November 21, 2001
MEMPHIS (AP) — Authorities continued yesterday to search for a missing Harvard University biologist whose abandoned rental car was discovered last week on an Interstate 40 bridge spanning the Mississippi River.
Dr. Don C. Wiley, 57, was in Memphis attending the annual meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The board met last Wednesday and Thursday.
Wiley's car was discovered on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge about 4 a.m. Friday. Police said the key was still in the ignition and the car had a full tank of gas.
''We just don't know where he is right at the moment,'' Memphis Police Inspector Matt McCann said Monday. ''There is no indication of foul play that we can determine at this point.''
McCain said Wiley, a Harvard biochemistry and biophysics professor, is ''known throughout the world in his field.''
''For him to suddenly disappear like this is of great concern to us. We're putting in a lot of man-hours trying to locate him,'' McCann said.
In 1999, Wiley and Dr. Jack Strominger of Harvard won the Japan Prize for their discoveries of how the immune system protects humans from infections.
November 24, 2001 Posted: 1:22 PM EST (1822 GMT)
OXFORD, Connecticut (CNN) -- Family and friends of an elderly Connecticut widow who died of anthrax gathered Saturday to say their final farewells, as investigators continued to try to solve the baffling mystery of how she contracted the deadly illness.
The funeral for Ottilie Lundgren, 94, who died Wednesday, was held Saturday at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Oxford. At the family's request, the service was closed to the media.
Lundgren was the latest in a string of 18 confirmed anthrax infections, resulting in five deaths. Tests showed that the anthrax that killed her was indistinguishable from the anthrax in the other cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
But unlike most of the other victims -- in Florida, New Jersey, New York City and Washington, D.C. -- she had no apparent connection to the U.S. Postal Service, government offices or media outlets that have received or processed anthrax-laden letters.
Only one of the other victims -- Kathy Nguyen, a New York City hospital worker who died October 31 -- had a similar lack of connection to the letters. Lundgren's infection is even more mysterious because she lived alone in rural Connecticut, had a limited schedule and didn't travel much.
Investigators are painstakingly reconstructing the last weeks of Lundgren's life, looking for the source of the anthrax contamination. They have taken environmental samples at a hair salon frequented by Lundgren, as well as Oxford's town hall, library and a local diner.
Among the scenarios being investigated is that she might have been infected through contaminated mail. But Lundgren's home and about two-weeks-worth of mail found inside have so far tested negative for anthrax, as did tests on a post office and postal distribution center that handled her mail.
About 400 people in the Oxford area -- including 350 postal workers and people who might have had contact with Lundgren -- have also tested negative for exposure to anthrax, Gov. John Rowland said Friday.
FBI agents working on the Lundgren case are also comparing notes with agents investigating Nguyen's death, trying to see if there might be any links between the two women. So far, however, no links have been found, said Lisa Bull, an FBI agent in New Haven.
On Friday night, about 200 people in the Oxford area attended a town meeting at a junior high school in Seymour. Officials from the CDC and state and local health agencies answered questions from worried residents, discussing the potentially deadly bacteria and symptoms of infection.
In another anthrax-related development, the CDC confirmed Friday that a white powdery substance found in a letter sent to a children's hospital in Santiago, Chile, was anthrax. The letter had a Florida return address but was actually postmarked in Zurich, Switzerland, according to the Chilean Health Ministry.
The Santiago letter is the first outside the United States to be confirmed as containing anthrax. Suspicious letters found in Bahamas, Kenya, Pakistan and Venezuela all tested negative for anthrax.
Thirteen people who were in the vicinity when the letter was opened have placed on a course of antibiotics, the Chilean health ministry said.
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Ottilie Lundgren's picture can be seen here:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/conditions/11/24/connecticut.anthrax/index.html