have already called the FBI? Remember it was a WEEK after 9/11. This guy worked in a bio-weapons lab. hello? At the very least, if something so weird had happened, so soon after that, she would have REMEMBERED it. It was a Tuesday. There is obviously no indication that he missed work that day or the next.

Does anyone else think that the FBI is grabbing at straws here? The BS about tracking the DNA is just that - BS. But even if it weren't BS - the fact remains that many people had access to the anthrax. Security was lax back then.

And one of the most important aspects of this case is that Ivins lacked the skills and ability to turn HIS anthrax into the powder form. That is apparently a very specific technical ability, and one which no one believes he had.

Over the past week the media was gripped by the news that the FBI was about to charge Bruce Ivins, a leading anthrax expert, as the man responsible for the anthrax letter attacks in September/October 2001.

But despite the seemingly powerful narrative that Ivins committed suicide because investigators were closing in, this is still far from a shut case. The FBI needs to explain why it zeroed in on Ivins, how he could have made the anthrax mailed to lawmakers and the media, and how he (or anyone else) could have pulled off the attacks, acting alone.

I believe this is another mistake in the investigation.

Let's start with the anthrax in the letters to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. The spores could not have been produced at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where Ivins worked, without many other people being aware of it. Furthermore, the equipment to make such a product does not exist at the institute.

Information released by the FBI over the past seven years indicates a product of exceptional quality. The product contained essentially pure spores. The particle size was 1.5 to 3 microns in diameter. There are several methods used to produce anthrax that small. But most of them require milling the spores to a size small enough that it can be inhaled into the lower reaches of the lungs. In this case, however, the anthrax spores were not milled.

What's more, they were also tailored to make them potentially more dangerous. According to a FBI news release from November 2001, the particles were coated by a "product not seen previously to be used in this fashion before." Apparently, the spores were coated with a polyglass which tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle. That's what was briefed (according to one of my former weapons inspectors at the United Nations Special Commission) by the FBI to the German Foreign Ministry at the time.

Another FBI leak indicated that each particle was given a weak electric charge, thereby causing the particles to repel each other at the molecular level. This made it easier for the spores to float in the air, and increased their retention in the lungs.

In short, the potential lethality of anthrax in this case far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program. In meetings held on the cleanup of the anthrax spores in Washington, the product was described by an official at the Department of Homeland Security as "according to the Russian recipes" -- apparently referring to the use of the weak electric charge.

The latest line of speculation asserts that the anthrax's DNA, obtained from some of the victims, initially led investigators to the laboratory where Ivins worked. But the FBI stated a few years ago that a complete DNA analysis was not helpful in identifying what laboratory might have made the product.

Furthermore, the anthrax in this case, the "Ames strain," is one of the most common strains in the world. Early in the investigations, the FBI said it was similar to strains found in Haiti and Sri Lanka. The strain at the institute was isolated originally from an animal in west Texas and can be found from Texas to Montana following the old cattle trails. Samples of the strain were also supplied to at least eight laboratories including three foreign laboratories. Four French government laboratories reported on studies with the Ames strain, citing the Pasteur Institute in Paris as the source of the strain they used. Organism DNA is not a very reliable way to make a case against a scientist.

The FBI has not officially released information on why it focused on Ivins, and whether he was about to be charged or arrested. And when the FBI does release this information, we should all remember that the case needs to be firmly based on solid information that would conclusively prove that a lone scientist could make such a sophisticated product.

From what we know so far, Bruce Ivins, although potentially a brilliant scientist, was not that man. The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparations, not powdered products.

The FBI spent between 12 and 18 months trying "to reverse engineer" (make a replica of) the anthrax in the letters sent to Messrs. Daschle and Leahy without success, according to FBI news releases. So why should federal investigators or the news media or the American public believe that a lone scientist would be able to do so?

Mr. Spertzel, head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994-99, was a member of the Iraq Survey Group.

Bruce E. Ivins, the government's leading suspect in the 2001 anthrax killings, borrowed from a bioweapons lab that fall freeze-drying equipment that allows scientists to quickly convert wet germ cultures into dry spores, according to sources briefed on the case.

Ivins's possession of the drying device, known as a lyopholizer, could help investigators explain how he might have been able to send letters containing deadly anthrax spores to U.S. senators and news organizations.

The device was not commonly used by researchers at the Army's sprawling biodefense complex at Fort Detrick, Md., where Ivins worked as a scientist, employees at the base said. Instead, sources said, Ivins had to go through a formal process to check out the lyopholizer, creating a record on which authorities are now relying. He did at least one project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that would have given him reason to use the drying equipment, according to a former colleague in his lab.

Ivins committed suicide last week. As authorities in Washington debated yesterday how to close the long investigation of him -- a step that would signal they think no one else is culpable in the anthrax attacks -- more details began to emerge about the nature of the case they developed against him.

In recent months, investigators have collected circumstantial building blocks in an effort to establish Ivins's alleged role in the attacks, which traumatized the nation and prompted stringent mail-handling policies. Letters containing the anthrax spores killed five people, including two D.C. area postal workers, and sickened 17 others.

Scientific analysis helped researchers pinpoint the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases as the likely source of the powder, which was the Ames strain of anthrax bacteria used in various projects at Fort Detrick. Further testing allowed them to narrow down the age of the substance, concluding that it had been cultivated no more than two years before the attacks

Eventually, through more elaborate DNA testing of the power and tissue cultures from the victims, they determined that the powder probably came from supplies made by Ivins, to which about 10 other people had access. Authorities last week cited "new and sophisticated scientific tools" that helped advance the investigation.

Ivins was not charged before his death July 29. Paul F. Kemp, his attorney, has repeatedly asserted Ivins's innocence, and colleagues and friends say government officials fixed on the wrong man in a race to close a seven-year investigation rife with dead ends and missteps. They also note that other U.S. scientists had access to some of the same material and equipment that authorities apparently used to focus on Ivins.

The lyopholizer Ivins used in the fall of 2001 is commonly employed by pharmaceutical companies and laboratories, as well as food processors, to freeze a liquid broth of bacteria and quickly transform it into a dry solid without a thawing stage.

Scientists and biodefense experts familiar with USAMRIID's procedures say that Ivins's department rarely used such freeze-dryers, because the researchers there worked with anthrax bacteria in a liquid form.

"Dry anthrax is much harder to work with," said one scientist familiar with Ivins's lab. A lyopholizer would fit inside the ventilated "biosafety cabinet" at the lab and could have been used without drawing notice, the scientist said. The machine could have processed a few small batches of anthrax liquid in less than a day, he said.

Other biodefense experts noted that the drying step could have been carried out with equipment no more complicated than a kitchen oven. "It is the simplest . . . but it is the least reproducible," said Sergei Popov, a former Soviet bioweapons scientist who now specializes in biodefense at George Mason University. "If you go too fast you get 'sand,' " he said, referring to the coarser anthrax powder used in the first attacks, in September 2001

The second batch of letters contained a much finer powder. "To me, it all indicates that the person experimented with the ways to dry the spores and produced small batches -- some of them not so successfully -- he later used to fill up different envelopes," Popov said. "The spores are naturally clumpy. As I understand, he just overbaked the first batches."

Many of the key documents that would have supported the prosecution of Ivins could be unveiled this week after Justice Department and FBI officials meet with families of the anthrax victims. Authorities were contacting relatives yesterday and seeking a time to meet.

Investigators have been wrong before about who may have perpetrated the attacks. In June, the Justice Department agreed to pay Steven J. Hatfill, a former Fort Detrick researcher once labeled a "person of interest" in the case, a $5.8 million settlement to forgo a privacy lawsuit.

Significant mysteries remain, including whether the attacks that involved letters mailed from Florida and Princeton, N.J., could have been carried out by one person. And many questions remain about Ivins.

Safety officials and lawmakers have wondered how the scientist was able to maintain his security clearance despite emotional problems that led Jean C. Duley, a therapist, to seek a protective order against him last month.

The Army issued final rules last week that would cover workers who act in an aggressive or threatening manner. Those employees would be denied access to toxic or lethal biological agents under the revised regulations. Other potentially disqualifying personality traits include "arrogance, inflexibility, suspiciousness, hostility . . . and extreme moods or mood swings," according to the document.

A spokeswoman for USAMRIID said Fort Detrick had been operating under interim rules covering the same behavior for some time.

Response: August 05, 2008 @ 08:20 AM: frederick.county http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display_comments.htm?StoryID=78406#postComments

The freeze-drying equipment that Ivins signed out, whereby one could conceivably make dry anthrax spores, was part of his job, wherein he was working on a project for DARPA. He was told to do so, so that item still does not make the indiviidual suspicious. One huge danger in any investigation is stating that "this is the suspect so now find anything that ties the suspect to the crime," is that anything circumstantialis brought in. For example, regarding the New Jersey sorority tie, the investigators originally brought a picture of Hatfill to the sorority and asked individuals therein if they ever saw Hatfill by the mailbox where the letters were allegedly mailed. And the FBI still cannot tie Ivns to being at that mailbox.

A USA Today article in October 2004, opens with a description of Bruce Ivins' mindset during the anthrax leaks at USAMRIID:

"Bruce Ivins was troubled by the dust, dirt and clutter on his officemate's desk, and not just because it looked messy. He suspected the dust was laced with anthrax."

Given years of sloppy practices, highlighted in a 361-page Army report, some experts questioned the ability of prosecutors to ultimately make a case against the anthrax killer.

"Any defense lawyer should read this report carefully and keep it in mind when DNA results are being quoted against his (or) her client," says Martin Hugh-Jones of Louisiana State University, a leading expert on anthrax.

Fast forward four years. The FBI is satisfied. Case closed. The deadly missives were apparently sent by none other than a researcher who'd assisted in the investigation.

So the perpetrator was in the FBI's own backyard from the start, just not the one it investigated for years. Not until some breakthrough science technique was developed did the FBI go back to square one.

Never mind the mile-wide holes concerning motive, opportunity and the lack of direct evidence in the case. (Nothing turned up in the search of Ivins' home or car that ties him to the mailings. The new science that nailed him has yet to be vetted by outside experts. He cannot be placed in Trenton, N.J., when the letters were mailed, and his extracurricular lab work began in August 2001, making it possible Ivins was working on his anthrax vaccine that had just lost FDA approval.)

Forget that Ivins was convicted without contributing to his defense. And as Hugh-Jones said, a defense attorney could have a field day with the case.

That's only part of the problem.

The FBI zeroed in on another kooky scientist, pouring millions into sniffing after him for any connection to the crime. This is the same agency that waited nine months to canvass New Jersey drop boxes, the same agency that believed the anthrax came from Detrick, but entrusted a large part of its investigation to Detrick scientists.

When doubts surfaced about Ivins, why was he allowed anywhere near the labs? From FBI accounts, Ivins was a dangerous man who became increasingly crazed when he came under the FBI microscope, yet he was allowed to continue his work at Detrick. Talk about insanity.

Whether you believe the FBI got its man or there's more to the story, a review of the investigation is in order. If in fact Ivins was the country's own Dr. Evil, what does that say about our ability to be victorious in the "war against terror?"

The killer targeted government and the media and the FBI embarked on its most costly and exhaustive investigation in history. Fear helped catapult us into the Patriot Act and a war that's cost the lives of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of civilians. This deserves more than pinning it on a dead man and walking away

House Republican and chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Panel Rush Holt is skeptical and he should be.

In an e-mail statement, Holt wants to know "why investigators remained focused on Dr. Hatfill long after they had begun to suspect Dr. Ivins of the crime and why investigators are so certain that Ivins acted alone. In addition, there are important policy questions for handling any future incidents of bioterrorism. I will continue to conduct additional oversight on this issue over the course of the next several months."

We'll be watching.

kheerbrandt@yahoo.com

POSTED BY ADMIN AT 11:55 AM

A microbiologist claims she was stalked for decades by Bruce Ivins, the suspect in the deadly anthrax mailings of 2001 who, according to court documents, was obsessed with the sorority she joined in college.

Nancy L. Haigwood and her former husband, Carl J. Scandella, also think Ivins may have wanted to get close to her when he moved in down the street from the couple in the suburbs of Washington in the early 1980s.

Ivins, an Army scientist, committed suicide last week as federal authorities prepared to charge him with killing five people by sending anthrax spores in the mail. The letters were dropped in a mailbox near a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority office in Princeton, N.J., and prosecutors have suggested Ivins chose that location because of its proximity to the office.

In another development, the Justice Department sent a letter to the lawyer for Steven Hatfill, another military scientist who was a colleague of Ivins, formally exonerating Hatfill after saying earlier this week that Ivins was the only suspect. In 2002, law enforcement officials called Hatfill a "person of interest" in the investigation, a claim that brought a lawsuit from Hatfill the following year.

The federal government awarded Hatfill $5.8 million to settle his violation of privacy lawsuit against the Justice Department earlier this year. Hatfill claimed the Justice Department violated his privacy rights by speaking with reporters about the case

In the case of Haigwood, now the director of the Oregon National Primate Research Center, she said she suspected Ivins in the anthrax mailings as early as November 2001, when he e-mailed her, his immediate family and other scientists a photo of himself working with what he called "the now infamous 'Ames' strain" of anthrax, which was used in the attacks. She reported her suspicions to the FBI in 2002 and, at the behest of investigators, kept in touch with Ivins by e-mail and shared their correspondence with investigators.

Haigwood, 56, met Ivins in the late 1970s when he was doing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina, where she earned her doctorate. She was cordial to him, but she noticed that he took an unusual interest in her Kappa membership.

In the summer of 1982, Haigwood moved in with Scandella, then her fiancee, in a townhouse in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Montgomery Village. On Nov. 30 that year, Scandella awoke to find the Greek letters "KKG" spray-painted on the rear window of his car and on the sidewalk and fence in front of the home. Although a police report filed by Scandella does not mention any possible suspects, Haigwood quickly concluded that Ivins was responsible.

"My address wasn't published, and I only lived there a short while before Carl and I got married and moved out of state," Haigwood said Friday. "No one knew my address or my phone number. You had to stalk me to figure this stuff out."

Records show that Ivins was living on the same street, about a block away, shortly after the incident. It was not clear when he moved in. Scandella did not know that Ivins had been their neighbor until he was told Friday by a reporter.

"I was blown away by that," Scandella said. "I had no idea he lived anywhere in the vicinity ... I wonder if it's possible that Ivins moved to that location to be close to Nancy."

Soon after the vandalism, Haigwood bumped into Ivins — she doesn't remember where — and accused him.

"I said, 'This happened and I'm sure you're the one who did it,' and he denied it," Haigwood said. "And I said, 'Well, I'm still sure you did.' What can you do at that point?

Ivins kept in touch with Haigwood via phone calls, letters and e-mails, and while some of the correspondence made her uncomfortable, she never cut off contact with him, a decision she later regretted. She said she sent him polite but curt replies.

"He seemed to know a lot about myself, my children, things I never remembered telling him, which always disturbed me," she said. "I kept him at arm's length as best I could."

She also suspected Ivins of writing a letter in her name to The Frederick News-Post that defended hazing by Kappa members.

Haigwood passed on her suspicions about Ivins to the FBI after the American Society for Microbiology noted that a microbiologist was probably responsible for the anthrax mailings and asked its members to think of possible suspects.

Their e-mail correspondence from 2002 on was brief and cordial, although Ivins did reveal that he was under a lot of stress.

Investigators have said that between 2000 and 2006, Ivins was prescribed antidepressants, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety drugs. The Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., where Ivins worked, has offered no explanation for why he was allowed to work with some of the world's most dangerous toxins while suffering from serious mental health problems

It wasn't until November 2007, after the FBI raided his Frederick home, that Fort Detrick revoked his laboratory access, effectively putting him on desk duty. In the meantime, Haigwood said she worried about what Ivins was up to in the lab

"After a while, after I decided that he was probably the perpetrator, I was afraid of him," Haigwood said. "I thought that if he found out I had turned him in, he would go after me. And he knew how to do that. This is something his colleagues don't seem to recognize in him."

Haigwood said she was not aware of Ivins stalking any other Kappa sisters.

In an interview Friday, Kappa Kappa Gamma executive director Lauren Sullivan Paitson said the FBI asked in August 2007 for help documenting decades' worth of Ivins' contacts with the sorority, including breaking into the now-closed chapter house at the University of Maryland. The sorority disbanded at Maryland in 1992.

But before being contacted by the FBI, Paitson had been engaged in an editing war on Wikipedia.com with a writer by the name of "jimmyflathead" who threatened to post secret rituals and bad publicity about the sorority on the Web site. Court affidavits listed "jimmyflathead@yahoo.com" among Ivins personal e-mail addresses.

Only after the government asked for the sorority's help did Paitson realize that the online Kappa nemesis was the top suspect in the anthrax investigation.

"We already had firsthand experience with him, going back and forth," she said.

The sorority did not threaten Ivins with legal action as a result of the Wikipedia editing dispute, and Paitson said she was assured by the FBI that none of the Kappa chapters or members nationwide would be targeted with anthrax letters.

She declined to give more details, citing the privacy of the members of the sorority.

POSTED BY ADMIN AT 12:19 PM

This is really starting to piss me off! The latest story about the microbiologist who claims she was stalked by Dr. Bruce Ivins for 20 years, seems to support the FBI/DOJ claims against him. But, what no one else seems to understand is THIS IS WHERE THEY GOT THEIR INFORMATION initially!

In other words, everything that has been published so far has been information by people who were working together for a common goal.

It sounds so damning. Ivins was a STALKER for 20 years!! Well, first off, read the story. He was not exactly a "stalker". He was a guy who kept writing to a woman who didn't really like him, but kept writing back anyway. That's STALKING? I don't think so.

He moved into her neighborhood? OMG!! That's stalking, right? Not necessarily - the article says that he lived there after she moved out. I know that area. Montgomery Village. It was THE place to live for techies in the 80's. All of the tech and bio jobs were moving out to this part of the county - along Route I-270. Montgomery Village was a new "planned" development with affordable safe housing that appealed to the up-and-coming educated people who were working in those jobs. That he lived a block away "after she moved out" is nothing. Nada. Zip. i would bet that 20 people from wherever they were working lived within a 1/4 mile area at the same time. We are talking probably 600 people living on the same street. That is NOT a significant statistical improbability.

Now heres the part that starts to sound like a conspiracy.

-Duley (the questionably-licensed therapist) accuses Ivins of (among other things) harrassing women - going back to his graduate days.

- This woman says that she told the FBI about his stalking her, going back to that timeframe

- The FBI uses the "therapists" accusations to facillitate the approval of a search warrant.

Why? The FBI would never get approval for a search warrant based on a former colleague/friend/whatever, saying that he bugs her. BUT - put the stamp of approval from a THERAPIST on this allegation, and it takes on a whole different aura.

Now, lather, rinse, repeat. Do this over and over and over. Look at all the accusations that are being made in this case. And apply that circular process to every item. It seems that in most cases, it FITS. That means that it is TAINTED. It is not clean evidence. It has been chopped up and fed to others, then regurgitated back to become the basis for more allegations.

There is SOMETHING wrong here!

OMG! I feel like a naive fool!

One thing that kept tugging at me was what Jean C. Duley's motivation was. Something that someone else wrote just gave me that "CLICK". She had 2 and a half million reasons!

Remember how Ivins' son says that the FBI harassed him to rat out his dad - offering him $2.5 million and the car of his choice? The REWARD money! Duuuuuh!

So, Ms. Jean C. Duley - self-professed biker babe/junkie/druggie/alcoholic/DUI arrestee is a hero? According to the interview of her reported husband (later reported "fiancee"). Well, guess what? He is in a whole heap o' crap himself! Michael Duncan McFadden.

I am not an investigator, but a quick search of records finds that 4/2006 he was guilty for driving an unregistered vehicle on a suspended license. In 1996, he was charged (and given a PBJ) for contract fraud! In 2007 it looks like he was sued by a possible family member for a contractual issue. A couple of foreclosures in 2006. In 2004 - another guilty verdict for a contract dispute.

So, it looks like the hero's lover boy is a bit skitchy himself, eh? He doesn't pay his bills, or keep his promises. He lost the right to drive and said "screw you" and drove anyway. He refused to pay for his car, and lost at least one home. Does that make HIM a bad guy? Not necessarily. But it sure is nice to know what kind of people were influencing our "hero" when we are trying to figure out if she destroyed a man unfairly.

This is getting stinlier and stinkier by the minute. And it all comes back to why? And, I think it goes further back, to $2.5 million.

I was trying to grasp what the deal was with Dr. Ivins email addresses and so-called fake names. I am still trying to absorb it all but it is crazy that this is considered any sort of evidence against him. And frankly, it had NOTHING to do with anthrax, or terrorism, or anything. It is simply an invasion of his privacy by authorities who were on a witch hunt!

OK - on TSG - start at page 6. Ivins created an email address of Jimmyflathead, and listed his name as Ed Irving. That would be suspicious except he didn't do anything bad with it! Not only that, but the emails he sent out from that address actually listed his name as Bruce Ivins. So WHAT? I have several email accounts. I don't know that I have ever used a FALSE name, but I have shortened my name, used the wrong DOB and such before. It's not sinister. I don't want a lot of spam on my main email account, so I created a new one to put on cookie sites and such.

Ivins used the Jimmyflathead account to play on Wikipedia. He said derogatory things about that sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG) on Wiki. He got into edit wars about KKG on Wiki. So What? He knew alot about KKG. So what? I know a lot about many things. And, if I don't know, I sometimes spend a lot of time learning. (Like about this whole anthrax case). he apparently knew some stuff that was "secret". SO WHAT? My God - it's a freaking sorority, not some top-secret military strategy! And, as additional proof of Ivin's diabolical mind - he actually encouraged people on Wiki to email him. That is just NOT DONE! If you ever edit on Wiki, you must never discuss anything in private with other posters. Sheesh.

I swear, it sounds like middle-school dramatics! I CANNOT believe our GOVERNMENT is involved in this kind of crap.

OK.. the next email address evidence has been heavily redacted, but it seems like it is referring to the fact that he once lived on the same street as the woman from KKG who now says that he was stalking her. There was an incident of VANDALISM!!! Ivins might have done it, but denied it. Since when is the FBI investigating 20 year old graffiti cases? Hello???

The next information is even crazier! Ivins rented a PO box to hide his identity as he traded in illicit porn. No? Not porn? OMG! He was selling that TOP SECRET KKG information! And he claimed that he had STOLEN IT from the sorority house in college! No wonder the FBI is involved! The CIA and Interpol should be notified too.

The document goes on to show how deeply entrenched Ivins was in the secret ways of the KKG. I'm sorry. Maybe I don't get it. But a sorority is just a bunch of snobby girls right? Is there some reason that he was not entitled to either 1) love or 2) hate the KKG?

I'm kidding. I really know why the FBI spent so much time on this KKG "obsession" that Ivins so clearly had. The anthrax was mailed from a blue mailbox. In NJ. In Princeton NJ. That's a college town, you know? And this actual mailbox was 100 yards from the KKG storage house on campus. Not a sorority house. Just a place they stored all their sorority snob shit. So clearly, Ivin's obsession with KKG was the impetus for driving up there to drop off the poison.

By the way FBI guys, I actually thought of a BETTER link for Ivins and Princeton, but it seems to have slipped right by you guys. Did you know that his DAD was a graduate of Princeton? But I guess no one in their right mind would ever give that connection an iota of credit, so you came up with the sorority chick thing. Holy cow.

This is an embarassment. seriously. But not only that, it is a tragedy. Ivins is dead - almost certainly a legally, and most likely a factually, innocent man. And the FBI is trying to sell us this propaganda as evidence. They are just letting the apparent suicide speak for itself. because at least half the viewing audience will think "he must be guilty if he killed himself". The rest of us are not so dense and can envision the torment the guy was living when the walls came crushing down on him - in the form of a greedy, lying therapist.

Thinking about the Pence thing - something makes sense. The envelopes that the anthrax was maile in were purchased from a vending machine in a post office. The envelopes had certain subtle defects. Other envelopes with the same defects were sent to two post offices in VA, and one in Elkton, MD.

Elkton MD, incidentally is about 2 hours drive from Frederick. It is very near the border of MD/DE. It is NOT on the path from Frederick to Newark, although it is on the path from DC and points south (I-95). It is ALSO on the path from Florida to New York. Florida being the state where the terrorists were supposedly based in the US.

Anyway.. back to the envelopes - they are sold in packages of 5. Although only 2 envelopes were recovered from the initial mailing, which went out on 9/18/01, by following the trail of anthrax infections there is pretty compelling evidence that 5 letters were sent out.

The known letters in the first batch letters were sent to NBC (Tom Brokaw) and the NY Post newspaper. The other three are thought to have been mailed to ABC, CBS and American Media.

The second batch has only ever been mentioned as two envelopes. One to Leahy and one to Daschle. That leaves three extra (unknown) envelopes. And three additional politicians with trace amounts of anthrax found in their office.

So, what does this mean? I have no clue. But I do wonder why the other 3 were sort of swept under the rug?

One thing that I thought of while writing this, is the proximity of Elkton to Ft. Detrick and Trenton NJ. As I said above, it is not on the "normal" path. I do not believe that the killer would have stopped and picked up envelopes on the way to drop off the anthrax. The envelopes had to have been acquired before that. If nothing else, so the mailer could address them in that block printing. Plus, anyone with any familiarity with anthrax would not be carrying it around in their pocket till they got an envelope for it. PLUS it would be risky to do just before the drop time.

So the big question is - why Elkton? And why Princeton? What was the draw?

Here's another thing. Newark is enroute to NY. This guy made at least 2 trips from "wherever" to Newark. Maybe he travels from "wherever" to NY? Maybe he travels it often enough that no one would be suspicious of his travel? That is assuming of course, that the mailer is a legitimately employed person. The other possibility is that the person was a terrorist driving up whenever he felt like, from Florida to NY

Could it be someone who drives from say DC to NY rather frequently, who just hopped off the interstate in Elkton and found a post office and grabbed 2 stacks of envelopes. Then later (days? weeks?) he travelled again and jumped off the interstate again, found a nice mailbox box (In Princeton NJ) and dropped the letters? That would make more sense than someone from Frederick just randomly driving to Elkton to grab envelopes, then heading home. Then later driving up to Princeton on a totally different road, to drop the letters off.

One other thing (again) It just occurred to me that there was a three week gap between the mailings. Something is wrong with that. Why would the mailer have gone back to the same mailbox? He must have been worried that the authorities had figured it out and were keeping quiet about it - maybe watching the mailbox. (Certainly a paranoid person like Ivins would be thinking that.) I sure as heck would not have gone anywhere NEAR that box after the first letters were mailed. So - did the second letters go in that box? Or was it a different box? Or did the mailer have some way to know that it was safe to drop those envelopes in that box

As with all the questions - who knows?

((disclaimer: I don't know why this case has suddenly caught my interest. I love a good mystery, but I barely paid any attention to it when it happened. Anyway, if the FBI or NSA or anyone else happens to stumble across this - I am not obsessive, I am not homicidal or psychotic. I am just a person who finds this interesting. Oh, and I really don't have anything against what ya'll do. Even though I think you messed this investigation up pretty bad - I don't think it was done with malice.))

Although the current sentiment is that the anthrax had to have come from Ft. Detrick, I think that it's worth looking at info from way back. I think that the FBI may have kept working on that assumption, and trying to find a suspect to fit with what they think they know. This article from [2002] lends some insight into other possible scenerios.

One other thing. When did info about the 9/11 terrorists start coming out? What I am getting at is the letter that was mailed to American Media in Fl. Everyone wonders why the mailer would have chosen that media outlet. The "common" thought is that it was to "frame" the terrorists. But the letters went out a week to the day after 9/11. So the mailer, in order to frame them, would have had to know where they were from, and then researched what media source was closest. Did he have 6 days to do it? Or 2 days? Or was the info not even public a week after 9/11? Was it sheer coincidence that the anthrax mailer chose to send letters to the BIG news outlets, and the company that spits out tabloid rags? If the mailer wanted to hit the tabloid audience, why didn't he send the letter directly to the National Enquirer?

Note: I started to highlight the relevant parts, and it is ALL relevant!

__________________________

Does Al Qaeda Have Anthrax? Better Assume So

National Journal, June 1, 2002

By Jonathan Rauch

The operatives and allies of Al Qaeda have something in mind for the United States, of that there can be little doubt. Something nasty. Vice President Dick Cheney said in May it is "almost certain" that the terrorists will strike again. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that terrorists "inevitably" will get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, "and they would not hesitate one minute to use them." Question: What if they already did use them and are preparing to do so again? Were last year's anthrax attacks, which caused five fatalities, a preview?

No one knows, of course. That said, there are dots worth connecting.

The perpetrator(s). In November, the FBI issued a suspect profile identifying the likely anthrax attacker as a single adult male, probably an American with a scientific background, lab experience, poor social skills, and a grudge. Some people -- I was one of them -- viewed this interpretation with skepticism. What would be the motive? Why the timing so close to September 11? A number of analysts, including David Tell in a useful article in The Weekly Standard on April 29, have subsequently cast doubt on the disgruntled- scientist hypothesis, and an FBI spokesman said in May that the bureau, far from being "convinced" that the attacks were carried out by an American loner, had "not precluded any category of suspect, motive, or theory."

If anything, hints that anthrax and Al Qaeda may be linked have grown harder to dismiss. Dot one: Several of the hijackers, including their suspected ringleader, Mohamed Atta, are reported to have looked at crop dusters in Belle Glade, Fla. Dot two: Among five targeted media organizations, only one was not nationally prominent -- American Media, of Boca Raton, Fla., which happens to be a few miles from where Atta and other terrorists lived and attended flight school. (Atta rented an apartment from a real estate agent whose husband worked for American Media.) Dot three: In March a doctor in Fort Lauderdale announced that he had treated one of the terrorists for what, in retrospect, he believes was cutaneous anthrax. Doctors at Johns Hopkins University examined the case and concurred that anthrax was "the most probable and coherent interpretation of the data available."

Other recent reports cite captured documents and an unfinished lab in Afghanistan that suggest Al Qaeda was interested -- as presumably it would be -- in producing biological weapons, including anthrax. In 1999, an Arabic-language newspaper in London reported that "elements loyal to [Osama] bin Laden" had, for a few thousand dollars, "managed to obtain an offer for the supply of samples of anthrax and other poisons" from a former Soviet bloc country.

None of that proves anything. The FBI checked the 9/11 terrorists' homes, cars, and personal effects for anthrax. "Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been," an FBI spokesman told The New York Times in March.

A point worth noting: The anthrax-laced letters were all mailed after the deaths of Atta and his fellow hijackers. If Al Qaeda did have something to do with the anthrax attacks, whoever did the mailings is still out there.

The material. In April, news reports said that the material used in the attacks was not only "weaponized" but also more sophisticated than anything that U.S. military labs had managed to produce. In May, other news reports said that the material was (in The Times' words) "far less than weapons grade." Good grief. What's the story?

Everyone agrees that all of the anthrax was of the same type, known as the Ames strain. Most sources also agree that the first mailing, to the media organizations, contained a cruder formulation than the second, to Sens. Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. They also concur that the second batch was of impressive purity and concentration. "Very, very pure" is how Matthew Meselson, a Harvard University biologist who has looked at images of the material, described it in an interview. "If you look at it under the electron microscope, you don't see anything but anthrax spores." A cruder preparation, by contrast, would contain so-called vegetative cells and other debris.

One source of ultra-pure anthrax might be a foreign bio-weapons program. An obvious suspect: the former Soviet Union. The Soviets had as many as 2,000 scientists working on anthrax, Tell writes. In 1979, dozens, or hundreds, of Russians died when anthrax leaked from a bio-weapons facility in Sverdlovsk. Subsequent analyses found four or more different anthrax strains in tissue samples taken from the victims

So does the material used in America last year look Soviet? No, says Ken Alibek, a former Soviet bio-weapons official who is now executive director of the George Mason University Center for Biodefense. He has reviewed images of the material and says it looks like nothing he saw in the Soviet Union. The material, in fact, is of mediocre quality, he told me, and was not produced industrially. It definitely had not been milled, nor did it appear to have any sort of coating to reduce static or otherwise enhance its deadliness. Silica supposedly found in the material, Alibek thinks, may simply be a residue from an unsophisticated drying process. Meselson concurs that the anthrax evinces no sign of special coating or processing. "There is no evidence that I know of," he told me, "that it was treated in any special way."

What about Iraq? It is known to have produced several thousand gallons of anthrax, but that was in liquid form. Stephen D. Bryen, who headed the Pentagon's Defense Technology Security Administration during the Reagan administration and who now is the managing partner of Aurora Defense, says that United Nations inspectors in Iraq found no "dusty" anthrax (the dry, wafting variety used in the U.S. attacks) -- which of course could mean either that the Iraqis didn't (yet) have it or that they hid it well. Bryen also notes that the Iraqis, like the Soviets, tend to mix together various germs (or strains) and chemicals in their weapons, presumably to defeat countermeasures. The U.S. anthrax was all of a single strain.

If the U.S. anthrax was very pure but not specially weaponized, could it have been made by amateurs? In small quantities, yes, according to both Alibek and Meselson. It could be done, Alibek says, with "a very simple, nonindustrial process -- a very primitive process -- that could let you get a trillion spores in one gram. You can't make hundreds of kilos, but you could make hundreds of grams at this concentration."

Meselson concurs. "It's something that could be done by a fair number of people." The necessary glassware, culturing media, centrifuges, and so on "would exist in a large number of places, both hospitals and laboratories -- widespread.

The U.S. attacks, Meselson notes, confirmed what a Canadian simulation had already shown: Even uncoated, nonindustrial-grade anthrax easily suspends itself in the air, floating around and penetrating lungs. No special coating or treatment is necessary. Whoever produced the few grams used last year could presumably produce more. Not enough to fill a crop duster, perhaps, but enough to kill a lot of people

The outlook. So what to assume? Bryen notes that dropping anthrax in the mail was a very primitive way to distribute it. "It's not how regimes think about dispersing a biological or chemical weapon," he said. "Which should say that the guy distributing it was a total amateur." That, in turn, argues for what Bryen calls the "sample" theory. "The sample theory being that somebody gave these guys a small amount. It has all the characteristics that it was given to people who didn't have any idea how to use it."

Or maybe, on the other hand, not. Paul Ewald, a biologist at Amherst College and the author of Plague Time: The New Germ Theory of Disease, suggests that inefficient distribution might have been exactly the point. "If this attack was caused by the Al Qaeda group -- and I think that's the best explanation, given the evidence available -- this small release would be most useful as a demonstration that they have anthrax on U.S. soil."

If the terrorists are dumb, Ewald says, they made or obtained a few grams of anthrax and mailed off their whole supply. "We'd be wiser if we planned for the smart-terrorist possibility," he says. Smart terrorists would have made or obtained larger quantities of the stuff and stashed it, probably (if they're smart) before setting off alarms by sending out a few grams. Later, with the potency of their weapon proved, they could mount, or threaten to mount, a much larger attack.

Ewald argues for a policy that assumes this is what's going on and that urgently enlists the public's eyes and ears and memories. "We should be alerting people to let authorities know of any suspicious activity they may have seen that would relate to people hiding canisters or objects or doing something that didn't look right," Ewald says. The question is not whether Ewald is right, but whether we want to bet he is wrong.