Anthrax Letter Writer Profile

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[dbbeebs]

Where is the analysis of the Florida anthrax attack, that preceeded all others? Why is it excluded?

IIRC, they don't have the envelope or message for the AMI attack.

[Rustynailww]

anyone have that picture rush had of the average freeper?

[Terrorista Nada]

No doubt about it ... all 3 written by a left handed Arab living in Afghanistan.

[Media2Powerful]

If I'm not mistaken, both were mailed on a Tuesday. One week after 9-ll and one month after 9-ll. I wonder if a key player in all this terror has Tuesday off work, or if Tuesday is significant for some other reason.

[syriacus]

Was Daschle ever there?

I wonder if Trent Lott would have been the unlucky addressee for the anthrax letter that went to Daschle if Jeffords hadn't changed parties and changed the Senate majority. Lott should thank Jeffords for arranging for Lott's demotion.

[WIMom]

Not just an engineer, but anyone required to take a drafting course and learn to print block letters. That was my first thought when I saw these letters because I was required to take that course in college.

Anitius Severinus Boethius: The ANSI code for / is 47 and for - is 45.

[VaBthang4]

"i.e., microscope, centrifuge, etc."

If they have the manpower the FBI should try and find every manufacturer of these items and is tracking their dispersal throughout the United States as well as try to identify every single purchase made within the past year?

It can be done.

[Revolting cat!]

Thanks for posting the letters. My first impression when I saw them a couple of weeks ago and which holds today was how deliberate the writing was.

All capitals indicate to me a child's writing, or a writing of a foreigner whose native language does not use the Latin alphabet, or a writing of someone who thinks that by using all capitals he makes the work of a handwriting expert more difficult. (On the last one I think he'd be correct.)

The only problems with my theory of deliberateness are the corrections in the three 'T's and the 'A'. Also, note how strange the 'G' and the 'R' look. These are interesting letters, unlike the more square letters like 'T' or 'A' and they should tell us something about the school of handwriting. They are written differently in different European cultures. Why no mention of that?

I still think that the date itself may be a red herring!

[hchutch]

The FBI's profilers have generally been pretty good. While the Unabomber may have taken a while, they have done very well in catching serial killers.

[Focault's Pendulum]

I think the Feebs are lurking here on this page hoping we'll figure it out for them. I guess that means they're not entirely brainless.

[jackbill]

Looking at the "letters" that you posted, it is strange that the FBI didn't make particular notice of the way the g's are made in all three letters. That, for me, says that they were written by a single individual and that there is a limited number of individuals who do a g like that.

[FreedomSurge]

Am I mistaken or did the FBI just conclude that Richard Jewel is behind all of this??

[Cinnamon Girl]

[muawiyah]

Atta simply had someone without much facility in English "copy" the address material onto the letters. He thought that would definitely obscure the source - and it did! The mispellings can also be accounted for in that manner.

Now, the question is, did Atta lick the envelope flaps or did someone else?

CDC could check death records for the period September 8, 2001 to the present and find some Middle-Easterner, possibly a child, who died of symptoms suspiciously like those of anthrax.

[fnord]

One very credible (to me) hypothesis is that these letters were sent by two different individuals! Note the differences between first 2 and last one:

• mailed different date
• return address only on 3rd letter
• much more specific addressee on 3rd letter
• higher grade anthrax (does the perp have several different grades of anthrax laying around ?!)

I would like to see any other letters received, especially the early ones (there may be copycats a-working). I think the dissimilarities are at least as interesting as the similarities.

[MindBender26]

"Allah",

as in "Allah be pizzed if Ah don't get ma truck bak from Cooter's Garage today."

[layman]

I am a right-handed person who lost my right hand in an accident. I write left-handed now, and my left-handed writing has no resemblance to what my right-handed writing used to be.

If I was an anthrax mailer, I would write with my opposite hand. It is much easier to 'print' with the opposite hand than write in script. If the anthrax mailer did this, then the writing analysis is worthless. The rest of the profile, though, may be valid.

[Media2Powerful]

This looks like it was written with the left hand, but not necessarily by a lefthander.

[vetvetdoug]

My two cents for what it is worth:
The person studied Microbiology as a graduate student at a major university that had stock supplies of anthrax.
The person was a Teacher's assistant at that college and was likely from a Muslim country and of Arabic origin.
The person was hard to understand as a teacher's assistant and received much criticism and ostricism from the Anglo-American students.
The person was recruited by the terrorist network and received payment for services
This person is no longer in the US.