Wanted By Feds, Anthrax Suspect Kills Self
Official: U.S. Sought Death Penalty Against Top Biodefense Researcher For 2001 Attacks
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Bruce Ivins at the American Red Cross Emergency Shelter in the Frederick Community College gym in September 2003. (The Frederick News-Post)
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(CBS)
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'Person Of Interest' Sues FBI
In Full: Steven Hatfill, the only so-called "person of interest" in the FBI's Anthrax investigation turned the tables on his accusers by suing them. Leslie Stahl reports.
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Anthrax Case Remains Open
The mystery behind the Washington D.C. anthrax attacks remains unsolved and the government has settled millions on a one-time suspect. Bob Orr reports on a case with no imminent arrests in sight.
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Preview: The Anthrax Case
Lesley Stahl reports on the FBI's anthrax investigation and how a "person of interest" turned the tables on the bureau. Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
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Anthrax In The Mail
Key dates in the investigation of the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks
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Anthrax
Follow the search for the anthrax attacker, learn about the bacteria's use as a bio-weapon and find out how you can get infected and what it does to your body.
The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md. For more than a decade, he worked to develop an anthrax vaccine that was effective even in cases where different strains of anthrax were mixed, which made vaccines ineffective, according to federal documents reviewed by the AP.
U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing grand jury investigation, said prosecutors were closing in on Ivins, 62. They were planning an indictment that would have sought the death penalty for the attacks, which killed five people, crippled the postal system and traumatized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks.
Authorities were investigating whether Ivins released the anthrax as a way to test his vaccine, officials said. The Justice Department has not yet decided whether to close the investigation, officials said, meaning it's still not certain whether Ivins acted alone or had help. One official close to the case said that decision was expected within days.
If the case is closed soon, one official said, that will indicate that Ivins was the lone suspect.
Ivins was "hounded" by aggressive FBI agents who raided his home twice, said Dr. W. Russell Byrne, a colleague who worked in the bacteriology division of the Fort Detrick research facility for 15 years. Byrne said Ivins was forcefully removed from his job by local police recently because of fears that he had become a danger to himself or others. The investigation led to Ivins being hospitalized for depression earlier this month, Byrne said.
He said he does not believe Ivins was behind the anthrax attacks.
A 16-year-old girl who lives in Ivins' neighborhood told CBS News that for about a year there have been cars parked in front of her house that have come and gone on a regular schedule. When asked what they were doing, the girl said the reply was "official FBI business."
Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. Tom Ivins, a brother of the scientist, told The Associated Press that his other brother, Charles, had told him that Bruce committed suicide and Tylenol might have been involved. The Los Angeles Times, which first reported that Ivins was under suspicion, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.
The Fort Detrick laboratory and its specialized scientists for years have been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax mailings. In late June, the government exonerated a colleague of Ivins', Steven Hatfill. Hatfill's name has for years had been associated with the attacks after investigators named him a "person of interest" in 2002.
Unusual behavior by Ivins was noted at Fort Detrick in the six months following the anthrax mailings, when he conducted unauthorized testing for anthrax spores outside containment areas at the infectious disease research unit where he worked, according to an internal report. But the focus long stayed on Hatfill.
The government paid Hatfill $5.82 million to settle a lawsuit he filed against the Justice Department in which he claimed the department violated his privacy rights by speaking with reporters about the case.
Hatfill was never arrested and never charged, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reported.
Ivins was the co-author of numerous anthrax studies, including one on a treatment for inhalation anthrax published in the July 7 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
Henry S. Heine, a scientist who had worked with Ivins on inhalation anthrax research at Fort Detrick, said he and others on their team have testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that has been investigating the anthrax mailings for more than a year. He declined to comment on Ivins' death.
FBI vehicles with tinted windows had watched Ivins' home for a year, neighbor Natalie Duggan, 16, said.
"They said, 'We're on official business,' " she said.
Tom Ivins said Friday that federal officials working on the anthrax case questioned him about his brother a year and a half ago. "They said they were investigating him," he said from Ohio, where he lives, in a CNN interview.
"We are not at this time making any official statements or comments regarding this situation," said Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office, which is investigating the anthrax attacks, said Friday.
Five people died and 17 were sickened by anthrax powder in letters that were mailed to lawmakers' Capitol Hill offices, TV networks in New York, and tabloid newspaper offices in Florida. Two postal workers in a Washington mail facility, a New York hospital worker, a Florida photo editor and an elderly Connecticut woman were killed.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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See all 270 CommentsHe''s lucky Bush and his henchmen didn''t have the Guantanamo torture infrastructure in place when he was accused.
After all, this president claims he can detain any US citizen without charge, trial, or recourse indefinitely.
%u201CGovernment lawyers told federal judges that the president can send the military into any U.S. neighborhood, capture a citizen and hold him in prison without charge, indefinitely. %u201C
from
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/24/national/main4125235.shtml#Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR2005090900772_pf.html
I don''t know who you plan to lay in prison, but he probably won''t be too pretty... Sorry to hear you don''t get your one phone call, but it''s for the good of the country
If he was found hung, shot five times, and stabbed three times and the GOP claims "it''s the most determined suicide we''ve ever seen" be suspicious. Be VERY suspicious.
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Posted by anon00
You realize you sound like a complete nut. ANyone who things 9/11 was an inside job obviously has no grasp of reality or science for that matter.
It''s like the yacht I''ve always wanted: I''m having trouble buying it.
You are in denial if you think that these THREE buildings fell perfectly onto their own footprint in freefall speed...all on their own.
...And yes, the gold was probably removed whenever convenient. -But the gold is a mute point, since we have the Federal Reserve Bank issuing our currency, and printing more and more, devaluing it against foreign monies.
Stick to 9/11 and pressure CBS for real in-depth investigative reporting.
I disagree with your assertion. The towers did not "keel over" as they might if the bottom floor was weakened with shape charges.
Pure fantasy.
It would take quite a long time for pancaking to collapse a tower. It would not fall at the same rate as free fall speed.
Steel would not weaken with just Kerosene fuel, Kerosene is a hydrocarbon, which burns at a max temperature of 1700 degrees F. When was the last time your stove top melted from a hotter longer sustained temeperature...never.
- How about we just see the full Pentagon footage?
Nothing but small contained fires the sprinklers should have taken care of, but yet at 5:45 in the afternoon, they apparently fell in the same fashion, a historical first for ANY steel building to collapse due to fire (wrong.) - Please explain this, as it wasn''t even bothered to be addressed in the Official 9/11 Commision Report. NOT EVEN MENTIONED!
9-11 was the result of a religious extremist faction jealous of our way of life.
So, we may never truly know the whole story. At least we''re no longer spending tax dollars on this chump and providing him a life of luxury in our prisons at taxpayer expense.
If he had nothing to hide, he wouldn''t have committed suicide and he DID apparently have the right credentials to have access to toxins. GUILTY.
He does not even have simple mastery of the English language.
My favorite 9/11 quote: "If Americans were confronted by four hijackers wielding boxcutters, they would have beaten them to death with their luggage." -Arron Russo.
"Sure - he committed suicide... I believe everything I see and hear on the TV." Posted by greglawrence
He might very well have done so, but the fact that he was tipped off about the investigation allowed him time to destroy any evidence of groups he may have belonged to, or associated with, like for example the kkk, aryan nations, or other neo Nazi groups that used to describe just this type of attack in their literature.
"... who wants to believe the alternative?" Posted by O2BeWealthy
Anyone who survived the civil rights struggles of the 60s knows full well that the "alternative" is very likely the correct explanation.
So the anthrax mailing "coincided" with 9/11 that is one. Fingers were pointed to Iraq and Osama, this is two. Almost SEVEN years later the ALLEGED perpetrator commits suicide, and this is three. How convenient Mr. ViSe president!! Do you have any fear of the lord whatsoever? Do you ever see yourself in the presence of the ALL KNOWING ALL JUST answering to some hard questions? One question comes to mind; "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" (Let us not assassinate this lad further, VP. You have done enough. Have you no sense of compassion sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of humanity?)
Posted by greglawrence
(obviously) thousands of people saw the pancaking collapse "live".
As collaborated by many hundreds of video cameras private and public, all showing the same thing: Failure at the impact sites resulting in a pancake collapse from the upper third of the towers, NOT the bottom.
Keep in mind that the structures has fairly loose insulation on the steel that was blasted off by the impact of the jet. That''s why the steel heated so quickly.
I encourage you to review the following :
The Collapse: An Engineer''s Perspective
http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/eagar_nova/nova_eagar1.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/sunder.html
I did see the NOVA show in person - it was very well done.
A woman who answered the phone at Charles Ivins'' home in Etowah, N.C., refused to wake him and declined to comment on his death. "This is a grieving time," she said.
You forgot Ken Lay.
And all this on top of a history of racism and lynching, denied civil rights, rightwing Senator McCarthy accusing everyone of being a "Communist sympathizer", and Rush Limbaugh and his ilk accusing everyone for the sake of accusing everyone.
The rightwing in this country has lost its mind and are fighting ghosts in their heads.
Too bad that real people and fellow citizens in good standing get hurt in the process.
I agree. I remember that this became a convenient way to connect Iraq to 9/11 because it was first published that the spores came from there. Then we discovered that Bush and administration had already been taking cipricol in anticipation of an anthrax terror attack well before the developments. Furthermore, these spores were sent to liberal targets. I don''t know if this guy was guilty or not, but I sure would like to know the details.
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He died at a hospital of drug overdose.
why was he at the hospital?
who called the ambulance?
how long was he at the hospital before he died?
how did they determine what he overdosed on?
was the codine/tylenol administered orally or injection?
why did he have so much access to narcotic drugs?
IF he was a person of suspect and government employee for 18 years, why wasn''t he suspended?
What would his motives have been?
Could he have acted alone?
How much is required to be considered a massive overdose?
How was he able to transport anthrax off site?
Who was responsible for security?
why was the Los Angeles Times reporting the Maryland story? Where was the rest of the media?
Why did the grand jury wait until just a year ago to start hearing testimony?
what is the definition of "a very intent guy"
Are intent people depressed and suicidal?
the first paragraph refers to a report...what report is that?
How was he able to do his work as recently as july 7 while being suicidal?
Why didn''t anyone notice/report some anthrax missing?
Does this mean "case closed" and the end of FACT finding? No more questions will be answered?
If so,then it appears to be convience killing!
Another scientist conviently dead!!!!!!!!
you must have been part of that drug testing back in the 60''s
Posted by earthlives at 07:22 AM : Aug 01, 2008
I know this has nothing to do with the subject matter but I just to remind this bozo that a Democrat was president when we defeated the Nazis.
A true Democrat who knew how to use the government to help the victims of the Depression that was brought on by a Republican president.
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