Posted on 07/31/2008 10:29:15 PM PDT by hole_n_one
One of the nation’s top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned.
Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said.
Ivins’ name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case that disrupted mail service and Senate business three weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Maryland scientist had for years played a pivotal role in research to improve anthrax vaccines, preparing anthrax formulations used in experiments on animals.
Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also had helped the FBI analyze the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to a U.S. senator’s office in Washington, D.C.
Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital after having ingested a massive dose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine, said a friend and colleague who declined to be identified out of concern, he said, that he would be harassed by the FBI.
The death -- without any mention of suicide -- was announced to Ivins’ colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, through a staffwide e-mail.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Such a tragic list, and what an engaging thread.
/bkmark
They'll swallow what they hear and, worse, they'll dismiss what they don't hear on the nightly news out of hand.
Try telling your Average Joe/Jane that Mohammed Atta tried to get a $650,000 loan from the Department of Agriculture to turn a twin-engine passenger plane into a crop-duster, or that he lived within three miles of the American Media building in Boca Raton, or that he was prescibed Cipro after going to a doctor with red, swollen hands. Try telling them that Ahmed Alhaznawi was treated for cutaneous anthrax in Fort Lauderdale in June, 2001 (Alhaznawi had also attempted to get a crop-dusting plane that summer). They'll look at you like you're talking about some fabled swamp monster.
I think it's pretty obvious the hijackers were trained at Salman Pak and given Iraqi anthrax. And if that truth is ever known, the case against the Iraq war and the entire democrat left crumbles like a house of cards. That's why this is the most politicized murder investigation since the Kennedy assassination. An entire political party's fortunes are dependent on one, and only one, outcome.
I have to say I find it more than a little unusual that this guy supposedly killed himself on Tuesday, the government has supposedly been investigating him for a long time, and yet this doesn’t hit the news until early Friday morning.
Initial analysis:
A poster long ago said the harassment of Hatfill was to drive him crazy to kill himself, voila, case solved. Hatfill didn’t crack.
But remember, there was Ken Berry. He cracked, but beat up his family instead. He had a beachhouse on central jersy shore.
1. Ivins is weird and his brother doesn’t like him. so what? From everything I’ve read at FR all these biowar guys are weird.
2. Ivins lives 3.5 hours from Princeton. So what? And what about a central Jersey connection for him, i.e., the school and return addresses.
3. Ivins is sloppy. This is one of the stupidest implied arguments for his guilt. He didn’t clean up the table! Does that mean he’s guilty-or lazy?
4. “The payout to Hatfill.. was an essential step to clear the way for prosecuting Ivins, according to lawyers familiar with the matter.” Of course, many predicted the FBI would not “catch the culprit” until after the Hatfill case was settled/ended. What does it say about the FBI that they were more concerned by the implications of their conduct, and potential payout, in the Hatfill case, rather than protect the public from the alleged guilty party?
5. “But Ivins’ recollections should have raised serious questions about his veracity and his intentions, according to some of those familiar with the investigation.” — Oh, please, and Hatfill lied on his resume too. He lied about being lazy, so what? Would the killer be a more methodical type?
6. “He didn’t have any more money to spend on legal fees. He was much more emotionally labile, in terms of sensitivity to things, than most scientists. . . . He was very thin-skinned.” Signs of lack of guilt IMO, not guilty. FBI was crushing him. SOP. See Hatfill, Berry.
It’s always hilarious to hear the silly rationalizations about the giant gubbmint conspiracy to cover up that the anthrax attacks were from AQ or Iraq.
A counselor filed court papers last week saying Ivins had threatened her, and had had homicidal tendencies since graduate school, and described him as sociopathic as well. Now being reported in the media, and Smoking Gun claims to have a copy ,which is viewable on their site.
I don't know if you've ever been through a federal security clearance investigation process, but I have, twice in fact.
Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
My first question is how many of these scientists are there? Is this a statistical high level of death normal level or what? Is there a hit list or something else?
I miss understand what you find funny? The possible cover up or the possible conspiracies showing a possible cover up?
I have.
I have met some seriously screwed up people who had a Secret, at least.
Remember a complete whackjob like Robert Hanssen was doing counterintel on the Soviets for the FBI. It would be awfullly hard to surprise me.
What I find funny is that people seriously attempt to claim that there’s a consipiracy by the government to cover up that the anthrax was from Al Queda or Iraq.
There’s no conceivable motivation by the government to do so, but people cling to it and continually try to fabricate reasons why such a consipracy would remotely make sense.
And actually I have a friend whose military academy graduate ex-husband worked for the one of the most secretive agencies in the country, had a TS-SCI, and after they divorced, he was courtmartialed and imprisoned for meeting 14 year old girls on the internet and traveling to have sex with them. He’d kept his TS-SCI previous to that while being investigated for some sort of scam involving making returns to Best Buy and relabling.
Never met him personally but from everything that’s been described to me about him he’s a sociopath.
Like I said, I’m not surprised by much anymore.
Motive.. it is a very good question. Why would the government not let us in on were the anthrax came from?
We know that Saddam had the one of the most sophisticated anthrax labs in the world. We also know that Atta first plan was to use anthrax. Did the anthrax come from Saddam or someplace else?
I just don't know.
Hydrocodone OD Not a fun way to go.
How is that worse than other methods? Just curious.
Not from him.
It's certainly possible for good guys to go bad, but it's usually due to an obvious motivation like pure greed, which was the case for Hanssen. What would this guy's motive be?
And Ivins wasn't some weird loner, he had a long-time wife and children. I still say that something stinks here.
On the day that Stevens DEATH was announced, Malvo did not show for school IN FLORIDA. He had just started there a few weeks before. No one knew his whereabouts for about two weeks.
Add in their "running up and down" pattern to the plot...and their connection to Jersey ....AND the fact that Mohammed had protested the anthrax vaccine while in the service...And the fact that he would know the "antidote"...And the "graphic" writing of the notes...AND THAT MOHAMMED WAS JUBILANT ABOUT 9-11...
So why become the DC Snipers?? Easy...they never got paid for their work and a HUGE diversion from the letters. Either way you cut it...they were serial killers with a plan.
...and the fact that the 9/11 hijackers spent the night in New Jersey before going to Boston to carry out their plot to bring down the towers...and at least one of the anthrax letters was mailed from New Jersey before the highjackings.
As far as this being the norm how many dentist are dying from blunt trauma and suicide?
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