Anthrax Letter From St. Petersburg Contains Reference to OKC Bombing

St. Petersburg Times ^ | October 13, 2001 | DAVID BALLINGRUD, MIKE BRASSFIELD and WES ALLISON

[OKCSubmariner]

EXCERPTED:

A broadening national bioterrorism investigation turned toward St. Petersburg late Friday after NBC officials disclosed that a New York employee has contracted anthrax.

A woman who opens the mail for news anchor Tom Brokaw was diagnosed with a skin form of anthrax several days after she opened a letter that contained white powder and was postmarked from St. Petersburg.

The New York Times on Friday received a letter with a white powder and the St. Petersburg Times received one earlier in the week. All three letters were postmarked in St. Petersburg.

Federal law enforcement officials said late Friday that all three letters postmarked St. Petersburg tested negatively for anthrax.

[However, the test for the letter sent from St. Petersburg to the Brokaw aide must have been unsuccessful (too small a sample size?) because the aide in fact did contract Anthrax. This point was made by Ted Kopel on ABC Nightline last night. This calls into question the negative test results for the other two letters since they were also sent from St. Petersburg and may not have had inadequate sample size].

• An assistant to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw contracted the skin-based form of anthrax after opening a "threatening" letter to her boss.

Officials quickly said there was no known link to either the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or the more serious inhaled form of anthrax that killed a supermarket tabloid editor in Florida last week. The 38-year-old NBC employee was being treated with antibiotics and is expected to recover. The letter was postmarked in St. Petersburg on Sept. 20 and opened Sept. 25, authorities said.

St. Petersburg Times columnist Howard Troxler opened his letter at his desk Tuesday. As he did so, a white powdery substance, resembling sugar or salt, spilled out.

Troxler stopped opening the letter. Authorities were called to the newspaper's offices in downtown St. Petersburg. Police put the envelope in an airtight container and drove it to a state health lab in Tampa for analysis. Firefighters covered Troxler's desk with a plastic sheet and yellow emergency-scene tape reading "caution."

Health officials found no signs of anthrax or bacteria in the powder. The envelope and a letter inside also tested negative.

The letter had no return address and was postmarked St. Petersburg. It bears a code 337, then a space, then 1.

Anything that is mailed in Seminole, Largo, Bay Pines, Gulfport, Pinellas Park or any St. Petersburg neighborhood goes through the main post office on First Avenue N and is stamped with a 337. [Actual envelop shown in article and the zip code is visible as 33701 and the postmark can be made out as early (“0?”) October 2001 for St. Petersburg]

The cryptic letter misspelled Troxler's name and had little punctuation. It said:

"Howard Toxler ... 1st case of disease now blow away this dust so you see how the real thing flys. OKLAHOMA-RYDER TRUCK! Skyway bridge-18 wheels." [Oklahoma-Ryder Truck capitalized for emphasis by FR poster, original version did not use capital letters]

[MizSterious]

Maybe, but the thing is, it's also easy to read into it whatever you want to read into it. I notice that those who are already convinced that it's from a Middle Easterner sees what they want to see. I'm on the fence, so I'm seeing the possibility that it could be, but darn, I just have to say that this particular handwriting looks like it came from someone over 65 or 70 with arthritis. I've read a lot of European handwriting, and some cards from Middle Easterners too. This really doesn't look like typical ME handwriting--but also note, just like U.S. handwriting, it can vary a whole lot from person to person. Maybe it's from one of the terrorist's grandparents??

Now also folks, please consider: this particular envelope did not test positive for anthrax, and might be a hoax! We might be spinning our wheels on the wrong envelope, and the wrong handwriting sample. When will they release the contents of the other "threatening letters"--and photographs of the envelopes? Now those might be something to sink our teeth into!

[RasterMaster]

This is written by a left-handed individual as it looks like it was deliberately attempted to cover their handwriting and slopes as it would for a "lefty".

[clamboat]

Here is where I got my info... but I did not go deep into the website.
Building Big
It is a pretty cool website full of facts. Let me know what you find out. :-)

What I found, Bridgette, is that your source is all wet. They don't even mention the longest bridge in the world.
Here is the info you need, and a picture. This thing is BIG, it completely dwarfs just about any other bridge in the world.

Each weekday 30,000 cars cross Lake Pontchartrain on the longest over-water bridge in the world, The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. The five-member GNOEC is the controlling body of the Causeway which includes the bridge system and the Causeway Approach road system on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

The most familiar part of the system is the 24-mile long bridge which consists of two, 2-lane spans running parallel across Lake Pontchartrain connection Jefferson Parish on the South Shore and St. Tammany Parish on the North Shore.

[Plummz]

You know, my office has been recieiving a crank letter in block print from the St. Petersburg area every few months for more than a year now. None had anthrax. If it's the same guy, it could be that they just mistook mistook his weird creepy letter for the anthrax letter if they came in at the same time. I will try to check the letters on file against that handwriting later this week.

[Plummz]

see 204 above

[Ken522]

If you're referring to the Skyway bridge in St Petersburg, there is nothing of military nor industrial significance near that bridge. The closest thing is a memorial to a Coast Guard vessel that sank in 1981 or 1979 (I think) and lists the names of the CoastGuardsmen who perished. Hope this helps.

[attagirl]

I know he was a patsy. I also think there was a middle eastern connection. Why is this connection being covered by the govt? and what is the real story behind OKC. Islam itself is the weapon of choice by the power elites. Yosef Badansky (?) said that the Islamic first order of business is to recapture lost lands: think Sudan, Bosnia and Kosovo. Whom did our govt. assist?

Then the power elite double-cross the Islamics at some point and destroy ALL religion by pointing to the extremism garnered by its adherants. We get to "construct" our own deity (with the help of fascilitated UN friendly persuasion)This is actually being called for in some quarters: a local pagan expressed this actual call to action in letter to the editor of our local paper. YOU CAN TAKE IT TO THE BANK SHE DIDN'T DREAM IT UP ON HER OWN.

Pay attention and pray, pray, pray.

[anymouse]

Plummz, if you have such a series of letters from St. Pete that look like this one, then contact your local FBI office. You could save lives if they can use them to track down this nut. Even if it isn't the source of the antrax it would let them rule it out and focus resources elsewhere.

[anymouse]

Ymani Cricket

I'm left-handed too. I also sm an engineer, who was taught to block letter write in all of my reports. My cursive writing is horrible (thank God for computers) so block lettering is my normal writing style.

The inconsistencies in the lettering os what makes this person's writing unique.

I'm sure the FBI analysts are coming up with even better profiles, but it doesn't hurt to brain storm on FR. Who knows we might actually stumble on something of value that the FBI could use to catch this terrorist.

[Ymani Cricket]

A lot of left-handed people are known to write with their hand curled around (which annoys other people apparently) I never understood why because i don't write that way and my writing doesn't look any different from a right-handed person. My cursive is neat actually and I find it is more work to print than to write in cursive. I'm sure I'm an oddity though.

The simple strokes of the letters could well imply an "oldster" suffering from arthritis. That would be consistent with the child-like strokes. The fact that FL is the "retirement" state brings the odds more that way. The thing that stumps me is the hyphen between the city and state. Perhaps this person used to live over-seas for a long time?

I DID notice St. Petersburg Times is written smaller and the way it is spaced, I believe it was squeezed in later. The size of the lettering is much too small on that line. If you took it out the rest of the spacing between the lines of "name", "street", and "city,state,zip" are much more even. Look at it. It was squeezed in later, after the rest of the lines were written. Do you see what I mean? That explains the big gap between the street and the city/state/zip. Its as if St. Petersburg was an afterthought as if the person decided "well I better but St. Petersburg times on it just to be sure".

I don't think we should rule out foreigners doing a lot of this work though. Just because a letter is benign doesn't mean there isn't a campaign of terror and fear using benign letters to spread panic, which is obviously working. A concerted effort of either malignant or benign letters would accomplish their goals.

Nothing wrong with a little brainstorming. Yes, FR is definitely monitered by the FEDs/powers that be, though it's probably not as bad as it was in the Clinton years. I'm sure many frustrated agents are beginning to feel pride in their agency again under Bush.

[CWOJackson]

And despite repeated tests, the letter fails to test positive for Anthrax. Unless NBC puts crank letters through some very unusual cleaning, after it has been handled but prior to it being filed with the rest of the crank letters, that pretty much eliminates this letter as the carrier.

Most likely this letter was simply targeted for investigation because of it's postmark and date of arrival. Barring any forensics connection, this letter is nothing more than it appears...just another crack pot letter. Of course I'm sure it won't take the tin foil hat squad long to uncover yet another federal coverup linking this to whatever.

[OKCSubmariner]

Isn't it interesting that two letters were mailed to the same person, the Brokaw aide, when the letter from St. Pete contained a reference to Anthrax and was mailed before the name of the aide,her story , the date of the letter from NJ and that the NJ letter contained anthrax was publicly known? Is this just an amazing coincidence or did the mailer from St. Pete know somehow about the letter sent earlier from New Jersey to the same aide? If the mailer in St. Pete did know about the NJ letter he may have also known the first letter contained anthrax since the first letter you say had anthrax and because the St. Pete sender made refernce to anthrax in the St. Pete letter.

[Hammerhead]

culpeper as in culpeper virginia?

[freedomnews]

thanks

[_Jim]

It has been announced , that Brokaw's assistant got a letter on 9 / 18 / 01 , post marked Trenton, N.J. , and THAT is the letter that infected her. The one from St. Pete came later and has tested NEGATIVE !

... but that won't stop that nutball OKCSnubmarine from spreading his whacky conspiracy theories (which McVeigh actively denied) which he's invested so much of his time and *personal* reputation ...

[OKCSubmariner]

There is a large well established Hamas cell in OKC (with demolition experts) that is believed to haved helped McVeigh in the OKC bombing. Some of the same cells and same individuals are known to have helped the WTC hijacker pilots when they trained at Norman Ok flight schools. BlueDogDemo has written on FR recently about the witness he knows of to confirm this.

BlueDog knows the governor of Oklahoma, worked with Naval Intell, the State Department and the OKC PD. He has worked closely with the FBI and OSBI over the years including the OKC bomb case. BlueDog has communicated his findings to these authorities.

The governor's office was in touch with me today about BlueDog's assertions which they now know are true. They are telling me that they are moving to take action on the matters based on information I gave them which they have now confirmed. They are now in contact with BlueDog.

_Jim's days of defending the Fed coverup of the OKC bombing and Middle Eastern terror organizations connected with the WTC attacks are now numbered.

What you are seeing are _Jim's and his associates' desperate last ditch attempts to save themselves as they feel insecure about the negative consequences of misplacing their trust in the Fed coverups - consequences that will adversely affect their reputations and incomes and freedoms.

But maybe _Jim and his associates still somehow think the actions of the foreign terrorists in the US will help _Jim and his associates continue to defend the Fed coverups.

[Junior]

"Howard Toxler ... 1st case of disease now blow away this dust so you see how the real thing flys. OKLAHOMA-RYDER TRUCK! Skyway bridge-18 wheels." [Oklahoma-Ryder Truck capitalized for emphasis by FR poster, original version did not use capital letters]

It's f.christian! I'd know those James Joycian ramblings anywhere!

[meridia]

"Why, though, would terrorists tip their hand like this, except to divert attention from the real target? Unless they are so confident that they can take down a bridge right under our watchful noses, that is."

I agree. Al-Qaida has often pulled ruses in one area to keep everyone preoccupied from what they REALLY are up to.

[AtticusX]

It's Patsy Ramsey's block-printing.

HAHAHAH... Help me Jesus

Atticus