The Final Days and Investigative Summary

For early access and ad free episodes, check out our Patreon, Apple Premium, and Spotify subscription memberships Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents If you feel at any time you need support Please contact your local crisis center For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings Please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website Retirement didn't suit sixty three year old photojournalist Robert Stevens He lasted just six months before boredom drove him back to his beloved former job as a photo editor at the Sun Tabloid newewspaper In october two thousand one, Robert was settling back into the routine at the paper's editorial headquarters in Boeratone, Florida When he was struck down by a persistent illness Suffering from fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, and intense muscle aches, Robert assumed he had come down with a particularly severe strain of the flu. as his condition rapidly worsened He was taken to hospital By then, he had become incoherent and delirious, and a seizure soon left him in a coma Doctors carried out urgent tests, including an examination of Robert's spinal fluid The normally clear liquid had turned cloudy with white blood cells, a sign that his body was fighting a serious infection In microscope, the cores appeared as clusters of rod shaped bacteria Almost a worm like in form Their presence left medical staff stunned Anthrax is an infectious disease caused by bacteria typically found in the blood of grazing animals When infected animals die and decompose, the bacteria are released as toxic spores that are invisible to the naked eye and can contaminate soil, plants and water Outside a host, these spores are metabolically inactive, essentially dormant, which makes them extraordinarily resilient They can withstand extreme environmental conditions and remain viable for decades Once inside a warm, nutrient rich environment such as the human body They activate into germinating bacteria and begin to multiply Although anthrax was not something the average person encountered in everyday life Robert Stehvens had clearly been exposed to it somewhere As an avid outdoorsman Possibilities, same ten plus He had recently fished by a lake. weeds in his vegetable garden, cycled through a park with a friend, takaking his granddaughter to the beach, and eaten steak at a restaurant The weekend before he was hospitalized, Robert traveled to North Carolina with his wife and daughter During a hike through Chimney Rock State Park, he took a detour that led him to a waterfall Leaning over the clear, cool water, he cupped his hands and drank two mouthfuls As doctors deliberated the source of Robert's infection, news of the highly unusual case reached the press Experts were quick to reassure the public that the situation was under control. The threat was considered low because anthrax is not contagious, and Robert's illness appeared to be an isolated incident One of Robert's doctors said There is no reason to believe at this juncture that this is anything other than a manifestation of a rare and obviously very serious illness that has found its way into the life of one individual. One epidemiologist wasn't so sure. His job was to analyze patterns, trends, and data related to disease, using them to assess risk and anticipate what might come next Naturally occurring anthrax had become exceedingly rare in developed countries after the widespread introduction of vaccines for both animals and humans half a century earlier Historically, the highest risk regions in the United States were rural areas with large livestock populations and extensive grazing land. densely populated coastal cities Florida was not considered an endemic region, and nearly three decades had passed since the state's last known case In recent years, anthrax infections were typically linked to industrial settings involving contaminated imported animal products such as wool, hides, hair or meat. mountain streams, vegetable gardens or steak dinners. Most concerning of all, an x ray revealed that Robert Stevens had swollen lymph nodes between his lungs and spine a hallmarked sign of inhalation anthrax. Inside the lungs are macrophages, specialized white blood cells that act as the body's first responders by patrolling the airways and destroying foreign particles and bacteria. When intherac spores are inhaled, macrophages engulf them as they would any other pathogen Unlike most microbes, anththerraxpores can survive inside these cells Part of their normal immune function, the macrophages travel to nearby lymph nodes, inadvertently carrying the spores with them There, the spores germinate into active bacteria that enter the bloodstream and spread throughout the body. Their growth is rapid It begins as a small number of bacteria can multiply into trillions within days Early symptoms often resemble a mild respiratory illness, one of the disease's greatest clinical challenges, as it can easily go undetected Meanwhile, the bacteria release toxins that damage tissue and to disrupt vital bodily functions, attacking the body on multiple fronts and overwhelming its natural defensces If the exposure dose is low and antibiotics are administered promptly Patients can recover dose is high and treatment is delayed The disease can progress with terrifying speed By the late stages, Anthrax bacteria can account for roughly thirty percent of the patient's blood weight Nausea becomes violent, bloody vomiting Swollen joints make even the slightest movement excruciating The face becomes so inflamed, it is almost unrecognizable bloody fluid squeezed the space between the brain and skull, causing immense pain and delirium The lungs, kidneys, and eventually heart begin to fail Even with medical intervention, it is almost impossible to treat inhalation anthrax once it reaches this stage Such was the case for Robert Stevens He was diagnosed with inhalian anthrax on Thursday, october fourth, two thousand one. He died the next day A sample of the anthrax that killed Robert Stavvens was sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing Using a recently developed genetic technique, scientists extracted DNA from the sample and worked overnight to compare it against a database of more than one thousand anthrax specimens collected from around the world The results both surprised and unsettled them The sample was genetically indistinguishable from a specific strain of anthrax known as AMes This finding was striking on multiple fronts First AMes was not an obscure foreign strain discovered in nature. but a well known laboratory strain Considered the gold standard for anthrax because of its extreme virulence, it was among the most potent strains ever studied. Most significant was the Strain's origin Ames had first been isolated from a dead cow in Texas in nineteen eighty one before being sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, where it received its name the strain had only ever been identified in that single infected cow had never again been found in nature. This meant that the Ames anthrax inhaled by Robert Stevens almost certainly originated from a laboratory By the early two thousands, the AMS strain was restricted to a small number of laboratories operating under strict security and regulatory controls Anthrax of this quality was primarily used in bioeense research, including vaccine development, where highly concentrated spores were needed to rigorously test effectiveness. Records showed that fewer than twenty laboratories possessed live cultures of Aimes, all but three of them located in the US However, the samples were stored either as liquid slurry or on vegetative cell slants not in a dry, inhalable form meant that someone couldn't simply have stolen a ready made quantity of dry aes off the shelf because no such stock was known to exist The use of the AM strain did not necessarily prove that the anthrax which killed Robert Stevens had originated in the US Samples of the strain had been shared with laboratories in Canada, the United Kingdom and France Broadly, as investigative journalist Bob Cohen observed in his book Dead Silence, biological materials were historically exchanged between research laboratories with minimal documentation, weak oversight, and limited regulation According to Cohen, this lack of control extended even to dangerous pathogens. During the nineteen eighties, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reportedly shipped hazardous viruses internationally by exppress mail to a range of countries, including geopolitical adversaries such as Iraq, South Africa, Cuba, the Soviet Union and China Investigations in the nineteen nineties were reportedly unable to determine whether such transfers reflected legitimate scientific collaboration or something more concerning Robert Stevens's home was cordoned off and thoroughly inspected, with his belongings removed in biohazard bags for testing. But no trace of anthrax was found. The search are then extended to his office at the Sun Although there was no obvious reason for Anthrax to be there, a swab taken from Robert's computer keyboard tested positive Investigators knew that a highly lethal laboratory strain of anthrax couldn't have ended up on Robert's work desk by mere accident as more sinister explanations were considered His colleagues were questioned. They were shocked by the circumstances of his death describing Robert as kind, generous, and funny It was clear that he was genuinely well liked and that no one at the suun appeared to have any reason to harm him Inspectors in hazmat suits began a thorough examination of the building while staff were asked to lay behind their personal belongings and undergo nasal swab tests The investigation took a dramatic turn when two of Robert's colleagues also tested positive phyanthrax. Through them, a possible source of the contamination was identified. On Wednesday, september nineteenth, two thousand one. Two weeks before Robert Stehvens was hospitalized, a bulky mananila envelope arrived at the sun It had been postmarked the day prior and was addressed to the paper's managing editor, Joe West, with the instruction Please forward to Jennifer Lopez Care of the son When Joe picked the envelope up He felt something cylindrical inside it and instinctively decided not to open it tossing it straight into the bin age piqued the interest of Joe's news assistant, Bobby Beendnder, whose daughter was a fan of American pop star Jennifer Lopez Bobby retrieved the envelope insisting I want to open it The exchange caught the attention of several nearby staff members including Robert Stavens Bobby opened the envelope to find a folded sheet of paper as he carefully unfolded it A pile of what looked like talalum powder was revealed at the center Partially concealing a small gold object A handwritten message expressed the author's admiration for Jennifer Lopez and a desire to marry her. The envelope also contained a cigar tube with a cheap cigar inside, an empty can of chewing tobacco, a cigarette rolling device, and a small box of laundry detergent Why the sender wanted the newspaper to forward these random items to Jennifer Lopez became the subject of amused discussion around the office. Given the suun's tendency to publish sensational stories, from claims that Elvis Presley was still alive to reports of celebrities impregnated by aliens, the tabloid was no stranger to receiving bizarre mails The letter to Jennifer Lopez particularly intrigued Robert Stevens Let me see that, he said, taking the paper back to his desk for a closer look. He placed it on top of his computer keyboard, studying the powder and the small gold object buried within it. J It looks like a Jewish star, he remarked. A phhoto assistant editor named Ros Sus wandered over to Robert's desk and reached into the powder. plucking out the object with her fingers It was indeed a star of David, a recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism Made of plastic, it featured a small loop that allowed it to be worn on a necklace or bracelet The star of David, along with the letter and the other contents of the Manila envelope, were discarded long before Robert Stehvens was diagnosed with inhalatian anthrax As a result, investigators had nothing left to examine after his death No one could remember the letter's exact wording, only its general tone Because the package had seemed like a harmless curiosity at the time, staff had paid little attention to details such as the author's handwriting or whether a return address had been included In addition to the anthrax spores found on Robert's keyboard, more were discovered in the building's mail slot where the package had been deposited spores were also detected at the local post office, specifically in the area where mail bound for the sun was sorted. This confirmed that the anthrax had arrived through the mail As a precaution, everyone who might have been exposed from newspaper staff to postal workers was immediately given antibiotics Of the many people who handled the Jennifer Lopez letadder, only two others were found to have contracted anthrax seventy three year old Ernie Blenco, who received the package in the son's mail room, passed it to thirty six year old Stephanie Daley at the administrative desk Both tested positive for the disease While Ernie became seriously ill afterwards, Stephanie showed no symptoms at all This was not unusual Inhalation anthrax can incubate for up to sixty days after exposure, and a healthy person would typically need to inhale between eight thousand and ten thousand spores for the infection to become fatal Brief contact with the package likely spared Ernie and Stephanie from receiving a more dangerous dose Investigators were more puzzled by the cases of Joe West, Bobby Bendnder, and Rose Sas, all of whom had handled the envelope without falling ill Ros had even touched the suspicious powder while retrieving the star of David. Further complicating matters were inconsistencies in witness accounts Most staff remembered the suspicious poda arriving with the Jennifer Lopez letadder Bobby Bnder insisted that the powder, cigar tube, cigarette rolling device, chewing tobacco, detergent, and star of David had come in an entirely separate package He recalled the powder as pink in color and said it smelled like detergent leaking from the box This led investigators to question whether the Lopez letter and its contents were truly the source of the outbreak. They considered the possibility that another genuinely contaminated letter had arrived at the sun around the same time that memories of it had later become overshadowed or muddled by the bizarre Lopez package Anthrax mailings weren't entirely new in the US. In nineteen ninety eight, powder filled letters bearing the message anthrax have a death were mailed to abortion clinics across the country over the course of a week That same year, a Florida magazine received a white powder accompanied by the warning being exposed to anthrax poison In both cases, the substances proved harmless These incidents were just two among hundreds of Anthrax hoaxes reported before two thousand one Part of his role as photo editor, Robert Stehvens routinely received photographs through the mail, which he opened himself If he had received any unusual or threatening letters, he never mentioned them to anyone A search of his office uncovered nothing suspicious, although anything significant might already have been misplaced or discarded Still, investigators couldn't rule out the possibility that the Lopez letter was connected to the outbreak and that those who handled it without falling ill had simply been lucky Robert reportedly began showing symptoms the day after examining the package He then continued working through his worsening illness for nearly two weeks before seeking medical attention. ultimately waiting too long for treatment to save him Since nineteen ninety, there had been eighteen documented cases of inhalation anthrax in the United States, and only two of those infected individuals had survived. All were accidental infections linked to the animal industry Robert Stehvens's death was entirely different marked the first known homicide in the U S carried out using anthrax sent through the mail Anthrax is an effective biological weapon because it can be produced relatively cheaply and with relative aase in a laboratory While only a small quantity is needed to infect large numbers of people, Its microscopic spores can be dispersed through powders, sprays, food, air or water ofen without detection because they are odorless and tasteless The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies anthrax as a tier one biological agent. meananing it poses a high risk of deliberate misuse with the potential to cause mass casualties and severe disruption to infrastructure, the economy and public morale The resulting infection can be so horrific that the United Nations has described the intentional use of anthrax as repugnant to the conscience of mankind As news of the anthrax outbreak spread through medical circles, doctors across the U S became increasingly cautious and vigilant Patients presenting with suspicious symptoms were tested more readily And soon, another positive case emerged Investigators were surprised to learn it was not connected to the SN offices or even to Florida The case surfaced more than one thousand miles north in the heart of New York City. On Tuesday september twenty fifth, two thousand one, thirty eight year old Erin O'Connor noticed a sore on her chest. byy early October, it had developed into an oval shaped ulcer roughly an inch long, capped by a coal black crust. The lymph nodes in her neck were also swollen and she felt weak feverish and fatigue When Erin visited her doctor, he was alarmed by her symptoms, given the deadly anthrax outbreak unfolding in Florida Although her illness differed from the fatal inhalation case, the possibility of anthrax quickly crossed his mind Erin's painful spreading lesion suggested the cutaneous form of the disease, in which the bacteria enter the body through a cut or break in the skin. A sample taken from the wound on her chest later confirmed the diagnosis. While still serious, cutaneous anthrax is both more common and far less lethal than inhalation anthrax The immune response usually confines the infection to one area, and the incubation period is typically less than a week begins as a small, itchy, pimple like bump gradually develops into an ulcer surrounded by swelling and marked by a distinctive black scab Despite its alarming appearance, the lesion is usually painless, slow to progress, and rarely fatal because it is detected early Standard antibiotics and clean gauze are generally enough for recovery, with the black scab eventually falling away within a week or two If left untreated, the infection can spread into the bloodstream and become fatal, though this is extremely rare As investigators searched for the source of Erin O'Connor's infection, she described a recent incident at her workplace Erin worked at the Manhattan headquarters of the television Network NBC, home to numerous late night talk shows, sitcoms, dramas, game shows, and news programs On Tuesday, september eighteenth, an envelope had arrived at the studio's address to Tom Brokor, host of the flagship Evening News prorogram, NBC Nightly News Inside was a folded sheet of plain white paper When it was removed, a heavy granular substance resembling a mixture of brown sugar and sand fell out The paper contained a short hand written message written entirely in capital letters, with each sentence placed on a separate line top The author had written a date from the previous week september eleventh, two thousand one. The letter read This is next Penicillin now to America. to Israel Ella is great twenty three year old NBC intern Casey Chamberlain opened the letter as part of her desk assistant duties What is this? she asked those around her, who were equally puzzled The author hadn't provided their name or a return address The handwriting was messy and childlike, and the word penicillin, the antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, had been misspelled Why did the note insist it be taken immediately And what connection did Tom Brokor have to any of it As a veteran newscaster and household name across the US, Tom Brokor routinely received mail from the public, ranging from love letters and gifts to hate mail, and even packages containing fecal matter This threatening message appeared to be just another letter from a disgruntled viewer, perhaps a prank, or the ramblings of an unwell individual In days that followed, Casey Chamberlain woke in intense pain and discomfort. The glands in her neck became so swollen that her chin was nearly obscured She developed a high fever, a rash, and an unusual tingling sensation that ran through her veins Casey suspected she was having an allergic reaction to acne medication she had recently begun taking. In reality, she'd contracted cutaneous anthrax Fortunately, she sought medical attention as her symptoms worsened Although her doctor didn't initially suspect anthrax, he prudently prescribed antibiotics Of the more than four hundred employees tested at MBC studios, Casey Chamberlain and Erin O'Connor were the only staff who tested positive Both recovered. Investigators soon learned about the letter sent to Tom Brokor in mid September, the one Casey had opened and Erin had later handled. Although Casey had immediately discarded the strange powder inside, the envelope and letter itself had remained in Erin's office Both items were promptly tested and confirmed to contain anthrax The risk of contamination was significant Anthrax spores were also detected in the nasal passages of a police officer and a laboratory technician who handled the letter whileile another technician was found to have spores on their face There was little doubt that the NBC outbreak had been intentional, especially given the short cryptic message accompanying the deadly powder to America, death to Israel Alla is great The wording appeared closely tied to the date written at the top of the letter september eleventh, two thousand one On that day, multiple coordinated jihadist terrorist attacks were carried out against the United States commonly known as the September eleventh attacks, or nine eleven Four commercial airliners were hijacked and deliberately flown into locations of major symbolic and strategic importance planes struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing both skyscrapers to collapse A third aircraft crashed into the Pentagon headquarters of the U. S. Department of Defense in Virginia The fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to regain control from the hijackers Nearly three thousand people were killed, making nine hundred eleven the deadliest terrorist attack in US history The anthrax led letter had been mailed to NBC just one week later But investigators soon discovered it was not an isolated incident thirirty year old Joanna Hden worked as the editorial page assistant for the New York Post, and was responsible for opening the paper's mail On Friday september twenty one, she noticed an itchy red bump on the middle finger of her right hand Over the following days, it became swollen and eventually burst, releasing fluid Joanna covered it with a band aid, assuming it was one of the skin conditions she was prone to When she later removed it the bandage, the wound had turned to jet black. The santa was dry and the discoloration was spreading down her finger It was not especially painful, and with so much else happening in New York at the time, Joanna dismissed it and carried on with her life But the wound continued to worsen, eventually prompting her to seek medical attention. Doctors initially suspected a spider bite and prescribed antibiotics Joanna assumed the problem had been resolved until she learned about the recent anthrax infections After reading about the symptoms, she realized she might have also been exposed Subsequent tests confirmed she had contracted cutaneous anthrax The third outbreak was traced to a letter sent to the New York Post on the same day that NBC received its anthrax Liden envelope Unlike the NBC letter, which had been addressed to a specific recipient, the post envelope was addressed simply to Editor Unsure which colleague it was intended for, Joanna had left it unopened on her desk rather than passing it on When authorities examined the envelope weeks later in October, a small quantity of brown granular powder spilled out and tested positive for anthrax was accompanied by the same threatening message sent to NBC Nightly News, with both letters being photocopies of an original Because Joanna hadn't opened the envelope, she hadn't inhaled the toxic powder inside and had only come into contact with trace amounts on its exterior. The envelopes from both letters bore postmarks showing they had been mailed from Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. Fty eight post offices and six hundred and twenty five public collection boxes fed into the Trenton Postal processing facility, and each was swabbed for anthrax spores A blue streetide mailbox positioned across from the main entrance to Princeton University was found to be heavily contaminated Authorities concluded that this was the box from which the anthrax letters had been mailed The discovery appeared to strengthen possible links to the seeptember eleventh attacks Several of the hijackers had spent time in New Jersey before boarding the flight that later crashed in Pennsylvania Others had lived in Florida, not far from Robert Stehvens' office in Boca Raton There were also unconfirmed reports that some of the hijackers subscribed to tabloids owned by American Media Incorpated, which included the Sun The letters themselves referenced Allah, the Arabic word for God in Islam, and contained anti American and anti Jewish rhetoric commonly associated with Jihadist extremism There were also unverified reports that a dark skin lesion had been observed on one of the hijacker's legs. Uurbanized anthrax has a long global history At various times, many nations have produced, experimented with, or stockpiled it Hundreds of strains have been documented worldwide, differing in resilience, virulence, and susceptibility to antibiotics. Although Inthraxs research was often conducted for defensive or preventative purposes, the bacterium had also been used in warfare However, the two thousand one attacks marked the first known instance of anthrax being used for hostile purposes within the United States Early statements by government officials fueled speculation that the mailings had been orchestrated by Osama bin Laden, the jihadist leader behind the september eleventh attacks Vice President Dick Cheney stated We know bin Laden has over the years tried to acquire weapons of mass destruction, both biological and chemical weapons He has trained people with respect to how to deploy and use these kinds of substances. Bin Laden himself, officials suggested that members or sympathizers of his militant extremist group Al Qaida might have been responsible. This suspicion formed part of the broader justification for US and Allied military action in Afghanistan, where the government had been accused of harboring bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Attention also turned toward Iraq and its president Saddam Hussein, a longstanding geopolitical adversary of the U S Iraq had previously admitted to weaponizing thousands of liters of anthrax and other biological toxins for use in warheads The possibility that september eleventh had marked the beginning of a broader campaign against the US, one now extending into biological warfare, was deeply upsetting The government warned that another terrorist attack on American soil could occur in the immediate future, raising fears that a far larger and more devastating threat was unfolding For a nation traumatized by nine hundred eleven, the warning was a crushing blow President George Bush urged Americans to continue living as normally as possible, stating The government is doing everything we can to make our country as safe as possible. biot terrorism expert urged the American people to remain calm saying Whoever is doing this wants everyone to panic The media panic and the public panics You're completing the attack for them Despite these assurances, fear and anxiety spread rapidly across the country. People with flu like symptoms flooded hospital emergency rooms, while others called nine hundred eleven and the doctors' offices demanding antibiotics, which quickly vanished from pharmacy shelves businesses discarded all incoming mail opened or unopened while others suspended deliveries altogether Celebrities stopped accepting fan mail as investigators dealt with a wave of hoaxes involving harmless powders mailed to high profile figures Newspapers carried the message This paper is not printed in the state of Florida to reassure readers following Robert Steven' death. while the U. S. Postal Service issued guidance on identifying suspicious mail, Citizens were advised to watch for items that were unexpected, unusually heavy, misshapen, stained or odorous marked with restrictive instructions such as personal, confidential to be opened by addresser only or lacking a return address. The atmosphere was described as a whole new dimension of unreal One New Yorker angrily told reporters We've done nothing Nothing And now we're living in fear of our own maaille. Brokor addressed his close call on Air during NBC Nightly News, saying This is so unfair and so outrageous and so maddening It's beyond my ability to express it in socially acceptable terms Personnel from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and partner agencies join forces to investigate those responsible, forming a task force codenamed Amerathrax Bioterrorism presented unique challenges for criminal investigators Such incidents are treated first and foremost as health emergencies, with criminal investigations often taking secondary priority until public safety is restored. As a result, resources are initially directed toward disease diagnosis, treatment and containment, rather than identifying and apprehending perpetrators Multiple agencies may handle the same materials as they are rapidly transported for testing and decontamination. making strict forensic tracking difficult to maintain Trace evidence can be destroyed, samples may not be preserved under ideal conditions, and patterns become harder to analysee once interventions begin altering the scene Decontamination procedures and the disposal of potentially dangerous materials can also hinder efforts to reconstruct events Leads often develop slowly, while interviews become increasingly difficult as the number of possible exposure sites, witnesses and victims expands with each new discovery The method used to deploy the anthrax further complicated the investigation. Although the postal system was not the most efficient means of dispersing the spores, it offered major strategic advantages Authorities didn't even realize a crime had been committed until weeks after the letters had been mailed, giving the perpetrator a substantial head start to evade capture or carry out additional attacks As authorities began the painstaking process of interviewing thousands of people connected to the three known outbreaks. An incident unfolded at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC On Friday october twelfth, one week after Robert Stehvens's death, a group of Alaska natives arrived at Democratic Senator Tom Dashll's office carrying a ziploc bag filled with fur They described it as a gift for the Senator in recognition of his opposition to oil drilling asked twenty one year old intern Grant Leslie to take a handful of the fur as a symbolic gesture of thanks claiming it came from an animal that would become endangered if the drilling proposal were approved aware of the ongoing Inthrax scare. Grant acted cautiously. She asked the group to place the fur into an envelope and, after they left, alerted the office manager, who contacted police Subsequent tests confirmed that the fur didn't contain any anthrax Relief swept through the office The incident had interrupted mail delivery, leaving Grant and her colleagues with twice as much mail to process when they returned on Monday, october fifteenth That morning, staff crowded into the sixth floor mail room of the Senator's office suite, where a long narrow table was piled high with unopened letters and packages sat in the middle of the room with a stack of mail on her lap At the top was an envelope addressed to Senator Dashel She carefully scanned it for the telltale signs of an anthrax letter, including a Trenton New Jersey postmark dated september eighteenth, and the absence of a return address But this envelope appeared different It had been mailed on october ninth and listed a return address in the upper left corner grade, Grendale School, Franklin Park, New Jersey Opening mail was often monotonous work. Grant felt a flicker of excitement A letter from school children would probably be cute and lighthearted, a welcome contrast to the hostile and threatening correspondence the office routinely received She turned the envelope over and noticed it had been sealed with tape, a fairly common precaution intended to keep its contents secure during transit Grant cut into one corner with a pair of scissors. Fine white powder spilled out. Cating her hands, skirt and shoes Nervously She announced I just spilled white powder all over myself file will be back shortly Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors Thank you for listening to this episode's ads By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content. The room fell silent as tension filled the air Grent Leslie froze, careful not to disturb the powder any further, while police were contacted The partially opened envelope was taken away for examination Inside was a letter written in the same handwriting as the ones sent to NBC and the New York Post in September Like those, it bore the date september eleventh, two thousand one of the top But this message abandoned the warning to take penicillin now reepplacing it with a series of new threats cannot stop us We have this anthrax Die now. to America to Israel Alllla is great The powder inside the envelope, roughly the size of a grape, tested positive for anthrax Unlike the brown, granular, and heavy powder sent to New York City The Washington DC sample was white, lightweight, and capable of remaining airborne. Test scenarios showed that opening a letter containing this form of anthrax caused spores to disperse instantly. heavily contaminating everyone nearby. Within forty five seconds, spores had spread throughout the entire room. The powder itself was highly concentrated, containing an estimated trillion spores per gram It had been refined to an optimal particle size, approximately one to three micrroometers wide and two micrometers long small enough to bypass the body's natural respiratory defenses, which typically filter out larger particles By comparison, the microscopic pores in a standard paper envelope can exceed twenty micrometers in size, allowing the spores to escape even from tightly sealed ladders Dickle timermes This anthrax had been engineered for maximum infectivity The change seemingly reflected an effort to overcome the shortcomings of the earlier attacks, which had infected fewer people than intended This time, it worked Grent Leslie was infected, along with twenty of her colleagues, six first responders and several employees from a neighbouring office. All received immediate treatment and the building was locked down for extensive decontamination With these measures, the fourth outbreak appeared to have been contained before any lives were lost. Th days later, on Sunday october twenty one A nine hundred and eleven call was placed by fifty five year old Thomas Morris Jr. Struggling to breathe, he told the operator I suspect that I might have been exposed to anthrax Thomas had worked for years at the United States Postal Service Processing and Distribution Center on Brentwood Road in Washington, DC The facility handled mail destined for Capitol Hill, including correspondence bound for the office of Senator Tom Dashll When Thomas first began experiencing symptoms, he contacted postal officials to ask whether he might have been exposed to anthrax but received a no response Doctor who initially examined him noted his fever, sweating and muscle aches, and suspected an ordinary viral illness, recommending over the counter pain relief Over the following days, however, Thomas's health rapidly deteriorated His head and body ached intensely. He vomited repeatedly. His chest tightened and breathing became increasingly difficult By the time he called nine hundred eleven, he was bedridden, with even slight movement causing such extreme pain that he thought he might lose consciousness Thomas was rushed to hospital and correctly diagnosed with inhalian anthrax Treatment came too late He died before the night was over Investigators quickly began screening the more than two thousand postal employees working at the Brentwood facility Three additional workers tested positive for anthrax, each having suffered varying degrees of illness One of them was forty seven year old Joseph Kurine In the days beforehand, Joseph had become so sick he could no longer work After he fainted during church, his wife took him to hospital Doctors initially believed the fatigue, nausea, and excessive sweating he was experiencing were symptoms of a stomach virus and sent him home to rest morning of Monday october twenty. Joseph's wife found him doubled over on the bathroom floor, struggling to breathe and barely able to speak She rushed him back to hospital, where tests revealed his bloodstream was teeming with anthrax bacteria Bye then It was too late to save him Within six hours of arriving at the hospital Joseph Kurseine too had passed away. Neither Thomas, Joseph, nor their colleagues had knowingly opened a threatening letter or come into contact with suspicious powder Yet, the Brentwood facility processed around two million pieces of mail each day Letters passed through a vast system of whirring belts and rollers that read barcodes and sorted envelopes into delivery bins, with the machinery capable of processing up to thirteen point a half thousand letters an hour During this process, the mail was compressed for efficiency Forcing air and loose particles outward Mechanics periodically clan the machines using blasts of compressed air sending accumulated dust and debris, including microscopic spores, cascading onto employees working below Although investigators strongly suspected the postal workers had been exposed through the letter sent to Senator Tom Dashll They tooken no chances All maail destined for Capitol Hill was impounded and sealed inside barrels for examination at a secure containment facility. In total, hazardous materials teams wearing full protective suits and respirators faced the daunting task of searching through two hundred and eighty barrels of unopened mail Hpting to inspect every letadter by hand posed serious risks. Disturbing contaminated mail could release spores into the workspace, endangering investigators and contaminating the entire facility The sheer scale of the operation also increased the likelihood that fatigue or lapses in concentration could cause dangerous items to be overlooked Investigators remained mindful of the mysterious Jennifer Lopez letter sent to the Sun Aditional anthrax mailings existed They might not even resemble the dashel envelope at all To simplify the search, the effort shifted away from identifying specific letters and toward detecting anthrax itself The mail from the barrels had been consolidated into six hundred and thirty five trash bags. Because the dashel letter had contaminated large areas wherever it traveveled, investigators reasasoned that any other anthrax laced letters would probably have spread spores throughout the bags containing them The bag was carefully jostled to loosen any spores trapped inside A small opening, just large enough to insert a swab, was then cut into the plastic The swab was rubbed around the interior, removed, and the hole immediately sealed with duct tape before the sample was sent for testing This method streamlined the search Instead of individually inspecting thousands of letters, authorities only needed to test the several hundred sealed bags Around fifty bags were ultimately found to contain trace amounts of anthrax Seven were labeled hot. indicating unusually high concentrations of spores. To measure contamination levels more precisely, air was drawn from each bag for two minutes and bubbled through water so individual spores could be counted Most of the hot bags produced between one hundred and three hundred spores bag contained more than twenty three thousand If another infected letter still existed within the postal system It was almost certainly inside that bag As expected The back contained an anthrax sliced envelope It was addressed to another Democratic senator named Patrick Leahy and included a photocopy of the same message previously sent to Senator Tom Dashll Neither man had any understanding of why they had been targeted or who might be responsible The head of the FBI's Washington field described the perpetrator as a cold blooded murderer emphasizing that three innocent people had already died and that none of them were the intended targets Senator Patrick Lahy told reporters that the one bright light in the ordeal was his hope that the letter intended to harm him might instead help authorities identify whoever was behind the attacks At first, that possibility seemed promising. Both Washington DC letters carried the same return address, a supposed fourth grade class at Grendale Elementary School in New Jersey The lead quickly collapsed when authorities discovered no such school existed anywhere in the state It became clear that the sender had deliberately tried to make the envelopes appear harmless by disguising them as letters from school childildren increasing the likelihood they would be opened Even so, New Jersey remained critically important to the investigation, since the letters sent to NBC and the New York Post had also originated there First Anthrax letters had entered the postal system on september eighteenth By late October, the two major mail facilities responsible for processing the contaminated correspondence, one in Trenton, New Jersey, and the other in Washington, DC bothoth being shut down During that time, the facilities had processed roughly eighty five million pieces of mail bound for every state in the country and even destinations overseas Authorities were left grappling with the terrifying possibility that millions of contaminated letters might now be circulating through the vast labyrinthine postal network Still, there was some reassurance in the fact that every known exposure up to that point had been identified quickly and managed effectively. sixixty one year old Kathy Union worked as a clerk in the storage supply room in the basement of the Manhattan Iye earar and Throat Hospital. She occasionally emerged to restock the pharmacy and operating rooms above Thursday, october twenty fiveth. Kathy confided to a friend that her eyes were sore and she was feeling unusually tired A dedicated employee who often volunteered for overtime, she was not someone who typically complained Kathy continued going to work By Sunday, the aches, chills, and fever she had developed had become unbearable It hurts to breathe, she admitted to a colleague, who urged her to seek medical attention Although Kathy worried about missing work and inconveniencing her employer She eventually agreed At the hospital, Kathy described worsening chest pain and shortness of breath over the previous two days There was no obvious explanation She had no history of asthma or respiratory illness, and an initial x ray suggested her heart was normal All she could say was It just hurts When her condition failed to improve, a doctor reviewed the x ray again and noticed swelling between her lungs and spine The implication was immediate and deeply alarming Kathy was suffering from inhalaitian anthrax provide aggressive treatment died a week after her symptoms first appeared. Kathy became the fourth known victim of inhalation anthrax since the outbreak had begun four weeks earlier death came only three days after that of Joseph Kurine. marking three lives lost in less than a week Kathy Union's case was particularly troubling because she was the first person in the country to contract inhalation anthrax without any direct connection to a known target whether a media organization, politician, or postal facility How and where she came into contact with the bacteria remained a mystery Her life revolved around work And outside of that, she kept to herself in the apartment where she lived alone Though well liked by neighbourors and colleagues, Kathy was a private person, making it difficult to retrace her movements and determine the source of her exposure Be her death, Kathy never mentioned handling suspicious mail or encountering strange powders, and no anthrax was found in her apartment or mailbox. id't entirely rule out earlier contamination As a notably tidy person, she might have unknowingly wiped away or discarded trace spores before investigators arrived. It was also possible that any spores present had simply been displaced or filtered out each time her mailbox was opened and closed The closest authorities came to an explanation was Kathy's workplace Her stock room in the hospital basement was located near the mail room No anthrax was detected there either. None of the hospital's roughly two thousand employees were infected, and no suspicious letters were discovered on the premises Kathy appeared to have no identifiable connection to any of the previous outbreaks Death raised a deeply unsettling possibility Just a week earlier, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had assured the public that anthrax cross contamination, the accidental transfer of spores from one person, place or surface to another, was highly unlikely to virtually impossible That assessment was based on several accepted scientific assumptions Unlike respiratory viruses, anthrax is not a contagious airborne disease that spreads easily through everyday activities, such as talking, coughing, or sneezing Anthrax spores also do not multiply outside a host and tend to settle quickly Meaning infection generally requires direct exposure to a contaminated source Until that point, every confirmed case had been linked to a clear exposure pathway that could be identified and contained Kathy Union's isolated death forced officials to confront the possibility that cross contamination was not only possible potentially far more dangerous than previously believed My's daily routine mostly consisted of commuting to and from work, including two train rides and a short walk through New York City Anthraxpores could have escaped from a contaminated letter, adhered to a person or surface, and ultimately reached Kathy in that way. And unlike many respiratory viruses Anthraxpores don't lose inf factivity over time. Kathy had in fact contracted anthrax through incidental contact with a contaminated surface raised a terrifying possibility. The existence of an unknowable number of invisible carriers and exposure points scattered throughout the city making containment appear almost impossible That fear deepened as additional spores and infections began appearing across New York City without any clear source One particularly alarming case involved a producer for ABC's World News Tonight. On Friday, september twenty eighth, she brought her seven month old baby to the company's studio in New York City, where several people held and cuddled the infant The following day, a red sore appeared on the back of the baby's left arm By Monday, october one, his condition had deteriorated so severely that he required hospitalization Tests confirmed he'd contracted cutaneous anthrax His red blood cell count dropped and his kidneys began to fail after several days of blood transfusions and antibiotic treatment His condition finally improved, and he recovered. By this stage, fear was spreading faster than the infection itself Americans began stockpiling antibiotics, gas masks, and chemical protection suits Mailbxes were scrubbed with bleach Federal Reserve, Department of State, Supreme Court, and Pentagon were all evacuated in incidents later determined to be false alarms For the first time in modern history Congress was effectively shut down One anxious New Yorker said I see anthrax in the toothpaste. I see it in the orange juice I see it in the sugar They're going to kill me with a heart attack before they kill me with anthrax The state governor declared It's obvious we're in a new war And it's a war of nerves. Whenever a new infection appeared, authorities responded with rapid large scale tracing, testing and treatment The strategy appeared effective, and gradually, no further cases emerged Although Kathy Nuen's unexplained infection had initially shaken confidence that the outbreak could be contained, The crisis ultimately subsided without additional loss of life. The director of Homeland Security stated I'm hopeful, like the rest of America, that the anthrax has stopped permanently ninety four year old Ottilly Lundren lived in the small farming town of Oxford, Connecticut Despite her age, she remained sharp and alert When she wasn't reading travel or mystery novels, she enjoyed reciting poetry But in November, two thousand one Ehing changed Otilly developed a mild cough and fever and appeared noticeably weaker than usual When her condition failed to improve, concerned relatives urged her to see a doctor On Friday, november sixteenth, she finally agreed At first, doctors were unsure what to make of her illness Otilly didn't appear critically unwell She joked with hospital staff, and her symptoms seemed relatively mild A chest x ray appeared normal It was only after her blood was examined that alarms spread through the hospital. A rod shaped bacterium was detected. One infectious disease specialist thought This looks exactly like anthrax What are the odds? Ottilly was a widowed woman with no children, living alone in a quiet rural town in a state where no anthrax outbreaks had been reported. Although her niece, neighbourors and friends occasionally visited to help her around the house, she rarely tralled far. daily life mostly revolved around the local supermarket, church, beauty parlor, and diner The infectious disease specialist visited Ottilian Hospital and asked a series of urgent questions Did you receive any mail with powder in it Did you see any powder in the mail Did you travel to New York But Tilly answered a no to every question. whileile further tests were conducted has administered antibiotics as a precaution Specialists' suspicions were soon confirmed Otilly had contracted anthrax Given that her symptoms were relatively mild and treatment had begun immediately ors remained optimistic Her condition deteriorated rapidly Five days after being admitted to hospital, Ottilly Lundgren became the fifth victim of inhalation anthrax Until that point, all known victims had been connected to the three major outbreak areas, Florida, Washington, DC, and in New York City Although Connecticut lies roughly one hundred miles northeast of New York, Attilly had not traveled Every local place she had recently visited was examined. No anthrax was found The possible explanation only emerged after spores were discovered on four male sorting machines at the postal distribution center serving Oxford, Connecticut Additional spores were found in a collection bin used to hold mail destined for Ailly Street Trace amounts were also detected at her local post office Each day, Otilly collected her mail from the mailbox outside her home, carried it inside, and sorted through it at her dining table using a letter opener Unwanted mail was torn up and placed into a wastebket before later being discarded in the outdoor rubbish No anthrax was found inside Attilly's home But, as with Kathy Nion's case, spores might already have been cleaned away, discarded or dispersed before investigators arrived The inability to detect spores in the homes or workplaces of infected individuals didn't necessarily rule anything out. For For people with weakened immune systems, even an extremely small number of spores could prove devastating As one epidemiologist put it In theory, One spore in the right place at the right time can kill Fortunately, the weeks passed with no further infections or suspicious letters, and it appeared that Ottilly Lundren had become the final fatality in the Anthrax attacks It became increasingly clear that the threat was limited rather than the beginning of a nationwide biological outbreak The panic that had gripped the country gradually subsided, giving way to adaptation and eventually a fragile sense of stability Public attention shifted toward the wider aftermath of the september eleventh attacks, including the escalating war in Afghanistan and the broader trauma left by nine hundred eleven itself With the immediate public health emergency easing, the Amerithraax investigation could finally put its entire focus into identifying whoever was responsible Only four Ithraax letters were ever recovered. The two mailed to NBC and the New York Post in September, and the two sent to Senators Tom Dashll and Patrick Leahy in October No foreign fingerprints, hair or DNA were found on any of the envelopes aper itself contained no identifying watermarks or impressions. A marathrax evolved into a vast multidisciplinary effort involving microbiologists, bioefense scientists, counterterrorism analysts, forensic specialists, and linguistic experts The investigation faced intense political, public and institutional pressure to connect the mailings to nine eleven Investigators remained cautious Premature conclusions risked diverting resources, compromising both investigations and inflaming public fear They also carried the potential to influence foreign policy and military decisions in ways that could later damage confidence in intelligence agencies if those conclusions proved wrong The reality was that no direct forensic evidence matching materials, identifiable suspects or operational overlap linked the two attacks theirir apparent motives also differed significantly The september eleventh attacks represented the largest act of terrorism the Western world had ever experienced They involved extensive coordination and strategic planning designed to project power, inflict mass psychological shock, disrupt the global economy, and reshape international politics Each target had been carefully selected for its symbolic importance to the US, representing the country's financial, governmental or military power The attacks were highly visible and intended to maximize both civilian casualties and worldwide attention Ossama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were quickly implicated through intelligence histories, operational evidence, and intercepted communications byy the end of two thousand one Nothing substantial had emerged linking them to the anthrax mailings. No other foreign adversary or extremist organization had claimed responsibility either. That absence was strategically unusual and didn't align with the typical objectives associated with groups like Al Qaeda, which generally sought clear attribution in order to optimize propaganda value and send an unmistakable political message. In contrast, the Anthrax letters were anonymous, limited in number and unevenly distributed. targeting just two US senators and a small group of media organizations that weren't even considered the most prominent in their industry The suun was one of the smaller tabloids published by American Media Incorporated, with a national circulation of roughly two hundred twenty six thousand The New York Post performed better, selling an estimated seven hundred to eight hundred thousand copies daily, though its readership was concentrated largely in New York City, and it lacked the prestige and national influence of broadsheet rivals such as The New York Times, one of the country's most widely read newspapers NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokor represented a far more prominent national platform As one of America's big three evening newscasts, it regularly attracted between eight and ten million viewers per night with ratings climbing even higher during the peak of nine eleven coverage Senator Tom Dashle was among the most influential politicians in Washington as Senate majority leader, serving as the public face of the Senate's Democratic leadership colleague, Patrick Leahy, was less publicly visible, but nevertheless wielded substantial influence as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Oseeing judicial nominations, civil liberties, intelligence oversight and anti terror legislation. Even so, The pair represented only two of the one hundred members of the U.S. Senate alongside another four hundred and thirty five representatives in the broader Congress As one expert observed To go to all the lengths of creating a virulent anthrax and getting it into a form that's dangerous just doesn't make sense if you're just going to target a few people. I can think of a hundred easier ways just to target a few people Don Foster, a text analyst and forensic linguist, initially accepted the prevailing belief that the anthrax letters were probably the work of foreign extremists. changed when Amerathrax's investigators asked him to personally examine the letters and provide a professional linguistic assessment. A reviewing the material Ston developed a theory and timeline of the attacks proposed that the perpetrator first sent Anthrax to the suun in Florida in September. posossibly through the strange package addressed to Jennifer Lopez that staff dismissed, or perhaps through another seemingly ordinary letter that went unnoticed When this failed to produce the desired impact, the center escalated by mailing a second batch of letters to major media organizations in New York City This time, the threats were explicit with the phrase death to America. yet again The attacks failed to generate the grand outcome apparently intended When Robert Stevens died from inhalation anthrax in early October, news coverage largely focused on the theory that his infection had occurred naturally. while officials reassured the public that no broader danger existed At the same time, several other victims were developing the less severe cutaneous form of the disease. though few recognized the wider threat. What had begun as a deliberate large scale attack risked becoming a quiet and anticlimactic failure The perpetrator responded by escalating further, producing a new lightweight powder engineered to spread far more effectively The targets also shifted from media outlets to politicians Presumably because attacks on elected officials would provoke greater public attention and notoriety One detail in particular intrigued Don Foster. The seenter clearly appeared intent on causing widespread fear and harm The early letters had still instructed recipients to take penicillin now almost as though the author didn't initially want to kill anyone outright Although the later letters omitted that warning, suggesting fatalities had become less of a concern they still openly identified the substance by declaring, We have this anthrax The contradiction was striking It almost seemed as though the perpetrator wanted terror, disruption, and attention more than mass death Without fully considering the possibility that random bystanders could be caught in the crossfire Don Foster began drawing his own conclusions about the identity of the perpetrator Conclusions that many investigators and experts involved in Amerathrax also considered plausible The Anthrax letters were short crude and grammatically simplistic Although the author instructed recipients to take penicillin Penicillin was not considered the preferred treatment for anthrax in two thousand one broad spectrum antibiotic cyprofluxacin had become the standard frontline therapy instead. The incorrect reference to penicillin, combined with its misspelling, initially appeared to support the theory that the writer was a non native English speaker from abroad cautioned against taking the letters at face value He noted that the messages were so brief and deliberately vague that almost anyone could have written them More importantly, he argued that anyone capable of orchestrating such a sophisticated, untraceable anthrax operation would almost certainly have been far more intelligent, knowledgeable and calculating than the letters suggested. After all, the perpetrator possessed either the access or scientific capability to obtain or produce the Aim's stin. They also demonstrated the technical expertise required to safely handle, process, and disperse anthrax spores It demanded specialized microbiological knowledge, laboratory equipment, and a highly specific skill set entirely different from the operational planning involved in hijacking aircraft. Given the potency of the material, it was also highly likely the perpetrator had exposed themselves to anthrax spores during the preparation or mailing, and had therefore taken precautions against infection, whether through vaccination, antibiotics, or both In other words, this was not a crime an ordinary person could easily commit. Don Foster believed the person responsible was most likely a scientist or someone with advanced scientific training The intended targets also struck him as unusual television newews anchor, several relatively obscure tabloid editors and two Democratic senators, all while the country was led by a Republican president seememed like oddly selective targets He questioned whether outsiders would even know that American fourth grade students sometimes write letters to elective representatives as school projects To Don, the entire operation reflected a level of cultural familiarity with American society that felt unusually precise for foreign extremists And then there was the repeated reference to the dight of the seepptember eleventh attacks Every anthrax letter prominently displayed zero nine eleven zero one at the top despite none of them actually being mailed on september eleventh Don found that detail deeply suspicious. Why? he wondered, Did the author feel compelled to include the date at all unless they wanted investigators and the public to forcefully draw a connection between the two events As Don put it When an offender gives you unnecessary information that tells you what to think Probably you want to think twice The numerical format of the date also stood out was written in the month day year style Much of the world instead uses day month year formatting Inluding many countries in the Middle East, where the date would ordinarily appear as eleven o nine zero one Writing the date as september eleventh, two thousand one reflected a style commonly used in the United States file will be back shortly Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. Thank you for listening to this episode's ads By supporting our sponsors, you support Casefile to continue to deliver quality content The possibility that the anthrax mailings were the work of a domestic terrorist didn't come as a complete surprise to the Amerithraax task force Recent history had already shown that the US had its own homegrown extremists willing to threaten anthrax attacks in the pursuit of ideological causes Alongside the anti abortion hoax letters of the late nineteen nineties, an American microbiologist linked to right wing radicals had been arrested five years earlier after claiming he possessed enough anthrax to wipe out the city of Las Vegas. Tests later revealed the substance was merely a harmless vaccine strain obtained through a biological supplily company As one expert observed, crises such as nine eleven tend to bring out, quote all sorts of wackos From pranksters and attention seekers to apocalyptic groups that interpret catastrophic events as signs of the end times and attempt to fulfill those beliefs themselves FBI criminal profilers came to suspect the perpetrator was likely a socially isolated older man living in the US with advanced scientific and laboratory expertise but no direct ties to organized terrorist groups A two point five million dollars reward went unclaimed as months passed without any arrests By early two thousand two, Amerathraax faced mounting criticism over what some described as a slow moving inquiry while others accused the FBI of a cover up Officials strongly denied the allegations, insisting the investigation had not stalled There are no easy answers or instant gratification, one official said. Another added You can't be in a hurry on this stuff Much of the delay stemed from the extraordinary scientific complexity of the investigation Traditional forensic analysis was of limited use because the primary evidence was lethally contaminated. While rigorous testing of the anthrax and related samples required painstaking, time consuming verification before any conclusions could be drawn Since october two thousand one, investigators had generated thousands of leads and were pursuing hundreds simultaneously mostost of which ultimately led nowhere The inquiry was further burdened by approximately seventeen thousand hoaxes and false alarms reported across the country Tens of thousands of searches, interviews, and polygraph examinations were conducted, as attention increasingly focused on personnel working at the small number of US research facilities authorized to possess the AM strain of anthrax Eventually, investigators narrowed their attention to a small pool of individuals believed to have the scientific expertise, access or authority necessary to obtain or produce the material An estimated thirty to forty scientists among them It was Stavven Hatfill forty eight year old Hat Phil was a bioefense specialist who worked as a consultant on classified projects for multiple federal agencies His work focused on biological threat preparedness, including the development of bioeense training materials and response planning for biological weapons scenarios Prior to nineteen ninety nine, he had spent several years working at a research institute where samples of AMes anthrax were stored In january nineteen ninety nine, amid the anti abortion anthrax hoax mailings, Hat Phil and a colleague sought to better understand the feasibility of a terrorist attack involving anthrax sent through the mail They commissioned William Patrick to produce a report on the subject. Patrick, the former head of the US. Biological Weapons program, was widely regarded as one of the foremost experts in weaponizing biological agents, including techniques for refining anthrax into a fine, dispersable, inhalable powder Although retired, he continued working in an advisory role on bioeense and biosecurity matters and was considered Stephen Hatfield's mentor The resulting report, completed in february nineteen ninety nine, later drew intense scrutiny because some viewed it as resembling a blueprint for the two thousand one Anthrax attacks One detail that attracted particular attention was its estimate of the maximum amount of anthrax powder that could be placed inside an envelope without creating a suspicious bulge point five grams. Every known anthrax letter mailed in two thousand one contained less than that amount Patfil also drew attention after eight separate individuals identified him to the FBI as a possible suspect According to those accounts, he had openly discussed his knowledge of weaponizing anthrax, questioned colleagues about their understanding of the subject, and frequently warned others about the dangers posed by biological weapons This, combined with reports that Stephen Hatfill had begun taking the primary antibiotic used to prevent and treat anthrax shortly before the two thousand one mailings led him to become a person of interest in the Amerathraax investigation Pat Phil voluntarily participated in multiple interviews and polygraph examinations, during which some of his answers about the attacks were described as elusive suspicion intensified further when a search of a pond near his home uncovered an airtight plastic container and a rope that initially tested positive for anthrax Investigators suspected the items might have been used to safely handle and transfer Anthrax powder into the envelopes Patfil also consented to extensive searches, yet no trace of anthrax was found in his home, vehicles or other locations connected to him. He was placed under continuous surveillance for an extended period, but no incriminating behavior was observed. The investigation suffered a setback when follow up testing failed to confirm the presence of anthrax on the rope recovered from the pond. with authorities later attributing their original result to laboratory error. Patfil consistently maintained his innocence. He stated that he had never visited the location in New Jersey where the letters were mailed and explained that he had been taking antibiotics to treat an unrelated chronic sinus and bronchiial infection Ultimately, the investigation into Hatfill reached a dead end, with the case against him remaining entirely circumstantial Some observers found it suspicious that no further Anthrax' letters, infections or deaths occurred while he was under intense scrutiny. Although there was insufficient evidence to charge Hat Phill with any crime, the U.S. Attorney Genal publicly identified him as a person of interest fueling widespread media speculation that severely damaged his reputation and career Hatfill later sued the Department of Justice and filed defamation claims against several journalists and news organizations, arguing that he had been unfairly portrayed as the anthrax attacker He ultimately received multim million dollar settlements By the time Hatfill was effectively ruled out FBI had spent nearly six years focused largely on him. It became increasingly clear that Amerathraax needed a new direction Following a leadership change in late two thousand six, the investigation essentially started over, and earlier leads and suspects that might not have received sufficient attention were revisited Through advances in genetic analysis and forensic testing, a major breakthrough finally emerged in two thousand seven, when scientists succeeded in tracing the spores used in the letters Rather than originating from some unidentifiable engineered variant of AMes They were linked to a highly specific laboratory batch designated RMR ten twenty nine Records showed that RMR ten twenty nine had been created and maintained at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases by a microbiologist named Bruce Ivs fifty five year old Ivs had a lifelong passion for science He earned a Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Doctorate of Philosophy, all in microbiology, with his doctoral research focusing on toxicity in disease causing bacteria. Ivs went on to work as a scientist for nearly forty years, including eighteen years at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Dietrich, a major military installation and the center of the country's biological defense program There Ivan served as a senior researcher on a specialized six member bioefense team within the Bacteriology division and developed a reputation as a skilled vaccinologist After conducting extensive research into Legionlla and cholera He focused increasingly on anthrax, eventually becoming one of the nation's leading experts on the bacterium's growth, spoilulation, and purification Over the course of his career, he published more than fifty professional papers on the subject In the immediate aftermath of nine and eleven, Colleagues began noticing unusual changes in Ivan's behavior Normally shy and soft spoken, he appeared to be under mounting professional pressure His two decade long anthrax vaccine research program was facing growing criticism amid concerns about effectiveness and safety Another military vaccine project he was involved in was also attracting allegations that it had caused harmful side effects in some soldiers Without a critical solution, there were fears the program could be shut down Ivs was deeply invested in his work and highly sensitive to criticism. He began working irregular late night hours in the laboratory, sometimes remaining there past midnight and returning on weekends when no one else was present. The pattern was considered unusual for him, and reportedly stopped abruptly once the anthrax letters were discovered When questioned about the after hours activity, Ivs was unable to provide a clear explanation and had not properly documented the work in his lab notebooks He only stated that he sometimes went to the lab to escape difficulties at home At the same time, Ivanss appeaar to be experiencing growing personal and emotional strains One colleague he had become emotionally dependent on had recently left, and another was preparing to move to a new job. He viewed them as his only close friends and important sources of emotional support However, he could become resentful and vindictive towards them when he felt ignored, excluded, or betrayed Ivs was characterized as a man driven by obsessions, particularly involving women for whom he developed unreciprocated romantic feelings In emails sent to his two close colleagues, both women, he apologized for his behaviour, expressed profound loneliness, and wrote that he felt truly and completely alone He also described episodes of paranoia and what he called terrifying mental instability nototing that he was seeking help Ivs visited a psychiatrist who suggested that he might be suffering from paranoid personality disorder A condition associated with persistent distrust and suspicion of others, often without justification Shortly before the anthrax mailings, his antidepressant dosage was doubled work Bruce Ivan's expertise in anthrax made him a valuable asset once the Amerathrax investigation began From the outset, the Institute assisted the inquiry by providing scientific expertise, laboratory testing and decontamination support, among other contributions Ivans and his colleagues worked long hours testing samples to distinguish genuine anthrax from the hoax substances sent during that period. He also personally analyzed the anthrax recovered from the letter mailed to Senator Tom Dashll Privately, Ivans continued exhibiting signs of troubled and erratic thinking A day after the dashel letter arrived for testing, one researcher emailed another Bruce has been an absolute manic basket case these last few days By december two thousand one, Ivans was sending unusual poems to friends, in which he described having two personalities As the crisis intensified, Ivan's team expanded to roughly eighty five scientists, many of whom had to learn anthrax handling procedures on the fly Inide of the emergency, dozens of staff members slept in their cars or on cots at the lab to keep pace with the constant flood of incoming specimens Over the following months, the team tested around thirty thousand suspicious envelopes, packages, and other materials, along with approximately three hundred twenty thousand environmental samples from locations including the Brentwood Postal facility, where anthrax victims Thomas Morris Jr. and Joseph Kurine had worked When investigators started concentrating heavily on Stephven Hatfill as a possible suspect Ivan's life stabilized HX ananthrax vaccine program, previously at risk of being discontinued, was revitalized in the aftermath of the attacks He referenced the mailings in scientific papers, presenting his theory that combining antibiotics with vaccination could provide a more practical strategy for responding to future bioterrorism events Ivans went on to coinvent two patents relating to genetically engineered anthrax vaccines In two thousand three, he received the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor awarded to civilian employees of the Department of Defense, for his contributions to solving technical problems in anthrax vaccine production Everything changed in two thousand seven, when Stephen Hatfill was fully exonerated after the spores used in the letters were traced to RMR ten twenty nine Pat Phil had no realistic means of accessing the batch, which had been created by Bruce Ivans and stored in a flask inside a walk in refrigerator in his lab Investigators consequently shifted their focus toward the institute, its six member bioefense team And Ivs himself Ivanss began showing signs of serious strain and spiraling out of control. His increasingly troubled behaviour, including comments about suicide, alarmed colleagues, and led to him losing access to sensitive areas within his workplace Ivans had long struggled with mental health issues, stemming in part from a traumatic childhood marked by an abusive mother who told him he was unplanned and dumbwanted He found comfort in education and science, eventually marrying and having two children His psychological difficulties persisted into adulthood, and he periodically sought professional treatment In the year before the anthrax attacks, Ivans attended a mental health clinic where he regularly met with a counselor In one session, he reportedly spoke in a flat, detached manner about a young woman he was attracted to who lived out of town He said he had traveled to watch her play in a soccer match and had brought with him a mixed poison he had created Ivans claimed he intended to poison the woman if her team lost the game adding that he was a skilled scientist who knew how to do things without people finding out The counseselor reported the comments to the clinic director, a psychiatrist who had also treated Ivs, as well as to police. However, because Ivanss had not identified the woman by name or provided any details about where she lived, authorities concluded there was little they could do Ivan's mental state deteriorated significantly when Amerathrax began closing in on him In march, two thousand eight, his wife found him unconscious after he overdosed on medication He was hospitalized and recovered, but two days later, he sent disturbing and rambling emails to his friends that reflected growing paranoia and emotional instability In one, he accused those around him of abandoning him writing I lose my connections, I lose my years, I lose my health. I lose my ability to think I lose my friends. What do I have left? but eternity Two months later, colleagues observed Ivans alone in his office behaving erratically and talking to himself He was also active online, posting violent comments about decapitating a woman on a reality television program whom he disliked, among other disturbing statements He even sent the woman an email claiming to be her biggest fan and expressing a desire to meet her, signing the message with a pseudonym. Investigators discovered that Ivans had used more than a dozen aliases over the years to conceal his identity when communicating with others, often for deceptive or inappropriate purposes. onn Wednesday july ninth, two thousand eight during a group therapy session. Ivans appeared especially distressed He revealed that he was a suspect in the Amerathrax investigation and expressed intense anger toward investigators, the government, and the broader system His fears were well foundounded After months of surveillance, forensic analysis, searches of his home and computers, and interviews with people close to him, Ivans had been informed that prosecutors were preparing to charge him over the two thousand one anthrax mailings Alongside concerns about Bruce Ivan's behavior before, during and after the attacks was his expertise and access to anthrax, specifically RMR ten twenty nine Batch couldn't be legitimately accessed without Ivan's authorization, and no one else in his lab possessed both the opportunity and technical ability to use, prepare, or store the material without attracting attention When investigators requested samples of RMR ten twenty nine for comparison with the anthrax used in the letters, Ivanss intentionally submitted specimens that produced inconclusive results complicating efforts to establish a definitive match He was unable to provide a clear explanation for why those particular samples had been selected Ivs also minimized his technical capabilities in ways considered inconsistent with his expertise He repeatedly insisted that he could not produce anthrax spores of the quality used in the attacks, stating that nothing he had ever created was as good He further claimed he lacked the knowledge to operate a sophisticated machine used to dry spores and said he had no training in producing powders Records showed that Ivans was the custodian of the drying machine and the instruction manual stored with it was marked property of Dr. Ivanss In an october two thousand email, a fellow microbiologist asked whether he could demonstrate how to use the machine to which Ivans replied Absolutely Anytime The machine took hours at a time to use, meaning it was not a process that could be carried out quickly or discreetly in a busy lab without attracting notice Ivs was never observed using the machine suspiciously while working alongside colleagues, but the long, unscheduled and undocumented periods he spent alone in the lab after hours gave him ample opportunity to conduct such work unnoticed. Is was also discovered to be a prolificattter wrider More than sixty letters he had mailed to members of Congress and news organizations over two decades were recovered including one sent to NBC in nineteen eighty seven at the same address later used for the anthrax letter sent to Tom Brokor While no clear motive was ever established for why Ivans would target any of the Anthraxs recipients, his personal beliefs might have influenced the selection of Democratic Senators Tom Dashll and Patrick Leahy Ivans, a devout Roman Catholic, reportedly opposed their liberal positions on issues such as abortion rights He was also known to express hostility toward Muslims, which could help explain why the anthrax letterers attempted to frame Islamic extremists through the use of jihadist rhetoric After the infection of Robert Stevens became public, Ivs emailed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggesting that he might have contracted anthrax naturally through contaminated creek water or infected alpaca wool in clothing These explanations were implausible given that Robert had already been diagnosed with inhalation anthrax caused by the AMS strain. Several experts viewed Ivan's suggestions as laughable, noting that they made little scientific sense coming from a leading anthrax specialist, while another described them as fishy Ivs expressed vastly different opinions in an email to a friend sent around the same time He warned of a potential bioeapons attack by terrorists In a message written before the anthrax letters were discovered Ivanss claimed that Assama bin Laden possessed anthrax and had decreed death to all Jews and all Americans language that closely resembled phrases later used in the Anthrax letters themselves Lys was also known to drive long distances late at night to mail or deliver packages from remote post offices The Anthrax's letters had been deposited outside Princeton University in New Jersey, several hours from his home. And dis already had a reason to frequent the area By his own admission, he had an unusual fixation on the all female sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma, and would drive for hours to visit different chapter houses, briefly observe them, and then return home. a mailbox used in the anthrax mailings was located just three hundred feet from the office of Kappa Kappa Gamma's Princeton chapter Another suspicious element was Ivan's known fascination with codes, secrets, and hidden messages He enjoyed playing detective and would mail anonymous packages containing unusual objects and cryptic notes to friends, challenging them to identify the sender. behavior echoed aspects of the mysterious Jennifer Lopez package sent to the Sun. which was believed to have contained the anthrax that killed Robert Stehvens In the Anthrax letters, the letters A and T appeaar to be boltered, raising speculation that they might have formed part of a hidden code. Ivans owned a book on coded communication that discussed hiding messages through the use of booltered letters, and the structure and formatting of the anthrax letters resembled the techniques described in that text Notably, A and T were also significant letters in genetics and microbiology The night after investigators first searched Dvin's home, he was observed at around one AM stepping outside in his underwear to check whether his curbside trash had been collected Unknown to Ivans, his rubbish had already been secretly intercepted, and among the items recovered were a book on Coded Communication and a nineteen ninety two issue of American Scientist magazine containing an article titled The Linguistics of DayNA Ivs was also found to be in possession of three handguns, two stun guns, a taser, a bulletproof vest, a homemade reinforced body armor plate. hundredundreds of rounds of ammunition smoke less handgun powder, an electronic detection device, and computer surveillance software Part of his basement had been converted into a makeshift firing range As for Motive, Ivans benefited indirectly from the attacks Heightened fears surrounding Anthrax's bioterrorism increased the government priority and demand for vaccines, elevating the importance of his research, which was on the brink of being scrapped entirely A to Anthrax's vaccine patents, he went on to coinent had already been licensed by a biotechnology company that secured a federal contract worth more than eight hundred fifty million dollars When questioned about his possible involvement in the attacks, Ivans made non denial denials. statements that appear to reject the accusations without actually explicitly doing so. Among them were comments such as I can tell you I don't have it in my heart to kill anybody I don't have no clue how to make a bio weapon and I don't want to know. And I do not have any recollection of ever having done anything like that All of which addressed character, intent, knowledge, willingness and memory, rather than flat out denial while the use of double negatives such as donon't have no clue further obscurity' meaning Ivans raised the possibility of memory loss on several occasions, telling agents he experienced blackouts and describing incidents in which he allegedly woke up atressed as though he'd gone out during the night Despite the growing scrutiny, Bruce Ivans consistently denied involvement in the anthrax mailings and repeatedly attempted to redirect suspicion toward friends and professional colleagues through speculative theories At one point, he emailed himself a list of twelve reasons why the two former colleagues he considered his best friends might have been responsible. despite the claims being easily disproven As the investigation against Ivs intensified, he sent himself an email that read Yes, yes, yes finally know who mailed the Anthrax letters in the fall of two thousand one paste it together Now we can finally get all of this over and done with He claimed he only needed to confirm a few details before turning the information over to authorities, adding I should have been a private eye No such evidence was ever produced When Ivans voiced his fears about facing charges for the anthrax attacks in his group therapy session on july ninth, two thousand eight Other attendees asked why he was so concerned If he was truly innocent, he had nothing to worry about. Ivans just smiled in response He questioned whether he would face the death penalty and also made threatening comments about taking out colleagues and others he felt had wronged him He noted that, with planning, it was possible to commit murder without leaving a mess He stated that he had a bulletproof vest, a list of targets, and that he intended to obtain a handgun adding that he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. Following these remarks, Ivs was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility A subsequent report stated that he had a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, actions and plans and referred to him as a homicidal sociopath with clear intentions. Despite this, and over objections from, among others, the counselor who reported the group therapy threats The hospital released Ivs from its care on Thursday july twenty fourth, two thousand eight, concluding that he was not a danger to himself or others forty eight hours later Bruce Irvs fatally overdosed on painkillers In the aftermath of Ivan' suicide, the U. S. Department of Justice released the Amerathraax investigative summary a near one hundred page document providing a comprehensive account of the entire investigation Amerathrax was an extraordinarily complex inquiry In the seven years following the attacks, the task force expended more than six hundred thousand investigative work hours, conducted over ten thousand witness interviews across six continents, executed eighty searches, issued more than five thousand federal grand jury subpoenas and recovered over six thousand items of potential evidence Investigators scrutinized more than one thousand individuals as possible suspects, both in the US and abroad. ultimately concluding that Bruce Ivans was solely responsible The conclusion was met with mixed reactions Ivan's brother said the findings made sense, claiming Ivans had always considered himself like a god Others who knew Ivans personally were less convinced, with one colleague suggesting the investigation placed intense pressure on him and worsened his mental health. contributing to unstable behavior, misinterpreted as suspicious The release of Iivan's emails documenting increasing depression, anxiety and paranoia was viewed by a psychologist consulted by the New York Times as consistent with psychosis raising questions about the extent of his culpability. However, the psychologist also noted the possibility that Ivs might have exaggerated or even feigned aspects of his mental illness to attract attention or sympathy Ivan's mental state became the focus of an investigative review, which concluded that, at the very least, the US Army hadn't adequately assessed his background before granting him clearance to work with anthrax, and that such clearance shouldn't have been approved Some observers used these findings to question how someone perceived as mentally unstable as Ivans could carry out such a sophisticated attack alone According to one researcher, it would have taken at least a year of intensive lab work to produce the spores used in the attacks. Yet none of Ivan's colleagues observed him working on anything secretive or unusual during that time Others, who accepted that Ivans produced the anthrax still argued that this didn't necessarily mean he was responsible for mailing it While he maintained authorization over RMR ten twenty nine, they suggested that someone else might have accessed the flask containing it Some go even further and point to the possibility of a broader conspiracy, in which Ivs was a convenient fall guy. Given its historical context, the Athrax mailings remain surrounded by extensive conjecture and conspiracies due to their contribution to the heightened political and security climate in the US post nine eleven Although they weren't attributed to any foreign state or adversary, they reinforced concerns about weapons of mass destruction and contributed to the urgency of the broader warar on terror forming part of the context in which the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq took place These major events overshadow the case, leaving survivors and grieving loved ones feeling as though they are an afterthought handanded by the fact that no one has ever been held accountable In total, more than ten thousand people considered at risk of anthrax exposure received precautionary treatment as a result of the mailings Of these, twenty two ultimately contracted the disease, eleven cases of inhalation and eleven of cutaneus Five people died Survivors describe enduring trauma, lingering physical problems, and ongoing psychological distress One survivor of inhalation anthrax from the Brentwood Postal facility recalled the moment he was diagnosed, saying My head was swirling. I could not believe that it was me And the bottom line on everything I read was no one survives from the anthrax bacteria Workers at the facility later sued the US. Postal Service, alleging officials withheld information about contamination risks and left them exposed. Newscaster Tom Brokor reflected on the ordeal faced by his assistants, Aron O'Connor and Casey Chamberlain in a newswake article writing The emotional wounds will always be with them. Wounds brought on by a craven attack meant for me they paid the price is a guilt Iye will carry forever. Casey Chamberlain herself described how the experience changed her life carried anthrax back on my clothes and had contaminated my home I chose to have all of my things destroyed. I lost my most personal belongings My pictures and memmentos. I worry that I'll have to see doctors for the rest of my life. I'll never have an overall sense of security again. That's what I lost I wish I could sit in a courtroom and look someone in the eyes and say, you did this I don't feel closure over it today I'm not sure any of us ever will.