Anthrax Letter Writer Profile

Today the FBI is releasing linguistic and behavioral assessments of the person responsible for mailing anthrax-laden letters on September 18 and October 9, 2001. We ask the American public to study these assessments and reflect on whether someone of their acquaintance might fit the profile. The safety of the American people is at stake. If you have credible information that might help identify this person, please contact 1-800-CRIMETV (274-6388), use www.ifcc.fbi.gov, or call your local FBI field office.

One page, hand-printed letter
Transmittal envelope, also similarly hand printed
Addressed to "NBC TV – Tom Brokaw" – No return address
Postmarked Trenton, NJ 09/18/2001 (Tues.)

One page, hand-printed letter
Transmittal envelope, also similarly hand printed
Addressed to "NY Post" – No return address
Postmarked Trenton, NJ 09/18/2001 (Tues.)

One page, hand-printed letter
Transmittal envelope, also similarly hand printed
Addressed to "Senator Daschle – 509 Hart Senate Office Building"
Return address – "4th Grade, Greendale School, Franklin Park, NJ"
Return address zip code – "08852"
Postmarked Trenton, NJ 10/09/2001 (Tues.)

It is highly probable, bordering on certainty, that all three letters were authored by the same person. Letters 1 and 2 are identical copies. Letter 3, however, contains a somewhat different message than the other letters. The Anthrax utilized in Letter 3 was much more refined, more potent, and more easily disbursed than letters 1 and 2.

In the past, the public has helped the FBI solve high profile investigations that involved writings by coming forward to identify the author, either by how he wrote or by what he wrote. We are asking for the public's help here again in the same way.

While the text in these letters is limited, there are certain distinctive characteristics in the author's writing style. These same characteristics may be evident in other letters, greeting cards, or envelopes this person has written. We hope someone has received correspondence from this person and will recognize some of these characteristics.

1. The author uses dashes ("-") in the writing of the date "09-11-01." Many people use the slash ("/") to separate the day/month/year.

2. In writing the number one, the author chooses to use a formalized, more detailed version. He writes it as "1" instead of the simple vertical line.

3. The author uses the words "can not," when many people prefer to spell it as one word, "cannot."

4. The author writes in all upper case block-style letters. However, the first letter of the first word of each sentence is written in slightly larger upper case lettering. Also, the first letter of all proper nouns (like names) is slightly larger. This is apparently the author's way of indicating a word should be capitalized in upper case lettering. For whatever reason, he may not be comfortable or practiced in writing in lower case lettering.

5. The names and address on each envelope are noticeably tilted on a downward slant from left to right. This may be a characteristic seen on other envelopes he has sent.

6. The envelopes are of the pre-stamped variety, the stamps denoting 34 cents, which are normally available directly from the post office. They are not the traditional business size envelopes, but the smaller size measuring approximately 6 1/4" x 3 ½".

Based on the selection of Anthrax as the "weapon" of choice by this individual, the offender:

• if employed, is likely to be in a position requiring little contact with the public, or other employees. He may work in a laboratory. He is apparently comfortable working with an extremely hazardous material. He probably has a scientific background to some extent, or at least a strong interest in science.

• has likely taken appropriate protective steps to ensure his own safety, which may include the use of an Anthrax vaccination or antibiotics.

• has access to a source of Anthrax and possesses knowledge and expertise to refine it.

• possesses or has access to some laboratory equipment; i.e., microscope, glassware, centrifuge, etc.

• has exhibited an organized, rational thought process in furtherance of his criminal behavior.

• has a familiarity, direct or indirect, with the Trenton, NJ, metropolitan area; however, this does not necessarily mean he currently lives in the Trenton, NJ, area.. He is comfortable traveling in and around this locale.

• did not select victims randomly. He made an effort to identify the correct address, including zip code, of each victim and used sufficient postage to ensure proper delivery of the letters. The offender deliberately "selected" NBC News, the New York Post, and the office of Senator Tom Daschle as the targeted victims (and possibly AMI in Florida). These targets are probably very important to the offender. They may have been the focus of previous expressions of contempt which may have been communicated to others, or observed by others.

• is a non-confrontational person, at least in his public life. He lacks the personal skills necessary to confront others. He chooses to confront his problems "long distance" and not face-to-face. He may hold grudges for a long time, vowing that he will get even with "them" one day. There are probably other, earlier examples of this type of behavior. While these earlier incidents were not actual Anthrax mailings, he may have chosen to anonymously harass other individuals or entities that he perceived as having wronged him. He may also have chosen to utilize the mail on those occasions.

• prefers being by himself more often than not. If he is involved in a personal relationship it will likely be of a self serving nature.

• Following the events of September 11, 2001, this person may have become mission oriented in his desire to undertake these Anthrax mailings. He may have become more secretive and exhibited an unusual pattern of activity. Additionally, he may have displayed a passive disinterest in the events which otherwise captivated the Nation. He also may have started taking antibiotics unexpectedly.

• He may have exhibited significant behavioral changes at various critical periods of time throughout the course of the Anthrax mailings and related media coverage. These may include the following;

1. Altered physical appearance.
2. Pronounced anxiety.
3. Atypical media interest.
4. Noticeable mood swings.
5. More withdrawn.
6. Unusual level of preoccupation.
7. Unusual absenteeism.
8. Altered sleeping and/or eating habits.

These post-offense behaviors would have been most noticeable during critical times, including but not limited to: the mailing of the letters (09/18/01 and 10/09/01), the death of first Anthrax victim, media reports of each anthrax incident, and especially the deaths and illnesses of non-targeted victims.

AGAIN, IF YOU HAVE CREDIBLE INFORMATION THAT MIGHT HELP IDENTIFY THIS PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT THE FBI IMMEDIATELY AT 1-800-CRIMETV (274-6388), AT WWW.IFCC.FBI.GOV, OR BY CALLING YOUR LOCAL FBI FIELD OFFICE.

isn't it customary for Europeans (or computers?!) to list the day first, as in 11-09-01

It's the way the military, civil servants working for the military, and to a lessor extent some military contracters, write dates. Although it would be more common to spell or abreviate the month, (9 November 2001 or 9 Nov 01, etc) but I've seen the all numbers version more often the last few years. I've got to the point where I always spell out or abreviate the month just to avoid confusion. I.E. is 11-09-01, the 9th of November or the 11th of September....ooh hadn't noticed that about today's date. :)

The implications noted re:

the "box lettering" and

the peculiar slant of the lettering (Arabic is a left-to-right written language, of course),

the use of the European-Middle Eastern for m of the number "1" and

the idiomatic awkwardness of his language ("can not" vs. "cannot"),

all suggest a possible to likely Middle East/ Arabic-language, non-US raised citizen tie.

sounds like a computer programmer...

slashes of both kinds are used in directory and regexps... hypenating dates makes life a little easier for the programmer...

also it is easier for the programmer to put a 0 in front of the month or the day that is less than 10... presumably many programmers have worked with applications using dates and find it easier to do a 6 or 8 digit string... like today would be 11092001... a 1192001 would be unreadable by the computer

programmers also probably have had a lot of grief working with the lowercase l and the number 1... it wouldn't surprise me if the guy puts a slash inside the number zero, either for readability. I do that myself sometimes.

as for the block handwriting... he may just have been covering up his regular handwriting by writing in all caps.

Wow, that is really interesting re fortran programming needed to be done by hand. Maybe you should pass that information onto the FBI.

Of course, if he was a Fortran programmer he probably would have used the anthrax against himself to end his misery. LOL!

That's pretty good! Personally, I don't see why the FBI published a psychological profile.

Maybe they did it as a trick, sometimes a criminal actually doesn't want someone else to get "the credit" for doing what he did. Chances are the guy behind this thinks he's brilliant (a brilliant Arab) and will put out a few hints to make sure the wrong people aren't given the credit.

The "of the" being smaller doesn't mean he has to be an American. He could have seen it in print--on stationary letterhead if he'd corresponded with his target before and received a response. Or maybe he's seen the street sign itself. Maybe he saw that the "of the" was not capitalized when he looked the address up, possibly getting it off a website.

The third letter is different from the first two in content and the handwriting looks smaller. Were the first two letters published prior to the third being sent out? Could the person who sent the third letter have seen a photo of the others in a newspaper and imitated style and handwriting, then added his 2 cents?

First off, not all freepers are freepers, but akin to what Rush Limbaugh affectionately calls seminar callers. The FBI is simply trying to appear to do its job, while serrupticiously gathering a huge database on whoever happens to be suggested to them on this issue. My guess is they already nabbed the perp in their roundup, otherwise the mailings would have continued. Maybe the perp died of exposure already or simply ran out of spores. Blew his whole wad already, so to speak.

The penicillin misspelling isn't commented on in the FBI posting, just in the media preview to it.

Good reasoning of his id as a native. The rest of your profile strayed when you extrapolated w/o considering some facts. There's the fact the guy produced the slime. You need to consider what it would take in knowledge and equipment. He's a chemist/chem engineer, or related. It takes that kind of knowledge and most importantly, understanding that knowledge, to make a good slime. He also picked the nastiest standard bug. It's somewhat resistant to penicillin. He's definitly got a degree and a long time in industry. He's not a technician. This guy's got a high enough position that he is free to operate in the facilities w/o folks questioning what he's up to. If he only has a BS degree he's an old guy, about to retire. Else he's a little younger and has a higher degree.

Somehow he obtained the Ames bug. So he's got clout, or works/has access to antibiotic testing, or R&D. Else someone going over the PO's would ask, "what the hell's the anthrax for?" He bypassed supervision.

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