Anthrax Suspect "Homicidal"
Bruce Ivin's Therapist Was "Scared To Death" Of Him; Called Him A "Revenge Killer"
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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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Anthrax Mystery Continues
Many are wondering whether the suicide of Dr. Bruce Ivins, accused by the FBI of planning the 2001 anthrax attacks, really settles the mystery which swept fear across the nation. Tony Guida reports.
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Anthrax Suspect Commits Suicide
Dr. Bruce Ivins, an anthrax specialist who was accused by the FBI of organizing the notorious chemical attacks in late September 2001, has committed suicide. Chip Reid 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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Anthrax In The Mail
Key dates in the investigation of the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks
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Friends and colleagues of Ivins were still puzzling today about a man they thought they knew, reports CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"It would be very difficult to put him in a role of a violent person," said former colleague Bruce Adamovicz. "He just simply didn't have that in him."
Adamovicz, Ivins' former supervisor, says Ivins knew he was under suspicion for the deaths of five people in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
"It's very difficult, given Bruce's personality, he was a very sensitive person, very high strung and it's understandable that these continuing pressures on him would wear him down," Adamovicz said.
But Ivins apparently had a violent side. Just days before he committed suicide, Jean Dudley, a therapist who had been treating Ivins for six months, went to court for a protective order, citing a threat he made in a group session.
"He proceeded to describe to the group a very detailed plan to kill his co-workers," Dudley said. "That because he was going to be indicted on capital murder charges, he was going to go out in a blaze of glory that he was going to take everybody out with him."
Duley testified at a hearing in Frederick on July 24 in a successful bid for a protective order from Ivins. The New York Times obtained a recording of the hearing and posted it on its Web site Saturday.
"As far back as the year 2000, the respondent has actually attempted to murder several other people, either through poisoning. He is a revenge killer. When he feels that he's been slighted or has had - especially toward women - he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings," Duley said.
She added that Ivins "has been forensically diagnosed by several top psychiatrists as a sociopathic, homicidal killer. I have that in evidence. And through my working with him, I also believe that to be very true."
Duley told the judge she was "scared to death" of Ivins.
Ivins, 62, who worked at an Army biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, took his own life Tuesday as federal authorities were closing in after investigating him for more than a year in connection with the deaths of five people poisoned by anthrax sent through the mail.
Answers to one of the nation's highest profile unsolved mysteries are in documents that could be released as early as this week - and help explain how the government chased the wrong suspect for years.
So far, federal authorities have not formally released details of its investigation into Ivans role in the attacks, Pinkston reports. Legal experts say the government is not required to open its files.
"It is likely we'll never know the full extent of the government's evidence and even if we do we won't what Ivins' response would have been cause he wont have a chance to respond," said Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University, and former justice department official.
If authorities close the case, court documents detailing newly developed scientific evidence that recently led the government to Ivins may be unsealed.
Five people died and 17 others were sickened when anthrax-laced letters began showing up at congressional offices, newsrooms and post offices soon after Sept. 11, 2001.
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 Steven 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.
After wrongly investigating Army scientist Hatfill, the FBI more than a year ago began looking at Ivins, who worked at the same military lab. Ivins, a decorated scientist who was working on an anthrax cure, killed himself last Tuesday.
Two U.S. officials said victims and their survivors could be briefed as early as Tuesday on the final piece of the bioterrorism attacks that confounded the government.
The Justice Department attributed the break in the case to "new and sophisticated scientific tools" that cost the FBI about $10 million. Investigators said the science focused, in part, on how the anthrax strains were handled and who had access to it at the time of the mailings.
FBI scientists were able to isolate strains used in the attacks, and determined they were not as common as previously thought. And that led investigators to Ivins.
Had the same process been available years ago, it would have cleared Hatfill much earlier, according to two people familiar with the FBI investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is not officially closed.
The Army refused Saturday to say whether it had been reviewing the security clearance of the chief suspect in the anthrax attacks who had mental problems and killed himself as federal prosecutors were planning to indict him.
Ivins was removed from his lab in Maryland by police on July 10 and temporarily hospitalized, according to court records, because it was feared that he was a danger to himself and others. But it was unclear whether he was still employed by the lab at the time of his death Tuesday.
That raises the question of whether Ivins still had his security clearance and, if so, how he kept it, given that his social worker said Ivins had been viewed as homicidal and sociopathic by his psychiatrist.
Army spokesman Paul Boyce declined to comment on Ivins' case.
Boyce didn't respond to a question on what type of clearance microbiologists at the lab would have to hold.
David R. Franz, a former commander of the Army's lab biological warfare labs at Fort Detrick, Md., where Ivins worked, said Saturday he thought it was "very important that the FBI present their case against Bruce and not just state that the investigation was over because it was him and he's gone."
Franz added, "I'm concerned about what closing this case without conclusive evidence might do to harm our life sciences enterprise. ... I think we as Americans need to see the proof."
Initially, FBI profilers said they probably were looking for a loner with a scientific background. Maybe he had a grudge against the lawmakers and news organizations. Investigators also considered possible links to al Qaeda, the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks.
Intensive focus initially settled on Hatfill, who for years accused the government of unfairly targeting him. In late June, the government exonerated Hatfill and paid him a $5.82 million settlement.
With that, the government seemed no closer to solving the "Amerithrax" mystery. But, quietly, investigators were closing in on a different scientist, Ivins.
A murder indictment and the possibility of the death penalty could have produced a high-profile climax to the case. Shadowed by the FBI, Ivins died Tuesday from a Tylenol overdose, leaving the probe in limbo and a nation seeking answers.
"It's a shame the man is not here with us. We might have known more," said Maureen Stevens, whose husband, Bob, was the first anthrax victim.
Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said: "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." Daschle's office received a letter containing the deadly white powder in 2001.
Among the unanswered questions is why the anthrax was sent. The FBI was investigating whether Ivins, renowned for his work developing anthrax vaccines and treatment, released the toxin to test those cures. Ivins was one of several scientists named in an application for a vaccine patent 18 months before the attacks.
Another puzzle is what finally led the FBI to focus on Ivins a year or so ago. Ivins attracted some attention for conducting unauthorized anthrax testing in the six months following the anthrax mailings, but the FBI focus stayed on Hatfill.
As Ivins' name emerged, so did a portrait of a conflicted, troubled man. His friends knew him as the man who played the keyboard at church, a Red Cross volunteer who was an avid juggler and gardener.
Others saw a darker side. Police recently removed him from work, fearing he was a danger to himself or others. Social worker Duley filed for a restraining order in a Maryland court.
"Client has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, plans and actions towards therapists," Duley wrote in court documents last week, adding that his psychiatrist had described him as homicidal and sociopathic.
Ivins' brother, Tom Ivins, said he had not spoken to Bruce Ivins since 1985, but acknowledged the possibility his brother may have been the anthrax mailer.
"It makes sense, what the social worker said," Tom Ivins said. "He considered himself like a god."
Ivins' lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, asserted the scientist's innocence and said he would have proved it at trial. Kemp said his client's death was the result of the government's "relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo."
Maryland's chief medical examiner, Dr. David Fowler, confirmed Saturday that Ivins died Tuesday morning at Frederick, Md., Memorial Hospital; that the cause of death was found to be an overdose of acetaminophen, the active drug in Tylenol; and that it was ruled a suicide based on information from police and doctors.
© 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 89 CommentsThis is a convenient way to close a dead case using shrinks and social worker drivel. Their words are meaningless and the chain of claims is foolish.
Go back and try again people.
Seems that shortly after this attack happened, the FBI said it was closing in on one of the few scientists with access to "weaponized" anthrax in Fort Detrich. When they found this candidate, he was floating - dead - in a river. This, too, was called a suicide. And thats the last we heard about that one.
Seems a bit too convenient. This case should remain open. Perhaps an independent council should take charge rather than the highly-politicized FBI.
How this man was able to violate protocol, and remove deadly biotoxins from a secure facility?
If he was indeed a deranged sociopath, why was this information not immediately brought to the attention of those responsible for the security of such facilities?
Why would a sociopathic "revenge'' killer pretend to be from the exact group that was the focus of Bush''s hate campaign phase in drumming up war fever at the time?
If this case is indeed closed, then it is obvious that the FBI is covering for others who are complicit.
Further, it is obvious that any claims that the US is "a safer place" as regards acts of terrorism are pure BS, even the "mighty" US army apparently has security holes you can drive a truck (or whatever vehicle the alleged perp used) through, as long as you have the correct "profile", if you know what I mean.
Is it possible the therapist is just covering the respective arse?
I hate to sound like an episode of the X-Files - but we need a full investigation regards this matter. It''s too convenient for my taste.
seems easy to accuse a dead man - where''s the proof?
something smells bad about this story.
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.
"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. "
"Move along, move along... nothing to see here"
Posted by Nancy_Naive at 06:40 AM : Aug 03, 2008
Ignorant conspiracy nut case....move along nothing more here to see.
Frank Olson was not, after all a civilian employee of the Army. He was a CIA employee working at Fort Detrick on precursor programs to MK-ULTRA, specializing in anthrax aerosols, possibly for for use in covert assassination.
Olson''s passport, indicates that in the summer of 1953 --only months before his death-- he had visited secret joint American-British testing and research installations near Frankfurt, Germany where he had likely witnessed terminal experiments on expendable prisoners. His misgivings were such that a British intelligence agent who became aware of them recommended that Olson be denied further access to Porton Down, the British chemical-weapons research establishment."
Olson''s passport, indicates that in the summer of 1953 --only months before his death-- he had visited secret joint American-British testing and research installations near Frankfurt, Germany where he had likely witnessed terminal experiments on expendable prisoners. His misgivings were such that a British intelligence agent who became aware of them recommended that Olson be denied further access to Porton Down, the British chemical-weapons research establishment." Rumsfeld & Cheney''s Dirty Litlle Spy Secret
I have a feeling that had they dosed the guy with LSD, he would have enjoyed himself immensely, then the next day would have quit the service, and become a musician, not gone off and committed suicide.
Perhaps PCP I could understand, but not LSD. Try it once, you will see what I mean, LSD has the unique ability to erase brainwashing, this is why it was so quickly made illegal, and so demonized.
The writer Aldous Huxley chose two injections of LSD on his deatbed, as he was dying from cancer. His wife says that there was no anxiety, fear, or expression of pain, that Huxley''s passing was like "music that slowly faded into silence".
On a personal note, My uncle a WWII Vet worked for the Army as a scientist back in the late 40''s &50''s. He wound up in the VA hospital in Bedford MA. I can recall him complaing of clock''s melting on the wall and other halucinations. Shortly after that he was found dead (murdered) in the VA hospital bathroom. It took years for my grandmother to get closure from Senator Ted Kennedy............
I guess the FBI got tired of trying to frame a patsy and just decided to murder one so he could not clear himself and make a fool of them again.
On a personal note - anyone that spends their life designing deadly mass murder pathogens like anthrax deserve to die. All people like that are psychos at some level.
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.
Ivin had time to purchase a gun and a bullet-proof vest AFTER he learned he was under surveillance.
National Laboratory workers are supposedly monitored by Federal Protective Services, yet these snoopers somehow failed to notice that Ivin''s therapist had obtained a restraining order against Ivin due to his murderous tendency.
The lapse is unexplainable, until it occurs to you that some powerful people in the Bushite administration WANTED Ivin dead. Dead men tell no tales.
And our "courageous" free press just sucks up the propaganda.
Catul. 52
And, when the 2010 census rolls around, refuse to fill out or answer any questions or forms, that is the action I plan to take- ZERO cooperation.
"Investigators also considered possible links to al Qaeda, the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks."
Oh yeah, thing is we breed our own terrorists who killed more over the years. Many more people die on freeways in car accidents every year than did in all the attacks on 9/11
This is nothing but a story of the latest attempt at
tying up "Loose Ends" in an Ill Advised peripheral
Black Op of 9/11.
This thing has Cheney Stink all over it......
Now, all he needs is to find Bin Laden or at least "traces of him verified by DNA" and he will have solved everything under his watch.
Here''s the problems: the gov had the wrong person the first time. The person is dead and the "therapists" cannot be trusted. If delusional, most delusional people admit to crimes and weave fantasies for crimes that they never committed. The timing is suspect. The neat 2+2 is suspect. The words of the therapist and why she breached her oaths for privacy are suspect.
This government and what they do and how and why is definitely suspect. Lord help us all if the real anthrax killer is still out there or he and his cohorts are about to leave office as this administration leaves.
Frank Olson was not, after all a civilian employee of the Army. He was a CIA employee working at Fort Detrick on precursor programs to MK-ULTRA, specializing in anthrax aerosols, possibly for for use in covert assassination.
Olson''s passport, indicates that in the summer of 1953 --only months before his death-- he had visited secret joint American-British testing and research installations near Frankfurt, Germany where he had likely witnessed terminal experiments on expendable prisoners. His misgivings were such that a British intelligence agent who became aware of them recommended that Olson be denied further access to Porton Down, the British chemical-weapons research establishment."
Posted by jackie0428 at 02:34 AM : Aug 03, 2008
and you failed to ask the one salient question: did the man truly kill himself or was he killed and it made to look like a suicide? Also, since when did a "therapist" become so lax in their oaths that they tell all to police, employers and everyone else?
This is a frame up and cover up and this man was a fall guy--you will find almost 80% or more of us believe that, not that the "guilty man killed himself because the feds were closing in" tripe.
Posted by brianbwb at 07:02 AM : Aug 03, 2008
All trips on LSD are not pleasant or wonderful. Also, the reason LSD was banned was also the reason the gov got in trouble for using LSD on convicts and others (mostly mental patients)in secret testings in the 1950s. It was and remains a dangerous drug and many deaths occured by the versions available at that time. The "LSD" passed around among the drug culture now it to the old chemically produced LSD as splenda is to sugar. Not even the same thing.
"Move along, move along... nothing to see here"
Posted by Nancy_Naive at 06:40 AM : Aug 03, 2008
Ignorant conspiracy nut case....move along nothing more here to see.
Posted by Mycomment at 06:52 AM : Aug 03, 2008
Nope. The best movies come from the conspiracy nut case''s angle--let''s open the entire case up and have un affiliated univerisities and Hollywood directors make a load of movies from this. They can research all the FBI and CIA twists and turns, investigate the therapists and other links and make for some really good stories--who knows? We may even find out where the trail leads and find the real anthrax killers. LOL
"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. "
Posted by vndisabled at 08:14 AM : Aug 03, 2008
Take this a little further: the therapist works with the FBI and others. Her "complaint is fabricated along with her clinical notes" Her job is to concoct a story whereby the man they intend to kill is removed" Of course she will probably disappear and/or die in a bit too. Can''t leave any loose ends here.
No man, no case, punishment already meted out and the "helpers or liars " who helped do the frame up job also eventually dispatched. Think we see all of this repeatedly in movies like "long Kiss Goodnight" The Bourne conspiracy movies" etc.
Hollywood should tell the CIA, FBI and Bush, that their version was rather sloppily orchestrated.
Posted by toldyouso12
No matter who the government arrested, the conspiracy theorists would scamble to defend the accused person. Hollywood is there to entertain, not expose the truth. My suggestions is not to even try to find the culprits in a case like this. Some people will never believe that the government doing the right thing.
Now...to find the DNA remains of Bin Laden and any other outstanding and famous 911 people--before the November elections. The GOP is on a roll.....LMAO
Posted by rhs648 at 12:45 PM : Aug 03, 2008
It''s like the boy who cried wolf--since the government is known for repeatedly lying, setting countries and others up, faking data and yes, framing people--since they illegally test drugs and poisons and chemicals on their own citizens and have been caught for decades in coverups, lies, etc--then after decades of that...no one believes the Peter er I mean boy who cried wolf er I mean the d1cks er I mean the government.
If the government wanted to be trusted--they should be honest in the first place--because decades of intrigue and shadowy activity nets this.
On the other hand, the gov does not care if we do or do not believe them, just as long as those in power do not pursue any issue and reveal their lies and put them in jail. LOL
Posted by rhs648 at 12:45 PM : Aug 03, 2008
But if we do not even "try to find the real culprits" then the real killers go free and can harm us again. Nope, Hollywood and investigative reporters often find stuff the government disregarded or do not want found and bring it to the masses.
We should explore this to the hilt as well as all those lies and the handling of the NIE reports and the cherry picking to war debacle. We should find out how deep the rabbit hole goes--as for what you said, tell your masters they either up the amount they pay you to dissuade our slant, or you will continue to be incompetent and just say we should bury our heads in the sand, look the other way and trust a government known for lying to and d1cking us. :)
Posted by rhs648 at 12:45 PM : Aug 03, 2008
You do realize your "suggestion" makes you look like a government plant, don''t you? Why would you not want people to look for the culprits in this? If it is truly the government doing the right thing then an outside investigation by loads of people will eventually underline that the government was right and bolster the publics confidence.
The only reason to state that "no one should try to find out who the culprit is" is to admit that Ivins is not the culprit and you and your superiors just want that sleeping dog to lie--with no outside interference that you can''t conveniently have commit suicide. After all, it is one thing to kill 2 or 3 of their own scientists (if that is what occurred) quite another to bust up Hollywood and the media as they dig up all the old trails and find that they may lead past the biotech facility and straight to DC.
Now...to find the DNA remains of Bin Laden and any other outstanding and famous 911 people--before the November elections. The GOP is on a roll.....LMAO
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Posted by toldyouso12 at 12:48 PM : Aug 03, 2008
+ report abuse
Cheney: "Hello"??...."Yea, let me talk to McCain"....
"Yea, John,...no, forget the Polling, we''re working on this thing night and day and believe me, when we''re done, you''ll slide into the Oval Office like a Greased Pig"......"Yea, don''t worry"....."Me and Rove will handle it"......"Okay, see you in November, Mr. President"......
Where were these clowns when this guy had access to weaponized anthrax and was making death threats?
Could FPS possibly have been that negligent and oblivious?
Or was Ivins being groomed as the fall guy to cover up a plan by *** Cheney''s office to build the case for the Iraq war on falsified evidence and on acts by agents provocateur?
This certainly would not be the first time that the federal government planted agents who would carry out acts of violence in order to build a political case for the administration. It happened all the time during the Nixon years.
And now the Bush administration is every bit as corrupt as the Nixon administration, and if anything, more ruthless in their grab for power.
Why won''t the government explain how this "new technique" just happened to come along so late, when full genome sequencing has been available for years.
Posted by iphyt4u at 01:59 PM : Aug 03, 2008
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A psychologist with ethics? That''s kinda of an oxymoron considering you''re talking about a pseudoscience or at best an "art".
Frank Olson was not, after all a civilian employee of the Army. He was a CIA employee working at Fort Detrick on precursor programs to MK-ULTRA, specializing in anthrax aerosols, possibly for for use in covert assassination.
Olson''s passport, indicates that in the summer of 1953 --only months before his death-- he had visited secret joint American-British testing and research installations near Frankfurt, Germany where he had likely witnessed terminal experiments on expendable prisoners. His misgivings were such that a British intelligence agent who became aware of them recommended that Olson be denied further access to Porton Down, the British chemical-weapons research establishment."
"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. "
Justice has been served.
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