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[AP] Anthrax scientist commits suicide as FBI closes in

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by No Worries, Aug 1, 2008.

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  1. No Worries

    No Worries Member

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    No need to go D&D with is ...

    Anthrax scientist commits suicide as FBI closes in

    By LARA JAKES JORDAN and DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press Writers 2 hours, 38 minutes ago

    WASHINGTON - A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report.

    The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.

    Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. The Times, quoting an unidentified colleague, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.

    Tom Ivins, a brother of the scientist, told The Associated Press that another of his brothers, Charles, told him Bruce had committed suicide.

    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.

    A woman who answered the phone at Bruce Ivins' home in Frederick declined to comment.

    Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr and FBI Assistant Director John Miller declined to comment on the report.

    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.

    Heine declined to comment on Ivins' death.

    Norman Covert, a retired Fort Detrick spokesman who served with Ivins on an animal-care and protocol committee, said Ivins was "a very intent guy" at their meetings.

    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.

    Just last month, the government exonerated another scientist at the Fort Detrick lab, Steven Hatfill, who had been identified by the FBI as a "person of interest" in the anthrax attacks. 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.

    The Times said federal investigators moved away from Hatfill and concluded Ivins was the culprit after FBI Director Robert Mueller changed leadership of the investigation in 2006. The new investigators instructed agents to re-examine leads and reconsider potential suspects. In the meantime, investigators made progress in analyzing anthrax powder recovered from letters addressed to two U.S. senators, according to the report.

    Besides the five deaths, 17 people were sickened by anthrax that was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida just weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The victims included postal workers and others who came into contact with the anthrax.

    In the six months following the anthrax mailings, Ivins conducted unauthorized testing for anthrax spores outside containment areas at USAMRIID — the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick — and found some, according to an internal report by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, which oversees the lab.

    In December 2001, after conducting tests triggered by a technician's fears that she had been exposed, Ivins found evidence of anthrax and decontaminated the woman's desk, computer, keypad and monitor, but didn't notify his superiors, according to the report.

    The report says Ivins performed more unauthorized sampling on April 15, 2002, and found anthrax spores in his office, in a passbox used for moving materials in and out of labs, and in a room where male workers changed from civilian clothing into laboratory garb.

    Ivins told Army investigators he conducted unauthorized tests because he was worried that the powdered anthrax in letters that had been sent to USAMRIID for analysis might not have been adequately contained.

    In January 2002, the FBI doubled the reward for helping solve the case to $2.5 million, and by June officials said the agency was scrutinizing 20 to 30 scientists who might have had the knowledge and opportunity to send the anthrax letters.

    After the government's settlement with Hatfill was announced in late June, Ivins started showing signs of strain, the Times said. It quoted a longtime colleague as saying Ivins was being treated for depression and indicated to a therapist that he was considering suicide. Family members and local police escorted Ivins away from the Army lab, and his access to sensitive areas was curtailed, the colleague told the newspaper. He said Ivins was facing a forced retirement in September.

    The colleague declined to be identified out of concern that he would be harassed by the FBI, the report said.

    Ivins was one of the nation's leading biodefense researchers.

    In 2003, Ivins and two of his colleagues at the USAMRIID received the highest honor given to Defense Department civilian employees for helping solve technical problems in the manufacture of anthrax vaccine.

    In 1997, U.S. military personnel began receiving the vaccine to protect against a possible biological attack. Within months, a number of vaccine lots failed a potency test required by federal regulators, causing a shortage of vaccine and eventually halting the immunization program. The USAMRIID team's work led to the reapproval of the vaccine for human use.

    The Times said Ivins was the son of a Princeton-educated pharmacist who was born and raised in Lebanon, Ohio. He received undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in microbiology, from the University of Cincinnati.

    He and his wife, Diane, owned a home just outside the main gate to Fort Detrick.
     
    #1 No Worries, Aug 1, 2008
  2. giddyup

    giddyup Member

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    What was his motivation for doing this?
     
    #2 giddyup, Aug 1, 2008
  3. rrj_gamz

    rrj_gamz Member

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    Wow...Some people hold true to their convictions...although, we dont' know what his purpose was...Conspiracy? Case closed?
     
    #3 rrj_gamz, Aug 1, 2008
  4. rhadamanthus

    rhadamanthus Member

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    I don't buy it that he was responsible.
     
    #4 rhadamanthus, Aug 1, 2008
  5. junglerules

    junglerules Member

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    Why do you say this? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just curious. Do you feel like the suicide was unconnected to the impending charges, or that he did it out of fear, even if he was innocent? Obviously, it seems that we'll never know the truth completely if this Ivins guy was behind it.
     
    #5 junglerules, Aug 1, 2008
  6. rhadamanthus

    rhadamanthus Member

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    1) Nothing in the article gives any indication as to why he was a suspect.

    2) The FBI has had a series of spectacular failures with regard to these types of cases in the recent past.

    3) I don't think it unreasonable that a 62 year old prominent scientist would be absolutely terrified of having his name permanently sullied, his career wrecked, and his life turned upside down via a FBI accusation of this caliber.

    IMHO.
     
    #6 rhadamanthus, Aug 1, 2008
  7. Surfguy

    Surfguy Member

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    A reasonable person would stand up to the charges against them and fight tooth and nail...not kill themself when confronted with the charges.

    That said...it certainly hasn't been proven. And, it may never be proven since the guy took his life...which may have been a very valid reason for taking his own life in the first place. If he was guilty, then I hope they can prove it...so there can be some closure other than "the guy killed himself...investigation is over". If I'm a family member of this guy and truly believe he is innocent, then my goal would be to get him exonerated. One cannot discount that he did several questionable things as noted in the story that cast suspicion on him.

    The case against him may never be proven...but I cannot clear him because it is suspicious as hell that he killed himself at the last possible moment before charges were brought. Also, we don't know everything the FBI knows at this point because the investigation is ongoing.
     
    #7 Surfguy, Aug 1, 2008
  8. Oski2005

    Oski2005 Member

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    How did he find out he was being investigated?
     
    #8 Oski2005, Aug 1, 2008
  9. orbb

    orbb Member

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    Maybe they questioned him. I dont see how he could have known he was about to be arrested... fishy.
     
    #9 orbb, Aug 1, 2008
  10. Bullard4Life

    Bullard4Life Member

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    Um, he conducted numerous unauthorized tests for Anthrax:
    While that's not motive, that's highly damning evidence. Why would he conduct UNAUTHORIZED searches? And why especially would he not alert his superiors when he found there were traces of Anthrax on an employee's desk?

    The LA Times article mentioned has even more damaging statements:
    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-anthrax1-2008aug01,0,4086498,full.story

    And the LA Times article says he "had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins." So, the FBI told him. Or, he put two and two together when all the people around him had to start signing sworn statements of secrecy and he didn't...
     
    #10 Bullard4Life, Aug 1, 2008
  11. rhadamanthus

    rhadamanthus Member

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    :confused:

    No idea.

    So.... because he can't recall reswabbing, he must have sent the letters? :confused:

    I don't see any real evidence here. Just circumstance. Some of it suspicious, no doubt, but still circumstance. And no motive. None.

    IMHO.
     
    #11 rhadamanthus, Aug 1, 2008
  12. Ottomaton

    Ottomaton Member
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    The thing is, the article indicates that he was depressed and discussing suicide before he was really a suspect, and add to that the fact that he was locked out of his labs because of the depression and beind forced into retirement and that alone could be enough to explain his suicide, independent of the other concerns.

    [rQUOTEr]
    It quoted a longtime colleague as saying Ivins was being treated for depression and indicated to a therapist that he was considering suicide. Family members and local police escorted Ivins away from the Army lab, and his access to sensitive areas was curtailed, the colleague told the newspaper. He said Ivins was facing a forced retirement in September.

    [/rQUOTEr]
     
    #12 Ottomaton, Aug 1, 2008
  13. BigSherv

    BigSherv Member

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    White people around the US will just ignore this and continue to believe Arabs are doing all of this stuff.
     
    #13 BigSherv, Aug 1, 2008
  14. RocketMan Tex

    RocketMan Tex Member

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    No freaking doubt. :(
     
    #14 RocketMan Tex, Aug 1, 2008
  15. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Member

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    Please stop calling me a racist.
     
    #15 JuanValdez, Aug 1, 2008
  16. giddyup

    giddyup Member

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    So it's only white people? Isn't that a racist view in and of itself?
     
    #16 giddyup, Aug 1, 2008
  17. Rockets2K

    Rockets2K Clutch Crew

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    seconded


    he may be guilty, he may not.

    rhad has it nailed, while the activites listed may seem suspicious, I would hope we need more proof than that to convict someone of a crime this serious.

    has absolutely ZERO to do with race, I have no idea what race the scientist is, nor do I believe it was sent by some "brown people".

    The strains of anthrax can be traced, adn in this case it appears the FBI knows where it came from, one of our own labs, but that still doesnt tell us just who with access to this stuff did what.

    Honestly, I havent given the anthrax letters a thought at all in a couple of years.
     
    #17 Rockets2K, Aug 1, 2008
  18. Bullard4Life

    Bullard4Life Member

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    I agree with you that there's not definitive proof that he's guilty. I was disagreeing with your claim that "Nothing in the article gives any indication as to why he was a suspect." Circumstantial evidence is valid in a court of law.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence

    If I see you enter a house with a knife, hear a blood-curdling scream, then see you leave the house with the knife covered in blood, that's circumstantial evidence. Most criminal prosecutions do not have testimony from witnesses who saw the actual event, they rely on circumstantial evidence.

    Given the fact the attacks were all different preparations from the Ames Strain, which was first researched at Fort Detrick link , and this guy is conducting numerous searches that are consistent with knowing Anthrax has left the base, and that he has kept the positive results of those searches secret, that is strong evidence. Motive is not a prerequisite for conviction. In fact:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_(law)

    I think the problem is that you're relying on a decision calculus that runs counter to the way American criminal law is structured and most trials are conducted. Was the guy guilty? Who knows? But in all likelihood, he was going to go down at trial.
     
    #18 Bullard4Life, Aug 1, 2008
  19. rhadamanthus

    rhadamanthus Member

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    I understand your point, and agree. I think the motive behind my "no indication" commentary was that the article was vague at best in regards to what specifically the FBI deemed as "suspicious". At face value, none of it seemed particularly incriminating to me.
     
    #19 rhadamanthus, Aug 1, 2008
  20. twhy77

    twhy77 Member

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    #20 twhy77, Aug 1, 2008
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