2001 anthrax attacks chief suspect kills himself

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 2001. Federal officials confirmed to NBC News early Friday that Bruce Ivins, 62, was a suspect in the anthrax mailings and that the Justice Department was preparing to file charges against him. Ivins, who worked for the past eighteen years at the government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland, had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax mailings, which killed five people in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 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.

Henry 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 7 July 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, seventeen 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 9/11 terrorist attacks. The victims included postal workers and others who came into contact with the anthrax. 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.