Posted on behalf of Amber Dance
The US Department of Justice today released a set of documents describing how its investigators linked Bruce Ivins, who died last week (Los Angeles Times), to the 2001 anthrax mailings.
In an affadavit for a search warrant, a US postal inspector lays out the circumstantial evidence that led investigators to suspect Ivins, an anthrax expert and longtime employee at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Maryland.
New DNA sequencing technology was key in advancing the investigation (Nature). The anthrax used in the attacks was of the Ames strain, and further analyses identified four mutations that match a subtype called RMR-1029.
The anthrax envelopes had defects matching envelopes sold in Maryland and Virginia. Of the 16 labs that had RMR-1029, only USAMRIID was in that area.
Means?
Ivins was the custodian of USAMRIID’s RMR-1029 culture, and part of his job was to prepare spores to infect animals with inhalation anthrax. Investigators also found that Ivins was alone in the “hot suite,” where the culture was kept, until midnight on several nights surrounding the dates of the attacks.
The documents also allege that Ivins knowingly provided false samples for analysis. Early in the investigation, when he was asked for RMR-1029 cultures, he initially sent samples that were unusable and later substituted a different culture, the affadavit says. Ivins had denied these mistakes, according to the documents. The files also say he pushed investigators to focus on another USAMRIID researcher.
Motive?
The documents also discuss Ivins’ apparent psychological instability (Washington Post). From a series of Ivins’ e-mails, they list quotes that mention depression and paranoia. Some of Ivins’ colleagues have said he was emotionally devastated by being a target of the government’s investigation, in which agents searched his home and office, seized computers and other materials, and reportedly harassed his family (AP).
As motive, the documents say Ivins was under intense pressure to support an anthrax vaccine made by the company Bioport, currently the only such vaccine in use in the US. Bioport was struggling with contamination at its factory, and some vaccine batches weren’t sterile (New York Times). The vaccine had been linked to Gulf War Syndrome by at least one scientific study, and the vaccine’s risks discussed in Congress. Ivins apparently believed Osama bin Laden’s group had anthrax and sarin gas, and the documents imply that the 2001 attacks were meant to create a pressing need for the vaccine and for further anthrax research. The files also say Ivins was pro-life, and may have targeted Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy because they were Catholics who didn’t take a strong stand against abortion.
Opportunity?
To link Ivins to the Princeton mailbox that all the letters passed through, the documents point to his longstanding obsession with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, which has an office near the mailbox.
Many have criticized the FBI’s handling of the case. Meryl Nass says that all the scientific analysis can only link the attacks to a flask in a lab, not to one of the approximately 10 people who had access. Gabriel Schoenfeld, in the Los Angeles Times, says that if Ivins is the culprit, he was right under investigator’s noses the whole time.
Image: USAMRIID