Suicide Latest Twist In 7-Yr. Anthrax Saga

Lawyer Of Suspect Says Scientist Was Innocent, Driven To Kill Himself By Feds' "Accusation And Innuendo"

(CBS/AP)  Seven years after anthrax-laced letters terrorized an already frightened United States, a new suspect suddenly emerged in the public eye this week. But he was gone just as quickly, committing suicide before he could be charged with murder and adding another dramatic twist to the bizarre episode.

The U.S. government's working theory - that brilliant but troubled Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins released the anthrax to test his cure for the toxin - answers some of the questions, perhaps, but many details remain unclear.

According to CBS News correspondent Chip Reid, law enforcement sources say the anthrax terror case can finally be closed, but the lawyers for the latest named suspect in this case say their client was an innocent man driven to take his own life by a relentless investigation.

"I think the FBI owes us a complete accounting of their investigation and ought to be able to tell us at some point, how we're going to bring this to closure," said former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, whose office received a letter containing the deadly white powder in 2001. "It's been seven years, there's a lot of unanswered questions and I think the American people deserve to know more than they do today."

Ivins' unexpected emergence as the top - and perhaps only - suspect in the anthrax attacks follows on the heels of the government's exoneration of another Army scientist in the case.

Last month, the Justice Department cleared Ivins' colleague, Steven Hatfill, who had been wrongly suspected in the case, and paid him $5.8 million.

Responding to reports about Ivins on Friday, the Justice Department said only that "substantial progress has been made in the investigation," but said it may be able to release more information about the case soon.

"We need to know exactly how Mr. Ivins was involved, if he was involved, how this relates to the case and information that so far has been withheld from the American people ought to be provided," Daschle said. "And I think it should be soon."

Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary told The Early Show, "When you begin to profile the cases you look at all the decisions a offender makes. The choice of weapons, who had access to anthrax, and especially this form of weaponized anthrax."

That, McCrary said, narrowed the search to Fort Detrick (what he called "the right place"), even though the FBI's public investigation of Hatfill led to an embarrassing (and costly) payment.

McCrary thinks the pressure of the investigation may have contributed to Ivins' suicide, but the reasons remain unknown. "Either because he was guilty and didn't want to face that ultimate reality [of five murder charges] or not, we don't know. I think in the days coming it's going to be really important how the government sort of tacitly negotiates the legal issues to make whatever evidence they have available to the public.

"We'd like to know what the evidence really is so we can get a sense of how compelling that evidence may or may not be."

Right now all the relevant grand jury proceedings are under court seal.

"If they declare the case closed that may then pave the way to unseal some of these documents and some of the evidence and we may get the opportunity to get a closer, more detailed look," McCrary said.


Suspicions And Motives

Bennet Bolton, a friend of the first anthrax victim - Robert Stevens - was suspicious about Ivins' suicide and whether the government will disclose what happened.

"I don't think this guy was involved," Bolton said, questioning what led investigators from his dead friend - a tabloid photo editor in southern Florida - to the scientist at the Army's biological warfare labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

"What is the connection?" Bolton asked. "What did he do or not do?"

For 35 years, Ivins was one of the government's leading scientists researching vaccines and cures for anthrax exposure. But he also had a long history of homicidal threats, according to papers filed last week in local court by a social worker.

The letters containing anthrax powder were sent while the nation was still traumatized by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and turned up at congressional offices, newsrooms and elsewhere, leaving a deadly trail through post offices on the way. The powder killed five and sent numerous victims to hospitals and caused near panic in many locations.

Workers in protective garb that made them look like spacemen decontaminated U.S. Capitol buildings after anthrax letters were discovered there. Major postal substations were closed for years. Newsrooms were checked all over after anthrax letters were mailed to offices in Florida and New York.

Several U.S. officials said prosecutors had been focusing on the 62-year-old Ivins and planned to seek an indictment and the death penalty. Authorities were investigating whether Ivins, who had complained about the limits of testing anthrax drugs on animals, had released the toxin to test the treatment on humans.

The officials all discussed the continuing investigation on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Ivins' attorney asserted the scientist's innocence and said he had cooperated with investigators for more than a year.

"We are saddened by his death, and disappointed that we will not have the opportunity to defend his good name and reputation in a court of law," said Paul F. Kemp.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. Relatives told The Associated Press that he killed himself. Kemp said his client's death was the result of the government's "relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo."

For more than a decade, Ivins had worked to develop an anthrax vaccine that was effective even in cases where different strains of anthrax were mixed - a situation that made vaccines ineffective - according to federal documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

In 2003, he shared the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service for his work on the anthrax vaccine. The award is the highest honor given to Defense Department civilian employees.

Ivins conducted numerous anthrax studies, including one that complained about the limited supply of monkeys available for testing. The study also said animal testing couldn't accurately show how humans would respond to anthrax treatment.

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 Hatfill, whose name has for years had been associated with the attacks. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft called him a "person of interest" in 2002.

Investigators also had noticed Ivins' unusual behavior at Fort Detrick in the six months following the anthrax mailings. 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 stayed on Hatfill.

Many friends and colleagues of Ivins couldn't believe that a popular church music director and Red Cross volunteer was also a killer.

"It would have taken a lot for me to believe he had anything to do with it," one said. "It just wasn't him."

But court documents obtained by CBS News suggest another side of Ivins.

He was scheduled to appear in court this week for a hearing on a restraining order. The allegation: homicidal threats, actions and plans towards his therapist.

Social worker Jean C. Duley filed handwritten court documents last week saying she was preparing to testify before a grand jury.

"Client has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, plans and actions towards therapists," Duley said, adding that his psychiatrist had described him as homicidal and sociopathic.

Authorities have been watching Ivins for some time. His brother, Tom Ivins, said federal agents questioned the scientist about a year and a half ago. Neighbors said FBI agents in cars with tinted windows conducted surveillance on his home. A colleague, Henry S. Heine, said that over the past year, he and others on their team had testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that has been investigating the anthrax mailings.

[samsel3]

In an interview with Merideth Viera on NBC this morning August 4, 2008, the bureau chief of the Fort Detrick lab, and boss of Dr. Ivins said: " I don''t beleive anything the Government is saying about Bruce Ivins".

[samsel3]

Another case of CIA assisted suicide.......Dr. Ivins joins another Fort Detrick Alumni, Dr. Frank Olson. The dead cannot speak and incriminate their perpetrators.

"While aides to Gerald Ford, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney helped cover up the background to the death of CIA scientist, Frank Olson who fell from a 10th floor window in 1953, not long after he had been classified as a potential security risk."

"Olson''s son Eric says his father''s conscience was troubled by awareness of Nazi-style CIA experiments on human subjects. "

[toldyouso12]

Once upon a time there was a serpent who was badly injured in a fight with another animal. It managed to slither away to safety but would have surely died if a benevolent man had not seen it suffering by the side of the road. The goodly man carefully wrapped the snake up and took it to his house, where he bestowed the kindest and gentlest care on the snake until it was healed and could return to the wild. Just as the man was releasing the serpent back into the grass, the ungrateful snake turned and bit him on the hand.

"What did you do that for?" cried the man, who knew that the bite of this particular snake was usually fatal. "Didn''''t I take care of you when no one else would?"

The snake shrugged (no small feat for a snake!) and replied to the benevolent--and now doomed-- man, "What did you expect? You knew I was a snake when you picked me up."

Posted by terrorislamv at 10:40 PM : Aug 02, 2008


Gee, so many people...using the analogy b-easy63 gave in 2005 and again in 2006 and again in 2007--and no one attributing where they heard it....LOL

[toldyouso12]

Posted by michaelt302 at 10:24 AM : Aug 02, 2008


You have a point--so maybe....

1. The man did not kill himself but was killed and it was made to look like a suicide

2. The therapist is witholding info, like the gov told the man to do it or that the man felt the gov was out to frame him so that the case could be "closed" under Bush''s watch and no one else would follow the trail back to the gov

3. The man was a nut who had nothing to do with the anthrax, but he was odd enough and unpopular enough for Bush and Cheney to make him the patsy

4. The gov is smart enough to know that if they blame another guy, but then stop that guy from clearing his name by killing him, most people might accept that the "killer" killed himself and never question why the timing, why the breach of confidentiality by the therapist, why the first case that went no where, why the convenient suicide after this accusation?

On the other hand, if anyone had the entire gov including shadow agencies appearing to hound and set them up and knew that they were being framed with either conviction or death as their outcome--(justice flew out of the window with those 911 passports) they might kill themselves too, rather than take the fall for a rogue government.

We will now never know--be glad this guy was not like Bourne or je might have had a deadly show of resistance to the frame up.

[toldyouso12]

We will now, never know if this man was truly the anthrax killer or if he was another delusional soul who admits to crimes he did not commit and has woven a fantasy world where he is the mastermind killer.

The therapist may be a hero or she may be just a person who breached her ethical vows to maintain the absolute privacy of her patient.

Ivins may be the anthrax killer or he may really have been a person prepared to shoot a lot of people, or he may have been a nut who wanted attention and sought to share his violent fantasies with his trusted therapist.

Now, we will never know. What we do know is that most serial killers and mass murderers do not usually divulge their plans of death and destruction to others. They usually leave notes and videos (in the case of mass murderers) to be found AFTER they are dead---and serial killers also rarely tell anyone.

In fact when people broadcast their fault in heinous crimes, they usually end up released but humiliated as we all find out they are stupid and delusional but not the real killer.

So now, therapists no longer have to keep confidentiality...now to work on all those others like lawyers, doctors and anyone else that used to operate with discretion.

[samsel3]

Does this sound familiar:

Rumsfeld & Cheney''s Dirty Litlle Spy Secret, they covered it up...........


"One of the most controversial issues surrounding Project MK-ULTRA involved the mysterious death of Dr. Frank Olson, a scientist at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where many of these studies were conducted. According to the government''s version of events, as part of the MK-ULTRA experiments, Olson was dosed with LSD without his knowledge, and he suffered severe paranoia and a nervous breakdown. The CIA sent him to New York to see one of their psychiatrists, who recommended that Olson be placed into a mental institution for recovery. On his last night in New York, Olson allegedly threw himself out his hotel room window, plunging to his death. Skeptics of this story argue that his death may be a murder, pointing to the questionable nature of the research Olson was involved with. A grand jury inquiry of Olson''s death was approved on April 27,1996 and on the same day former CIA chief William disappeared and his remains were found in a lake." Wikepedia CIA activities in the USA.& NY Times April 1, 2001 " What did the CIA do to Eric Olsons father".

[samsel3]

Another case of CIA assisted suicide.......Dr. Ivins joins another Fort Detrick Alumni, Dr. Frank Olson. The dead cannot speak and incriminate their perpetrators.

"While aides to Gerald Ford, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney helped cover up the background to the death of CIA scientist, Frank Olson who fell from a 10th floor window in 1953, not long after he had been classified as a potential security risk."

"Olson''s son Eric says his father''''s conscience was troubled by awareness of Nazi-style CIA experiments on human subjects. "

[samsel3]

Another case of CIA assisted suicide. Years of continuing secrecy, the CIA remains an elite organization with agendas kept beyond the realm the FBI.

The answer to the Anthrax mystery lies with Bush, Cheney and the CIA strategists who wanted to drum up support for the invasion and regime change of seven countries. Putting the American people in fear of terrorism for their dirty game on the world stage was a disgusting choice. Using a genetically fingerprinted US Army military grade Anthrax was not very smart. They never thought anyone would research the materials genetic fingerprint. Money, power, greed for gain, they all need to be indicted for crimes against humanity in the World Court where justice will be served for all.

[samsel3]

A case in point:

"One of the most controversial issues surrounding Project MK-ULTRA involved the mysterious death of Dr. Frank Olson, a scientist at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where many of these studies were conducted. According to the government''s version of events, as part of the MK-ULTRA experiments, Olson was dosed with LSD without his knowledge, and he suffered severe paranoia and a nervous breakdown. The CIA sent him to New York to see one of their psychiatrists, who recommended that Olson be placed into a mental institution for recovery. On his last night in New York, Olson allegedly threw himself out his hotel room window, plunging to his death. Skeptics of this story argue that his death may be a murder, pointing to the questionable nature of the research Olson was involved with. A grand jury inquiry of Olson''s death was approved on April 27,1996 and on the same day former CIA chief William disappeared and his remains were found in a lake." Wikepedia CIA activities in the USA.& NY Times April 1, 2001 " What did the CIA do to Eric Olsons father".

[rickstas]

The guy was a scapegoat to cover just one of crimes against humanity committed by/under this administration. I even have trouble with the "suicide" part. Frankly I don''t believe a word the government says.

[txgrouch2006]

THE POWERFUL ALWAYS HAVE A PATSY.

But this sounds like an inside job. Then they set up Ivins, knowing his history of emotional imbalance.

Nobody had to help him. He went off the deep end after months of harassment, just like they hoped he would.

Now they can close the case, and WE''LL NEVER KNOW THE TRUTH.

[samsel3]

Another case of CIA assisted suicide.......Dr. Ivins joins another Fort Detrick Alumni, Dr. Frank Olson. The dead cannot speak and incriminate their perpetrators.

"While aides to Gerald Ford, Donald Rumsfeld and *** Cheney helped cover up the background to the death of CIA scientist, Frank Olson who fell from a 10th floor window in 1953, not long after he had been classified as a potential security risk."

"Olson''s son Eric says his father''s conscience was troubled by awareness of Nazi-style CIA experiments on human subjects. "

[samsel3]

Another case of CIA assisted suicide.......Dr. Ivins joins another Fort Detrick Alumni, Dr. Frank Olson. The dead cannot speak and incriminate their perpetrators.

The answer to the Anthrax mystery lies with Bush, Cheney and the CIA strategists who wanted to drum up support for the invasion and regime change of Iraq and six other countries. Putting the American people in fear of terrorism for their dirty game on the world stage was a disgusting choice. Using a genetically fingerprinted US Army military grade Anthrax was not very smart. They never thought anyone would research the materials genetic fingerprint. Money, power, greed for gain, they all need to be indicted for crimes against humanity in the World Court where justice will be served for all.

[txgrouch2006]

Shouldn''''t the story read "Alleged Suicide"?
Posted by cdfoxtrot1 at 03:32 PM : Aug 02, 2008
---------------------------
Yes. And that''s a big tipoff to a lot of us.

[cdfoxtrot1]

Shouldn''t the story read "Alleged Suicide"? How do we know he wasn''t forced to o/d? Powerful forces may be at work here.

[messiahx4eve]

sincityq, funny you should mention that, the new story is that the JUSTICE Dept. is actually considering that very thing. God executive priviledge is such a wonderful thing to have in your corner, especially since this piece of yet another section of "flawed" intel clears Iraq of yet another controversy.

[txgrouch2006]

Based on my own years (15+) in high tech, here''s a MORE PLAUSIBLE STORY.

The MANAGEMENT of the lab wanted to stir up more funding. So they mailed out lethal agents to politicians they didn''t like, and they set up a convenient patsy who would fold like wet cardboard when he found himself the focus of an investigation.

POWERFUL PEOPLE ALWAYS HAVE A PATSY.

[txgrouch2006]

glad this story is getting more attention. something just does not add up here.
Posted by andor3 at 01:30 PM : Aug 02, 2008
---------------------
I agree about that. This guy was the typical nerd. Very smart, but quirky personality. Spent his whole life in bio research, made numerous idle threats, but NEVER CARRIED OUT ANY OF THEM IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE.

Then suddenly he starts mailing lethal agents to people in the government. IT DOESN''T FIT HIS PERSONALITY.

He was a person who made idle threats, not one who killed people.

And no, I''m not going buy an argument that he SUDDENLY "snapped" and his ENTIRE PERSONALITY CHANGED but not outwardly so anyone noticed. The timid mouse SUDDENLY transforming into a lion?? It doesn''t add up.

More likely he was a carefully chosen patsy. We may never know the truth.

[txgrouch2006]

He has a hate agenda.
Posted by rudy654 at 12:07 PM : Aug 02, 2008
---------------
Please clarify what is "hate." Is it "hate" to be against Bush bashing? Or is it "hate" to be against Bill Clinton?

Yah, that would be the typical liberal hate agenda. Accuse your opponent of what YOU do, then call it "hate." LOL!

[andor3]

glad this story is getting more attention. something just does not add up here.