A study released today indicates that perhaps Dr. Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide during the "Amerithrax" investigation, was not the anthrax killer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/15/AR2011021502251.html?wpisrc=nl_buzz
I wanted to re-run my blog from a year ago with some of my observations of this intriguing case. I am interested in your thoughts and comments!
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Perhaps it will go down as one of the most complex, expensive and frustrating investigations in history - the anthrax laced letters that killed 5 innocent people and infected 17 others.
In 2008, Dr. Bruce Ivins was named the primary suspect in the attacks. Shortly thereafter, he took an overdose of Tylenol PM as the FBI was preparing to move in and formally charge him. He left no suicide note, and there was really no "smoking gun" in the case. To be fair, there is a convincing chain of evidence regarding the spores used, however one would have to be a bio expert themselves to actually understand the surrounding issues. Closing this case is a great relief to many who have dedicated the last 9 years to fruitless tasks such as handwriting analysis. Who would fold the letters in question a certain way? What kind of scotch tape was used and was it from the same roll? And where is the photocopier the perpetrator used to copy the letters before mailing? Where were the originals? The list of questions gets longer as you dig and when answers don't come, it can be very frustrating to investigators. So kudos to the thousands of LE professionals who worked this case, to fruition. Here is a link to the FBI's final report and evidence against Ivins:
http://www.justice.gov/amerithrax/
But this post is about Steven Hatfill, a biowarfare expert, and the first "person of interest" in this case. The facts about Hatfill are still very hard to pin down, and despite the government's $4.6M settlement with Hatfill, many mysteries about this man remain.
Hatfill is one of a very small handful of scientists in the U.S. with the training and access to pull off the attacks. He worked for the government on many sensitive projects. He was working for SAIC at the time of the attacks.
A man of bravado, Hatfill's resume was embellished with training he never received, including a PhD that he "assumed" he received after leaving the university early.
He once bragged about being a special forces veteran (he actually attended training, but washed out of the school and the active Army after a few weeks). He often conjured up a limp from an old "war injury". As a joke, he showed colleagues a picture of himself in protective gear cooking up germ in a saucepan.
At conferences he openly spoke (and was chided by the community) about how easy it would be to get into places like the Pentagon and pull off a bio attack. He wrote a fiction piece about a highly trained U.S. scientist who defeats White House security to employ a bio agent.
He wrote a paper in 1999 detailing how an anthrax attack was possible through the mail system. He detailed how many grams of anthrax would have to be in the envelope. Many experts who have read the study say it is the blueprint for the 2001 attacks.
In August, 2001, Hatfill failed a polygraph for a Top Secret clearance and position with the CIA. No details have been released regarding the poly failure, but DoD also suspended his active clearance. During the period of the attacks, his position at SAIC was in jeopardy. (in fact, SAIC did fire him in the spring of 2002)
He was on Cipro at the time of the attacks. Sinus infection, he claims.
His resume stated that he went to school in a suburb of Rhodesia called "Greendale". The "Greendale School" was used in the return address on two of the anthrax letters.
Weeks after the actual letters had been mailed, a second letter showed up in Senator Daschle's office filled with a white powdery substance -- this one was benign, it was not anthrax. The letter was mailed from London. Hatfill was in England at the time of the mailing, at a conference 70 miles from the originating post office.
An anthrax laced package was mailed from Malaysia. Hatfill had previously been involved with a Malaysian woman.
Specially trained dogs "alerted" in Hatfill's apartment, suggesting the presence of anthrax.
Remember the pond in Maryland that was completely drained, revealing a special box that may have been used to fill the enveloped without contaminating the perpetrator, wrapped vials, gloves and anthrax spores? Not linked to Hatfill...but also not linked to Ivins, still a mystery.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49717-2003Sep9
How many people in the United States have the kind of knowledge to pull off an attack such as that in 2001? Maybe 50, per what has been reported in the press. Investigations don't just focus on the person of interest, they eliminate others. So the list of who could have pulled off this attack was very, very short. And a psychological profile of the killer might point in a different direction than the final ruling.
But the question I often pose to my students: in the course of the early investigation in 2002/2003, what if Hatfill had taken an overdose of Tylenol PM? What if he left no suicide note? Would the trail ever had led to Ivins or would the case be closed?
This is a good examination of the investigative process. In our zeal to gather evidence that leads to conviction, in the name of the innocent victims and their families, it is understandably easy to get hyperfocused on the person of interest. By removing him/her from the equation, and doing some good old fashioned "what if-ing", it might be possible to push an investigation in a different, and perhaps correct direction.
