hi from CaCu. Caught a 35lb Barracuda today.
I've been busy studying the Goldman Sachs threat letters. I couldn't help but notice that the "explanation letters" which were sent to Newsday, The Daily News and the NYPD, were postmarked July 11. That's the day I completed the first version of my web page about the case. I'd been working on it since the 8th, and it had been on-line while I was working on it. I feel fairly certain that the person who sent the letters is a regular visitor to this web site. (The visitor logs won't mean anything, since I have many regular visitors.) That's why these hoax letters are so much more interesting to me than the thousands of other hoaxes. They're also much more interesting because of all the clues the hoaxer supplied. That many clues demand analysis.
Reading the "explanation letter" over and over, it seems that the writer is saying that he doesn't see anything wrong with what he did. He says, if the mailing of his 70 threat letters hadn't "unfortunately" "coincided with the horrendous events in England and Scotland" (i.e., the bungled car bomb attempts by the Muslim doctors), everything would have been okay. He seems to confirm that when he calls his stunt "a stupid, childish prank gone wrong." In other words, his plan was good, but those pesky Muslims screwed things up for him. That's pretty dumb thinking. So is begging the police and media to stop pursuing the matter further. It also indicates that he'll do it again if given a chance.
He also seems to be dumb enough to believe that he can explain away the fact that he wrote 70 threat letters, addressed 70 envelopes and then wrote 3 more "explanation letters" all in the same hand. The threat letters used the pronouns "we" and "us" and were supposed to be from a group he called "A.Q.U.S.A." And the "explanation letters" claim there was actually a group of three teenagers behind the letters. Either way, it makes no sense that only one person would do all that writing - particularly since the handwriting of multiple individuals would have shown that a group was involved. The totally unbelievable explanation he gives is that the girl's handwriting was deemed "prettier." The facts indicate that only one person is involved, that he's "scared" because his plan went wrong and people won't understand, and that he's trying to mislead the police with his explanation letters.
But his absurd explanation letter just provides more tantilizing clues to who he is. The mention of using "furniture polish to wipe down the envelopes and stamps" is most fascinating to me. Are we supposed to believe that furniture polish was used to wipe fingerprints off the letters the way you would wipe fingerprints and smudges off items of furniture? Using furniture polish for that purpose on letters is probably a first in the history of criminology. Who would be dumb enough to think that way?
Are we supposed to believe he sprayed and wiped the letters with furniture polish before writing on them with red ink? If he had done so, even though he used a felt tip pen, wouldn't there be indications that the red ink couldn't soak into the paper due to the wax (or silicone) in the polish? Or are we supposed to believe he wrote the letters in red ink before he sprayed them and wiped them down? Is that possible without smearing the red ink? (I tried it and the ink smeared.) There's no sign of smearing on the letters or envelopes.
But furniture polish evidently was used. And the letter writer supposely also wore gloves. Yet, according to media reports, the FBI is very interested in fingerprints on the letters and envelopes. They have asked reporters and editors at the newspapers which received the threat letters to supply their fingerprints, apparently so that they can be separated from other fingerprints on the letters.
The suggestion that the furniture polish was used to wipe away forensic information could be a very dumb way of trying to point away from the real reason furniture polish was used. (If he hadn't mentioned furniture polish, the police probably wouldn't have thought to test for it. Who puts furniture polish on letters?)
If the furniture polish wasn't used to wipe away fingerprints, what other explanation could there be for doing such a thing except that he was trying to leave behind trace elements of silicon and oxygen as were found in the attack anthrax? He would have had to use a silicone based furniture polish to do that, even though wax based furniture polishes are much more common. (Unfortunately, we don't know what kind of furniture polish was used.) And he would probably have sprayed only the backs of the letters and/or the interiors of the envelopes.
If it was a silicone based furniture polish, that would indicate some very "specialized knowledge" in the same way as his mention that the 70 newspaper addresses were obtained from "a directory at the library" indicates he didn't get the addresses off the Internet, which would be the method most people would probably use.
It should be very interesting to find out who this hoax letter writer is. There seems little doubt that he will be caught. But, as with the Hatfill lawsuit and the Amerithrax investigation, everything seems to take a lot longer than an outsider would guess.