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Frederick pond being drained in anthrax case investigation (Scott Shane article)
Baltimore Sun ^ | June 10, 2003 | Scott Shane

Posted on 06/10/2003 12:29:31 PM PDT by Shermy

FREDERICK - In a costly and unusual step in its hunt for the anthrax killer, the FBI began draining a 1-acre trout pond in a Frederick County forest yesterday, hoping to find discarded biological equipment or telltale anthrax spores on its muddy bottom.

The project, estimated to cost about $250,000 and take several weeks, began yesterday morning after a state biologist told investigators how to avoid trampling a rare yellow-fringed orchid and other endangered species in the area.

The search follows the discovery in the pond last winter of a plastic box that some investigators believe may have been used by the person who mailed anthrax-laced letters to news media organizations and U.S. senators in 2001. The attacks killed five and sickened at least 17.

The object appeared to be a homemade glove box, a biological safety device fitted with gloves to protect someone working with dangerous germs, though no gloves were attached. Anthrax tests on a rope also found in the pond have been inconclusive, according to a law enforcement official.

...One official who talks regularly to investigators said the task force is divided into one faction that believes Hatfill is still a promising suspect and another that is frustrated by the failure to find substantive evidence against him. "Even the ones who favor draining the pond aren't all that certain they'll find anything," the source said.

"When Steve heard the news this morning, he just chuckled and shook his head that they would waste all that money," said his spokesman, Pat Clawson. "They can search every pond in Maryland and drain the Pacific Ocean and they won't find evidence linking Steve Hatfill to the anthrax attacks, because there is no such evidence. On the other hand, if this will help further establish Steve's innocence, we welcome it." ...

(Excerpt) Read more at sunspot.net ...


TOPICS: Anthrax Scare; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anthrax; antraz; hatfill; pond
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To: Shermy
I've read that preliminary tests ( field tests) frequently give false positives, then later the labe tests prove there is no anthrax. I think we had quite of few such situation around the time of the anthrax attacks, when everyone had everything imidiately tested for anthrax, and many times prelimary tests showed the presence of anthrax and it was later ruled out after the more accurate tests.

The exact same situation was here, but I guess the FBI doesn't want to take no for an answer.
41 posted on 06/10/2003 2:02:36 PM PDT by FairOpinion
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To: FairOpinion
I have not seen a picture of THE box, but I put a link in #39 to the type of box they are talking about...these are very common in biological research, anyone in Hatfill's line of work would have had easy access to them or it could have been ordered over the internet from a company such as the one I linked to. And yes, they had conflicting tests on the box they found, probably due to the fact that it has been submerged in water so long.
42 posted on 06/10/2003 2:03:01 PM PDT by ravingnutter
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To: ravingnutter
The object appeared to be a homemade glove box, a biological safety device fitted with gloves to protect someone working with dangerous germs, though no gloves were attached.

The original story about the gloves I bbelieve has been discarded. No gloves were found, I heard. Only the box and vials.

Mr. Shane's mention that "no gloves were attached" shows he is knowledgable on the subject - gloves are attached to glove boxes by various air-tight (and water-tight) apparatuses. No gloves, no apparatuses were found. The hypothetical of placing the gloves through holes in a box doesn't hold water - or should I say, doesn't hold back water.

43 posted on 06/10/2003 2:03:15 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: ravingnutter
Type of box gets you no points, we want to see THE box. :)

44 posted on 06/10/2003 2:08:24 PM PDT by FairOpinion
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To: ravingnutter
The stories in general do not flatly say that the box is an isolation glove box, although they occasionally hint that it is. It seems to be some other kind of box that some people are speculating could have been made into an ersatz equivalent of a glove box.

If, as you say, Hatfill would have had access to real glove boxes, why would he have used some kind of makeshift substitute?

45 posted on 06/10/2003 2:11:45 PM PDT by aristeides
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To: FairOpinion; ravingnutter
I'd like to see the hoax letter and envelope from London too. For comparison with the real anthrax letters.
46 posted on 06/10/2003 2:17:41 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: ravingnutter
Maryland is full of ponds of all kinds. In any case, several million people live within a half-hour drive of this particular pond.

The other concurrent thread had information that Boy Scouts frequently camp near or otherwise use this particular pond. Hatfil is quoted as saying he had, in fact, visited the pond with some Boy Scouts.

The FBI is suspiciously not showing a picture of what they found. This is highly reminescent of their failure to immediately identify the renegade FBI agent who shot the Boy Scout in the jaw last year thinking he was a bankrobber, or so he says.

Sounds like they are letting that Baltimore office in on the Anthrax Attack investigation and that can't be good for any of us.

Although it is very important the perpetrators (if not already dead) of this attack be stopped so they can't do it again, it really doesn't look like the Justice Department is putting it's best people on the job, and that's a crying shame.

47 posted on 06/10/2003 2:26:06 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: American in Israel
Interesting that you and I should be on the same side on this ~ the FBI truly is not looking for who did it!
48 posted on 06/10/2003 2:27:34 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: American in Israel
BTW, there is an outside chance that the Anthrax Attack was actually made against USPS, and not just the folks to whom the envelopes were directed.

Back in the late 1970s a group of YPSL (Young Peoples Socialist League) folk started growing up, getting married and needing medical insurance as well as paying jobs.

A bunch of them hired on at the New York Bulk and Foreign Facility in New Jersey.

The unions were talking strike fairly vigorously so the YPSL guys went on strike ~ all by themselves!

They all got fired.

A fringe group within YPSL took it upon themselves to intimidate the Postmaster General. They never got rehired. You better believe they never gave up their grudge either.

Given that the FBI seems unable or unwilling to investigate these people to see if they may have been involved in this latest event could you possibly arrange for your friends in Mossad to take a look-see. Remember, some of them are probably friends and associates with Barbara Hatch Rosenberg.

49 posted on 06/10/2003 2:34:49 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: MinuteGal; OREALLY; muawiyah
From today's USA Today:

FBI draining pond in its anthrax investigation

"... One of the sources said investigators decided to drain the pond because they did not want to be criticized later for not following a potential lead. The pond is in a city-owned forest near the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, one of several U.S. labs that has had anthrax stocks.

It is one of 10 ponds near Gambrill State Park that FBI divers searched in December and January after some theorized that the anthrax attacker could have discarded equipment there. During those searches, a plastic box and rope were found in the pond that now is being drained. The discovery led some investigators to speculate that the culprit could have kept the box in water while using it to load powder containing anthrax into envelopes that were sent to media outlets and two U.S. senators. The theorizers say this could be how the culprit was not contaminated. However, other law enforcement sources dispute that theory.

The theory was buoyed when initial tests on the rope indicated traces of anthrax, four federal law enforcement sources familiar with the probe told USA TODAY last month. But the sources said further testing contradicted those results, casting doubt among investigators about whether the box and rope were related to the attacks.

One of the sources said investigators decided to drain the pond because they did not want to be criticized later for not following a potential lead

Well, that's true enough in a big case. I think if Laci's body didn't float up the "Peterson" threads here would be filled with voices demanding San Francisco Bay be pumped dry. ;)

50 posted on 06/10/2003 2:39:50 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: muawiyah
Angry postal worker theory? Where does one start...
51 posted on 06/10/2003 2:41:07 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Shermy
Well, yes. Frankly, I'd start every investigation with Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's friends.

What remains a mystery to me is how they can keep a straight face and still crank in left-wing antisemitism into these issues. I mean, like........!

52 posted on 06/10/2003 2:49:32 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Shermy
The USA article is riddled with the word "sources". Yet not one source is named. You'd think this leftist rag would learn from the NYT's troubles.

Liberal media hates the FBI, the police, the CIA, the Justice Department and the military.

They also hate naming sources unless it furthers their agenda.

Leni

53 posted on 06/10/2003 4:35:20 PM PDT by MinuteGal (Click the gold & blue boat icon top of "Latest Posts" threads for "After-Cruise Report Buzz" & Pics)
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To: Shermy
every time this crap get sstirred back up, I have to wait on traffic in and out of post "Hatfill lived next to ft detrick's front gate and the media camps out there"...hopefully, after they AGAIN don't find anything on this guy, they'll leave him, and us, alone.
54 posted on 06/10/2003 5:39:27 PM PDT by bigghurtt (http://freep.bigghurtt.com)
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To: Darksheare
It is very laughable that Hatfill is the only guy they're looking into.

It's like they have nothing better to do, or have no idea how to investigate anything.

Wonder what they'll say if they end up clearing him? The same pat apology they gave to that security guy after the Olympic bombing?

It's all academic, because they are NEVER going to clear him. They want to destroy his life, drive him insane, and get him to eat the business end of a .38, so they can say, "See, we told you it was him."

55 posted on 06/10/2003 7:10:36 PM PDT by mrustow (no tag)
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To: Shermy
On the other hand, if this will help further establish Steve's innocence, we welcome it." ...

Good joke. You can't prove a negative. So finding nothing in the pond won't mean Hatfill is not still in play or "of interest". And I doubt very much they'll find monogrammed anthrax vials in that pond belonging to S.H. But it keeps the ball in the air a little longer. And who knows. All kinds of stuff can turn up when you go draining ponds.

Speaking of S.H., was there ever actually anything stated or claimed which specifically linked him to this pond? (not a rhetorical question)

56 posted on 06/10/2003 7:20:21 PM PDT by pttttt
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To: Shermy
In its investigation of the letter, the FBI has questioned Malaysian relatives and associates of Hatfill's girlfriend, who moved to the United States from that nation, the sources said. Her relatives in the northeastern United States also were interviewed.

Interesting factoid; had not seen this stated before. So the invisible girlfriend is Malaysian. I wonder if this Washington Post article is the first "disclosure" of that. The timing as well as the content should always be taken into account.

And, to use a pond metaphor and "muddy the waters" a bit, guess what the majority (and official) religion of Malaysia is? None other than Islam. There's a good chance this stealthy lady, assuming she exists, would have to have Muslim origins. See e.g. Religious Freedom In Majority Islamic Countries. Why, shoot, they even have Islamic extremists there. Makes all kinds of interesting directions this could go in.

57 posted on 06/10/2003 7:41:24 PM PDT by pttttt
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To: pttttt; mrustow
Best I can figure, one guy says that in a conversation after 9/11 Hatfill said "the perps could dump their equipment in a lake." Another guy says "He visited such and such area with a Boy Scout group some years back." Investigators go out, find ponds, search them, in one they find a "box" and a "rope" and some "vials" with plastic wrapped around them.

Voila!

58 posted on 06/10/2003 7:43:25 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: pokerbuddy0; Badabing Badaboom; Fred Mertz; aristeides
http://www.ctnow.com/news/specials/hc-ant-12,0,5524433.story?coll=hc-headlines-specials%5D


"...One recent story, attributed to anonymous law enforcement sources, described how bloodhounds, primed with the scent from the anthrax letters, showed great interest in Hatfill at his Frederick, Md., apartment. The dogs also reportedly responded with interest when they were brought to Hatfill's girlfriend's apartment and to a Denny's restaurant where Hatfill had recently eaten..."

Which begs the question...what was Hatfill's girlfriend cooking that got Tinkerbelle excited?

59 posted on 06/10/2003 7:52:43 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: pttttt
"Interesting factoid"

Hoax letters are just that - hoaxes. There were such hoaxes all over the world, and the US. The selection of these two is part of a possible frame job by innuendo. and they're damn weak connections at that.

60 posted on 06/10/2003 7:56:05 PM PDT by Shermy
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